Filler. Sorry if the writing is crap. ;-; I feel like it is.


28. Forgiven

Kai shook his head, stepping back, feeling his gut wrenching. "I can't go with you," he was saying, but his heart was telling him something else, something in his body trying to make him take the road Jay was paving for him. The fatherly part of him knew he needed to get to his daughter before he even thought about any of this, but the ninja part of him, the part he tried so hard to smother, was telling him he needed to follow Jay's orders. The conflicting pieces of Kai stared at each other with two different lives, both clashing as they tried to make sense of the world now—the difference in reality from then and now suddenly gave birth to this new skin, one that hardly made any more sense than the last. He ran his hand through his hair, less than at ease, and gave Jay his best I'm really sorry look. Jay just stared at him through a mane of red hair that had its unruly character everyone could remember him by. He couldn't tell if he was mad or not.

With Jay's daughter and the faun already in the backseat of the crazy limo, it was just Jay and the Smiths now, but it really was between Kai and Jay, and he could feel it sitting down. Jay had to hold a grudge against him, no matter what dream-Jay said, because realistically it wasn't possible to walk away from the six years between them without having anything to hold against Kai. He had to be mad at him about the marriage, and the baby, and the life that he'd been shut out of. He had to. Kai would've been that way with Jay if the situation was reversed. He knew he would've. That's just how this crazy life works.

"I can't go to Cole's place. I can't. I'm sorry." Kai looked at Jay through his one good eye, the other a black space on the side of his nose. Jay didn't even know Kai was blind or deaf, when it probably would've been helpful to know something like that. And he couldn't tell him. He was worried about what he would think. Before, he had feared Jay himself, but now only his opinion worried Kai...it was strange. Had that dream done something to him? "I can't do it unless I know my daughter is safe."

Jay watched him for a second, examining his face. He was looking for something. Kai didn't do anything to interfere, letting Jay look around, letting him search. Better to keep his nose out of it than to try and work it for himself.

After that long moment that seemed to last forever, Jay nodded, and Kai expected him to say something snippy back like, "You don't get to call the shots around here, since you've missed six years and don't really have a damn clue how this works anymore." He expected Jay to start laughing at him, or an outright command to get in the car. He didn't honestly think that, as happens, Jay would walk towards him, put a hand on his shoulder with his mouth sunken into a small line, and stare at him for a long second, and most astonishingly of all pull him into a hug. Kai stood there blinking for a moment, processing the arms wrapped around him and the chin on his shoulder. He reached around Jay and clasped his hands around his back without even knowing he was doing so; a second later, they were standing in the middle of the sidewalk, arms wrapped around each other so tightly they might've gotten stuck that way.

Kai didn't understand. Why hug him? Why would Jay be doing this?

I forgot what it felt like to know you, Kai thought, closing his eye. I'm so sorry, Jay. I was scared. I was scared of the world and what it could do to me, but I didn't stop to think that you aren't the world. You aren't what I've gone through. In fact, you've gone through what I have, and you know just what it feels like. But I pushed you away. I pushed all of you away and I should've been leaning on you guys like you leaned on each other. Just like with Zane… I should've accepted you all into my healing, but I thought that with you brought the world, and I didn't want to face it…

Jay patted Kai's back comfortingly, just a few taps that didn't overdo it and make him think he needed to let go. In truth, Kai didn't want to. It had been far too long since he'd even seen Jay's face, and though these past few minutes of the escapade were there, he hadn't really looked at Jay and thought through the image of him actually existing. Now, feeling Jay's solid form in his arms and knowing that this was the real thing, Kai had never felt more grateful or guiltier.

"I forgive you," Jay murmured in Kai's ear. "I don't blame you at all. Though I'm upset that I missed out on some pretty huge parts of your life… I understand, Kai. You needed your time. Now I'm just glad you're ready to come home."

Kai smiled into Jay's shoulder and held him tighter, and he shook with gladness, sorrow, and apology, never realizing what he had until now. Jay was his best friend when they began their training as ninja, and he stayed that way, even when Lloyd came around. Though Cole and Zane were great, Kai's connection had always been deeper with Jay on a level he couldn't ever get with anyone else; maybe it was the fact that Jay was dating Kai's sister, but something bonded them at a surplus he did not expand with the others.

Jay was the one he missed the most.

"Home," Kai whispered back, feeling the word provoke warmth into him. Home. That word hadn't ever felt so good to hear or say.

"You're always welcome home, Kai. We'll always accept you with open arms. You're our brother, after all. Until the very end."

He could've cried. Jay…After everything, you can forgive me. "I know this doesn't even cover my real feelings, but I'm sorry, Jay." He pulled back when Jay did, looking him modestly in the green eyes and wishing that Jay knew how really regretful he was. Words can't always tell how people can feel inside, emotions that sometimes an action cannot describe, and there is always that disability throughout the human race of not being able to quite explain to someone how emotions can tangle themselves together in the heart and invent a whole new set of feelings that don't have an easy answer.

But for every problem that disability creates comes the intuition of a human heart, and its ability to understand that in which is unsaid.

Jay squeezed his friend's shoulder and let him go, the undying bond between them still linked. "You don't have to apologize. I get it, Kai. Family comes first. Trust me, I know what you're saying." He smiled, some joke or experience underneath it that Kai was not knowledgeable of. Nothing else in the world had ever looked so forgiving. "You have to do what you have to do, and in your case, I completely get it. Even if it means that you go away again for a little while…" He shrugged smally. "I will support you."

Kai shook his head. "No, I'm not going away again. I just…my daughter."

Jay held up a hand, silencing him through the explanation. His smile was that of a friend who knew the feeling. "I know, Kai. I'd do the same." He looked back over his shoulder at the tinted, open door of the 'prize' limo, seeing Jeriminé and the little redheaded girl sitting beside each other, the young girl looking at the faun suspiciously out of the corner of her Nya-colored eyes. No doubt about it she was Jay's daughter. She looked just like him.

"My parents don't live far away," Anya interjected, making her first real statement to Jay. He looked at her, but Kai didn't see much emotion in his eyes. He never got the proper chance to get to know Anya the way that Kai now wished he would've encouraged, making an impact on their first out-of-ordinary meeting. Anya didn't seem as up to grabs at meeting Jay, which mutually reciprocated between them. "If we could just go get her—"

He didn't want to say it, but it came out of his mouth, anyway. "Please, Jay." Kai knew he was in no position to be asking Jay of anything. He wouldn't be surprised if Jay turned him down. "We'll take the bus if we have to. We just can't leave her. Not alone. Not when there's the opportunity for us to be together."

Jay sighed, hooking a hand around the back of his neck, and looked at Kai. He acted to have already thought this through. "Family comes first," he repeated, and looked back at the limo. "I guess we'll be making two trips with this hunk of junk…I hope this thing's got enough gas to take us both ways."

Kai breathed a sigh of relief, though it was silent. He didn't even deserve this prospect, but here he was, being treated to it anyway; he felt like a jerk for asking Jay to do this for him, opening his mouth to tell him how this was opportune and maltreated, but his friend shook his head. "Consider it a 'welcome back' present," he said, winking. "Besides, what else are best friends for?"


Anyway...I know. I feel like this chapter sucked too. But I've been working on it, like, all day and trying to fix it and I just can't get it to come out the way I want it to so THIS IS HOW IT HAPPENED OKEY. T-T

I'm just distraught. It's just a really dumb day...And I feel dumb...and It's just dumb. So chapter-that-should've-been-stuffed-with-feels turns out to be discount-turkey-sandwhich-off-the-dirty-floor. ;-;

GHAAD/N.