Tremble, ye Ninjago fans, the Jaypocalypse is nigh! ALL SHALL LOVE HIM, AND DESPAIR!

. . . Hehe. I like Season 12. It's so incredibly goofy I feel like I should be cringing, but nope! Enjoying every ridiculous minute. Okino is rad, too. And I love the new digital hoods that give 'em glowy LED-screen eyes, Nya making the "^_^" face made my week.

Also, apparently yet another serving of humble pie for Kai, which is good. He had dietary deficiencies.

Aside from that, though. Back to the dark subject matter in this chapter, please be mindful.


Fiiiyaaah: In a perfect world, those two would, like, sort out their traumas together. In a perfect one. :/
Yeah, but luckily the most dangerous members of the Technicians, the ones who worked for Nash, are all in chaos right now because of the ninja and police hounding them. Silica and CapsLock aren't as violent as Nash and wouldn't dream of storming a hospital to get at Cole. The kids aren't 100% safe, but they're a lot safer than they were before. Now they've just gotta live with themselves. :S
Yep! Kai's totalled, but only psychologically.
Aww, thank you! I have plans to dig into loss of innocence quite a bit over the upcoming chapters, so let's see how it goes.
Thanks for the review!
Thanks also for the one on the rewrite! It is a little like Google Translate, isn't it? Heh, but the only reason that it's more grammatically correct is because it technically still was a human writing; I was the one who had to pick which of the suggested words to click next, so I picked the grammatical ones. If I'd just picked the first suggestion every time it would have been complete gibberish. XD
Yeah, I'm really not sure why Jay would find that familiar, can't put my finger on it . . . XP

SpiritDragon: True! But the kids have to breathe a little for a minute, gosh. Oh yeah, I'm sure Wu's pulling out his hair over that. That's probably why he doesn't have any anymore. :B
Would you believe me if I said worse than concussion? . . .
Rest and trauma-sorting, hopefully coming up! Thanks for the review!
Thanks also for the review on the rewrite! I'm not sure what you mean by "the past," but it was supposed to be starting from Chapter 1 of the story. Didn't sound like it, I know. :P Mental health is certainly one problem for Lloyd, but the other one is that his head is either radioactive or poisonous, I'm not sure which. :P Yeah, "You think you can kill the fun of this ship?!" was one of my favorites too, I need to start using that line.

CrystalKunoichi: Thank you! Glad you enjoyed 'em. Kai . . . eh, it might take a while. A long while.
Kai is bound unbreakably to PG-13 guidelines, he can only use one (1) strong oath in any given three-hour period. After that he's automatically converted to "freaking." ;P
Thanks for the review!


Oct 22

6:24 PM

Status conditions: Cole; penetrating trauma to lower limb, status post hypovolemic shock, sedated, dialysis dependent. Zane; essentially dismantled. Lloyd; gunshot wound, major bite wound, burn injuries, concussion, moderate-to-severe venom-related vasculitis. Nya; concussion, moderate venom-related vasculitis, transient psychosis. Jay; subdural hematoma, blast injury, scalp laceration, mild venom-related vasculitis. Kai: Angry that he's even on this list, have you seen what the others are dealing with? (Acute stress disorder).

Mild-to-moderate lacerations and contusions across the board.


They recovered at varying speeds, but all pretty fast. Nya maybe got off the easiest: a little vitamin K for the bleeding, a bit of concussion from Kai hitting her, a smidge of withdrawal because she had no threshold for slobber, and otherwise she was good. They did have to fasten her down initially, though, while the eye venom wore off. Jay tried not to think about it. He didn't need to go punching hospital personnel.

Lloyd had the roughest time. He'd been injected soonest, so the venom had come closest to doing lasting damage. They ended up having to give him blood transfusions and a lot of things with weird names Jay didn't like. There was also some talk about having to do some thing where they took out all of Lloyd's blood, cleaned it, and put it back in, which Jay liked even less. He'd had a little too much dealings with people interested in taking out all of Lloyd's blood and then not putting it back in. In the end they didn't have to do that anyway, though, which was good.

Also the gunshot, bite, and burn on his leg took some serious work. Apparently they had to cover the wound by swapping parts of his skin around. It was gonna leave a serious mark. The antibiotics were gonna leave one heck of a mark all on their own.

As to Jay, it turned out the throwing up really had been from the headache, because allegedly that tended to happen when you had a pool of blood collecting in your head. All in all he was lucky, though; apparently there were different ways to have blood in your head, and he'd gotten the chillest one. He would have been fine with just a little watching and waiting (well, and six stitches for the scalp wound), but then they had to go sticking him full of IVs after all. Not for the head problems, but because he'd messed up his electrolytes from throwing up so much. Which, of all the humiliating—ugh. If anyone asked, the IV was for antibiotics. Going with that story.

That afternoon found him picking half-heartedly at the hospital's unpalatable jello. He wondered what had possessed him to ask for lime flavor—the color was only making him queasier. It was exactly venom-colored. Kinda smelled like it too.

"Hey."

He started and looked up to find Kai in the doorway. For a moment Jay stared, rattled. Kai looked like he'd just come back from a medieval torture session. Had he slept at all since last night? Granted, Jay certainly hadn't himself, but—

"How're you doin', bud?" Kai shut the door behind him and sank into the room's chair.

"Mmmm." Jay hesitated, then forced himself to spoon down a large cube of jello so Kai wouldn't start worrying. "Um greah," he mumbled, chewing doggedly.

"How long do they need to keep ya?"

"They said tomorrow morning if I keep on like this." Jay made a motion at the next jello cube, then lost nerve. He looked up anxiously to Kai instead. "How are the others?"

"Nya's already been let out. The concussion's still bugging her though, so I made her go lie down. She actually listened, which—" Kai shook his head unhappily. Then he looked questioningly to Jay. "She says she wants to start fixing Zane ASAP, though . . . "

"ASAP, yeah." Jay nodded. "Don't wait for me, just save Zane."

"I got all the pieces, promise," said Kai. "Um . . . well, Cole's pretty much the same. A little better, I guess. They dropped the pain meds just a little, but he's still pretty out of it. The leg's settling down."

Jay nodded, fiddling anxiously with his spoon.

"And . . . and Lloyd?"

Kai blew out a defeated breath.

"I dunno. They did a lot of work on him, but he's healing, I guess. Pretty fast, too, you know how that green energy stuff works. But . . . I dunno." He glanced to Jay, then shook himself. "Never mind."

"Is he acting weird?" asked Jay.

"Look, forget it, okay? It's probably just the pain meds. They have him on a lot of those too."

Jay subsided, knowing that he wouldn't get anything out of Kai now. He got a bad feeling, though. That whole Cursed Realm incident was still extremely unresolved.

"And the grownups? Are they handling it okay?" he ventured at last. Kai shrugged moodily and said nothing.

Jay didn't say anything either. For a long time both of them just sat, lost in heavy thoughts. Jay pushed his jello cubes around in the bowl, unable to stomach another one.

Abruptly Kai spoke.

"Don't tell anyone."

Jay started and looked at him. He was fixated on the foot of Jay's bed, his jaw tight. Jay scrabbled for words.

"I mean . . . they're gonna find out, aren't they?" he said at last. "Last they saw Nash he was alive and fighting them, but then they survived and Nash is never seen again. I mean . . . "

"Oh, they know, yeah," said Kai. "Nya gave me the look. She knows it was probably either you or me. Lloyd probably would figure it out too, if he wasn't so . . . " He shook himself. "Anyway. They didn't ask, so just, don't volunteer, okay? And if they do ask . . . at least don't tell them how."

Jay's breath caught. For a second the world seemed to flicker around him, and he thought he saw Kai as he'd been back in that alleyway, dripping with blood, eyes dark, tearing open a corpse with his bare hands to plunder its organs. Murderer; desecrator of the dead. Involuntarily he shuddered, repulsed. Immediately after he hoped Kai hadn't noticed.

If he did, he gave no indication. Jay swallowed and nodded.

"Okay. I won't tell."

"Thanks."

Silence fell again. After a long moment Jay pushed his bowl of jello over to Kai, waving him away when he opened his mouth to protest that Jay should eat.

"Don' want it."

Kai hesitated, but finally sighed, nodded his thanks, and vacuumed up a couple of cubes at once. After chewing a few times he made a face.

"I know, right?" Jay laughed weakly. "If I didn't know better I'd say the hospital was trying to sabotage me."

Kai twitched one corner of his mouth. It wasn't even enough to call a half-smile, but it was at least an attempt.


Jay was indeed released next morning, jello notwithstanding. Unlike the average sane person given such permission, he didn't leave the hospital. Instead he went to check on the others.

He peeked into Cole's room very briefly. Seeing the earth master lying motionless, he shivered and pulled back. He still wasn't ready to face that drugged, glassy stare and deathlike stillness.

". . . Jay?"

He froze, then dove back to the doorway. Cole was propped up on his elbows, blinking after him drowsily.

"Cole!" Jay shot across the room to throw his arms around him. "Oh my gosh!"

"Heyyyyyyyyyyyy, Sparky!" Cole laughed, ruffling Jay's hair. He was audibly still out of it, but at least he was up, he was talking, he was kinda-sorta himself again. The hug was still the same, noticeably weaker but still warm and reassuring, promising that everything was going to be okay. Jay buried his face in Cole's shoulder and let peace overtake him for a minute.

"Woah, Jay . . . " Cole had found the bare patch hacked onto the side of Jay's head, where they'd had to shave down his hair to clean out the glass wounds. "Wha' happened?"

"Eh, little tussle." Jay sat back on the bed, grinning wanly. Cole studied him, wading through his mental fog.

"Nash's crew?" he said, expression darkening.

"You could say that . . . " Jay forced a laugh. "I guess he counts as part of his own crew."

"Huh?" Cole set to work slowly unpacking that sentence. Jay quickly lost patience.

"Nash. The big kahuna. We fought him."

"Woah." Cole blinked, processing that. "Huh."

Jay shook his head, smiling a little. He hadn't been sure how Cole would react to the news that they fought Nash without him, but he hadn't exactly been expecting this. He had a feeling that Cole would have very different opinions once the pain meds were reduced a little more.

"Your head's even more full of rocks than usual, buddy." He flicked Cole's forehead lightly. "Ahh, nevermind. How're you doing?"

"Okay, I guess." Cole sank back with a shrug, clearly unsure himself. "They're just doing a bunch of stuff. Fixing the leg, I guess? And machines. Somethin' about kidneys. And giving me a lot of stupid blood."

"Well, I'll tell the donor you're grateful."

"You know what I mean." Cole grumbled.

"Heh. You're a lucky dog, though." Jay sank back as well, leaning on his hands. "Universal recipient! They could pretty much pump you full of frog's blood and you'd take to it just fine."

"I hope they didn't use frog's blood," groaned Cole. "And Jay, if this is the setup to some kind of joke about me 'croaking,' this IV won't stop me from killing you."

"Oh come on, I wasn't even thinking of it!"

"Uh-huh."

"On my honor as a ninja!" Jay put a hand to his heart, laughing. FSM unpreceded, it felt so good to be joking with Cole again.

Obviously that couldn't be permitted to continue. Just at that moment Cole's ears pricked up at the sound of wheels outside.

"Ohhhhh . . . it's the nurse," he said.

"That's bad?" said Jay, puzzled at Cole's unhappy expression.

"Next dose of pain meds," said Cole. "They're gonna put me back under."

"Oh." Jay looked around helplessly. He could see a faint spark of dread in Cole's eyes—he was scared, he didn't want to go back down into that foggy abyss. Jay couldn't disagree. He felt cheated; he'd been given his brother back for just a second, just that one moment of stability and hope, and now the rug was getting yanked again. He didn't want to go back to dealing with all this alone.

"Do you have to take it?" he asked.

"I guess I shouldn't." Cole shifted, looking away. "I—I guess Sensei would be disappointed in me. I should have better tolerance than this."

"Does it hurt?" Jay's eyes widened in realization.

" . . . Ki-inda."

For the first time Jay registered the shallowness of Cole's breathing, the slight sheen of sweat. Jay bit the inside of his cheek and took a deep breath, resigning himself. Meanwhile Cole shifted uncomfortably again.

"Ah, maybe—I'll try skip this one, maybe I—"

"No, no, forget it." Jay held up a hand. "Take it, Cole. You had your leg punched through. Don't play tough."

"I'm gonna get addicted or something . . . " mumbled Cole. Jay's breath caught, but he shook his head fervently.

"Easy buddy. One day at a time. It's gonna be okay."

Cole looked at him for a moment, then flashed a hint of his familiar grin.

"'ey. That's my line."

They'd wasted too much time debating, the nurse was already coming in. Jay knew he couldn't hold it against her, but he was a little frustrated. He'd wanted to hug Cole goodbye but they didn't need the entire hospital hearing things. Chafing, he stood up awkwardly and backed away.

"Uhh—see you, I guess . . . "

"Yeah, later," said Cole quietly.

Jay ducked out the door before anything with needles could start. He made it three steps down the hallway, then stopped dead. The frick was he doing?

Sighing, he turned around and went back. The nurse seemed surprised to see him returning, and Cole kind of rolled his eyes like, "aw, you didn't have to," but Jay still felt better about it. He stayed till Cole was asleep again.


Next up was Lloyd. He was having a drowsy conversation with Kai. Kai had not slept last night either. Clearly.

Jay stood in the doorway and set his teeth.

"Hey!" he said, forcibly cheerful. "How's life?"

Kai started violently—very unlike him—while Lloyd looked momentarily confused before his eyes found Jay. Great. More pain meds.

"Am I breaking up the party here?" Jay asked, sidling into the room.

"Ehh." Kai yawned. Lloyd only shrugged.

"You're looking a lot better than the night before last, at least," Jay said to him. "How're you feeling?"

"M'okay."

Jay squinted. What was up with Lloyd's voice? It was like he was trying to sound normal but couldn't. Like trying to sound comforting while wearing the Samurai X voice changer, and on its lowest setting for good measure.

"I mean, as long as your leg's not acting up." Jay glanced at the IV bag of pain medicine hanging near the bed and wrinkled his forehead. "Huh. That's the same dose they had Cole on two whole days ago, but you're awake. Who knew Cole was such a lightweight?"

Lloyd shrugged, looking away.

"Is it at least working?"

"Yeah. It's good."

"Did they tell you how long you have to stay here?"

"At least a day or two. They need to see if I get infected."

Jay surveyed him in silence, then looked to Kai with a silent demand in his eyes. Kai only shrugged despairingly. If Lloyd sounded like he was speaking from beyond the grave, Kai had just as few answers as Jay did.

Jay chewed the inside of his lip for a moment. Flat-out asking what was wrong had never worked before. Lloyd would just shut down again, or get defensive, or maybe even start freaking out. After that whole brush with the Cursed Realm, Jay was afraid to say anything even the tiniest bit wrong. But how to ask? . . .

Eventually he just gave up. He chatted a little bit with Kai, attempted unsuccessfully to chat with Lloyd, and finally announced he'd be heading back to the Bounty.

Instead he started pulling intrigues. He swung off around a corner, waited for a few seconds, then ambled back to Lloyd's room and presented looking sheepish.

"Ahhh, hey . . . " he said, rubbing the back of his head. "Mind reminding me which way to get out, again? It's a maze in here!"

"Jayyyyyy." Kai massaged his eyelids with the heels of his hands. "Ah geez. It's like, go right, there's a sign, then . . . "

He trailed off for a moment. He had just registered the look Jay was giving him from the doorway. Took a painfully long time for his sleep-deprived brain to catch on, but at last he sighed and stood up.

"Ugh, forget it, I'll just walk you out. Be right back, green machine."

Lloyd hummed in acknowledgement. Kai stumped to the door and led Jay about three feet away from it, out of Lloyd's line of sight; then they both whirled on each other. Jay made a silent "what the actual FRICK is going on?" gesture at the same time Kai threw up his hands in "I know less than you do and I hate it even more!"

They both paused and looked at each other in dismay. Then Kai took Jay by the shoulder and led him a little farther away so they could talk.

"What do we do?" whispered Jay despairingly.

"I don't know." Kai dragged his hands down his face. "We can't leave him alone like this. The pain meds have him half-asleep all the time anyway, and I swear he looks like he's, like . . . internally screaming the Cursing spell every second. I keep expecting him to start spouting it."

"He's so out of it," said Jay. "It's creepy!"

"I know," said Kai.

They both looked at the floor in silence for a moment.

"He's sorry he survived Nash," said Kai quietly.

Jay couldn't answer for a second; his throat had closed. He swallowed and tried to keep his voice steady.

"He said that?"

"No," said Kai. "But I can tell."

"Eff ess em." It was Jay's turn to drag his hands down his face. He hated these shadow games, glimpsing dark terrors just beneath the surface, knowing something evil was stalking them but never able to pin down what it was. He hated feeling so helpless.

"I'm starting to worry the hospital people will catch on," said Kai. "They all notice he's out of it, anyone could. Then they see me in there nonstop, and eventually they're gonna figure out why. All we need now is for them to decide they can do our job, put him on one-to-one supervision like your average suicide precaution, and Lloyd ends up Cursing the poor sap in the dead of night. And half the hospital. Whooooo."

He laughed bleakly, sounding worrisomely close to unhinged. Jay winced.

"You've gotta sleep, buddy."

"Ah, can't. I should be getting back to Lloyd before he figures out something's up," said Kai.

"I'll take a shift," said Jay.

"You said you were leaving." Kai waved him off. "Go home, Jay. Eat. See the frigging aliens, they've probably forgotten who you are by now."

"Ugh . . . " Jay hovered in indecision for a second. At last he set his jaw. "Okay. I'll go and eat, then I'll come back here and then I'll take a shift. You need to sleep."

"If not Lloyd, then I've gotta take care of Nya." Kai was so tired he sounded drunk, but knowing Kai he'd be about as reasonable as a drunk too.

"Pff, take care of Nya?" Jay snorted. "Nothin' against you, Kai, but don't forget, she's on a ship with Skylor and five anxious grown-ups. My ma is gonna nurture her to death."

Immediately after he registered his wording and felt like giving himself a second head trauma, but Kai only snorted.

"Fair. She does seem to like the whole daughter-in-law angle."

"Ahhhhh . . . " Jay shooed him off, reddening. "Anyway. I'll be back. And then you'll sleep."

"Yeah, sure," said Kai, already heading off.

"I mean it! No excuses!"

Kai abruptly turned back and gave him a long, strange look. He seemed to be on the verge of saying something. At last he only waved perfunctorily and disappeared into Lloyd's room.

Jay had somehow read enough from his expression, though. All at once he realized that it wasn't Kai not wanting to sleep. He couldn't. Every time he closed his eyes he was seeing the knife going in.

Jay really did get lost on his way off the hospital floor. He found himself a waiting area and had to sit down for a minute.


When Jay got back to the Bounty, it was quieter than he'd have expected. He went to the kitchen to look for the aliens.

It was quiet in the kitchen too. The left sink basin was full as usual. Jay stuck his hand into it, knowing that the aliens were essentially invisible underwater.

Sure enough, his hand met a warm gelatinous form. It squirmed, then Mopp's drowsy eyes poked above the surface, accompanied by a world-weary groan. Then all at once Mopp snapped awake and Jay yelped as the alien burst out of the water and latched onto him, screaming "EeeeeEEEEEEEEEEE!" directly in his ear.

"Mopp! Little guy!" Jay scrambled to get a hold on Mopp before he could lose his grip and fall. "Oh gosh, hi, are you okay? Are you okay little guy?"

Mopp burrowed into his chest, crying in broken electronic notes.

"Did you think I wasn't coming back?" Jay stroked him, a lump in his throat. "Shhhhhhh, shh. It's okay. I'm here. It's okay."

It took a while for Mopp to calm down. Jay sat down with his back against the cabinets and held the tiny alien, stroking soothingly between his eyes. He could feel a strange formless grief thrumming through Mopp's body, and he knew the alien must be picking up on his inner desolation as well. For a moment he let himself forget everything else. Right now it was just him and this small creature from outer space, sitting here and hurting together.

Gradually Mopp's whimpering began to alternate with snatches of a familiar purring, as he tried to pull himself together enough to comfort Jay in return.

"Poor little guy," murmured Jay. "Hey. It's gonna be better now, okay? The bad part is over. I'm here now. We're gonna be okay."

Mopp blinked up at him slowly, then shut his eyes and nestled under Jay's chin. His purr swelled and became steady.


Jay took Mopp with him to check on Nya. He knocked very softly, knowing how noise felt during a concussion.

"C'min," said Nya's groggy voice. Jay slipped in and didn't turn on the lights. Dimly he saw Nya's form shifting under the blankets.

"I'm doin' okay, I just—"

"Nya?"

"Jay?" Nya rolled over for the first time and squinted through the dark. "Jay!"

"No, don't get up." Jay darted across the room before Nya could try to climb out of bed. "Hi Nya . . . "

"Eff ess em unpreceded." Without further preamble, Nya reached up, grabbed him by the front of the shirt, and hauled him down on top of her. Jay tensed for a second, unsure what exactly was going on, but quickly thought better and let himself melt down to nestle against her. She was so warm. Alive. Not cold and pale like in that ambulance. Her tongue tasted musty but he couldn't care less. Heck, the door to the hall was still ajar and he didn't even care about that.

"Are you okay?" he whispered, once they'd disentangled a little bit.

"I am now." Nya burrowed against him and sighed. "You?"

"Same."

For a while they just drank in each other's company, too far gone to care about anything else. Mopp crawled over to join Meep, who had apparently been staying with Nya, and the two of them huddled up next to each other and purred wearily. Jay might have dozed for a while. Nobody needed to know that, Kai in particular.

Eventually he became aware of Nya's fingers combing through his hair. He shivered deliciously.

"What happened?" murmured Nya, brushing along the edge of the shaved patch.

"Ah, they had to clean me up a little. It's nothing."

Nya sighed, her breath tickling his face.

"I'm fine, Nya, really. Almost good as new. I worry more about you."

"It's just a concussion. And I'm just being a wuss about it," said Nya. "I feel bad, I ought to be up fixing Zane . . . "

"Ahh . . . no offense, but I think Zane wouldn't mind if you waited. Can you see straight right now?"

"I guess it's a little blurry . . . " Nya sighed again. "You're probably right. I'd probably just end up wiring him to speak Dranuhovian. Or explode."

"Aww." Jay nuzzled her forehead. "You'll be fine in a day or two, don't worry . . . Do you want me to get a little bit of a head start before I go back to the hospital?"

"Sure. But why are you—"

Suddenly there was a knock on the doorframe.

"Nya dear?"

Jay started so hard he ended up on the floor. He scrambled to sit up and look nonchalant as Misako pushed the door further open, squinting into the dark.

"Are you doing all right? The door is—oh! Jay."

"Oh hi, Mrs. G," said Jay, leaning back against the bed casually. "We were just . . . chattin'. About fixing Zane, and stuff."

"Well, I'm glad you're out of the hospital. How are you doing?"

"Good! I'm good, thanks."

"Need anything, Nya?"

"Thanks Misako, I'm good too."

Misako nodded and stepped out. Jay and Nya waited for her footsteps to recede down the hall before relaxing.

"Pheeeewwwwwww." They both laughed tiredly, resigned to the lost vibe. Jay reached up and squeezed Nya's hand.

"I need to go back and check on the others over there. I'll work a little on Zane before I go, okay?"

"How are the others?" asked Nya.

Jay hesitated.

"Ah, you know. Resting up."

"How's Kai?" said Nya quietly. Jay froze. The way she asked made it clear enough: she already knew. Like Kai said, it was narrowed down to him and Jay, and Nya had already guessed which one was the murderer.

"Ah." Jay swallowed and tried to sound jovial. "Not getting enough sleep."

"Figures." Nya sighed. "Smack him in the head for me."

"Anything for you." Chuckling sadly, Jay clambered to his feet and bent to give Nya a final kiss on the forehead. She squeezed his hand, and he forced himself to pull away and leave before he could change his mind.


He rattled around the Bounty for an hour or two. The ship was starting to feel as crowded as it should have all along. He felt like every two paces he was bumping against some concerned grown-up asking him how he was feeling, did he need anything to eat, was he sure he was fit to wander around like this after a head bleed? He didn't want to be ungrateful, but in a way he almost wished the grown-ups wouldn't try so hard. He and his teammates had just lived through a special kind of hell together. Only they understood it enough to help each other up.

He nearly passed out talking with Skylor. Every second was a struggle not to look like a rabbit in the headlights. How could he not break it to her that her boyfriend had blood on his hands now? Was Kai going to tell her? What would she think?

She wanted to know if she could go back to her noodle business soon. He said yeah, sure, probably.

Ed and Edna presented another problem. He loved his folks, and he appreciated their concern for him, really he did. And it was really sweet that they wanted to help fix Zane. But honestly? He didn't really trust them to. Zane was so complex that even Jay and Nya did a lot of his repairs by dint of prayer and anxious sweating, while Ed and Edna were more familiar with toasters than with microchips. Plus, well . . . their skills were hit-or-miss. They'd built some pretty cool stuff in the past, but they were used to working with junk, you just slapped it together any old how, and if it fell apart you laughed and tried again. At this rate Zane really would end up speaking explosive Dranuhovian.

Thing was, Jay had no clue how to tell them that without hurting their feelings. He did a lot of stuttering and a lot of excuse-making, and by the end of it he still wasn't fully sure he'd convinced them not to bother. He tactfully asked Skylor to keep an eye on them.

He did also get to eat, as Kai had ordered. Some kind of potstickers, looked like the ones at Master Chen's—but the filling tasted just like the chili dumplings his dad used to make. Apparently there was some cultural exchange going on in this here ship. Once he started eating it took some effort to stop.

And he did work on Zane a little himself, of course. Mostly just sorted through the plastic bin of pieces Kai had collected, trying to organize them by which limb they belonged in. He considered linking a cable between Zane's head and the Bounty's computer, so PIXAL would maybe have some room to stretch her limbs, but in the end he was scared to risk it. That thing was still full of Technician code fragments. Last thing they needed was those inside Zane.

Huh. Speaking of, he wondered how their katamari was doing. They must have gotten so many emails about Cole by now.

He almost got sucked into tinkering with Zane for hours, but eventually he remembered that Kai was probably still sleepless. The poor Nindroid would have to wait a little longer, he was at least sleeping comfortably.

Before he left for the hospital he packed up a container of the chili-potstickers to share. At the last minute he remembered what else he'd wanted, and went to dig through his old box of show-biz equipment.


It was late in the afternoon, visiting hours were technically over. Jay snuck as needed. He crept into Lloyd's room to find Lloyd dozing and Kai sprawled halfway on the bed, his legs on the armchair and his head on Lloyd's ribs. He was not asleep.

"Sorry I took so long," whispered Jay, by way of greeting. He winced guiltily as Kai jumped again.

"Fizzims, Jay," muttered the fire ninja, rubbing one eye blearily. "Thought you were a nurse coming to kick me out."

"Well, I am here to kick you out," said Jay. "Time to sleep, Kai."

"No."

"Ye-e-e-e-e-es. We talked about this."

"I gotta stay with Lloyd."

"I will. You think I can't handle him?"

"I—it's not that, I just—I want to stay."

"Fine, sleep in the armchair." Jay folded his arms over the box of chili-potstickers. His heart was bleeding at how haggard Kai looked, but that only strengthened his resolve to be stern. Flashbacks or bizarre self-punishment or whatever, he wasn't letting Kai insomniac himself to death.

Kai groaned, sitting up.

"Jay," he said. "Just drop it, okay?"

Jay sized him up.

"You really can't sleep, huh."

Kai nodded tiredly.

"All right." Sighing, Jay fished in his pocket. "I have an ace card."

Kai surveyed the plastic bottle Jay held out to him.

"Sleeping pills?"

"Yep. Just about overdue, but they've got a month or two left. They'll put you straight under, trust me."

Kai took the bottle, looking torn.

"I can't promise about nightmares," continued Jay. "But hey. We have those all the time anyway, I guess?"

Kai, still pensive, shook two pills out onto this palm. He squinted at them for a moment, then eyed Jay.

"Before the Tournament?"

Jay shrugged.

"How bad off were you?" said Kai, looking dismayed.

"That's besides the point." Jay waved him off. "I don't need them now. You do."

Kai hesitated a moment longer, then sighed and tossed back the pills without so much as a sip of water.

"No Kai wait—argh!" Jay groaned. "You were supposed to take those home! They kick in after like five minutes, how are you gonna get back now?"

"Guess I won't." Kai tossed the pill bottle back to Jay and flopped onto the hospital bed, settling down back-to-back with Lloyd.

"The armchair reclines, you know . . . " Jay surveyed him resignedly for a moment, then shook his head. "The tabloids are gonna have a lot to say, Kai."

"Don't they always?" mumbled Kai, his eyes already sliding shut.

Jay sighed. Even now Kai looked tense, but at least he was finally asleep. With him here to keep Lloyd in one piece, Jay probably wasn't really needed . . . Still. Somehow he felt like it would be more responsible to stay. He settled down in the armchair and realized he'd never given Kai the food he'd brought. Oh well. Didn't mind if he did.

In hindsight, he regretted not forcing Kai home for the night. He'd thought he was pretty used to Kai's creepy sleeptalking habit, but the things the red ninja said through his sleep last night, Jay was taking with him to the grave.