"Are you all right?"

Even as he coughed, Jay nodded. "I'll be fine."

Cole furrowed his brows and squinted at his brother through the semi-darkness. "Sure, you'll be fine later, once all this is over and we get back to the Bounty."

"Isn't that what I just said?" Though he was clearly trying to sound annoyed, Jay's words were weak, his voice raspy.

"But that means you're not fine right now."

"I'm fine, Cole. I just need—"

"No, you're not! Quit lying to me, okay?"

"I'm not lying! I'm fine—!" A string of hoarse coughs wracked Jay's already shivering frame. The cell she'd secured them in was a bit chilly, a mild temperature made worse by their soaking clothes and sopping skin.

Instinct pushed Cole closer to Jay until he was hovering over his ailing friend. It all just kept getting worse. Why does it always have to get worse before it can get better?

Assuming it's even going to get better, a bitter little voice inside whispered.

Shut up!

"I'm…" Jay coughed out as Cole rubbed what he hoped were soothing circles on his back. "I'm fine."

"Okay," Cole replied, his voice nearly as soft as Jay's. "Okay. You're fine." You'll be fine.

As Jay's coughing died out, Cole watched the shaky rise and fall of his chest. No one on the team had ever almost drowned before and he now found himself grossly unprepared to fix things. To heal Jay.

Who am I kidding? I can't do anything but sit here in these shackles and hope he doesn't cough up a lung before help arrives!

If it ever arrives, the voice added, and oh! How he wished it would just go away!

"I'm fine…" Jay repeated, even though Cole had stopped pestering him about that particular subject. He'd figured ten times was enough. For now. "I'll be fine… Okay?"

He couldn't remember when Jay's cold hand had slipped into his, but Cole held onto it with all his might. "Okay."

The silence that followed was painful. And long. Almost too long for Cole's haywire stress levels, which seemed to have developed a mind of their own since the incident.

The incident. Cole clenched his fist tighter. We never should've come here in the first place.

"Ow." It was only a whisper, but in that one word, Cole heard both pain and that humor he'd been missing.

He quickly loosened his grip on Jay's hand. "Sorry. I, uh… Sorry."

Jay's eyelids were droopy, worn out from coming so close to never opening again. "It's okay."

"No. It's not okay. None of this is okay! Jay, you almost—!" Cole choked on his next words. He wouldn't say them—he couldn't say them. Never in a million years.

"I know," Jay replied softly. "But I didn't, thanks to you."

"Me?" Cole let out a bitter laugh. "What'd I do besides get us into this mess in the first place?"

Jay shrugged. "You must've done something."

"I couldn't hold on, that's what."

"And I tripped the trap."

"Jay," Cole sighed, "it wasn't your fault—"

"And it wasn't yours." A long beat of silence stole Cole's breath away as Jay stared at him. "Okay?"

Cole swallowed, his own stare drifting down to the vengestone shackles on his wrists and ankles.

"Okay?" Jay repeated, gripping Cole's hand tighter. "Cole…?"

Blowing out a heavy sigh, Cole nodded and flashed his friend a small smile. "Okay."

Another sigh echoed through the chamber, this time from Jay as he leaned back against the wall and let his eyelids drift closed.

Okay…

Though the last vestiges of guilt still gnawed at Cole's mind, he did his best to resist them. For Jay.

Another few coughs bounced off the walls and Cole forced himself not to wince. Okay…

We're gonna get out of here. I promise, Jay. I'm gonna get you out of here.

Somehow.

And that's a promise.

For what felt like hours, the two ninja sat in silence, comforting each other with just their presence and a few reassuring looks.

I promise…

Soon, however, the silence began to be too much for Cole and he tried to make small talk, but for once, Jay wasn't giving him much to work with besides a word or two and a cough every now and then.

"Come on, your favorite color can't really be blue. You weren't always the Master of Lightning. What was your favorite color before that?"

A cough. "Blue."

"Seriously?"

"Hey, it's a common favorite color," Jay pointed out, killing another short conversation in a long string of failed conversation starters.

"Well," Cole murmured as Jay closed his eyes again, "my favorite color isn't black."

"I never thought it was."

"Well, aren't you going to ask what it is?"

A ghost of a smile took hold of Jay's lips, but his eyes remained closed. "What is it?"

"Orange."

"Nice."

Silence.

Right.

And he was running out of light topics. So much for distracting Jay from—

Try as he might, Cole couldn't even imagine how Jay's chest was feeling right about now. What was it like to be trapped for so long without air that your body just gave up on you?

Cole suppressed a shiver and prepared his next question. "Who was your first crush" was on the tip of his tongue—because it couldn't have been Nya, right? There had to have been other girls at some point—but when the words came out, they sounded very different from anything Cole could've predicted.

"Was I really your first real friend?"

Though his voice hadn't risen above a whisper, Jay still flinched at the sound. It was barely noticeable, but Cole saw. He noticed. He knew.

He always knew.

"Jay?" He repeated when silence continued to swirl around them like a typhoon.

Another cough, only this time, it sounded forced. Jay was stalling, that much was clear.

When he spoke at last, his voice was soft; his eyes now weary slits. But at least they were open.

"I—" A real cough echoed off the walls this time. "I told you that when I thought I wasn't gonna make it."

Only when his lungs began to tingle did Cole realize he was holding his breath, waiting on pins and needles for Jay to continue.

"So… does that make it any less true, or…?" Cole prompted when Jay's lips remained firmly sealed.

"No," Jay whispered, "it's true. But it's not as big of a deal as you're making it sound."

Yeah, right. Cole forced a shrug, hoping it came off as nonchalant. "Maybe not. It wasn't very long ago that we first met, though. Maybe a few years or so."

"So?"

"So…" Cole glanced at Jay out of the corner of his eye. "That still leaves quite a few years of living. Who'd you hang out with before Wu found us and you met me?"

"People," Jay mumbled, shrugging.

"Well, that's helpful. What kind of people."

A frown tugged at the shivering ninja's blue-tinted lips. "How many different kinds of people are there? Wait, that's stupid. Don't answer that."

Despite their dismal circumstances, this bit of classic Jay brought a small smile to Cole's lips. "Okay. But I'm talking about… Well, I mean, didn't you have any…"

"Friends?" Jay's bitter laugh quickly turned into a heavy cough. "Didn't I just s-say you were my first friend?"

"Sure, your first real friend." Cole knew he was grasping at straws now, but he couldn't bring himself to stop. To stop prying. Because it couldn't be true. Sure, Jay was a little difficult to get along with sometimes, but weren't they all? Isn't everybody? "Didn't you have other friends? I don't know, 'fake' friends, I guess?"

"Why?" Jay eyed him curiously now. "Were those the kind of friends you had?"

And suddenly, it was all about Cole. Jay had somehow tricked him into switching gears and was now staring at him with the same expression Cole had on his face mere seconds ago.

"I…" Cole forced a chuckle. The sooner he gave Jay what he wanted to hear, the sooner it would be over. Because this isn't about me. It can't be about me. I'm not the one who almost drowned. "I wasn't really the type who liked talking to people I didn't know."

"Then…" Jay's confusion sounded genuine. "How did you expect to make any friends?"

"I didn't. I didn't want to." Cole shrugged, as if doing so would also shrug off the whole conversation. The one you started, don't forget.

Yeah, but that was when…

When he'd wanted to hear about Jay. When he'd wanted Jay to be the one to reveal his past. Not my past…

So, Jay has to tell you about himself, but you can't reveal anything about yourself? Nice one, Cole. Great job.

"After my mom died," Cole went on after a breath, feeling it was only fair for him to finish what he'd started, "I didn't really feel up to interacting with people. I ignored them and they ignored me. And that was fine, at first. I realized the less I talked to others, the less they wanted to talk to me. So no one really did. When I finally decided I needed some friends in my life, it was too late. I guess I'd built a reputation for myself at school that I couldn't break."

Jay nodded, understanding dawning on his face. "No wonder it was so easy to talk to you."

Cole cocked an eyebrow.

"When Master Wu first brought me to the temple, it was so easy to talk to you and I never could figure out why. I mean, I knew you were quiet, but I didn't really pause to think about why. You just needed to get used to talking to friends again—people your own age. I guess, even if you hadn't meant to, you gave me someone who was content just to listen. There… Well, there aren't a lot of people who can do that. Not like you can."

Touched, Cole found himself thinking back to those few short months when it was just him and Jay at the temple, before Zane came along. Before Kai, Nya and Lloyd.

No wonder we're so close. We had such a good head start.

"Yeah, then I realized I'd have to talk if I was ever going to keep up with you, Zap-trap," Cole said, chuckling at the fond memories.

"I guess—" Jay broke off as another series of coughs seized his chest, and for one panicked moment, Cole feared the bout might never stop. It did, thankfully, but whatever Jay had been about to say got lost in the chaos.

"Are you okay?"

Jay just nodded, rubbing a hand over his chest as if to somehow soothe the pain.

"You never finished." This statement earned Cole a weary sideways glance. "What you were gonna say, I mean."

"It didn't matter."

"Come on, Jay, everything you say matters."

Beside him, he felt his brother stiffen again.

"Well," Jay whispered, "you'd be the first to believe that."

And Cole could've sworn his heart cracked a little at those eight bitter words.

"Second only to you, right?" He was aiming for humor, something to lighten the mood, but the way Jay curled further in on himself made it clear he found nothing funny about Cole's reply. "Right? Jay…?"

"Didn't I just say you were the first?" And before Cole could even open his mouth, Jay pressed on in normal Jay style, which meant Cole really had to put his listening ears on if he wanted to understand anything that was about to fly out of his friend's mouth.

"You were too quiet, right? And that kept everyone away because you wouldn't talk to them. It works like that the other way around, too. No one wanted to talk to me because they couldn't talk to me. I was too loud, and where you talked too little, I talked too much. So, I couldn't really keep any friends for very long, even though I tried so hard to, and someone even told me once—I think it was in sixth grade or something—that,"—Here, Jay had to suck in a refill of air before continuing—"t-that someone who talks as much as I do c-can't really have anything important to say, and—"

Hoarse coughs wracked Jay's frame, cutting off his tirade, but Cole had heard more than enough to take him from angry to seething. Because how dare anyone say that to someone as pure and as friendly as Jay? He was only trying to be your friend, you sick son-of-a—

Cole was pretty sure that, if he could, Jay would've been friends with everyone in the sixteen realms.

"Hey," Cole began, inwardly wincing when his tone came out harder than he'd meant it to, "whoever said that didn't deserve to be your friend. He wasn't even worthy of your time. You know that, right?"

Jay hesitated. "Sure, I know that now, but—"

"And whoever thought you talked too much probably didn't have anything cool to say, so they were just too jealous to be your friend."

"I don't think that's—"

"Believe it, Jay, because it's the only possible explanation out there, all right? They were all just too full of themselves to realize that they were missing out on the best friend a guy could ever have."

This brought a smile to Jay's face, albeit a small one. Still, mission accomplished.

"I guess," Jay replied, his voice hoarse and raspy.

"That's why it took a special bunch of kids to see what nobody else could."

"And what's that? Let me guess: that we're all special in our own different ways?"

Cole grinned. "No, that we're all bursting with so much awesomeness that it's too much for everyone else to handle." This time, he was able to get a laugh out of Jay. "But yeah, yours was good, too."

"Gee, thanks."

"Anytime, brother."

Still smiling, Jay shivered. "Please tell me I'm not the only one who's freezing."

"Nah, I'm a bit chilly, too." But he wasn't freezing.

It took Cole less than five seconds to realize this wasn't simply a classic Jay exaggeration. One touch to the blue ninja's cheek confirmed the fact that Jay truly was freezing cold.

Refusing to panic—because hadn't he done enough of that already?—Cole forced his tone to remain level. "I don't really know what the effects of drowning are—"

"Cole, if I'd drowned, I wouldn't be h-here right now."

"But, that was pretty cold water, and your body's still trying to recover from not being able to breathe."

"So…? I f-feel like you were going somewhere with that."

"Yeah." Cole slumped back against the wall in utter defeat. "I did, too. I bet Zane would know what to do."

"Or K-Kai. I could really use a ball of fire right about n-now."

As if on cue, a dull clank echoed off the cell walls and the doors swung open. Cole braced himself, preparing his hardest glare so he'd be ready when she sauntered into view.

"Did I hear someone call for the Master of Fire?"

Cole blinked, his brain wrestling with the fact that she had Kai's voice.

Dude, that doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

"Come on, Kai, knock it off. This isn't a one-man mission we're on, here." That was definitely Nya's voice.

Cole could've cried. Instead, he shivered. "Did you actually hear Jay through those thick doors? Or was that grand entrance just based on a guess?"

Kai smirked at Cole's jab, cleverly avoiding the question. "And if you were wondering, Zane and Lloyd are keeping an eye on the senile sorcerous back there. You wouldn't believe how long it took us to take her down and get her to give up your location."

"I think I have a pretty good idea," Cole remarked just as another coughing fit grabbed hold of Jay.

The fire ninja's cocky expression clouded over in an instant. "What happened to you guys, anyway?"

Nya was already kneeling beside Jay. "You two are soaked!"

As she worked to pull some of the water out of their clothes, Cole filled Kai in on the need-to-know details of the whole fiasco.

"Jay almost drowned?" Kai seethed, falling down next to Jay and scanning him for injuries. "Dude, you almost drowned? Are you all right? How heavy was your water intake? Did you—?"

"I'm fine, Kai."

"Fine? How can you be fine when you nearly—?"

"We really just need to get him out of here," Cole interrupted before Kai could work himself into a frenzy. "He doesn't sound too good."

"You think?" Nya retorted as she continued to fuss over Jay. "You're going to be all right, got it?"

"Nya, I'm fine—"

She crossed her arms. "Uh huh. Yeah, your constant coughing is ratting out on you. Sorry."

When Cole saw that a weak smile was all Jay had to offer, he knew it was long past time to get his brother out of there.

"Kai, you didn't happen to bring some sort of key, did you?"

"He didn't," Nya said with a grin while Kai fumbled for a response. "I did."

"Nya," Jay coughed, "did I ever tell you how much I love you?"

"You can tell me when we're safely back at the temple, okay?" And Cole noticed the way she winced upon hearing Jay's ragged voice.

Another wet cough. "Sure."

The click of the lock was music to Cole's ears, and he wasted no time slipping out of his chains. Putting all thoughts of his aching wrists and ankles on the back burner, Cole helped Kai pry Jay off the ground.

Jay, who insisted he could walk on his own, took two steps and promptly doubled over in a new fit of coughing.

"Come on, Bluebell," Cole told Jay, tightening his hold around the latter's shoulder, "let's get you home. And let's never do that again."

"Hey," Jay wheezed through a goofy grin, "you don't have to tell me that. Tell her."

And Cole knew that, for once, Jay wasn't talking about Nya.

"Oh, believe me, if I ever get the chance, I will." And if I ever get my hands on that witch… "That's a promise."

And I'll never let anything like this ever happen to you again. You hear me, Jay? Never again.

That's also a promise.

One Cole had absolutely no intentions of breaking.

Not ever.

I'm on a huge Ninjago kick right now, so if anyone has any ideas they want to see in future stories, just drop them in the comments. ;) Thanks for reading!