I was so excited when I first got Kelsie's review, but the way I roll is sometimes a little...too much. It was difficult to find a good balance for this one-shot between a cute C.J. moments story and the serious stuff, so I hope I did manage to find it.
This one-shot takes place a week after the events of March of the Oni.
Disclaimer: I do not own Ninjago.
Wu knocked on the earth master's door like he had any day before. He paused a moment to make sure he had not woken C.J. up. He heard no sounds from inside except for the sounds of Cole snoring. Only a year ago, Cole had been a very sound sleeper. It was the reason Wu had to use the gong during the ninja's first years, but now that C.J. was around, Cole always had to be alert, even in his sleep. Even the slightest knock could wake him up, unless he was really tired, but as far as Wu knew, his ninja did not stay up too late the night before.
"Cole?" Wu asked as he knocked on the door once again.
He still snored.
Worried, Wu slid Cole's door open and walked up to his student. Shaking his shoulders when he was close enough to do so.
"Cole?" the young master asked again.
"Hmm?" Cole asked.
"It's time for sunrise stretches."
"Oh. Okay," Cole's voice sounded strained. As if those two words were a major struggle for him.
Wu watched as the earth master lifted himself from the bed, but when he stood up to face him, he looked horrible. His face was pale, his eyes had dark bags under them, and he seemed almost dazed.
"Are you feeling alright, Cole?" Wu asked.
Cole nodded.
"I'm just tired."
"Are you sure?"
Cole nodded again, but he was suddenly caught in a very wet coughing fit.
Without Cole even registering what was happening, Wu gently maneuvered Cole back onto his bed and left to speak to his other ninja.
"Where's Cole?" Jay asked when Wu entered the courtyard.
"He isn't feeling well. Zane, you may skip Sunrise Stretches in order to help Pixal diagnose him. The rest of you will continue on as normal. Cole will join us as soon as he feels well enough to do so," Wu explained.
Immediately, Zane ran off to his brother's aid while the other ninja, hesitantly, began Sunrise Stretches.
The ninja were finally dismissed at noon. On most days, they would go to play video games or hang out. Today, though, they ran to the kitchen, where Zane and Pixal were watching over C.J.
"How is he?" Lloyd asked the nindroids the second he saw them.
"Not good," Zane replied. "He has pneumonia, and from what we can see, it's been untreated for a lengthy amount of time."
"Will he be okay?" Nya asked.
"As long as he gets plenty of rest, fluids, and the correct medication, he should be fine," Pixal assured them.
"What about C.J.?" a strained voice asked.
"Daddy!" C.J. exclaimed as he ran over to the young adult. Everyone turned to see Cole backing away ever so slightly, but he had a kind smile on his face as he said, "Sorry, Bud. I don't want you to catch this."
Nya stooped down and grabbed the toddler, so he couldn't make his way over to his dad, making him very upset.
"No!" C.J. cried.
"Shh, it's okay. He's not feeling very well, so you're going to need to stay away. Okay?" Nya told him.
"No!"
"Do we have a hazmat suit?" Cole asked.
"Oh, no. You heard Pix and Zane. You're heading right back to your room to get some rest while we handle C.J.," Lloyd told him.
Cole looked like he wanted to protest, but his head was pounding so hard, and he was so tired. Sighing, he turned around and said, "Fine. Wake me up if you need anything."
"I do not think-" Zane started, but his mouth was suddenly covered by Lloyd as he instead responded saying, "Of course."
Once they heard the earth master's door shut, Lloyd removed his hand from the nindroid's mouth as Zane explained, "We cannot wake him up. Cole needs his rest."
"Well he wasn't going to leave if I didn't say that," Lloyd replied.
"We just have not make sure nothing goes wrong," Nya shrugged, although, C.J. was desperately trying to squirm out of her grasp.
"Daddy!" C.J. yelled.
"Maybe we should get him out of the house," Jay suggested.
"Where should we go?" Nya asked, clearly struggling.
After a moment of thought, Pixal said, "Perhaps the Ninjago City Park? As the city is currently being rebuilt, there should not be many people there."
Everyone immediately agreed. Wu and Pixal had kindly offered to stay behind and watch after Cole while the five ninja made their way to the park.
"Daddy!" C.J. began crying when Jay tried to buckle him up in his car seat.
"We've already told you, he's sick. If you want him to get better, he needs rest," Jay told the toddler, trying to keep the annoyance out of his voice.
C.J. still didn't stop crying, but at least he stayed still so Jay could continue buckling the child up in his safety belt.
"Maybe we should give him something to do. To distract him," Lloyd suggested.
Kai responded to this by handing C.J. some keys. No one knew exactly what it was for, but it made C.J. happy to hear them jingle, so they didn't question it.
Once the blond was, once again, his normal, happy self, Kai swung the car keys around in his hand saying, "I'll drive."
"I'm not sure Cole will be too happy about you killing his son in a car accident," Nya said.
"Oh, come on. I'm not that bad of a driver," Kai replied.
"Bad enough," Lloyd muttered.
"Well why don't you drive?" Kai shouted at his little brother.
"Why don't I?"
"Do you even know where the park is?" Nya asked.
"That's why GPS exists."
"Uh, Zane has a built-in GPS," Jay argued.
After a few more moments of arguing about who sits where, it was finally decided. Zane would drive, Lloyd got the passenger seat, Kai was next to C.J., Jay next to Kai, and Nya was in a rather uncomfortable position in both the boy's laps. They really needed a bigger car.
Pixal was correct in her assumptions. When the ninja and C.J. made it to the park, hardly anyone was there. There was only one other toddler with her mom. A little red head who seemed to have a ton of energy, and an adorable little lisp. Of course, the ninja made sure to keep their civilian disguises on when out in public, so everyone was free to do as they pleased without being asked overly personal questions.
C.J. and the red head, they thought she said her name was Kate, began playing a game of chase around the playground while the ninja and her mother supervised. Jay and Nya sat on a nearby bench, Kai and Lloyd decided to join as monsters. (They asked Kate's mom if it was alright first), and Zane kept his eyes on his phone, waiting for any word on Cole.
Jay noticed this and couldn't help but worry himself.
"What's wrong?" Nya asked her yin.
Jay sighed. He could never keep anything from her.
"I'm just worried about Cole," he admitted.
"He'll get better soon."
"Yeah, but what if he doesn't?"
"Jay? Where is this coming from?"
"We almost lost him last week, Nya. I can't go through that again."
The lightning ninja looked up to the little blond boy laughing his head off at the top of a slide before he turned back to Nya and said, "He can't go through that again."
The water ninja was never good with words, so she just held her yin, hoping that he could find some comfort in her arms.
When the ninja arrived home later that night, C.J. was fast asleep in Zane's arms. They walked through the monastery doors, down the hallway and realized that if Cole was going to get a full night of sleep, C.J. could not be in his room.
"Where do we put him?" Kai asked as Zane rubbed circles on the toddler's back, trying to calm him down. The poor guy must've been having a nightmare.
"I do not know," the nindroid replied.
"I can bring the crib wherever it needs to go," Lloyd said. "Without making a sound," he added when he say the snarky look on Kai's face.
"But where are you moving it to?" Kai asked, suddenly looking much more serious.
"You could move him to my room," Jay offered.
"Are you sure?" Zane asked.
Jay nodded, and it wasn't long before he had gotten C.J. settled in his temporary room.
It was one in the morning when Jay woke up to crying. At first he only groaned, thinking that, just like any other night, Cole would take care of it, but this was not just like any other night. Tonight, it was Jay's responsibility.
The lightning master crawled out of his bed and walked over to the crib to see the toddler standing up and looking right at him.
"What's wrong?" Jay asked him. "Are you hungry?"
C.J. didn't respond and continuously rubbed his big green eyes as they looked up at Jay.
"Do you need a diaper change?"
C.J. didn't answer, but when Jay sniffed the crib, he didn't smell anything off.
"Will you just tell me what's wrong?" Jay yawned.
C.J. began trying to escape his small prison, scaring Jay. He quickly held onto the boy's shoulders to make sure he didn't try to escape, and he didn't. Instead, he just started crying harder.
"Oh, no! I didn't hurt you, did I?" Jay started freaking out. He should've never offered to do this. He wasn't capable of caring for anything living being. He couldn't even keep his poor cactus alive!
To his relief, though, C.J. shook his head and started calling for his dad once again.
"Oh," Jay realized. "You want your dad. I'm sure you miss him. But, hey. Just think about all the cool things you can do with him when he gets better."
"What?" C.J. asked.
"I dunno. Get ice cream, play monster again, watch a movie. You guys are gonna visit Papa Lou again next week, right?"
"Right," C.J. agreed.
"Yeah, see? You have a lot of stuff to look forward to. You're just gonna have to spend the next few days with me and the gang first," Jay smiled as he tickled the little one.
C.J. smiled at this, but he didn't laugh.
"You know what?"
"What?"
"I think we should watch some videos of your dad tomorrow. What do you say to that?"
"Good."
"Good. Now, can we go back to sleep?"
"Yeah," C.J. nodded before plopping back down in his crib and curling himself up into a little ball.
Wu had decided against training that day so the ninja could better watch C.J., and after the news they heard that day, no one really felt like it anyway.
"Cole has gotten much worse throughout the night. I'm starting to think we're going to need to move him to a hospital," Pixal explained.
"What?!" Lloyd exclaimed.
"I do not know how much more I can do for him here, and he is having difficulty breathing. I fear it is the only way to help him."
If there was one thing Cole hated, it was lack of freedom. And being sick definitely took a lot of his freedom away. His freedom to leave his room, get his own snacks, and in this particular case, leave his bed and see C.J.
The news Pixal brought him that day was definitely expected with how much trouble it was to even catch his breath, but it felt so debilitating. And he wasn't even in the hospital yet!
"Yeah, no," Cole told her when she told him about where he was going to be sleeping that night. "I'm not interested in sitting in a lonely white room in an uncomfortable bed with tubes stuck in my arms."
As he said this, though, he was cut off multiple times by lack of breath and coughing fits, which only harmed his argument.
"I'm sorry, Cole, but I, personally, would prefer to see you and C.J. together once again. When you are well," Pixal added this last part as a horrible image flooded in her head. Zane had told her about the last time he was with his father in both situations, and it hurt her to think the same could happen to C.J.
Cole agreed, and an ambulance was called.
"What are we gonna do?" Nya asked once Cole was gone. It was just her and Jay now that everyone else had gone to see Cole. After a quick roll of dice, Jay was in charge of looking after C.J., and Nya decided against leaving her yin to watch the young toddler on his own.
"Well, I did promise C.J. that we'd watch some videos of Cole today. Maybe they could help bring some positivity too," Jay suggested.
"That's a great idea!" Nya quietly exclaimed as to not wake up C.J. "IN the meantime, I'll go make us some breakfast."
Jay nodded, trying to bring a smile to his face before he left to check on C.J.
The blond was currently playing with his stuffed bear quietly in his crib. No cries in an effort to get out. Just a nice little game. Jay was slightly confused by this, but C.J. had always understood more than his age usually would. Maybe he thought that since Jay wasn't in bed, that he'd come back soon, and therefore, there was no need to wake him.
"Hey, are you ready to eat?" Jay asked.
C.J. stood up with a big smile on his face. He held his arms out towards his uncle and Jay picked him right up. Somehow, even being in the one year old's presence could put the lightning ninja in a better mood.
When Jay made his way with C.J. to the kitchen, he saw Nya working on making the three some pancakes.
The lightning ninja placed C.J. in his highchair at the head of the table, and he immediately started whining.
"What's wrong?" Jay asked nervously.
C.J. continued whining as he pointed to the place Kai normally sat.
"Oh," Jay realized. "The guys aren't here right now."
"Why?" C.J. asked.
"Well..." Jay started.
"Since your daddy's sick, they decided to keep him company."
C.J. seemed disappointed by this.
"Oh, come on. You'd find it boring. There's really nothing to do since he's asleep most of the time. They're just there to make sure when he's awake, he won't get lonely," Nya said, trying to make it seem as if spending the day with her and Jay was better. Although, she knew it wasn't.
"Uh, Nya?" Jay started.
"What?" Nya asked. She looked behind her and gasped when she realized that the pancakes were burning!
"Oh!" she groaned once the pancakes were on a plate. "I'll take this batch."
Jay frowned at the idea, but if he knew anything from pervious experiences, she was not, under any circumstances, allowing Jay to take the burnt pancakes. She always did like bitter taste anyway.
Once everyone's pancakes were ready, Jay got the whipped cream and made a small topping on his pancakes. When he saw the look of longing in C.J.'s eyes, he decided that it was only fair for the toddler to get some as well.
"Tell me when to stop," Jay told the blond as he began spraying the whipped cream onto his pancakes.
Of course, C.J. being a year old was unaware of his limits, and it wasn't until Nya snatched the can from Jay that the lightning ninja stopped.
Once breakfast was over, Jay, Nya, and C.J. made their way to the game room and turned on the VHS. There, they could watch as many videos of Cole as their hearts' desired. There were even some of Kai and Nya when they were younger, and the ones of Jay were hilarious. Although, Jay made Nya swear that she'd never let the guys see them.
Hours had passed of laughter and videos, and it was finally time for C.J. to take a nap. Jay was about to take C.J. back to his crib when Nya found one more video.
"Wait," she said. "I don't remember this one."
C.J. sat next to his aunt as the video began playing.
"You ready, Little Buddy?" Past Cole asked the blond boy in his arms. It looked like they were in some sort of courthouse.
"I wonder what the others will say to this," Past Cole grimaced as he picked a pen up from a nearby desk and wrote down his signature. "Guess what!" Past Cole said as he tickled C.J.'s tummy. "You are officially Cole Oliver Steel Jr.! What do you think of that?"
Past C.J. just laughed.
"Jay's right. That is a long name. Yous till like C.J.?"
Past C.J. laughed once again.
"Well, then. I guess it's official, C.J.," Cole said as he tickled the boy. He then noticed the camera he had set up not too much longer before. Honestly, he had forgotten it was there. His face turned beet red as he reached over to the camera. The last thing he said before the video shut off was, "Oh, if the others find this."
Present C.J. was smiling widely, giving off a little yawn afterwards.
"Okay. It's time for bed," Jay said, although, he was smiling wide from the video they just watched.
"Daddy?" C.J. asked.
"He's still sick," Jay replied sadly.
"Oh."
"But there are some doctors that are taking care of him right now, and soon, he should be as good as new!" Nya heard Jay say as he walked out of the room. They just hoped he was right.
A week had passed since Cole was put in the hospital. The ninja each took turns taking care of C.J. for the day while the rest stayed with Cole. It was difficult to tell if he was making any progress, and he was still having a lot of trouble breathing. It was horrible to see him like this. Which was the only reason C.J. hadn't come to visit yet. Cole was unable to communicate this to his friends due to the oxygen mask, but he missed his son horribly, and C.J. felt the same way. In fact, this was the very reason he was currently crying.
"Daddy!" C.J. cried. The poor little one had just had a nightmare, and he felt that only his father could save him from the terrors in his dreams. Unfortunately, his dad was not the one to come to his aid. Instead, it was Lloyd.
"No!" C.J. screamed when he saw the green ninja.
Lloyd's quick reflexes helped him catch the block that was thrown at his head, but he didn't feel like reprimanding the toddler right now.
Instead, he picked C.J. up out of his crib and held him tightly, humming a song he could barely remember from his own childhood. He kept his eyes closed as he rocked the toddler back and forth and hummed this tune. To his surprise, C.J. quieted down and soon, his breathes became deep and slow, and he was asleep once again.
The young ninja knew he should lay C.J. back down in his crib, but he was so anxious about Cole that he needed something (or someone) to hold. So, C.J. it was.
He carried the sleeping toddler through the empty monastery and to the kitchen so he could get himself a snack, and as Lloyd bit into his apple, he felt the familiar vibrations of his phone in his pocket. Someone was calling him.
"Hello?" the green ninja asked as he used a free hand to bring his phone to his ear.
"Lloyd," Zane's voice came from the other end.
"How's Cole?" Lloyd asked. The silence that followed felt awful. This answer would decide how Lloyd was going to feel the rest of the day and change the course of his anxiety for better or worse.
"He's off the mask," the good news made Lloyd feel like leaping up high into the air. The only thing that stopped him from whooping for joy was the child in his arms. "I imagine he can come home soon."
"Can C.J. visit?" Lloyd asked.
Zane thought for a moment before saying, "I don't see why not. We have not attracted any presence here thus far."
Lloyd felt as if he was on top of the world as he buckled C.J. in his car seat and drove over to the hospital. The other ninja had used the Bounty in case Lloyd wanted to take C.J. out, and the green ninja was feeling very excited for the long-awaited reunion.
The youngest ninja let C.J. walk himself whilst holding on to Lloyd' hand.
When the older of the two had asked where Cole was, they made their way to his room, where all the other ninja were. Cole was sitting up, a sight that had not been seen for what felt like a very long time, and he was smiling.
"C.J.!" he exclaimed when he saw the toddler.
"Daddy!" C.J. exclaimed as he ran towards his father.
As per Zane's instructions, he stayed at the bed instead of getting into it with his father and started bouncing happily now that he was with his daddy again.
Cole laughed before coughing a bit
"We have a lot to catch up on, Buddy," the earth master smiled. "In fact, as soon as I get outta here, we're gonna spend a whole day together. Just you and me. What do ya say?"
"Yay!" C.J. exclaimed.
Cole smiled as he looked up to his friends and said, "Thank you for watching C.J. while I was...here," Cole said as he looked around the room.
"Anytime, Dude," Jay replied with a smile.
"Yeah, we'd do anything for the tike," Kai added.
"Thanks. I owe ya," Cole said.
Two days later, Cole was released from the hospital, and it was time for his day with C.J. to commence.
The ninja smiled to themselves as they watched Cole leave the monastery with C.J. on his shoulders. They had no idea how he even managed to do it. How he kept C.J. happy and safe. How he balanced his ninja duties with his dad duties. It was something they admired and something they knew they could never pull off, and they were glad that the inseparable duo were back together again.
So, I hope you guys liked that. I was rather worried about this chapter, so I'm interested to know what you thought of it. And I hope it was up to your expectations Kelsie ;)
Have a great day/night!
#God'sNotDead