This story began as material I cut from Over and Between, so it is something of a companion piece to that story, but you do not need to read it in order to understand this story. I hope you enjoy!

Cole's back hurts.

Everything hurts, but there is an area of his back that radiates like a beacon, shooting pain down his limbs in fiery darts. It dwarfs every sensation Cole has, to the point that for several moments, it is all he feels. The second sensation he becomes aware of is the chill, and he knows that something is wrong.

Cole wakes to darkness and doesn't have a clue as to where he lies: alone on the top floor of a building. Everything hurts, and Cole can't remember how he got into this situation, a troubling fact.

He remembers the oni, tendrils of darkness freezing people where they stand, and fighting tooth and nail to make it out of the city alive. His friends were with him, yet the world around him is quiet.

He stares above him, where a glass skylight is shattered. He frowns. Did he…did he fall through it?

He can't tell, or he can't remember. His back hurts, suggesting an accident much greater than he's used to.

Cole sits up and gasps as he does. Something is wrong with him, but he doesn't have time to focus on it, preoccupied with his situation.

He's in Ninjago City, aware of that much. It's clearly been taken, and while he can't remember when, he knows that he needs to get out of here.

The last thing that he doesn't necessarily realize but becomes aware of is the fact that he is alone. Not just presently, on that building, but alone in a broader sense. The city howls with a strange wind that exemplifies a feeling of emptiness. It strikes Cole at his core, pulling at some primal fear.

"Uh…" he says, though he knows that he speaks to no one as he looks through the hole above him, "Hey guys, did you forget something?"

The end of his sentence cracks almost like a sob as the reality of his situation sinks in.

He looks around the room. He is alone.

His back hurts.

Something happened, something bad.

He needs to get out of here.

Blank tendrils snake their way through the holes in the glass as though in response to his cries, and Cole backs away, muttering to himself as he considers his options. There is no way out from where he came, which seems to simply be, 'up,' and Cole pushes away the implications of this.

He tries to remember his path into this building and gets a flash of blue skies before pain pricks at the back of his skull and all but has him collapsing against the floor. He bites his teeth against it and does his best to push through, abandoning the attempt at remembering how he got into this situation in favor of trying to get out of it.

He thinks, breathing fast. There are several ways out of the city, but they all require transportation that Cole doesn't have on hand. Stepping outside will have him choking, and any contact with those tendrils will freeze him solid.

Running is out of the question, and his other options are limited. He could try the subway tunnels to see if they survived the invasion, but he can't access an entrance from here, nor can he get to one in time. He drums his fingers, heart crawling to his throat, and then slaps a hand to his pocket.

He has his earth drill, if it is still sitting where he left it.

He pulls the key fob from his pocket and looks it over. He has a chance, but the question is whether it will find him in this mess.

As the darkness creeps closer, another dart of pain fires up Cole's back, and for a moment, his vision flashes. He exhales, trying to keep his breathing under control (inhaling too hard only makes it worse, anyway).

He'll have to try, for he has a lot ahead of him.

Maybe after he gets out of this, he can worry about what is wrong with him.

The memories of the fall don't come back until much later, though Cole doesn't want to think about them, overcome with emotions that twist and pull in a complicated, painful storm in his chest. It leaves his stomach churning in the sense that he might throw up, so he does his best to avoid thinking about his fall or his back at all.

It isn't so difficult at first.

After the fight with the oni, Ninjago lives to see another sunset. It is a quiet event that Cole watches from where he sits in the courtyard.

He's shaking, still reeling from the fight and the fact that they won—and that Lloyd almost died in the process.

'Almost' might not be the right word for it. Lloyd might have been dead, and Cole didn't believe it. It was impossible for him to believe or even consider that Lloyd might be dead. Lloyd is like—a kid, a kid who holds his head high and still tracks mud into the monastery despite how many times Cole tells him not to.

Kids don't, or shouldn't, die. But their youngest brother seemed too still for too long, an absence about him that hung in the air with a threatening stillness.

Cole rubs his hand across his face.

The mess of the battle has him shaking, but it might be the pain that makes him shake, too, with nothing to focus on in the meantime. He is now certain that something is wrong about his back, though he can't say whether it is serious yet.

It might be, since the pain won't go away. Cole has had serious accidents before that should have killed him were it not for his elemental powers. Like a force that works beyond himself, his connections with the earth keep him safe, protecting him when he otherwise would've succumbed to injury.

His powers appear to help him, in small ways, with his current situation by keeping him upright and stable. For whatever reason, though, his back won't stop hurting.

He might have overdone it by wielding his scythe so enthusiastically and performing spinjitzu, but the high off seeing his friends again—despite the circumstances—fueled him with vigor. In those moments after he first leapt out of the earth drill, he would have stopped the oni alone if he had to, certain that he could do it.

The ninja admitted at the time that they thought they'd lost him. That is what Jay said, and his words echo in Cole's mind hours later.

The memories of how he was lost grow clearer. Grainy images have formed in the gap of his memory, just out of reach. Cole wants to catch and analyze them, but at the same time, he's worried for what he will find.

"Hey."

Cole startles and glances up to see Kai smiling at him.

"What's up?" Cole replies, with a grin.

They always do this after a particularly close call during a battle (though Cole questions whether what happened to Lloyd—and himself—counts as a close call). They save face with smiles and good humor so that no one gives in to the panic or despair that comes with events like these.

Cole especially tries to keep it light, for if he falls apart—

Well, he likes to believe that it would affect the rest of the team.

"I wanted to check on you," says Kai, "We're about to take you and Lloyd down to a doctor."

"You're kidding," says Cole.

"You wish, I bet."

"I don't need a doctor," says Cole, waving his hand and thinking otherwise given how much the simple movement hurts.

He thinks he hides his wince, but the smile slips off Kai's face as something more serious takes its place. For a moment he watches Cole, and when Cole meets Kai's eyes, he finds something haunted staring back.

He raises his eyebrows in question, and Kai shifts.

"We're taking you, anyway," says Kai, "Are you alright? You…you fell pretty far."

Cole confirms his statement with the memories that are slowly clearing in his head, and he gets a sick feeling in his stomach. Cole did fall, and he must have fallen far to be hurting like this. Cole tries remembering what happened and gets a flash of blue skies with lines of black streaking across it.

The sky isn't empty, though.

A shape sits before his vision, and it is all Cole can look at.

Cole blinks away the memory when it sparks pain in his chest, and he says, "I'll be fine. We've seen worse."

Kai doesn't reply right away. "It's best to be safe."

He looks like he wants to say more, but Cole moves on.

"That's fair," he says.

He'll go, but that doesn't mean he has to like it.

They talk for a few moments more, then Zane calls for them, nearly ready to leave.

Cole stands, and a pain fires like a bullet up his back. Overwhelmed before he can think, he falls. He doesn't cry out, managing to bite off the sound before it escapes, but he is too late to stop himself from falling on his knees.

And this sends Kai into a panicked fit.

"Cole?!" Kai rushes forward to catch him, but he doesn't make it in time.

Cole drags Kai with him as they both hit the cobbled stones of the courtyard.

"Are you—" starts Kai, in a tone that sounds close to freaking out.

Cole blames the groan he releases as a response to Kai's unnecessary panic, because really, he's fine, or he will be.

He tries to say as much, but he can't get the words out of his mouth. He's clenching his jaw too hard, for pain that began in waves now feels like whitewater, pouring over him with no sign of relief.

By this point, anyone roaming outside has rushed over, with Kai calling for everyone inside. Cole would tell him that he's fine, but he doesn't get a chance as they help him to his feet and practically carry him down the steps and to the car.

Cole can walk by himself, considering that he fought the oni without any problems, but he lets his team members help him.

Just this once, though.

He will think about what all this means later.

As the vehicle the ninja have piled into drives off, Cole laying with his head in someone's lap across the backseat, Cole stares at the window above him, where the sky passes. He recalls the image of the shape against blue skies, only hours before. He pairs the image with his friends' words as well as the looks on their faces when he first hopped out of the earth drill.

The memory in his head almost looks like a ship, and below it hangs a ladder, or half a ladder.

Something twists in Cole's chest. He remembers the sound of the wind whistling in his ears, but otherwise being enveloped by an overwhelming silence. The twisting in his chest hurts to the point that it rises into an uncomfortable pressure in his throat, so he pushes these thoughts away.

He'll just focus on how he's going to get better.

I've debated whether I wanted to post this story, because despite how much angst I write, I try not to take Ninjago too seriously. However, with Cole's fall in particular, the characters took the event so seriously when it happened but then brushed it off after Cole came back, and that was dissatisfying, at least for me.

Anyhow, thank you so much for reading!