Cole didn't say a word the whole trip from his room on the sixth floor to the psychiatric ward on the second floor. He silently hoped that with the beard, people wouldn't recognize him. Nurse Crane wheeled him through the door. There were people doing all sorts of activities. A few were painting on easels, one lady was twirling around, an old man sat in a chair with a teddy bear, a woman in the back looked like she was either meditating or sleeping, but most people were just sitting around doing nothing.
"Earth ninja! I'm glad you could join us!" Dr. Mesda said when Nurse Crane wheeled Cole in. For the first time ever, Cole wished he was still a ghost just so he could turn invisible. Dr. Mesda took the controls from Nurse Crane and wheeled Cole over to a table. A young woman about Cole's age sat there alone. She was very beautiful with long, wavy brown hair and she had a tiny mole at the corner of her right eye.
"Cole, this is Nicoletta. Nicoletta, Cole. Oh! I'll be right back. Be nice to each other in the meantime. Bertha! You aren't supposed to have scissors! Bertha!" Dr. Mesda ran across the room, leaving the pair to sit in silence. They looked around the room, bored. It took several minutes for one of them to speak.
"I'm Nikki."
"Cole."
"Is this your first time going to therapy?"
"I had a session yesterday," Cole explained.
"Oh."
Silence. Awkward silence.
"You play any card games?" Cole asked after nearly five minutes. He was honestly surprised this girl hadn't left yet.
"Only Go Fish. You?"
"Yeah. My family is big into Poker and Gin Rummy. Personally, I prefer Tonk."
"Tonk? What is that?"
Cole took out the deck of cards he had hidden in his robe pocket. Nikki had to shuffle the cards since Cole couldn't, but he taught her how to play. She struggled a little bit, but Cole was too tired to really care.
"Are you really one of the ninja?" Nikki asked during their second round.
"… Yes," Cole grumbled.
"Wow. So, what exactly happened? I know you were in a coma, but… how?" The girl started blushing.
"How do you know that?"
"Oh, I follow Kai on social media…"
"Of course you do."
"… And he's been posting updates," Nikki said meekly.
"Of course he has. Note to self: kill Kai," Cole muttered.
"So… what happened?"
"Um, family reunion gone wrong. I don't want to talk about it. What about you?"
"Oh, uh, kind of the same thing. I don't want to talk about it."
"Fair enough."
They played cards and didn't talk for another ten minutes until Dr. Mesda was able to wrestle the scissors away from Bertha. Nikki only won one game: the last one, because Dr. Mesda cut the game short and she happened to have less points in her hand when he called everyone into a circle.
Group therapy was torture for Cole. Everyone kept trying to ask him questions about ninja stuff he just didn't want to answer. He eventually just started repeating, "I am not allowed to comment on any ongoing investigation, active assignment, or any mission that has occurred at any point within the past ten years that pertains to any past or present member of the team or its affiliates," whenever anyone tried to ask him anything. Some people still did not take the hint. He glared at Dr. Mesda the rest of the hour and refused to say anything else.
The next day, Cole was forced to return to group therapy. He was taken down early so he could socialize with the other patients, but he ended up just playing Tonk with Nikki again. They sat in silence for a while.
"Could I ask you something that might be kind of personal?" Nikki asked.
"Uh, sure. I can't guarantee I'll answer it," Cole replied.
"Just… How are you able to deal with people hating you and trying to hurt you on a daily basis?"
"… Did Dr. Mesda put you up to this?"
"No. I really want to know."
Cole eyed her skeptically, but he thought he saw fear in her eyes.
"Well, when we go to face someone, like the Sons of Garmadon for example, we always have each other's backs. If one of us gets hurt, it's not because we abandoned them in their time of need. I know I was in a coma, but I don't blame the other ninja for that. I know exactly who to blame."
"That woman who was arrested?"
"Huh?"
"Oh. I saw something on the news about a crazy woman who was arrested. They didn't say how she was related to you though," Nikki explained.
"… Yeah. Her."
"Who is she?" Nikki asked quietly.
"No one important. I hadn't seen or thought about her in years, then she turns up out of the blue one day."
"Did you love her?"
"No."
"Are you going to face her again?"
"In court. Until then, I'm going to ignore her. She's done nothing to deserve my attention, so I'm not going to give her any."
Nikki looked away thoughtfully. She didn't say anything else nor did she continue the card game. Eventually, Dr. Mesda called everyone into a circle.
"I guess we can talk more tomorrow," Cole said as he put the cards away.
"Actually, I'm being discharged tomorrow. But thank you, what you said made a lot of sense."
Cole had no idea what she was talking about, but he put it out of his mind as the session began.