"What if we drew more power from outside the city?"

Nya hummed at Lloyd's suggestion, hands propped on the table where they had a makeshift model of Ninjago City set up for planning.

The model on the table between them was hardly impressive, thrown together with some of Lloyd's cheese sticks and baby carrots from the fridge to represent streets and buildings. Pixal could have hooked them up with a better digital model even remotely, but Lloyd found that it served as a slight distraction to set it up. At least it actually felt like he was doing something, and the snack foods would serve a purpose— anxiety gripped Lloyd's stomach and he'd eaten little enough he feared his snacks would go bad before the storm hit.

The carrots rolled off the table as a strong gust of wind rocked the Bounty to one side. The Bounty was still anchored where the ninjas could climb on and off board as they pleased, but the winds had still picked up enough that it could sway the airship ever so slightly. Not that it mattered that Lloyd's faultless depiction of Ninjago scattered at the movement; the model was more to give them an empty sense of planned control over the situation rather than to show them the city they'd already known for years.

"It's a good idea," Nya acknowledged, "But I don't know how we'd manage it. I don't think we could ship in enough generators to account for the city's lost power in time, especially now that another portion…" her gaze grew distant. "Now that it was taken."

"Right." Lloyd returned his attention to the collapsed array of cheese sticks on the table. "Any… other ideas?"

Nya propped her elbows on the table, and her head on clasped hands. The lighting hit her face at a strong angle, exaggerating bags under her eyes that Lloyd hadn't noticed before.

Now that he really registered it, Lloyd left the muddle of his overthinking mind to really take in Nya's appearance.

A few strands of hair had escaped from her usually-meticulous ponytail, greasy and unkempt. Her eyes were bloodshot, and not just a little. Lloyd considered asking her if she'd like him to turn the lights onto a different setting to spare them, but then again, maybe she'd try just try to hide her physical and emotional state from him if she sensed he was becoming concerned. It was probably better that Lloyd saved his concern for more important matters, like whether or not she'd eaten or slept recently.

"Hey, we've been working at this for a while," Lloyd said. "Why don't we take a couple minutes for a snack break?"

"Yeah," Nya responded immediately, to Lloyd's relief, then continued pointedly, "You should. Your snacks in the fridge aren't gonna eat themselves, y'know."

Lloyd mentally facepalmed. Of course Nya would be aware of Lloyd's lousy self-care habits before he was aware of hers.

Of all things to look out for, Nya had been looking after Lloyd, despite her apparent unawareness to… other details. Lloyd's gaze followed the carrots rolling lazily over the floor. He decided not to mention them. "I, uh," he cleared his throat. "I actually meant you, too."

Nya waved a hand, not breaking focus on the model. "I'm fine."

"You really should keep your strength up."

"Pot calling the kettle? Don't think I didn't notice you haven't been eating-" She blinked at the model she'd been staring at for the past few hours. "Are those your cheese sticks?"

A frown pulled at Lloyd's lips. How out of it was she? "Uh… don't worry about it."

To Lloyd's relief, the main screen on the wall next to them let off a warning chime at that very moment to signal something was approaching the ship. The noise drew Nya's searching gaze off of him, and Lloyd, too, redirected his attention to evaluate the computer's analysis.

The screen revealed a blurry figure approaching the Bounty's entrance, though even with the image so pixelated, both instantly recognized the figure.

"Ah, it's just Cole." Nya leaned over and absently punched a few keystrokes into the computer to bypass the security measures Cole would otherwise have to input himself.

Nya input the commands just in time for Cole to reach the hatch, and Lloyd continued to watch the feed to make sure Cole realized it was already unlocked. Their friend's image was much clearer now that he was close.

Lloyd gasped. "He's hurt!"

Nya's head snapped towards the screen. "What?"

But by that time, Cole had already entered, and was out of the camera's field.

Nya and Lloyd exchanged a glance before dashing out into the entrance hall.

Cole started upon seeing them both race towards him, his eyes darting over each of them in an undoubted attempt to gauge a potential problem. He rubbed a hand uncomfortably over his upper arm, and let it settle there.

He was a little dirty, grease smudged over the knees of his gi and a splotch of it smooching his jaw, and his hair pushed his headband down over his forehead, some of the more unruly locks of it hanging into his eyes.

"What's up?" the earth ninja finally said when his friends' stares lingered on him.

"Where have you been?" Nya asked.

That was all it took for his raised eyebrows to fall and cast shadows over his eyes. "None of your business."

Lloyd barely had time to see his mouth pull into something of a pout before Cole stomped by him, knocking him with his uncovered shoulder as he passed.

Lloyd held in a scoff and raced after Cole. He'd have thought Cole would have learned by now that no one would leave him alone if he acted all mysterious and stubborn, but he found himself kind of glad that Cole hadn't learned to hide it yet.

"Wait." Lloyd laid a hand on Cole's retreating shoulder, the one he was covering, and Cole winced.

The three of them froze.

Cole stood stone still for a handful of seconds, then glanced over his shoulder. "Don't let me keep up your planning session."

His voice was so deliberate and measured, if not for the moments before it, Lloyd would have done just that.

Huh. Cole could be really convincing if only he learned to put on a facade quick enough to avoid detection. Lloyd made a mental note to keep an eye on that.

Lloyd brushed Cole's not-suggestion aside and gently but firmly guided his friend to turn and face them.

"What?"

Lloyd grabbed the wrist supporting Cole's opposite shoulder, not tightly enough that his friend would perceive it as controlling, but with a firm grip that let him know that Lloyd was certain of what he was doing. "Let me see."

Lloyd met Cole's eyes and felt like shrinking under them.

Cole's gaze burned— not wild and erratic like fire, but in a much slower, more deliberate fashion. Fire was only dangerous because it could grow and wildly eat up the fuel in its path, but it could burn itself out just as quickly when it suddenly ran out, even if it had never met its intended target. No, fire wasn't the anger burning in Cole's eyes. Cole's eyes burned like lava; an intense, controlled heat that depended on no fuel, only on the very heat within itself that it would maintain throughout its course until it reached its final target, leaving a permanent trail of its sole and chosen path in its wake.

Lloyd stared Cole down and every moment wanted nothing more than to turn away from that slow but definite trail of lava licking ever closer to him, but he couldn't turn away. If he wanted his team to start treating him like a leader and not like the little kid they'd known, he had to stand his ground.

So he did. He let the lava edge nearer and nearer to him; felt it threaten to melt clean through him if he refused to get out of its unchangeable course.

But Cole never wanted Lloyd to get burned. He broke the stare-off and moved his hand from a sizable gash marking his upper arm.

Nya hissed through her teeth in secondhand pain and turned down the hall with a call of, "I'll get the medkit."

Lloyd closed the space between himself and Cole, the earth ninja avoiding his gaze all the while. He stood on his tiptoes to get a good look at the gash, and tugged one of his gloves off before tracing a finger under it to wipe some of the blood away and get a better idea of where the cut ended.

Fresh blood oozed out to cover the newly-cleaned patch just moments after he'd cleared it, but it was long enough for Lloyd to get a good assessment. "This was not accidental." He tried to meet Cole's eyes, but Cole had taken a sudden interest in the floorboards. "What happened?"

"Nothing."

"Cole, I know you're trying not to cause more trouble, but we need to know what happened. If this was the Serpenteels, then there might be vital information to-"

"It wasn't them," Cole interjected. "Don't get your mask tied on too tight."

"Oh." Lloyd rocked on his feet, if only to fill the silence that followed. The air suddenly felt hard to breathe, or maybe that was just his following question clinging to his throat like it was pleading not to leave his lips. "Was it… was it Jay?"

Cole's head snapped towards him. "Was it-! No, it wasn't Jay!"

He sighed and shook his head as if Lloyd's question was the silliest he'd ever heard, and Lloyd found himself wishing that was still the case.

"It was a couple of street thugs."

Lloyd tipped his head at his friend. "Why did you engage with them? You have enough on your plate; I'm sure the police could have handled—"

"What, do you think I couldn't do it?"

"N-no, I'm sure you were perfectly capable of handling them, it's just that—" Lloyd pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. He measured his words carefully. "It's just that a couple of street thugs aren't as big of a problem as the Storm, or the Serpenteels, or… other threats. I know it's weird to see something wrong and not correct it, but right now, we need to focus our energy on the bigger matters at hand." He hoped that would be enough to satisfy Cole. Lloyd really didn't want to bring out the big guns.

Judging from Cole's indignant huff and crossed arms, though, avoiding that wasn't an option.

"And, I―" Lloyd tried to swallow on a dry mouth, then took another breath and plunged forward. "I mean, we have already lost too many members of our team. We need everyone on deck for the plan, and… I need to know that you're safe," and oh, First Spinjitzu Master, his voice was breaking. No wonder the team treated him with kid gloves. Maybe Cole hadn't picked up on it. Lloyd tried to read his expression.

Cole was staring at him again. All the heat in his gaze was gone, replaced with a much softer, deeper intensity.

Concern.

Crap.

Cole heaved a heavy sigh. "Of course. I should be looking after you."

Lloyd's eye twitched in its socket. "That's not exactly what—"

"No, no, you're right. I was being selfish, going after those thugs."

"It's not selfish to stop to help out with something wrong."

Nya returned with the medkit and busied herself with cleaning out the gash on Cole's arm.

"It's…" Cole stared at his arm as Nya worked on it. "It's not like I just bumped into them, though. I sought them out. I was looking for a fight."

"Why?" Nya asked, not pausing her work for even a second, and Lloyd wondered how she kept so steady despite the setting.

"I dunno." Cole rubbed his neck with his free arm. "To blow off steam, I guess. I— I don't know why I keep messing these things up! Gah!"

Lloyd raised a brow. "Messing what up? Cole, none of us have exactly been doing well since Jay left. It wasn't great that you tried to go off on your own in the middle of this, but that doesn't mean that you're—"

Cole broke out of Nya's grasp to gesture to himself with both hands when he replied, "But it's my fault Jay left in the first place!"

Lloyd and Nya started, stunned into complete silence. They exchanged a glance with each other before turning back to Cole.

"What do you mean?" Lloyd said, and only afterward did he realize how annoyingly soft his voice had gotten. He was mirroring the voice the others used with him when they treated him like a little kid.

"He was upset for a while before any of this nonsense even came up. I decided to give him some space; he doesn't really like people pressing on him before he can figure things out by himself, but before we knew about the storm, he— he was trying to tell us something. Something important, and we ignored him, just brushed right by, and— gah! Why didn't we just listen?"

Cole's last word is punctuated with a punch to the wall.

Blood gushed out of his wound, squeezed out with the sudden movement, and he winced.

Cole responded to Nya's outstretched hand by turning away so she can't reach his wound.

Lloyd raised a hand to his mouth. "He— he was trying to tell us something, wasn't he?" He blinked a few times, shaking his head. "But Cole, you weren't the only one there. Kai and I were there, and… and Zane, too. Any of us could have reached out to him, could have listened, but we all heard about the storm then, and— well, the circumstances weren't the best. Either all of us are to blame, or none of us are."

Cole turned on his heel to face them again, lava burning in his irises and glistening in the corners of his eyes. "But I'm his best friend! I should have known when to step in! I was there when he woke up after the fight, and something in him had obviously changed for the worse, and I should have stopped him or held him back or done― something, but I couldn't stop him from leaving, couldn't save him from whatever's going through his mind and now he's gone!"

Nya took a tentative step towards him. "Cole… best friend or not, you can't be expected to carry Jay through everything. You can only help him through what he lets you help him with, and he… he didn't make that easy for you."

"But I'm his best friend. I was supposed to know what was wrong before it got this bad. Why… why didn't he trust me?"

Nya gave him a sympathetic look. "I'm supposed to know Jay well, too. We're supposed to be close."

Cole's shoulders went slack. "Nya, I didn't mean—"

She held her head in her hand. "If I'm being honest, I think your relationship with Jay might be even stronger than mine, and he's supposed to be able to confide in me for anything. He didn't tell me anything, and I don't know if that's because of anything I said or did to him or if that's just because he wanted to keep some things close to his chest, but either way, we can't be expected to be perfect with everything." She met Cole's gaze. "I blame myself for this, too."

Cole blinked. "But you and Jay are like, perfect."

Nya smiled. "And you and Jay are even more so." Her smile faded. "Listen, Jay couldn't count on me for this, and it takes all I have not to remind myself of that. It's easy to look back on all the little imperfections, look back on any disagreements or miscommunications, and blame myself for everything that happened, but no one is going to have a perfect relationship with someone else. There's always going to be something, something small, that isn't quite right between you two. But Jay and I treated each other with such great love, and I have to remind myself not to dismiss that. I tried where I could. And the love you two gave each other? You were there for him. You were always there for him." Nya shifted her feet. "The circumstances were just… off. We both made mistakes. That doesn't mean all the blame falls into our laps."

Cole swallowed hard. "I should have paid more attention."

"All of us could have," Lloyd murmured. "Hindsight is 20/20. I'm his leader. I'm the leader of all of you. And I haven't been picking up on your states as much as I should have." He shook his head and sighed, then his sigh broke into a cold chuckle. "We're all screwing up, huh? Jay's gone, Zane's powered down, Pixal's off working herself to the bone, or uh, metal," he nodded to Cole and Nya respectively, "you're picking street fights, you're not sleeping, I'm not eating, and Kai is… oh, FSM, who even checked up on Kai last? He's probably doing just as terribly as the rest of us and trying to brush it off."

Cole tensed, and Lloyd once again sensed the heat of the lava pouring towards him. "You haven't been eating?"

Lloyd's heart started beating faster. "Uhhhhh."

Cole narrowed his eyes at him.

"It's an anxiety thing. I don't know how much I'll be able to keep down."

"At least try a little," Cole insisted.

Lloyd crumbled under the threat of the nearing lava. "Okay, okay, just a little."

Cole jabbed a finger at him. "I am going to make you the best peanut butter crackers you've ever had in your life and you are going to at least try them."

Lloyd decided against asking for a snack that didn't seem so childish and instead put his hands up in surrender. "Alright! But only after you're patched up."

"Fine!"

"Fine!"

Nya shook her head with a tired sigh.

Lloyd gently pulled the first aid kit from her hands. "I can take care of this. You go rest for the break."

"Are you sure I—" she started, but quickly fell silent under her the others' collective stare. She indicated her defeat with a good-natured huff. "Alright. But you better take care of yourselves, too." She gave Cole the I'm watching you gesture. "Stay off the streets and get something in your stomachs. I will be making sure that this happens."

With that, she disappeared towards the ship's sleeping quarters.

"It's a wonder Jay felt like he could get anything past her at all," Cole murmured, earning an amused snort from Lloyd.

"Come on, let's get you patched up." Lloyd led Cole into the kitchen and gestured for him to sit at one of the stools.

Cole let Lloyd get to work cleaning and bandaging the wound, stiff as a board all the while.

Lloyd tried to keep his eyes on his work, but his gaze kept drifting towards Cole's face. It was torturous, knowing his friend was in such immense pain but not quite trusting himself to guide a conversation down the right path.

No wonder they still treated him like a child leader.

Thankfully, Cole must have eventually taken Lloyd's shifting gaze as a prompt.

"It just doesn't feel right. I'm supposed to be taking time for myself and forgiving myself while he's out there, still going through… who even knows what?"

"I know." Lloyd circled the roll of bandages around Cole's bicep, careful to keep the cloth tight but not suffocating. "But looking after what's left of the team, making sure we don't all fall apart… It's preventing another big catastrophe." He cut the bandage from its roll and tied a sloppy but sturdy knot in the dressings around Cole's wound. "It'll have to do for now."