AN: So… It's been a bit. Oh well! Enjoy!
As Nya clears papers and tools off of several work benches to make places to sit, Gayle Gossip peers intently at those same papers and tools that Nya is yanking away. Jay bounces nervously around them and over to Lloyd and back to them and over to Lloyd, fiddling with what looks like an adjustable wrench.
"You're making me dizzy," Lloyd says, half-teasing, half-honest, when Jay nears him again.
Jay shrugs, a jerky, uneven motion. "Sorry, I'm just so nervous."
"Join the club," Lloyd says.
Jay sputters an awkward laugh. "What, join the club? I can't! When it comes to being nervous, I invented the club!"
"Okay, true," Lloyd says.
"All ready," Nya calls over to them. She's perched sideways on one of the workbenches, taking up the entire bench. Gayle Gossip is hovering near her, really near her, basically on top of her, but Nya pays her no mind.
"I suppose I'll sit here," Gayle Gossip says after a long moment of hovering, and she sits on the next nearest workbench.
Nya flashes Jay and Lloyd a grin as they both come over toward her.
Jay pauses when he reaches the workbenches, shifting his weight back and forth between his feet
"Here," Nya says, already knowing exactly what's happening, and she swings herself around to sit upright so that there's room on the bench for another person to sit there.
Before Gayle Gossip can do more than sit up straighter in protest, clearly wondering why Jay gets to sit there and she doesn't, Jay plops down gratefully on the workbench beside Nya.
With them taken care of for the moment, Lloyd takes a few steps backward away and to the side, over behind Vinny, who's facing the two occupied workbenches with his camera.
"All right, rolling in three, two, one," Vinny says.
"I'm here with Jay and Nya, the ninja of lightning and the ninja of water respectively," Gayle Gossip says.
Jay and Nya each give a little wave, Nya smiling mostly confidently, Jay smiling very nervously.
"Now, Jay has been a ninja since the formation of the ninja team, but Nya, your path to being a ninja has been a little more… Complex, if we can say it that way?" Gayle Gossip says.
"You could say it that way," Nya says easily. "I started off as a non-ninja, more of a support personnel figure, but I've always been too much of a fighter to stay on the sidelines. Of course, I didn't get to start as a ninja, though."
"You were Samurai X first," Gayle Gossip says.
Nya nods. "Yes, that's where it started. I wanted to be as involved as I could be, and over time, that changed from being a samurai to being a ninja."
"That's not the only thing that changed over time," Gayle Gossip observes with a sly look on her face.
And just as Nya and Jay were starting to relax a little into the interview, they tense up, shifting in their spots with nerves. Lloyd tenses up too. He doesn't know what Gayle Gossip has in mind, but it can't be good, can it?
"For example, your relationships," Gayle Gossip says with an intense look in her eyes. "Primarily, a certain love triangle comes to mind."
Nya starts to laugh.
At the same time, Jay groans. He shakes his head, but it's good-natured. "Man, are we ever going to be allowed to get past that?"
"It was so pointless," Nya says.
"Kind of funny, too," Jay says, and this time he laughs a little too. "Like, it seemed like a big thing when it started, didn't it?"
"It felt so important. But we were in the middle of what was practically an apocalypse, and we were fighting about romance!" Nya exclaims, throwing her hands out in front of her.
Gayle Gossip looks confused and a little annoyed, oddly enough, but Jay and Nya continue speaking.
"Oh, I'm in love with Jay, but some random automated machine says I need to be in love with Cole, so that's something I just have to consider!" Nya says, using a goofy, exaggerated, dramatic voice.
"And I apparently don't trust you enough to make your own decisions or keep your own promises!" Jay adds in an equally exaggerated voice. "And I don't trust Cole to do those things either! And it absolutely has nothing to do with the fights we're actually fighting, but we really need to fight each other!"
Nya laughs again. "It was ridiculous. You know what? I've got a theory about that match-making machine. It was conspicuously located over the place where the Overlord exploded, and then he returned in that same place around the same time in the form of a computer virus."
"Oh yeah, I love this theory," Jay says. "The Overlord was trying to break us apart."
"And you know, he did," Nya says thoughtfully. "Not in that way, though, and not immediately. But we came back together."
"You seem strangely comfortable talking about this," Gayle Gossip says.
Nya shrugs. "I guess? We're past all of it now."
"So far past it that you've promised to be Yin and Yang," Gayle Gossip says.
Jay and Nya shift in their spots again, but this time, it's out of excitement, Lloyd knows.
"Yeah," Jay says. "It's… It's a lot, but it's a good thing."
"A very good thing," Nya agrees.
"When you were younger, was this how you pictured your life and your commitments in the future?" Gayle Gossip asks.
Jay shrugs. "I guess not."
Nya shakes her head. "Me neither, not really."
"Why not?" Gayle Gossip asks.
Nya pauses. Apparently she pauses a little too long.
Gayle Gossip makes a hand signal, and Vinny adjusts the camera more toward Nya.
"I know why not," Jay says, jumping in verbally and physically, leaning in front of Nya so that she's at least mostly blocked from the camera. He keeps speaking, words getting faster and voice pitching up slightly. "I mean, becoming a ninja? Having elemental powers, like the ones in kiddie stories? Gaining a bunch of wonderful best friends who are basically siblings, and gaining an absolutely incredible Yang? It's way better than a junkyard kid could've ever expected!"
Gayle Gossip hums dismissively. "Right, right. And how about you, Nya?"
Nya shifts uncomfortably in her seat. "Well…"
"Nya was just agreeing with me to be polite. She's too modest to say that she expected everything to turn out great for her, because she deserves everything great, even though that's totally true," Jay says loudly.
"I don't think that's why she agreed," Gayle Gossip says. "Nya, why didn't you picture this when you were younger? Why is this not the way you thought your life would turn out?"
Nya's still shifting and hesitating.
Gayle Gossip leans in closer, clearly about to prod further, and Lloyd is just about to end the interview, desperately thinking of a good way to do so, when Jay grabs Nya's hand.
Nya looks down at her hand clasped in his hand, then looks up at Jay.
Jay gives her a smile, a solid and encouraging one, nothing like the nervous smile he was giving Gayle Gossip at the beginning of the interview.
Nya looks over at Lloyd.
Lloyd gives her an encouraging smile too. He nods, then shakes his head, then nods again, trying to say that she can answer or not, it's up to her.
Nya hesitates a moment longer.
Lloyd starts to step forward, to cut Gayle Gossip off and direct Vinny's camerawork somewhere else.
That's when Nya nods back to him and looks at Gayle Gossip. "It's hard to talk about."
Gayle Gossip's eyebrows go up in a polished and insincere version of surprise. "Oh?"
"When I was younger, I wasn't sure what the future would hold," Nya says slowly. "My life wasn't exactly easy. Kai and I had to work hard. We took care of each other, but we weren't sure how long we would be able to do it for. Eventually, as we grew up more, we got a little more hopeful, but it wasn't for sure that the future would be anywhere near good until… Well, when I got kidnapped by Lord Garmadon and Kai joined up with Wu to rescue me. Once we were together with Wu and Jay and Cole and Zane, and then a little later with Lloyd, we knew what we were doing. We knew where we were going. And sure, we weren't sure about everything, we've never been sure about everything, but that's life, isn't it? We knew once we joined the ninja that we had a family outside of each other, a support network, and a place for everything we would ever need. And now we all have each other, and the future isn't what I pictured, but I can't picture any better life than the one I'm living now."
Jay tugs Nya's hand closer to him as she takes a deep breath. She looks a little spent and a lot satisfied.
"So in a way, Lord Garmadon led to all this for you," Gayle Gossip muses.
Jay's eyebrows go shooting up, and his surprise is completely sincere, unlike Gayle Gossip's. "Wait, that's what you're taking from all that? Seriously?"
"And along that line of thought, you mentioned Lloyd came along a little later to the ninja group," Gayle Gossip continues, completely ignoring Jay's sputtered questioning. "Tell me more about that part of your story."
Nya levels a cool stare at Gayle Gossip. "Yeah, that's not my story to tell."
"And you know, there are plenty of other stories here," Jay adds. "I don't think you've really interviewed everybody yet, have you? I mean, I haven't seen you with Zane and Pixal yet, I don't think."
"I spent some time with them this morning," Gayle Gossip says briskly. "And I_"
"But was it enough time? They're nindroids, they're great, they've got plenty of stories to tell, with statistics to back those stories up usually too," Jay says. "You asked Nya some about being Samurai X, did you get Pixal's side of that story?"
Gaye Gossip pauses. "I admit, I didn't get-"
"Awesome! Let's get on with talking to them, then, 'cause you've only got today for interviewing, and time is ticking, so let's get moving!" Jay says loudly, all in a rush, as he stands and starts pulling Nya out of the room by the hand, grabbing Lloyd's hand as they pass him by and pulling Lloyd along too.
Lloyd squeezes Jay's hand gratefully.
Jay doesn't look back, still chattering away about making the most of the day as Gayle Gossip and Vinny follow them, but he squeezes Lloyd's hand right back.
