Lloyd follows the sound of voices to the living room, where Gayle Gossip has plopped herself on the couch in front of the TV. She's talking to Vinny the camera guy quickly and quietly, giving him instructions of some kind, Lloyd's pretty sure. He doesn't really care. Instead, he focuses on Kai and Cole.

Kai is fixing his hair, prodding at it while looking at his reflection in the turned-off TV screen, saying in a loud voice, "We've got to get looking just right, you know! Your image is worth a thousand words, or something like that, yeah. So thanks for helping with this, Cole!"

"Sure," Cole says, playing along and clearly playing for time with the way his eyes dart about. "Sure thing. I know-"

"Hey," Lloyd says, coming up to them. "You both good?"

"We're both great!" Kai says immediately, but the way he looks to Cole says he's at least a little concerned and uncomfortable, if only for the benefit of another.

"Great," Cole repeats, eyeing something over Lloyd's shoulder.

Lloyd turns, and, well, it's not something, but it's someone. Gayle Gossip has her hands on her hips and is staring at them.

Lloyd has faced down snakes and stone warriors, cultists and bikers, and pirates and ghosts, just to name a few, not to mention his own father on multiple unfortunate occasions. And even with all that, he's not sure he's ever felt more afraid than he does now, under the close examination of a nosy news reporter who won't take no for an answer.

Well.

That's an exaggeration, he knows. A hyperbowl, or hyperbole, or whatever it is Zane calls them. Still. Lloyd's definitely afraid.

"Let's get started," Gayle Gossip says decisively. "Kai, Cole, if you would?"

"We would," Kai says cheerily, heading for the couch and pulling Cole along behind him.

Cole lets Kai do so, even though all of them except maybe Gayle Gossip and Vinny know that Cole is more than strong enough to stop Kai in his tracks.

Kai sits down right in the middle of the couch, next to Gayle Gossip. He tugs Cole to sit beside him on the side where Gayle Gossip is not sitting.

Lloyd smiles despite himself. Kai's put himself on the defensive.

"So, what's up?" Kai says, a breeze in his voice and a smirk on his face.

"Kai, you're the ninja of fire. Red is your color, and the heat is your element," Gayle Gossip says, looking to the camera Vinny has pointed in her direction.

"Well, fire's my element, really," Kai says. "The heat is a nice part of it, though."

"Fire's not all that's heated with you, though, is it?" Gayle Gossip says, putting emphasis on every other word.

Kai blinks at her. "Is it?"

"Your lifestyle tends to get pretty heated too," Gayle Gossip says.

"Oh, yeah," Kai says. "I mean, I've been told I've got a bit of a temper, just one bit-"

"One bit," Cole repeats, a small smile appearing on his face. "If by one you mean a billion and one, really."

Kai shoves Cole's shoulder. "Okay, okay, it's a lot, sometimes. But hey, it comes in handy. I get on fire in battle, and getting angry means I get my hits out that little bit stronger and faster."

"Because you definitely need to do them stronger and faster," Cole teases.

"Are you saying I'm slow and weak?" Kai accuses playfully.

Cole shrugs. "I mean, in comparison to me? Yeah, a lot. In comparison to, say, a snail? Not that much. You're practically a snail yourself."

"Cole!" Kai says, offended. "I'm not a snail! Say I'm not a snail!"

"Oh, of course not," Cole says.

Kai nods in satisfaction.

"You're actually a slug," Cole says. "A slug that's on fire."

Kai cackles.

"Fascinating," Gayle Gossip says.

Lloyd jumps back a step. He'd almost forgotten she was there, with how Kai and Cole were bantering.

"While your temper is a factor in your life, I'm sure, Kai, I was actually talking about something a little different," Gayle Gossip says, wiggling her eyebrows at the camera. "I refer to, of course, the red ninja's romantic life."

Kai pauses mid-cackle. "What?"

"Oh, this'll be good," Cole says.

"Kai, I've heard of quite a few, shall we say, interests of yours," Gayle Gossip says. "More than one might expect. But one in particular has captivated our audience. I'm speaking of the well-known and generally-well-thought-of Master of Amber, Skylor Chen herself. Your immediate thoughts, Kai?"

Kai's shoulders rise up towards the ceiling, and he does a pretty good imitation of a fish out of water, his mouth popping open and shut as he looks around nervously. "Uh-"

"Yeah, your thoughts, Kai," Cole says, shooting an amused glance toward Lloyd.

Lloyd stifles a laugh. Kai thinks he's smooth, charming, flirty, all of that. But really, whenever something romance-y comes up, Kai gets awkward as all get out. Cole was right; this'll be good.

"I mean? Skylor? She's? Skylor?" Kai says, like every word is its own question.

"Yes, Skylor," Gayle Gossip says.

"Um, she's nice? She gives us free meals at the noodle shop sometimes? And she's funny, and she's really good with her powers, and she did a great job helping Lloyd and Nya and everyone out while the Sons of Garmadon were taking over, and she-" Kai says, getting a little more comfortable as he starts talking.

"That's all well and good, but what are your thoughts on her villainous origins?" Gayle Gossip asks, interrupting him.

Kai blinks at her again. "What?"

"From her early years, Skylor began as a pawn of her father, the infamous villain Master Chen, who tried to take over Ninjago," Gayle Gossip says crisply, as if there's a way any of them would have forgotten that.

"Of course she did," Kai said earnestly. "And it was really hard for her, getting out from under his thumb and making her own way. But she did it! And she did it really well. She saved us, and Ninjago, and she's done it again since then, too, and-"

"Would you say her story with her parental figure works as a contrast and comparison to your own?" Gayle Gossip asks.

Kai frowns for a long moment.

Gayle Gossip continues when nobody says anything. "Your parents left you at an early age, and you were forced to make your own way. However, their lack of involvement didn't seem to stop you from becoming a hero."

"That wasn't their fault!" Kai objects. "They had to leave!"

"And you had to grow up alone," Gayle Gossip says.

"Not really. I had Nya," Kai says, squirming.

"Did you have her? Or did Nya have you? You were the older of two children, after all. You must have taken on so many responsibilities," Gayle Gossip says. "Your life must have revolved around her, around her care, around keeping her fed and clean and dry and warm. Did you ever have any time for yourself? Did you ever blame her?"

Kai's mouth hangs open.

Lloyd's mouth is doing the same.

"It's little wonder that you're often agitated and interested in romance, trying to find the love you never felt before, due to your unfortunate childhood," Gayle Gossip says, and she leans in close. "Tell us how you got through it to become the ninja you are today. Tell us about what your childhood was like."

"It was all twisted up."

That's not Kai's voice. Lloyd frowns. That's…

Cole continues. "I mean, I can't speak for Kai, I know he's got his own story, but my childhood was something else entirely."

Gayle Gossip frowns, looking between Kai and Cole.

Before she can get a word in, though, Cole keeps talking, saying, "I mean, my dad? Lou of the Royal Blacksmiths? You know the Royal Blacksmiths, right? Everybody knows the Royal Blacksmiths. They're great, a great group, and growing up around them was quite the experience. It just wasn't always a great experience."

Gayle Gossip leans back a little, thoughtfully, like she's catching onto something. She motions for Cole to go on.

"I love my dad, and I love the other Royal Blacksmiths, and I love music and interactions at shows and all the things that go with it all," Cole says. "I loved that part of my life. But that wasn't the only part of my life."

"Do tell," Gayle Gossip says.

"Well, I was expected to become a music kind of man myself," Cole says. "Singing, dancing, the whole thing. But I wasn't good at it. Not in the way I needed to be."

"No," Gayle Gossip says, drawing the word out. "You?"

"Yeah. Me," Cole says. "I was okay, I guess. But I needed to be great, like my dad. So I pushed myself, and he pushed me too. It seemed like the right thing to do for both of us. But it strained us. It strained him, it strained me, it strained our relationship. Eventually, we didn't know what to do, not with each other, and not with our music. I started not liking music that much, then really disliking it, then completely hating it. I hated it all, and given I was going to a music school, that really wasn't working out. And then…"

"What happened then?" Gayle Gossip asks, seemingly completely fascinated.

Lloyd's fascinated too. He knows Cole's story, but Lloyd doesn't think he's ever heard Cole talk about it this voluntarily for this long. Something pings like a danger signal in the back of Lloyd's head.

Oh.

It's because it's not really voluntary. It's forced. It's for Kai's sake.

"Then?" Cole says, raising his eyebrows with emphasis. "I ran away."

"You ran away," Gayle Gossip gasps, leaning in toward Cole.

"I went and I climbed mountains, and that's where I met Wu and started on my way toward becoming a ninja," Cole says.

Gayle Gossip nods slowly. "Mountains, because you're the Master of Earth."

"You got it," Cole says easily.

"Like your mother before you," Gayle Gossip says.

"Yeah," Cole says, a lot less easily.

"Lilly, correct? That was her name?" Gayle Gossip says, leaning in further. "She was the Master of Earth for quite a while, and there's a lot about her time as an elemental master that we don't know about."

Cole shrugs uncomfortably.

"She was very powerful, as I've heard. There are rumors of things she figured out how to do, things that few had done before. Of course, all that power was only useful against the things outside of her, and, as our viewers may or may not know, it was a sickness that took her down from the inside in the end. But that was years ago, and you would know more than many of us. What can you tell us about your mother?" Gayle Gossip presses.

Cole's eyes are so wide that his eyebrows, even as bushy as they are, have disappeared into his hair.

"I could tell you about my mother?" Kai butts in hopefully. "Maya, she was the Master of Water before Nya, and my mom is-"

"That's great," Gayle Gossip says dismissively, not even glancing at Kai despite the fact she's leaning so far toward Cole that she's basically all the way into Kai's lap. "Cole, what can you tell us?"

Cole shrinks back into the couch like he's trying to disappear into it.

"What secrets and surprises are hiding here?" Gayle Gossip muses.

"I know a few secrets," Lloyd says.

Gayle Gossip swivels to Lloyd like she's shocked. Lloyd's a little shocked himself, to be honest. He didn't think before he said anything. He didn't even really try to say anything at all.

"You know a few secrets about this?" Gayle Gossip asks.

Lloyd nods.

Kai frowns.

Cole closes his eyes and covers his face with both hands.

"You know a few secrets about Lilly?" Gayle Gossip says.

"No," Lloyd admits, a plan starting to come together in his mind. "But I know a few secrets about what's hiding here, if by 'here' you mean the Monastery. There's actually a lot of really cool things that most people would never know are here. I can let you see them."

Gayle Gossip pauses, her eyes going back and forth between Cole and Lloyd slowly, trying to decide. It seems hard for her.

Lloyd will have to make it easier for her, then, even if it means making it harder on himself. "There's even some things here that have been around longer than I have, a lot longer. I can show you and your viewers, and tell you all about them. Some of them date back to when my uncle and dad were living here. You know, Wu and Garmadon?"

And that's the magic word.

Gayle Gossip straightens up, leaning away from Cole and away from Kai, and she stands up, motioning to Vinny and his camera. "Lead the way."

Lloyd forces himself to look away from Kai and Cole. "We'll go this way."

He starts off in a random direction. His plan is still coming together, after all, and he doesn't know exactly what he's doing. He doesn't even know what he's going to show Gayle Gossip, or what he's allowed to show her, or what he wants to show her.

All he knows is that he's not going to let her talk to his brothers in that way, the way that made them squirm and shrug and seem so hurt. All he knows is that he needs to help them, and this is the only way he knows he can do it.

AN: Every comment is a moment of reprieve for the ninja! And also a reminder for me to keep writing!