I Killed Him - Season 3 one shot - Cole goes to talk to Pixal a day or two after Zane's death.

It was another one of those quiet days. Those days when the whole world seems muted. Clouds covered the sky just enough to dampen the sun, and time seemed to slip by just quickly enough to lose track of it simply by doing nothing. I rounded the corner and glanced through the open doorway to see her sitting on the edge of a desk, staring out the window. I hadn't talked to Pixal much. She seemed like such a mysterious puzzle piece in all of this- the grieving widow in this dreary mystery novel we were all living in. There was something about her that piqued my interest. Something hard to place and impossible to explain.

I entered cautiously, my footsteps still echoing through the room regardless. This didn't seem to faze her. I moved in closer, arriving at the desk in question, her expression quite different than I had imagined. She looked blank. Her face seemed completely void, almost as if she were broken, stuck eternally staring out the window. I joined her on the desk, watching out the window with her. They were moving in the statue in preparation for tomorrow. It seemed a sort of empty gesture, seeing it from above. How small it looked. How meaningless it all seemed.

"I was wondering when you'd get here." Her expression was unchanged, her statement troublingly matter of fact.

"You've been expecting me?" I questioned. I didn't even know I was going to be here, how could she have?

"You've been roaming the halls for hours now looking for something. Something to do, someone to talk to, I'm not sure exactly what. It was only a matter of time before you bumped into me."

She turned to me, a halfhearted smile filling her eyes as I felt my soul sink. Was I this predictable? Is this what had happened to me? Had my life really deteriorated this much over just a few days?

"Everything just feels numb now," I sighed. "I can't sleep, I'm never hungry, everything I do just feels uncomfortably pointless. It's like… nothing really matters anymore."

Her eyes returned to the window in longing, my mind returning to the curiosity that had brought me here in the first place.

"What have you been thinking about?"

She remained quiet a second longer, debating the merits of speaking.

"You… you were Zane's friend."

I shifted at the mention of his name. It was strange to hear it spoken aloud again. Everyone seemed so insistent to avoid it recently. "He was my brother."

Pixal's head sunk, looking down at her hands.

"I don't think I'm going to the funeral."

My eyes turned to her, thoroughly confused. "Why not?"

I could hear her breaths deepen, her nerves getting to her as she whispered the last words I ever would have expected to leave her lips.

"…I killed him."

I was frozen for a moment trying to decipher what she possibly could have meant. She was probably the furthest removed from anything that had happened to Zane. She wasn't the one with the responsibility to save Ninjago, she wasn't on the battlefield, she was the victim of all our previous failings as a group. "What are you talking about? You didn't do anything. You-"

"The problem was his core," She stopped me. "It couldn't handle the amount of pressure it was under, and it overloaded." She paused, holding back tears as her voice became strained. "But he only had half of his core…"

My eyes glazed over as I realized. "Pixal, you don't know-"

"If he had the other half his tolerance would have been at least doubled! He could have made it! I know he would have! I've been running the numbers in my head over and over-!"

"Pixal, you can't put that on yourself. There were so many factors at play in that battle-"

"He gave me half his heart, his only chance at survival, to save me. I… I didn't deserve it. If I were gone, he'd still be here! You'd still have your brother if he had left me behind. That's what should have happened. Everyone would still be happy, and I'd be just as oblivious as ever. But it's like I've replaced him in some twisted ritual neither of us had control of." Tears spilled over her cheeks as she turned to me, a bitter desperation filling her. "What am I supposed to do with his heart? I could barely process the emotions I was having before; all I'm doing with it now is mourning him!"

"He gave you his heart for a reason."

"Why? What did I have to offer anyone, let alone him?"

I rubbed my thumb along the inside of my palm, thinking for a moment. "You loved each other."

The thought set her back, the gears in her head seeming to turn a little slower. "How can I even be sure it was ever real?"

"No, I know it was," I corrected her. "Don't even try to sell yourself short like that. It's really easy to screw up a relationship. Feelings can be pretty damn disingenuous sometimes, trust me, I know. What you two had was the furthest thing from what I've been going through."

A bit of a smile peaked onto her face as she cleared her tears. "I guess you don't agree with my perfect match analysis then?"

For the first time in a while, I felt the urge to laugh. "I think it may be missing a few key variables."

"Note taken." We both glanced at each other, a strain of levity lifting us both.

"It seemed like such a big deal not even a week ago… Is it weird that I don't even think about it anymore?"

"Don't ask me," she shrugged. "I've only been doing this emotions thing for a little over a week."

I felt a full smile take over my face as my eyes returned to the window.

"It's okay.

You're no more lost than the rest of us."