When everything had been said and done, Lloyd refused to sleep in his own room.

It wasn't like any of the others could blame him for not wanting to be left alone after everything that had happened, but they all knew that he found the most comfort in Kai and Nya and only went to the others when the Smith siblings were unavailable.

Which Jay was okay with and while a part of him wanted to be the one that others turned to, he also knew that between his periodic insomnia and his lack of motivation to clean his room after training and saving the literal city was not something that was inviting to anyone who had just been through half of what the youngest member of their team had gone through.

As the digital clock on his phone shone on his face in the pitch black of his room, telling him that it was two forty seven, the last thing he expected to hear was a sharp knock on his bedroom door.

At first, Jay contemplated ignoring it. His feet were finally warm after being under his covers for four hours, Mr. Cuddlywhomp was nestled under his arm and his eyes were just starting to close as he continued to watch yet another Vine compilation to try and battle the current bout of insomnia he was suffering from.

But the knock happened again, somehow sounding even more urgent than the last, so Jay moved Mr. Cuddlywhomp to the end of his bed, paused the YouTube video before setting his phone on the small end table and pushed his blankets off while hoping that there wasn't an attack on New Ninjago City at that exact moment.

But when he opened his bedroom door, he was admittedly a little shocked to see Lloyd in front of him, tears still fresh on his face as he looked up at Jay even though there was maybe a two inch difference between them since Lloyd had grown another three inches in the last month.

But before Jay could speak, he was immediately thrown off balance by the near tackle of a hug that he had been pulled into and he didn't hesitate to wrap his arms tightly around Lloyd, wondering if the subtle heat radiating off of the boy's skin was just from sweating through yet another nightmare or something worse but he knew that he had to focus on the task at hand.

"Lloyd, I'm right here," Jay assured him while placing a hand on the back of his head and gently ran a hand over the blonde wisps of hair, "whatever happened in your dream wasn't real. I'm safe, you're safe."

And with those words, Lloyd let go, his left hand around his right wrist and in the dim light, Jay nearly cursed at how flushed his cheeks were against his pale skin.

'He's sick. He's feverish and probably needs some sort of healing tea-'

"C-can I stay here tonight?" Lloyd's voice came out in a stutter, which made Jay stop in his racing thoughts about needing to get Misako, Wu or Kai to handle the situation that he knew was out of his element.

"Yeah, get in here." Jay insisted against his best judgment and closed the door behind him before pulling back the covers so Lloyd could easily curl up under his comforter.

When Jay got in and pulled the blanket over both of their bodies, he was a little startled when Lloyd immediately curled up against him, his hot cheek against his chest, only muttering a breathy "thanks" before falling asleep with his arms wrapped around him in a way where he couldn't grab his phone.

But at the same time, the light pressure that Lloyd's now slack arms were applying made Jay's body relax to a point where he was drifting off just as fast with a flicker of a thought of telling Kai in the morning before he was fully asleep.

…

When he awoke the next morning, the last thing he expected to hear was the sound of yelling; it wasn't some sort of battle cry, it barely even sounded like an argument. If he had a guess as to what was currently happening in the dining room of The Bounty, it was probably Cole playfully taunting Kai louder than usual.

But after managing to maneuver out of bed in a way that wouldn't wake Lloyd, Jay couldn't hold back the quiet curse as he saw that Lloyd's cheeks were just as, if not even more, flushed then the night before and now he could hear a subtle wheeze whenever he exhaled which only cause more panic to the master of lightning.

He knew that the boy's sleep schedule was practically non-existent since they had gotten him back just the week before, but he also knew when to get help from the others and the current situation was out of his wheelhouse; As a result, he didn't hesitate to go into the dining room where the rest of his team was gathered aside from Zane, who was more than likely working on breakfast in order to, at the very least, get an idea on what to do.

"Morning, sleepy-head," Nya's tone was light as she joked, making Jay's heart flutter because he still wasn't over the fact that he had lost her, "we already cleaned up breakfast but I'm sure that there's some in the fridge for you."

"The kid is in your room, right?" Kai piped up from where he was playing Uno with Cole and Nya, his voice laced with worry despite Cole putting down a draw two that would have made Kai's hand steam in any other circumstance.

"Yeah, he's still sleeping," Jay swallowed nervously, the small lichtenberg figures that adorned his hands tingling like they did whenever he was nervous or stressed, "is Sensei here? Or Misako?"

"No, they made a tea run together," Cole explained and Jay couldn't help but mutter "shit" under his breath, which perked the attention of the Smith siblings as Cole abandoned his cards to put his ghostly, cold palm on Jay's shoulder before asking, "what's going on?"

"Lloyd's sick. He's been running a fever since last night and now he's wheezing."

"Damnit, Jay!," Kai swore as he slammed his Uno cards face down on the table while getting up, flames dancing in his eyes while he approached, "why didn't you tell us until now?!"

"Because he needed sleep!" Jay shouted back, knowing fully well that Kai wasn't really that angry and more so stressed, which was evident when he deflated slightly in understanding of his thought process.

"Well, after that," Nya spoke as she stood, her hand gravitating to her older brother's shoulder, "he probably is awake now, so you two should go check on him," Kai nodded and started walking toward Jay's room, Jay following closely behind while hearing Nya say to Cole, "we should keep working on my elemental dragon." before he was too far away to hear her speak.

Sure enough, when Kai opened the door to Jay's bedroom and turned on the light, Lloyd was sitting on the edge of the bed and rubbing at one of his eyes, asking "what time is it?" with a yawn.

But while to anyone else, the boy seemed normal aside from his skin being a shade too pale, Jay could still see the flush across his cheeks and the red, wateriness of his eyes that was a large indication of the boy's sickness.

Sure enough, he wasn't the only one who saw the obvious signs of sickness since Kai hadn't spoken at all since entering and placed a hand on Lloyd's forehead before making eye contact with him, "how long have you been sick? And don't try to downplay it, I'll know."

Lloyd was slow to respond but when he did, Jay could tell that he was being truly honest and he couldn't help but wonder if it was due to the fact it was Kai asking and not any of the others.

"Last night. I came in here because I…," the boy didn't even finish his sentence, the water in his eyes starting to inch down his cheeks while his shoulders shuddered, to which Jay couldn't stop himself from pulling him into a hug before Kai could get to him.

"Hey, we just wanna help you feel better," Jay insisted, watching Kai's expression form into some sort of guilt from over Lloyd's shoulder, "you don't have to talk about it if you don't want to, okay?"

To his surprise, the boy nodded and squeezed onto him harder, seemingly using all of his natural strength to hold onto him, pressing his face harder against Jay's shoulder.

"We've got you," Jay insisted, rubbing Lloyd's back to slowly coax him away from his shoulder so he could act, but it took at least five minutes for green eyes to meet his own, "I'm gonna go get a thermometer and talk to Zane, see what he thinks we should do until your mom and uncle get back."

"C-can I stay here?" Lloyd stuttered followed by a deep, chesty cough as he no longer looked at Jay and looked at his palms instead.

"Of course," Jay insisted, running a hand over Lloyd's forehead to move his blonde wisps of hair out of his eyes and hiding his wince of sympathy when he felt the heat radiating from his body that he knew had to be uncomfortable for him, "do you need anything from your room?"

But before Lloyd could respond, Jay felt Kai's warm palm on his shoulder as he butted in, "I've got that handled," before his voice was redirected to Lloyd, "you rest," and with that, Jay was all but pulled off of the bed and forced out of the room, Kai finally letting go once the door was firmly shut, ""you don't have to talk about it?" You know that Lloyd bottles things up-"

"Of course I know that, you aren't the only one who helped raise the runt! I'm not gonna pressure him to talk when he's miserable!"

"That's not what I'm saying to do, but you can't just encourage him to keep it to himself either!"

"Oh FSM, you two!" Cole shouted from the hall, putting his hands on both of their chests to keep them from getting in each other's faces, "Stop it! Lloyd's sick, not deaf. He can hear both of you fighting," Jay stepped away, taking a deep breath to try and regulate his racing heart as Cole continued to speak, "Kai, you should call Sensei and Misako, let them know what's going on."

"Fine." Kai scowled as he walked away which had Jay trying to swallow his nerves away, but Cole's quick turn from Kai to him forced his attention away from Kai's anger.

"Look, I can't really be in there, not with how jumpy he is around me when he isn't sick," the unspoken words "because I'm a ghost" didn't have to be said, "I'll do what I can to cool Kai down, but you're kinda the head ninja on this, at least until Sensei gets back."

"I know." Jay nodded, trying to remember how exactly to take care of a sick person.

After all, he seemed to be the one who ended up sick the most, or would at least be the only one to admit to it, so he tended to be on the receiving end of the care from the others.

"Alright, I'm gonna go find a thermometer, that's gonna help with knowing how to lower his fever," Jay started to explain to Cole, "and if it's something viral, I'll keep watching him since I've been exposed the most, but we still need a few ninja in commission between criminals and Nya's training."

"Yeah, that makes sense," Cole agreed with a nod, "I'll go see if Zane is starting on some chicken noodle soup and get Kai calmed down."

And with that, Cole went towards the bridge, leaving Jay to start searching for the thermometer.

…

After getting Lloyd into the most peaceful sleep possible, now that Sensei and Misako were back and had gotten him to not only drink the tea but also had started to get his one hundred and three fever down, Jay knew he had to talk to Kai.

'I can only use Lloyd as an excuse to avoid him for so long.' Jay thought to himself as he started to search The Bounty in order to find the master of fire. He knew that he wasn't in his room since the door was open and the lights were off, so he made his way to the deck while peeking his head into rooms the entire way.

Sure enough, Kai was above deck and sparring with Nya; Jay watched as their movements mirrored each other in awe. Nya was able to evaporate every blast of fire that Kai tried to throw at her, but he was an expert at dodging her attempts of hitting him with water.

But, as they continued to fight, Jay wasn't surprised when Kai kicked Nya's legs out from under him but also that the marks on his hands were starting to tingle when the Smith siblings turned to him.

Nya spoke first, her hands resting by her side and her brow dripping with sweat from the training as she asked, "how is he?"

"He's sleeping, Sensei's with him," Jay explained, pushing back the thoughts of ending up with Nya that had plagued him after seeing the reflection in the First Spinjitzu Master's tomb, "but last I heard, his fever is starting to go down."

"Good," Nya said with a sigh of relief while wiping her sweat on the sleeve of her red and cyan gi, but before she disappeared to more than likely clean up, she turned back to her brother with a grin as she spoke with a giggle laced within her voice, "I'm beating you next time."

"Yeah, we'll see about that," Kai responded, but before he could go, Jay reached his hand out in front of his chest, stopping the fire ninja in his tracks as his tone switched from playful to anger, "what?"

"He's going to be okay, but I don't think you're actually that mad at me," Jay insisted, to which Kai turned around so his back was facing him, forcing Jay to take a breath in order to avoid blowing up before continuing, "I know you promised him that you'd look after him. I heard you say it."

Kai whipped back around, but instead of anger, his face was contorted with guilt instead, "you got it. I said I'd look after him, and the same day, he got possessed," he sat down on the deck with his defenses fully down, which allowed Jay to approach, "so much for a protector."

"Kai, you can't…you shouldn't blame yourself," Jay said, putting his hand on Kai's tense shoulder, "yes, you made Lloyd a promise and yeah, we couldn't protect him from Morro. But you know all that stuff Sensei says about not being able to change the past but affecting the future?" He waited for the nod before adding, "you're going to feel guilty for a while about it and that's something that I can't get rid of for you, no matter how much I want to."

"What exactly are you saying, Jay?" Kai demanded, his lack of patience for the resolution shining through.

"Until you're able to forgive yourself, you should keep doing what you said you would do, what we all said we would do the moment we let him in, which is to protect him."

Kai stayed silent, processing everything that had come out of Jay mouth, and while the master of lightning could have sworn he saw a single tear trickle down Kai's face, it was masked by a soft laugh while he questioned, "even if he protests with his "I'm not a little kid any more" spiel?"

"Oh, especially if he does that!" Jay insisted while standing before offering his hand to Kai, who took it which allowed him to pull himself up, "even if it's just because it's funny to see the look on his face when we keep doing it!"

…

Three days later, Lloyd had already gotten through the worst of what had plagued him and while that was good for Jay now that he had his bed back, now they had a slightly bigger issue which was that the fever had been replaced with stubbornness.

"Lloyd, just go lay down," Cole insisted as they started to suit up, having been called into New Ninjago City, "if you go before you're better, you could get worse."

"But I want to help!" Lloyd shot back, his arms crossed over his gi that he had all but ripped out of Zane's hands when the alert had gone off while he was doing laundry.

"It's just a couple of standard criminals, Lloyd," Nya insisted, "I mean, I'm going and I just unlocked my true potential. That's how low the threat is."

"Then I can help!"

"Not that low risk, kid," Kai insisted, "you're staying here with Sensei. That's just how it goes."

Jay couldn't help but feel bad for Lloyd who was practically pouting on the deck; after all, Lloyd had just gone through hell and then he had gotten sick and now that he thought about it, he couldn't remember the last mission Lloyd had been on aside from Stixx.

And in a moment of impulsivity, Jay knew what he had to do; pull out his fake cough and hope that it was bought by the others.

"Why don't you guys go ahead?" He suggested, coughing into his elbow, "I think I'm catching what Lloyd had."

Despite Kai's raised eyebrow, the others seemed content with believing Jay and agreed, flying off into the city with a few "feel better"s, leaving the two of them on the deck only for Jay to be greeted by Lloyd's crossed arms.

"Why did you lie?"

"Because I didn't want you to be lonely," Jay shrugged, watching as Lloyd's face morphed from questioning to a grateful smile, "now come on, I'm gonna teach you how Cole cheats at Uno."