Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

He was going to do it. He was going to ask her.

She broke up with him, she did, they made it known.

But first master is this embarrassing.

“So Nya.” Cole said, playing with the girl's hair as she lay in his lap scrolling on her phone.

“Yeah?” She replied.

“You and Jay broke up a bit ago, right?” He asked, his face flushed and his palms getting sweaty as he finished the girl’s braid.

“Uhm, yeah, why?” She asked, confused.

Cole took a deep breath.

“Do you think that he’s over you?” He finally asked.

Nya paused her scrolling.

She set her phone down next to her and sat up. She looked Cole dead in his eyes.

“You're in love with him.” She said.

Cole felt his whole face burn. “What?!”

Nya smiled devilishly. “You are, aren't you?” She grinned widely. “Ohh 私はそれを知っていた! (I knew it!) You are soooo in love with him, and you’re asking me for advice to get him!”

“Wha-” Cole backed away slightly. “How did you know??”

“Oh please, you’re soooo obvious.‘ Nya scoffed. “I knew about your crush on Kai, I just never said anything about it.”

Cole didn’t think his face could feel any warmer, but it did in that second. He shoved his face in his hands and groaned.

“Aww, Cole hon, don’t be embarrassed.” Nya patted his head. “I’ll help you get with Jay. In fact it’ll be super easy. Just tell him how obnoxiously in love with him you are. Trust me.”

“I’m not!-” Cole got up and started to defend himself, but Nya was right. She always is. “Ughhhh.”

“You know. Maybe you could help me and Kai with our own relationship problems, involving two certain robots.” Nya said.

“You're in love with Pixal?” Cole asked, dumbfounded. He knew that Kai had a huge crush on Zane, the two were best friends and they told each other everything. But he couldn’t have expected this.

“Yep.” Nya said without any shame. “And you didn’t find out, because unlike you, I know how to be subtle.”

“But.” Nya sat up and brought Cole up with her. “That isn’t the problem right now. I need to get you your new boyfriend.”

Chapter Text

Harumi slammed the hammer down on the nail for about the fifth time. Harumi didn’t know much about “building stuff” but she didn’t think it’d take this long to hammer in a single nail.

Just as she was about to hit the nail one more time, some of her hair got in the way. She scoffed and flicked it away, annoyed by how long it was, but at the same time she didn’t want it cut.

Nya has her hair up all the time right?

Harumi looked around and saw Nya talking to Jay. Maybe she’ll have a spare hair tie.

“Nya!” She called out. Nya paused her conversation and looked at Harumi. The slight smile that was on her face when she talked to her boyfriend vanished immediately and she glared at Harumi. Even Jay looked angry at her.

“What do you want?” She asked, irritated.

Harumi stopped herself from rolling her eyes and asked her a question. “Do you have any spare hair ties?”

Nya didn’t respond, but she did walk over to Harumi and gave her a single hair tie before going back to Jay without saying a word.

Harumi didn’t blame Nya for not being polite to her of course, but she’d be lying if she said she wasn’t a bit ticked off.

Harumi hadn’t done anything remotely bad from the moment she set foot on these cursed monastery grounds to help rebuild it so she didn’t rot in prison for the rest of her life, and she wasn’t going to do anything bad either. She wanted to be better.

However, from what she’d seen and heard, the ninja were like older siblings to Lloyd, and Harumi had treated him like a pile of shit, so she wasn’t mad that Nya was cautious around her.

She hoped that Nya and the other ninja never had to feel that way around her again.

Because she wanted to stay the hell away from them after this.

Not that Harumi hated the ninja like she used to, she just didn’t want to see them. Like, ever again. Besides, the feeling was most likely mutual.

“Harumi?”

First Master.

Harumi turned around and saw Lloyd and immediately felt a wave of guilt and irritation.
“Yes?” She asked, trying and probably failing at sounding nice.

“Could you hand me that box of nails?” He asked, pointing behind her. Harumi handed him the box of nails and cringed when she saw him open his mouth to say something, but then closed it.

“Thanks.” He said after he had turned away.

“Mhm.” She replied, hoping Lloyd would leave so she didn’t have to feel all this awkwardness and guilt.

“So,” Master help me. “What’s your sentence? I talked to the Commissioner, so it shouldn’t be all too bad.”

Harumi felt an all too familiar pang of guilt. After all she’d done, the person she’d abused would try to help her at least a bit. Of course he would. He’s Lloyd fucking Garmadon.

“Community service for three years, and prison for two.” She said, “He offered to let me go on house arrest, but I don’t know where I'd stay, so I turned him down.”

“You could always-”

“I don’t deserve to stay at the Monastery with you, Lloyd.” She cut him off. “And don’t suggest the Bounty either, no one wants me to stay in either of those places. Not me, not the ninja, and not Wu. Trust me.”

Harumi finally got to fully hammer the nail in.

Lloyd sighed. “Do you,” Don’t say it, don’t say it, don’t say it- “Do you, you know, like me?”

Harumi sighed. “No Lloyd. I don’t. I never did, and that’s why I’m a terrible person.” She looked at his sad face and regretted the way she had phrased things. “Listen. I don’t love you, and frankly you shouldn’t love me. I did some really shitty things to you, and I don’t deserve to be your girlfriend or whatever. The question is though, do you still love me?”

Lloyd looked somewhere between the verge of tears, and a panic attack, but he answered.

“I don’t think so.” He said finally. “I feel like I might still kinda love the you you pretended to be, but, no. No I don’t. And if I did,” Lloyd looked to the side at a tall man with scruffy black hair giving some wooden planks to two women, one with flaming red hair tied in a ponytail, and one with bright gold hair tied in a messy bun. The one with scruffy black hair looked back at Lloyd and smiled so brightly it could only be rivaled by the sun, and he waved. Lloyd waved back, with a lovesick expression he couldn’t hide from anyone. “I’ve got help.”

Harumi held back a sigh of relief. “Good. That’s really good.”
Lloyd looked back at her. “Can we, can we be friends?” He asked, eyes full of fear and hope.

Harumi wanted to kick herself. How could he have hurt him so much? How could she have enjoyed it? If Harumi could go back in time she’d yell at herself until younger her decided not to be a petty asshole.

“No.” She said, no matter how much she wanted to say yes. “No, I don’t think we can, at least not yet. I have to work on myself first.”

Lloyd looked at the floor. “Okay. Yeah, that’s probably best for both of us.” He looked at her and smiled. Despite everything, Harumi smiled back. She didn’t know if she could make up for everything she did, especially to Lloyd personally, but she would try.

“Harumi?” A deep voice called her name from behind. She turned around and saw the Commissioner.

“What is it Commish?” She asked, “Here to remind me how lucky I am that you're not locking me away for life?”

“You are! But no, that’s not why I’m here.” He said as Harumi walked over. “I’ve got a volunteer for you to go on house arrest.” He said.

“What-” Harumi said, just as someone walked up next to him.

It was a woman probably only a bit shorter than Harumi, she was slightly tubby, with a dark pink vest over a white shirt and blue jeans. She had bright pink dyed hair, with light brown roots still showing, that contrasted her lightly tanned skin. Her pink circle framed glasses made her bright blue eyes stand out as she stared excitedly at Harumi.

She quickly came over to Harumi, grabbing her hands. “Hi Harumi! I’m Sally! Me and the Commish decided to let you stay with me for house arrest in exchange for five years of community service with low pay after three years. I’m so excited to have you stay with me!”

Harumi scoffed and pulled her hands away. She was about to ask why some rando off the street would be excited to live with a huge criminal when she heard Lloyd speak again.

“Sally!?” He said. Sally averted her gaze behind Harumi towards Lloyd.

“Hi Lloyd!” She went to him and gave him a probably suffocating hug.

The two apparently long time friends talked and Harumi watched. I guess the universe just hates me. She thought bitterly. Of course the person I have to live with is best friends with Lloyd, and Lloyd’s boyfriend.

Eventually Lloyd walked over to Brad, and Sally came back to Harumi.

“Can I ask why you're so excited to live with a criminal?” Harumi asked.

“Well, I lived with my friends Brad and Gene for a while, but then Gene moved away to go to college, and now Brad is preparing to move into the new monastery with Lloyd, who is actually his boyfriend, so it’s gonna be pretty lonely.” Sally said. She spoke way too fast for Harumi’s liking.

“Well, that doesn’t explain why you’d want to have me as a roommate.”

Chapter Text

We just wanted to be together. Did it have to be this hard? We just wanted to be happy.

But we can never catch a break.
____________

“Nya?”

Nya opened her eyes sleepily. She saw Jay standing in front of her.

Nya went to take a nap on the couch a while ago, it looked dark outside.

“How long was I asleep for?” Nya asked, rubbing her eyes while getting up.

She had put ocean sounds on her phone to help her sleep. The video was four hours long, and it hadn’t ended, so she couldn’t have been asleep for long.

“Three hours, but it’s like almost 10:00 now.” Jay said. Nya nodded, then tilted her head at Jay, who obviously wanted something from her. “Can we go to our room? Please?”

Ah. Jay wanted to get some sleep with Nya. It’d been about a week or two since the ninja had defeated the Crystal King, and Nya hadn’t slept a lot, much less with Jay. After they had defeated the Oni, Nya moved into Jay’s room at the monastery, and they slept together every night. Jay must have missed that.

Nya did too, but she had been avoiding it. Some part of her missed the ocean. She missed the feeling of freedom, and acceptance. Some part of her just wanted to go back, back to the ocean where things are easy, and she doesn’t have to constantly fight, or worry. But she never did. She would have missed her family too much. Admittedly, Nya had tried a few times, not hard though. Jay stopped her the first time. She knew that Jay loved her. She loved him too, it was just hard to go back to normal now.

She wanted to go back to normal. Back to sleeping with Jay every night. Back to teasing Lloyd, and training with Kai, but she couldn't. At least it would feel different from before.

“Okay. Let’s go.” Nya got up and took her lover’s hand in her own, and they walked to their room.

Jay was already in pajamas, but Nya was still in casual clothes. Jay sat on the bed as Nya took off her clothes.

She looked in the mirror after she took off her shirt. She had changed so much. Her hair had blue tips she couldn’t dye away. She had scars on her face and abdomen in the pattern of the water when she merged with the sea. Her eyes were a deep blue instead of dark brown like they used to be. She had a greenish scar on her stomach from the Tiger Widow Venom that only Jay and Zane knew about.

Nya touched her face. The marks being a permanent reminder of her connection.

“Nya.”

Nya turned to Jay sitting on the bed looking at her.

“Yeah?”

“Wanna go for a walk along the coast?” He smiled, knowing what she wanted.

“Yeah.”
_________

After Nya changed into casual pajamas, her and Jay quietly left the monastery.

Nya drove her motorcycle to the beach with Jay clutching her close from behind.

Nya got off quickly and ran to the ocean, taking off her shoes.

Jay was slower and watched Nya from the motorcycle.

She seemed so happy, just standing in the ocean. Jay smiled, looking at her.

He loved her so much. She was his whole world. Jay knew that Nya loved him too, she just wasn’t the best at showing it at times. Jay loved to be affectionate, and even though Nya didn’t really like it, she let Jay give her all of his love. And she gave him all of hers.

But now, Nya has a special connection with the sea. One that can’t be broken, no matter how hard she tries.

Jay walks up to Nya as she sits in the shallow part of the sea, staring out into it.

“Can you hear it?” Nya asked as Jay sat next to her. “Isn’t the ocean so beautiful?”

“You certainly are.” Jay says dreamilly. Nya laughs and rests her head on Jay’s shoulder.

“I can still feel it.” Nya says. “Still hear it. I’m still connected to it. I wish I could go back, if only for a day. But if I do,” Nya squeezes Jay’s hand.

“I know.” Jay says solemnly. “I know what will happen.”

Nya squeezes harder. “I need it Jay, I need it.” Her voice is shaky. “I need to feel it again, but I can’t. If I do, I'll lose you.” Nya looks up at Jay, fear and desperation in her eyes.

Jay bites back tears. He knows how much it hurts for her to be away from the ocean. He always goes outside during lightning storms, and sometimes, he just wants to get struck. He can only imagine that feeling has been amplified twenty times for Nya.

Tears well in Nya’s eyes. She doesn’t cry often, and when she does, half the time she’s alone. The other half is with Kai or Jay.

“I’m sorry.” She says. “I’m sorry I feel like this, like I need to go away to feel safe.”

“Don’t say sorry.” Jay cups Nya’s face, letting a few tears fall off his own. “Darling, I know you need it. I know you feel that connection stronger than ever now. You do what you need to try and feel that connection. Just remember what you're here for. We’ll manage it, somehow.”

Nya lay on Jay’s chest, sighing while trying to stop crying. Jay rubbed her back and kissed her head.