So! In honor of being shut up inside under pseudo-quarantine in this wonderful day and age, here is an extra-long fic update for you guys just because :D (fiNE it would've been this long either way but i have somewhat of an excuse now). On that note though, I do hope you're all doing alright and keeping safe!

Again, thank you so much for keeping up with this fic, which was definitely supposed to be one chapter only but has now snowballed into one of my longer fics XD I've had a lot of fun with it though, and you guys have all been wonderful :D And with that, here's the final part of Skywalker Syndrome, featuring things actually Getting Better for once.

So, Lloyd decides later. He probably could've handled that better.

But you know what, everyone's been telling him to open up about stuff. It's not his fault all that stuff is ugly, and maybe explodes half the power lines on the block.

Lloyd bites his lip harder, and squeezes his eyes shut tight enough to force the welling moisture back. His eyes are sore and puffy enough already, and his head feels like it's over-stuffed with cotton and ready to explode. More tears are the last thing he needs.

On top of like, everything else. Because not only does Sensei Wu now know that the person who chopped Lloyd's arm off was, in fact, Lloyd himself, but he's probably going to tell everyone else that little detail too, and then all of them are going to think Lloyd's head is — is out of place, except for maybe Nya, until she hears from Sensei Wu about his complete meltdown, and then Lloyd's going to lose everyone.

Lloyd's chest hitches. He forces back the wave of nausea, and makes himself look at this analytically. On one hand, it's a total betrayal that stings maybe a little more than it might have any other time, because he's been getting hit with a lot of betrayals lately. And while it isn't exactly unusual in their line of work, it does feel like a little more than usual this month in particular.

On the other hand — which is metal 'cause it's Lloyd's, heh — there's absolutely nothing left of Lloyd's respect in the world to stop him from blaring N-pop as loud as his headphones will go while lying at the edge of the roof of their apartment, staring blankly into the nothingness of the night sky as he ignores the drying damp streaks all over his face, instead of going to evening practice like he's supposed to. So at least that's a plus.

But on — well, he guesses he needs someone else's hand, now — he really should have known better than to assume he'd get away with that.

He manages to hear Kai before he sees him, but it's a near thing. Kai's footsteps are quiet even when he's not trying to be, like the rest of them, and even now that Lloyd's playlist has mellowed off into something quieter and instrumental, he almost misses him closing the rooftop door.

But then Kai comes and sits next to him, right near where Lloyd's head is lying, and that's impossible to miss. So Lloyd sucks in a bracing breath and tugs his headphones off, dully figuring that the only way he's escaping this confrontation is to throw himself off the roof. Which, while admittedly kind of tempting, will probably only make Kai more concerned, and Lloyd's been doing that enough lately.

He tilts his head, peaking at Kai from the corner of his eyes. Kai's expression is unreadable, his eyes far away where they fix on the city vista. Lloyd bites his lip. He wants to hold out, to let Kai do the talking — but the anxiety churning in his gut becomes unbearable, so he ends up cracking first.

"Hi," he croaks, painfully aware of how water-logged his voice still sounds. "I guess you saw the lights go nuclear, then."

Kai gives a quiet snort. "Kinda hard to miss, bud."

Lloyd winces, then sneaks another tentative glance at him. He doesn't look like he thinks Lloyd's crazy, but Lloyd also has zero luck whatsoever, so he's not quite letting his guard down yet. "Yeah," he whispers, squeezing his eyes shut tight. "Sorry about that."

"Don't need to apologize. S'fine with me," Kai shrugs, like Lloyd didn't just knock out all the power in their apartment. "Makes things exciting every once in a while, you know?"

"Ha," Lloyd breathes. "Exciting."

"Mm-hm," Kai says, swinging a leg over the edge of the roof, his eyes still on the horizon. Lloyd shifts his head on the paved rooftop, watching as Kai's leg sways back and forth over the dim city streets below.

"Not as exciting as your conversation with Sensei must've been, though."

Lloyd's stomach bottoms out, and he goes rigid, before swiftly sitting up. "Y-you heard that?" he manages to squeak out.

Kai shakes his head. "Not all of it. Mostly just raised voices. No one wanted to eavesdrop, or anything."

Lloyd worries his lip more, feeling sick. That's not the answer he's looking for. "But you heard some of it."

Kai exhales slowly, his shoulders slumping. He finally tears his gaze from the horizon, and faces him. Lloyd wants to duck away, but there's no recrimination in Kai's eyes. Just a whole lot of empathy, and doesn't that make Lloyd want to start crying again.

"Yeah," he finally sighs. "I heard enough."

Lloyd bites his lip harder, and turns back to stare across the city, his eyes watering. "Oh," he breathes.

Because — what else is he supposed to say? Kai, his big brother, who's always been solid and steady, who's always followed (well, mostly, but that one time was also Lloyd's fault) him faithfully — Kai, who works so hard to keep them safe, and has literally bled for this job, got to hear Lloyd screaming about how much he hates being the Green Ninja, the team leader, like a selfish, ungrateful brat.

Kai, who wanted to be the Green Ninja enough to risk his life for it — who probably still wants to be the Green Ninja, somewhere in him, if Lloyd hasn't totally soured the taste of it by now.

"I didn't — I didn't mean—" Lloyd stutters over the words, almost frantically. He's breathing too fast, talking too fast, but he's got to — he needs to make Kai understand. "I didn't really — I love this team, Kai, I do, I love being the Green Ninja, it just — sometimes — and he — he went and—"

"Lloyd — Lloyd, breathe. C'mon, breathe with me."

Kai's hands are steady and grounding on his shoulders, even as Lloyd gasps desperately for air, desperately forcing his nerves back under control before the city gets another unexpected power outage.

Finally, Lloyd manages to match his breathing to Kai's, slow and steady, until the world stops spinning quite as much. He gives a shuddering exhale, wiping his eyes on his sleeve.

"T-thanks," he mutters.

Kai stares at him in concern, his eyes darker than usual in the night around them. He draws back a bit, blowing his breath out. Then, laying a hand on Lloyd's good shoulder, he jerks his head back toward the rooftop exit. "Wanna make hot chocolate?"

Kai, as usual, always knows exactly what to say.

Lloyd nods fervently, following him back down inside with little hesitation. Their apartment's quiet by now, mostly dark save for the moonlight, as everyone's probably gone to bed. Lloyd can't help but be overwhelmingly thankful for this.

The hallway floor they walk across is clean, too, even if the light sockets above are all empty. Someone must've swept the glass up, Lloyd thinks with a hot flash of guilt. Kai jabs at the kitchen switch as they leave the hall, and the lights flicker on, leaving Lloyd to blink in confusion.

"Emergency lightbulbs," Kai says in explanation, with a faint, wry smile. "Zane's been prepared. We've got a backup generator, too."

"Oh," Lloyd breathes, his face heating as he lets himself sink into one of the chairs at the kitchen table. Well, it's not like Zane was wrong. Having spare lightbulbs around is probably something Lloyd should start considering anyways, but he's been thinking he wouldn't need to worry about that anymore, since his powers were—

Well. 'Were' is the key word here. His powers were under control. They're pretty glaringly not now.

The microwave goes off with a sharp ding, and Lloyd almost jumps from his skin before placing the sound. Kai is pulling two mugs from the microwave, before dumping the little hot chocolate packets in them. Despite himself, Lloyd wrinkles his nose.

"You make hot chocolate like a heathen."

Kai scoffs quietly. "I make hot chocolate fast. No one's got time to wait on a kettle. Besides," he adds. "You're one to talk. I know this is how you make tea when Sensei's not around."

Kai immediately winces at the mention, clearly regretting having brought Wu up. Lloyd's shoulders tighten, but he forces himself to relax, exhaling slowly through his nose. It's been long enough since the…argument…that most of his fiery anger has cooled into an aching ball of hurt instead. Which is typical, Lloyd's garbage at staying that angry for very long, and normally he wishes he was better at it, but now…

There's a fine thread of shame creeping in there as well, and maybe a little bit of guilt. And Lloyd's already seen what his anger does. Maybe he can just hold a quiet grudge for a bit, and that'll make his point.

"Peppermint tea tastes better in the microwave," Lloyd finally replies, a little sullenly.

Kai snorts. "Zane would be horrified with you."

"I'm sure he would," Lloyd says, but the words are too heavy for it to come off like he wanted. Zane would be horrified at him, but not for his tea crimes. Lloyd's still surprised Kai isn't horrified at him. Maybe he is, and he's just biding his time to accuse him, and any minute now—

"Is your arm hurting?"

Lloyd blinks, reorienting himself. "Huh?"

Kai nods his head toward him, his eyebrows furrowed in concern. Belatedly, Lloyd realizes that he's been digging his fingers into the groove where the prosthetic connects to his arm, clinging tightly enough that the scarring around it twists. Oh, he thinks blankly. So that's why it's starting to ache worse.

Lloyd gingerly peels his fingers from here they're locked around his arm, wincing as he does. "A-a bit," he admits. "I probably just made it worse. But uh, hey, I know it definitely works with my powers, now…?"

Kai doesn't look amused. Lloyd lets his head hang, staring at the ground. He hates this. Normally he's completely in synch with Kai, to the point where he knows exactly what's going through his big brother's head. But right now, uncharacteristically quiet and subdued as Kai is, Lloyd has no idea what the emotion brewing in his eyes might be.

There's a quiet screech of wood across the floor, and Lloyd looks up to Kai dragging his chair closer, before setting both mugs of hot chocolate on the table in front of them.

"Can I see?" Kai asks, hesitantly. Lloyd pauses for a beat as the question registers, and Kai wrings the edge of one hand with the other. "I just, y'know…heat? It helps, sometimes, with other stuff, so maybe…"

"Oh," Lloyd blinks. "Oh! Y-yeah, of course."

Relief flashes across Kai's face, which Lloyd vaguely notes as weird, before he adjusts his chair again, fingers carefully skirting the raised area of Lloyd's t-shirt, where the metal edge of his prosthetic is. Lloyd suddenly wants to make another pun, because the silence is a tad too thick, and Kai's so awfully subdued about everything. And whether he thinks Lloyd's just an ungrateful brat who's lost the last of his sanity and should never, ever lead them again or not, Lloyd needs to see something in his expression other than this — this sad kind of hesitance, because it's not Kai. If he was even yelling at him, that would at least be—

"Let me know if it hurts at all," Kai murmurs, and Lloyd is vividly reminded of Jay, when he'd looked at his arm. It's the same tone of voice, all quiet and hesitant like they're afraid Lloyd's going to break.

Lloyd doesn't know if it makes it any better, them thinking he hasn't already. He's not sure he even wants to know.

Another beat passes with Kai still unmoving, and Lloyd's about to grasp at the weakest of puns he's got before his hands finally knead into the tight muscles of his shoulder, starting high then moving lower, drifting carefully toward the edge of the prosthetic.

Kai lays a gentle hand on the juncture where skin meets metal, and Lloyd feels the slow increase of heat before it settles on something that's not too hot to burn, but definitely warm. The warmth spreads steadily through the rest of his arm and shoulder, heating the tense muscles in Lloyd's shoulder, and he feels the rigidness there finally, truly relax, in a way it hasn't in — well, since he'd lost his arm, probably.

It's like his shoulders are getting heavier and lighter at the same time, and oh, Lloyd's forgotten how good Kai was at this. He's still painfully cautious around the prosthetic, though, and the silence isn't — it isn't uncomfortable, per say, but Lloyd knows there's so much Kai's thinking but not saying, and he wants to hear it. It's almost stressing him out, actually. He wants to say something — but Kai's hand on his shoulder is warm, and slowly but surely that warmth reaches the terrible ache that's been lingering where the prosthetic connects for so long, and Lloyd almost weeps in relief as the pain ebbs.

"H—they really did a number on you, huh," Kai hisses sympathetically, as his hand skims the raised, jagged lines of scarring.

Lloyd gives a boneless little shrug, trying to force back anxiety as Kai reminds him of the somewhat important fact that he doesn't quite know who actually did a number on him. "It's not that bad," he mutters. "No need to get so up in arms about it." There. Finally, a decent pun.

Kai seems to disagree, but the odd coughing noise he makes is close enough to a laugh. "Good to know your sense of humor died when we got yanked out of the realm."

Against his will, Lloyd's shoulders stiffen, and his breath hitches. He immediately curses himself, because it was a joke. Kai was just responding to Lloyd's own horrible pun, and just because he used the word died doesn't mean he has any idea why that might set Lloyd off, because he was gone before he saw Lloyd crumple to his knees on the sky tram, and he has no idea how loud Nya screamed when she'd heard the news, and he will never know how close Lloyd was to letting himself sink in the river instead and not coming back up, because Kai is tired and hollow-eyed and stressed enough, and Lloyd will not let himself become any more of a burden to him when—

"—Lloyd please, what did I say, come back—"

"Fine!" Lloyd gasps, jerking back from where Kai's appeared in his face, his eyes wide and frightened. "Fine, I'm fine, I'm sorry, I just—"

Kai doesn't even have to say anything. He just looks at him, and Lloyd's words die in his throat. He buries his face in his hands. "I'm sorry," he whispers, staring at the floor through his fingers.

Kai is quiet for another minute, then— "You're really not fooling anyone, you know."

Lloyd closes his eyes. "Nuh-uh."

"Uh-huh," Kai nods. "You're giving it your best shot, I'll give you that. But you're really not okay, Lloyd."

"I am," he says, but it's wavering.

"Lloyd." Kai's tone is just a little too serious, shot with the undercurrent of 'you're lying to me right now, and I know it, don't make me call you out on it'. It makes Lloyd's stomach twist, because he definitely does not want to talk about it, at all, but also—

Kai was dead. Maybe not for real dead, but Lloyd had thought he was, and that had done — that had done some really bad stuff to his overall emotional state. So hearing that familiar concern now, when he'd recently convinced himself that he'd never hear it again, is a clear sign that this particular conversation isn't going to end well.

"It's okay if you're not alright," Kai says gently, and oh no, Lloyd's really going to cry again. "You don't have to be."

Cycling through his available role models for defense mechanisms, Lloyd settles on Jay for some reason, and responds with utterly unconvincing babbling. "Well, I mean, I kind of can't be alright, because, you know, my right arm's gone—"

Kai chokes, and Lloyd breathes out a laugh. He's thinking he can just get all the building feelings out that way, but he's wrong, because two seconds into the laugh it turns into crying instead.

"M'sorry," he moans, digging the heels of his palms into his welling eyes. "I just — give me a m-minute, I'll—" his voice cracks traitorously. "I'll get it together, promise—"

Lloyd grabs for his mug in desperation, hiding his face as he gulps at it — only to choke on how cold the hot chocolate's gotten.

Kai gives an aggrieved sigh, tugging the mug from Lloyd's hands and wrapping his own around it where he holds it close to his chest, slowly re-heating it. He stares at the mug for a beat, then looks back to Lloyd, a dangerous kind of fire in his eyes.

"I told you I'd kill him for doing that to you," he says, his voice deadly low. "I still mean it."

Lloyd blinks. It takes him a minute, but then—

Oh. Oh, no. Lloyd feels sick. Kai's given him a way out — he's given him a perfect way out. But he can't keep lying to his brother forever.

"I cut it off myself," he blurts, rushed and out of breathe. "It-it wasn't my dad. It was me. I cut it off."

Kai drops the mug. He barely catches it in time, setting it down with a painful, halting slowness on the table. He stares at Lloyd, his mouth opening and closing.

"What?"

"There was a snake," Lloyd says, and he's talking too fast now, everything spilling out like a busted dam. "I don't — I don't know where from but it — it was like the one that bit my dad, you know? And I was — I was doing fine, I was fine, without my powers and everything, but I was so stupid, Kai, I wasn't looking and it — it got me, and I—"

He sucks in breath almost desperately, forcing himself to calm down again. Kai is staring at him with wide eyes, his face terribly pale, but he isn't running away yet. Lloyd still has a chance.

"I would've been like him. And I couldn't," he continues, fiercely. "I couldn't turn into him, I wouldn't. I'm not my dad, so I chose not to be, and I don't — I don't regret it."

There's really nothing more that he can say, to try and explain it to Kai, other than give him the whole rundown of depressing events, so he falls silent, his words echoing in the quiet of the kitchen.

"I'm sorry."

Kai's voice is ragged, cracking in the middle, and Lloyd is horrified to hear the wet, sniffled edge.

"What?" Lloyd blinks, taken aback. "No, Kai, this was definitely was my fault—"

"No," Kai shakes his head, and Lloyd is even further horrified to see the sheen of water building at the edges of his eyes. Kai bites his lip hard enough to bleed, before continuing. "No, that's not it. I'm sorry, Lloyd. I'm so sorry, I keep — I keep promising I'll protect you, and I fail, every single time—"

"Kai, no," Lloyd gapes at him. "No, you don't. It's not your fault this keeps happening, you try harder than anyone, and you — you always come through when it matters, you have no idea—"

"No!" Kai snaps, his head whipping up, his eyes wild. "You have no idea! You don't know, Lloyd, you don't even know how bad I messed up, when you needed — you don't know—"

Kai hiccups on a sob, squeezing his eyes shut tight and tilting his head back, like he can physically stop himself from crying that way. "You don't know. You— you're what's important, you and Nya and the guys, and I — Lloyd, I'm sorry—"

Lloyd stares at Kai, his mouth slightly agape. Kai's trying, he's trying so hard to stop it, but he's doing about a good a job as Lloyd's been at hiding his tears, which is…pretty terrible. And that's — Kai is crying. Sure, Kai's emotional, but he doesn't — he doesn't let himself cry, certainly not in front of Lloyd. He's got this annoying thing about always seeming strong, but now he's apparently run out of strength to keep it up, which kind of just feels like Lloyd's shoved his heart into blender and hit go, and—

And Lloyd's just staring at him, like a useless lump. FSM, he's the worst little brother ever.

Lloyd snaps back into it, immediately crossing the distance that's left between him and Kai, wrapping his arms around his brother's middle and comforting him in the only way he's got left — clinging to him as tightly as he can, like he can squeeze all the sadness out of him or absorb it like osmosis, or something, anything to help Kai like he always helps Lloyd, because—

Oh.

Lloyd speaks up quietly. "You're really not okay either, Kai."

Kai gives an awful, half-sobbing laugh. "You don't say." He digs his fingers tighter into his hair, eyes squeezing tight, and swears. "—so sorry, I didn't mean to fall apart like — like—"

Lloyd gently tugs his hands away before he can tear his hair out, and wraps his metal arm around Kai's shoulder, hoping it's not painful. "It's okay," he tells him. "It's okay, I promise. It's okay if you're not alright, either. It's not fair to you. Stop holding yourself to some — some impossibly high level, Kai, it's okay."

"It's not—"

"It is. I promise." Then, exhaling shakily— "I'm sorry I scared you. Both back then, and now. I'm going to be better about that. I'm gonna be stronger."

Kai gives a watery laugh. "Please. You're the strongest person I know," he says, thickly. "You cut off your own arm. How am I ever supposed to top that?"

Lloyd snorts wetly. "Please don't ever try to," he says, his voice clogged. "It sucks."

Kai just gives a choking kind of laugh, before dropping his head onto Lloyd's shoulder weakly, his breath shuddering out. Lloyd holds him best he can, trying to channel whatever Kai-ness he can into it, because that's normally what works best on Lloyd.

When the…situations are reversed. Which is…a lot.

But Lloyd can do his part now, hugging Kai as tightly as he can, like it'll put him back together and keep him there, all the pieces of his big brother that make up one of the strongest people on earth he knows. Like it'll glue them both back together, somehow, like it'll fix Lloyd's arm and Kai's heart and the whole team and the city and the now-icy cold hot chocolate Lloyd is going to wish he'd gotten to drink later.

Lloyd knows the chances are slim. But for now, at least they can pretend.

And who knows. Maybe it'll — maybe this will help. Maybe they can duct tape themselves better after this. Who knows.

He got Kai back from the dead. Lloyd's down for anything — anything — to make sure he stays fine the rest of his life.

Lloyd never does find out exactly what Kai was trying to apologize for that night. But he's got a fairly good idea he knows what it is already, and voicing it isn't gonna help.

But even though they ended up staying up way too late, missed practice the next morning, and totally ruined the hot chocolate with how many times they tried to reheat it, Lloyd thinks it might have worked, a little bit.

He doesn't feel great about the whole situation with his uncle — pretty awful, actually. Sensei's been avoiding him now, which works out okay, because Lloyd's avoiding him, and he's not sure if this is a good sign or a bad one. But…he feels better, on the whole, than he did. A lot less like his head is coming unscrewed, because if he's got Nya and Kai sticking by him now, even after everything, then it's not as hard to believe the rest of the team will, too.

Lloyd's aware that this is a bad mindset to keep, because it's not like — it's not like they're choosing sides, or anything. He's not about to start a one-man-war on Sensei Wu just 'cause he went behind Lloyd's back and yanked the choice right out of his hands like every other choice his family's yanked from him, but — but Lloyd's not Garmadon.

He's Lloyd, and Lloyd doesn't storm off to the Underworld or level half the city when things get rough. He sticks it out, because he's not a venom-devoured drama queen. He made sure of that.

(He doesn't blow up any palaces or terrorize villages either, or say, wake the dead, because while his coping methods might not be great, at least murder isn't his go-to resort.)

He does, however, skip practice again, which is quickly becoming an awful habit. But his arm hurts this morning, a bit more than usual because he slept on it wrong, and the idea of getting his butt handed to him in practice over and over again because of it is almost enough to make Lloyd tear up in humiliation all over his cereal.

But he doesn't, because he's done crying. He's done being pathetic and — and a dead weight, and a poor excuse of a leader.

He's also, like, really done being this dehydrated all the time. It sucks. He'd forgotten the killer headaches it leaves you with.

So Lloyd ignores the alarm going off on his watch and shoves another spoonful of cereal into his mouth instead, flexing his grip around the pencil he's doodling over the latest headlines with. He immediately wishes he'd taken the grocery run last evening instead of Zane, because the health cereal he's picked for them is disgusting, where's the chocolate—

"Hey, Lloyd."

Cole's voice shouldn't be a surprise, because it's Cole, non-threat — but it's been quiet in the apartment this morning, and Lloyd almost has a heart attack on the spot. Instead, he promptly chokes on his cereal, and spends the next half-minute hacking it up and coughing milk from his nose.

"Are you dying?" Cole asks, now standing in front of him, sounding mildly concerned.

"I'm alive," he wheezes, wiping at his face. "Mos'ly."

Cole's lips quirk up in amusement, but he quickly smooths the expression out, nodding at him.

"You busy?"

Lloyd glances at his half-eaten bowl of cereal, then at the half-completed dragon he'd been sketching on the edges of the newspaper, another idea for his arm. "Not really…?"

"Good," Cole says briskly, tossing his green hoodie toward him. Lloyd yelps, barely managing to catch it with before the jacket meets a soggy fate in his cereal bowl. "Let's go out, then."

"Go out — what? Wait Cole, I don't — Cole!"

Lloyd finally scrambles after his brother, catching him as he swings the door open, half-tangled in his jacket as the right sleeve catches on his prosthetic. "Where are we—" He tugs in frustration at the sleeve. "—going, you're supposed to be—" Another vicious yank. "—at practice right now."

"And you're not?" Cole sounds amused, though, and Lloyd glares at him, one arm pinned behind him by a sleeve, his other arm twisted somewhere over his head, tangled hopelessly in the other sleeve.

Cole bites his lip, an obviously large grin threatening to break out across his face. "Do you need help?"

"Yes," Lloyd grinds out, his cheeks flaming.

Cole fails at holding back the snicker this time, but Lloyd can forgive it for now, since he also takes pity, untangling Lloyd from his sweatshirt prison. Once Lloyd's finally figured out how to get his sleeve over the prosthetic — and man, the temptation to hack all the right sleeves off of everything he owns is getting stronger by the day — he follows Cole out their apartment complex, heading off to…wherever, Cole is taking him.

"Out," Cole shrugs, as they carefully step over another Colossi-sized hole in the street, maneuvering past the chunks of concrete the workers still haven't cleaned up.

"Yeah, that's specific," Lloyd mutters, ducking his head and pulling his hood further over his face as they pass by other pedestrians.

Cole's got his hood up as well, but he's always stood out a little more than Lloyd. A little (lot) taller than Lloyd, too, so they still get a few curious looks. Not as many as he's been used to, though, when he was running around in the blazoned green Resistance gi all the time, so Lloyd will take what he can get.

He's had enough pitying looks to last him a lifetime, and that was before he showed up on primetime Ninjago City television.

"You've been cooped up too long," Cole says, eyeing him. "You gotta stop hiding away, get back out in the world."

Lloyd bristles. "I went to the gas station with Kai just the other night!"

"Yeah, at two a.m." Cole sighs — then yelps as he nearly runs face-first into a broken street light, still dangling by the slimmest of twisted metal. Lloyd breaks into snickers at his expression, and Cole makes a face at him.

"My point is, the city's not on fire anymore," Cole continues, and Lloyd's stomach drops as his voice turns soft. That means he's probably about to say something like— "No one's hunting you down anymore, Lloyd. You don't have to keep hiding."

Lloyd looks down, kicking at a loose chip of concrete. "Yeah," he says, dully. "I know."

He does, really, because no one's jumped out and threatened to drag him off to his father lately, but it's just — it's hard to shake. It's hard to shake the idea that someone's out there, eyeing his every move, just waiting to rip his world to pieces. It's hard to shake the idea that any one of these people could be hiding a knife behind their back, a vendetta behind a smile.

He swallows. "I'm working on it."

"Yeah," Cole says, and his voice is downcast now, too. "I guess we all kinda are."

Lloyd bites his lip. There's a whole lot of understanding in Cole's voice, but it figures. They've all been hit hard by, well, everything that's happened recently, but Cole's always tended to see things the same way Lloyd does — with the eyes of a leader, always planning, always looking ahead, and always looking back on what went wrong. And the way he watches the people around them, with a look in his eyes that's painfully familiar, says a lot more than anything else.

"But ah, to actually answer the question," Cole speaks up, a bit hesitantly. "I thought, uh, maybe we could go to the hospital."

Lloyd blinks rapidly. "The hosp— why?" A spark of irritation flares in his chest. If this is about his arm…he's told them, many times, that he'd gotten it looked at. Many. Times. There's nothing else any doctor could do about it that Pixal can't, because all they can do at this point is prescribe him more pain meds, and Lloyd is getting sick of those, so—

"I was just thinking, maybe you could, uh…visit the kids. If you felt up to it."

Lloyd pauses full-stop in the street, double-taking. "Why?" Cole turns to him, and he quickly continues. "That's, I mean — not that I don't want to visit kids, I-I'd be fine with that, no problem, but like — why would they want to see me? Now?"

Because sure, Lloyd's always down for visiting kids, especially at the hospital — that's where he met Nelson. But he also — he hasn't really been showing up on TV in the….best light, lately. Sure, he gave that one speech, but other than that, the most his name has come up is in direct relation to his father, who very recently destroyed half the city, and probably put a whole lot of people in the hospital.

Besides, Lloyd thinks glumly, his left hand kneading reflexively at his shoulder, clutching the edge of the prosthetic. He's not exactly an inspirational figure right now, much less a role model. More like a model of exactly how not to live your life—

"Because they'll want to see you," Cole shrugs, matter-of-factly. "And 'cause I think some of them could learn something from you."

"Learn what?" Lloyd breathes, almost laughing. "Cole, I can't even teach you guys anything."

"Okay, one, that's a lie," Cole says, firmly. "We learn a lot from you, give yourself some credit. You just have to be at practice for us to learn."

Lloyd flushes, looking down, but Cole nudges him, forcing his gaze back up.

"And two, you'd be surprised." A wry smile pulls at the edges of his mouth, before he sighs. "Also, I'm kinda hoping you'll learn something, too."

It's Lloyd's turn to make a face."Oh, great. So it's that kind of visit."

Cole rolls his eyes. He pauses, his shoulders hunching up a bit, looking hesitant again. "You don't have to, if you don't want to."

"Nah," Lloyd sighs, heavily. "I'm not gonna turn down visiting kids in the hospital, what kind of monster do you think I am."

"I don't," Cole says, and his eyes are a little too knowing. "But I do think you're entitled to choose whether you're up for it or not."

And oof, there goes Lloyd's breath whooshing out of his chest again. "How did you—"

"Also," Cole says, before Lloyd can continue. "You're entitled to a meltdown every once and a while, too."

Lloyd goes scarlet. "I — the other night — it was an accident, I just—"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Cole steamrolls over his stuttering airily. Then, just as casually— "There are always spare lightbulbs in the lower left pantry shelf, by the way. Just in case you ever needed to know."

"Got it," Lloyd murmurs, ducking his head.

"And half the city's transformers already got obliterated by the Colossi, so one patch job isn't a whole lot. Just in case, you know, someone was thinking of beating themselves up for it. Which they shouldn't."

Lloyd's cheeks are flaming. "I-I got it," he stammers out. Trying to regain some semblance of composure, because he's been feeling like a nine year-old again way too many times this week as it is, he clears his throat. "I do want to go. Thank you for — for asking, but I do."

Cole's expression lightens in relief. "Good," he says, clapping him on his left shoulder. "Because I might have already told the hospital we were coming."

"Of course you did," Lloyd sighs, as they round another street corner, the hospital coming into view.

"Hey, I happen to know my teammates," Cole shrugs, grinning. "You're predictable."

"Of course I am," Lloyd groans. "You know, I really…"

Lloyd's train of thought completely derails and plummets straight off a cliff right then, so he trails off in a strangled silence as his mouth goes bone-dry.

Oh. He'd forgotten the view the hospital gave you, of…certain areas…of the city.

"Lloyd?"

Cole's voice is muffled, filtered weirdly like it's underwater. Lloyd's vision tunnels, seeing but not really seeing as he stares at the blank spot in the horizon. He remembers the building that used to be there, twenty-four stories high and just blocking the corner of the sunset in the evenings. He remembers the last time he saw it standing, from halfway across the city, Skylor unconscious in his arms and his father furious. He remembers watching it fall.

He wonders if they ever found—

"Lloyd?"

Cole's voice is hesitant, laced with concern. Lloyd blinks wildly, tearing himself from the memory, and shudders.

"Let's go," he says, shaking his head, as if he can shake the past off. As if he can shake her off, and everything she's left him with.

He doubts he ever will, but Cole's hand on his shoulder as they climb the steps outside is warm and grounding, and a reminder that, at least, she didn't take everything from him.

The front desk attendant at the hospital lets them through without batting an eye, which is a nice change, Lloyd thinks petulantly to himself. He's quickly tugged from any more thoughts like that, because Cole drags him straight to the kids' ward, and Lloyd's suddenly left desperately trying to remember where, exactly, his everything-is-bright-and-happy expression decided to disappear to, because the kids all light up like fireworks when they see him, and Lloyd's kind of just staring weakly back.

Cole saves him, stepping in front and greeting the kids with bright enthusiasm, which gives Lloyd enough time to pull himself back together. He manages to stutter out some decently happy stuff, but then the kids start talking about the Resistance, and how awesome he looked on TV, and did he totally kick his father's butt, and was it so cool getting to fight like that, and they were all rooting for him during the prison fight—

Lloyd's torn between running for the window, and asking them all who in the world let them watch the prison battle, because he's pretty sure that was not a kid-friendly kind of thing. Instead, he stammers out that yeah, it was pretty cool, and sure, he kicked his — Garmadon's butt, all while pulling his sweatshirt sleeve further over his arm as it throbs with the constant, painful reminder that he's a total fraud.

Cole saves him, once again.

"Hey, guys, we've got time to talk to all of you, and — yeah, sure bud, we can sign that for you, but Lloyd wants to talk to a few of your friends in particular, okay?"

Lloyd blinks rapidly as Cole steers him away, his words registering. "Wait, what?" He tries to yank his arm from Cole's hold. "Cole, wait, who do you want me to — wait, I don't have anything prepared—"

"You won't need to," Cole says firmly, then nods at the kid he's been dragging him over to. Lloyd glares at Cole, huffing out a sigh before craning around his shoulder.

"I don't—" Lloyd freezes, his mouth open. He shuts it.

The kid Cole's been dragging him to is sitting by himself toward the back of the common room. The look in his eyes is eerily familiar, hollow and empty-looking where he's slumped on the couch. He's leaning awkwardly to one side, and it takes Lloyd a minute — too long, really — before he spots it.

Oh, Lloyd thinks, his breath whooshing out from his chest. He gets it now.

He ducks out from behind Cole, his feet taking him forward almost unconsciously, and he carefully approaches the kid.

"Hey," he says gently, going down on a knee in front of the kid. "I like your socks." He nods at the Starfarer-emblazoned ones he's got on, where his feet dangle over the couch edge.

The kid looks at him, his eyes widening, then back toward his socks. His eyebrows pull into a sad little glare. "I can't wear my shoes," he says, hollowly. "I can't tie 'em. Not with my…" He trails off, and turns the glare on the empty sleeve of the hospital gown that hangs from his left shoulder. "My arm," he finishes, quietly.

Something in Lloyd's heart twists with painful familiarity. "Yeah, I get that," he says, ruefully. The kid squints at him, and Lloyd exhales, before tugging the sleeve of his hoodie off. The kid's eyes go huge, and Lloyd swallows, before continuing, smiling shakily at him. "See? I couldn't even buckle my armor on the first week, and that was after I got the prosthetic. It's tough stuff."

The kid continues to stare at the prosthetic, his eyes looking like they're about to pop out of his head. "Your arm's gone," he whispers. "Just like mine."

"Yeah," Lloyd breathes out. He rolls up his sleeve, pointing to the edges of the prosthetic. "Lost it right about…here."

The kid's eyes rove over the metal arm, lingering on his and Nya's designs, before zeroing in on where the scarring starts. "And you're still a ninja?" The kid's voice is still hushed, almost awestruck.

"Sure am," Lloyd says, with a crooked smile. "Team leader and everything." Even if he's been a pretty awful one lately, his mind supplies.

The kid's lips part, and he hesitates before speaking again. "A-and you can still…do all that stuff?" he asks, his voice painfully tentative. "Even with…even with your arm?"

Lloyd's throat goes tight, but he nods. "Yeah," he says, thickly. "Yeah, I can — I can still do ninja stuff. Took me a bit, but I can tie my shoes, too. And I can still do, uh, handsprings and everything."

A myriad of expressions crosses the kid's face, shock then joy then something a whole lot like hope, and Lloyd suddenly realizes why the empty emotion he'd seen in the kid's eyes when he walked in looked so familiar. It's the same hollow look Lloyd's seen looking back at him in the mirror every stupid day since—

And now it's gone, replaced by something bright and shining.

"Awesome," the kid says, his voice hushed and reverent, like Lloyd's just given him some untold kind of gift.

Lloyd has to swallow again, and blinks frantically. "My — my name's Lloyd, by the way," he says, holding his hand out — the left one, so it's not awkward for the kid. The kid grins, in a way that clearly says, 'I know, duh, moron'. "What's yours?"

The kid beams. "Max," he says, gripping Lloyd's arm and shaking enthusiastically, wobbling a bit off-balance.

"Nice to meet you, Max," Lloyd smiles back. Then he goes serious, meeting the kid's eyes. "Listen. All that stuff — you can do it, too. Tie your shoes and everything. It'll take a bit, but you can, I promise."

Max stares at him, listening intently, his eyes bright, and Lloyd suddenly feels a terrible amount of pressure.

"But you—" he falters, then sucks a breath in before continuing. "Don't do it by yourself, okay? You've got — you've got family, right?"

He immediately wants to kick himself, because what a stupid question, has Harumi taught him nothing—

The kid nods, and Lloyd exhales heavily in relief. "Okay. Good. Let them help you. Family and friends, and the doctors here — they care about you. So even — even if it feels annoying sometimes, or you start thinking that maybe they just think you're too weak, you gotta let them help you."

Lloyd pauses, and thinks of Nya, her snarky humor and unwavering strength, the long nights they'd stay up together as she redesigned his arm. He thinks of Jay, coming up with new puns for him and leaving the pain meds bottle on the lowest shelf. He thinks of Zane, of actually listening to him and adjusting his entire training schedule; of Kai, sitting up all night with him and never holding his outbursts against him. He thinks of Cole, sewing the team back together with infinite patience and dragging him out to the hospital because he knew exactly what Lloyd needed to see.

Lloyd thinks about how completely, utterly terrible his life would be without them.

"'Cause they care about you, and you — you can do it, but you can't do it without them. You need people who care about you in your corner, so don't ever take them for granted."

Max's eyes have widened a bit, but he nods. "I won't," he says, solemnly.

"Good," Lloyd says, then smiles wryly. "You'll get the hang of it a lot faster than I did, at that rate."

"No way, you're the Green Ninja," Max scoffs, and Lloyd snorts despite himself. He shakes his head, turning to exchange looks with Cole—

—only to pause, because Cole's eyes are horribly shiny, all suspiciously watery as he sniffs a bit.

'You sap', Lloyd mouths at him, his eyebrows drawing together in accusation. Cole flashes him a gesture, neatly hidden from the other kids behind his hand, and Lloyd is about to descend on him for the audacity, because he always lectures Lloyd for doing that, when Max is suddenly tugging furiously at his hand.

"Wait, wait, you gotta meet my friend!" he says, bouncing from his seat in reckless energy. Lloyd steadies him as he wobbles, and the kid beams at him. "She lost her leg 'cause she's real sick, and she's been pretty sad about it too, but wait until she sees you—! She's gonna freak out, come on, come on—"

Lloyd gives a startled laugh, but he lets Max drag him forward, tiny fingers locked around his metal ones. Cole waves to him where he's on the floor, letting kids climb over all him, and he's got the worst of knowing smiles on his face as they pass.

Lloyd casts his eyes skyward. Cole's gonna be so smug about this later, but watching the look on Max's face as he introduces him to kid after kid, Lloyd really can't bring himself to mind.

They stay a whole three hours longer than they were supposed to, but Max falls asleep on Lloyd's shoulder by the time they have to go, so the nurses can't get too upset about them staying way past visiting hours.

"Because you two were adorable, seriously, it'd be like kicking a puppy. I can't believe I didn't get any pictures," Cole shakes his head, looking disappointed in himself.

"Good," Lloyd says fervently. "Kai would never let me live it down."

"Aw, he'd frame it on our wall, though."

"Yeah, and then I'd never live that down!"

Cole snorts loudly, and Lloyd huffs, bouncing down the steps as they exit the hospital. They fall into comfortable silence for a bit, and Lloyd spares a look at Cole from the corners of his eyes, biting his lip. His good mood is fading as they leave the hospital behind them, stepping out into the city evening, the streetlights just flickering on, bright and shiny as they've recently been repaired — reminding him.

"What you said, before we went in," he finally asks headlong. "About…being entitled to choose, and stuff." Lloyd swallows, then continues. "Was that, um. Did you happen to maybe, like, hear…"

"You and Sensei Wu's talk?" Cole finishes with a wince, and uh oh, Lloyd can hear the capital 'T' emphasis on talk. "Our apartment's really small, Lloyd."

Oh, no. "H-how much did you hear?" Lloyd asks, almost afraid of the answer.

Cole carefully avoids his eyes, his mouth titled downwards in guilt. "Kind of…everything?"

He definitely should've been afraid of the answer, Lloyd thinks numbly. "But Kai said you only—" he pauses, meeting Cole's sympathetic gaze. His stomach turns. Oh. "Right. Okay. Kai was just trying to make me feel better."

"He likes to do that, if you haven't noticed."

Lloyd grimaces, feeling a stab of his own guilt. "Yeah."

"He's not the only one," Cole says, pointedly. "I didn't tell you that to make you feel bad. We'd all like you to feel better."

"Yeah, well—" Lloyd freezes. A thought suddenly hits him, with a swooping kind of horror. If they heard everything, like everything everything—

"Cole, the part when I said — the part where I said I hated this family," he stammers frantically. "I didn't mean — I meant my blood one. Only my blood one, I didn't — you guys are—"

"Lloyd." Cole's hand is gentle on his shoulder, halting them where they stand on the empty street that runs along the river. "I get it. And I know you didn't mean it, about your family. Either of them."

Lloyd's mouth turns downward. "You guys are the only family that matters to me," he says, stiffly.

Bitterly, his mind supplies, not without a sting, and would it shut up, he's trying to — to emotionally distance himself here—

Cole's eyes dart away briefly, something immeasurably sad flashing in them, and almost too empathetic.

"Lloyd, you — you have us. You'll always have us. And I'm not — I'm not saying you should feel one way or another, 'cause I know you're hurt. And you have every right to be, that's very justified."

Lloyd looks down. "But," he says, dully.

"But," Cole exhales. "But lying to yourself can hurt, too. And I know — look, it was super uncool. That was low of him, and undoubtedly in the wrong. We're all with you on that. But Lloyd, you know he — you know he cares about you, right? He didn't… he didn't do it to hurt you. That wasn't his intention."

"How do I know," Lloyd snaps, bitterly. "How am I supposed to know, Cole. How many times am I supposed to tell myself my mom didn't mean to leave me, my dad didn't mean to hurt me, my uncle didn't mean to — to—"

Lloyd breaks off, his stupid traitor eyes threatening to run as he sniffs. He blows his breath out, steadying himself. Cole, wonderful person that he is, does not comment on any of this.

"I'm just tired," he finally whispers, staring out with hollow eyes on the river, the dark water glinting in the streetlights. Cole's hand drops onto his shoulder again, and he squeezes once.

"I know, bud," he says, sounding horribly young and yet so much older than he should, all at the same time. "I know. I am too."

Lloyd doesn't say anything to that, but he doesn't really need to. The silence is enough, for them — it's always been, with Cole. There are some things you can say, that you can talk out with words or powers or weapons, but there are some things that you just—

You don't really get it, until you find it in you to call yourself leader. There aren't exactly words for how it feels like, playing chicken with your friends' lives and your family's lives and the entire city and country on the line.

You just…feel tired.

Cole's breath hitches, and his hand tightens on Lloyd's shoulder, carefully around the edges of the prosthetic, but not in a way that grates. It's normal Cole-careful, not the brittle kind scared-careful everyone's been about it.

"Just…take it from someone who's let a family argument fester," he says quietly. "It doesn't stop hurting. Not until you face it. However that ends is up to you, but. It helps."

Lloyd swallows, and the river in front of him blurs, the streetlights turning hazy in his vision. He glances at Cole, then finally meets his eyes.

"You promise?"

"I promise," Cole nods. He hesitates, then something in his expression steels.

"And if I'm wrong, I'll help you sign the — the disownment papers, or whatever, myself," he adds, suddenly fierce. "You can have my last name, instead. Or Kai and Nya's, or — or we'll all mash ours together into some garbled mess that's yours, and you can have like, five or six whole step-parents, and it'll be great."

The laugh that startles out of Lloyd is so unexpected he almost makes himself jump, but it's genuine. A little wet, maybe, but it's the staggering feeling of relief Lloyd's been looking for, been wanting, been needing, and—

"It's worth it," he blurts out. "It's worth being the Green Ninja for you guys alone. I'd do it a hundred times if I just got to have you, because — because—"

"Aw, Lloyd," Cole says, and he wraps him in a full hug this time. "It doesn't work like that. You don't need to be the Green Ninja to have us. You'd still have us if you weren't. You'd still have us if you were just some bratty little kid we yanked from the street. You'd still have us if you only had one limb left and couldn't even hold a sword, you'd still—"

"I get it," Lloyd giggles wetly into Cole's elbow.

Cole shakes his head, and squeezes Lloyd tightly. "And we're not planning on quitting anytime soon," he continues, his voice turning serious, and a little too knowing. "So don't go selling us short, and think we'd die on one shattered ship. We knew what we were getting into, kiddo. We've always known."

Lloyd sucks in a sharp breath, his heart stuttering. A whole bunch of questions are bubbling up in his chest, but they don't quite make it through his throat, because it's closing up again, so he just clings back to Cole and tries not to let his eyes water too much. Oh. Lloyd didn't even have to tell him. Cole already knew.

That's Cole for you though, Lloyd guesses.

Lloyd has every intention of talking to Sensei Wu. Really, he does — because for one thing, it's caused a painfully obvious rift in their team dynamic which could get them into serious trouble if another threat breaks out, and going by their track record, that could happen like, tomorrow. And for another, they're all living in an incredibly cramped apartment right now, and while Lloyd is perfectly fine avoiding his uncle by parkouring around the house like an extreme game of the floor is lava, Nya's probably getting sick of having to get him unstuck from the air vents, so — confrontation it is.

Except if Lloyd's going to force himself through the agony of that, he's going to get it all out of the way at once. Besides, he owes his team an explanation, anyways. Probably…several explanations. A whole lot of words, that's for sure.

So Lloyd sucks it up, finishes cutting off the sleeve on the right side of his pre-Resistance gi so it actually fits, and for the first time since the guys got back, feels somewhat like a shadow of the leader he's supposed to be as he calls a team meeting. This brief burst of confidence is thoroughly shot through by Nya, who immediately dubs it the "aha, I see it's time we all talked our issues out" meeting, but — well, it's not like she's wrong.

Besides, they needed it. And in hindsight, Lloyd realizes he's been worrying about all the wrong things.

"I can't believe you cut your own arm off and didn't even like, take the opportunity to make a hundred Star Wars jokes. You realize there's no escaping the Luke Skywalker jokes now, right?"

"For the last time, Luke didn't cut his own arm off. I'm way more hard core than he is."

"Yeah, for a maniac. You're both on full-time babysitting. We leave for five minutes and you go around losing limbs and breaking arms, huh."

"I can't believe we ever mourned your deaths."

"I can't believe you thought we were dead and didn't say anything!"

"He's right, the psychological trauma stemming from such events could be—"

"If any of you say traumatizing again, I'm using the taser feature on my arm."

"I can't believe Nya built that in for you."

"I can't believe you let Uncle Wu flirt with some random lady in the First Realm."

"He wasn't flirting with her, would you let that drop—"

"Alright, alright! Don't worry, I've hit my limb-it. Heh, get it—"

He's met with a chorus of groans at that, and Jay chucks a couch cushion at his head. But it brightens the already-lightening mood more, weary sort of grins replacing the solemn expressions that everyone's been wearing through most of this conversation, so Lloyd counts it as a total success. Even if none of them appreciate real humor, he thinks to himself, miffed.

"Okay, real talk, though," Cole finally speaks up over the rest of them, as their scattered conversation dies down. He meets Lloyd's eyes. "If you want us to come with you when you talk with your uncle, we'll be happy to, you know."

A tight kind of knot forms in Lloyd's throat. Your uncle, not Sensei. He'd never dream of asking them to pick a side, but—

"Yeah, we've all got your back," Jay nods, miming a punch at the air, before making a face. "You have like, this really awful habit of going all 'oh no, I'm so sorry, it's all my fault Sensei Wu, ignore everything I said even though it was super valid'—"

Lloyd chucks the couch cushion back at him. "I do not do that," he scowls.

Nya cuts him a pointed look. "Yes, you do."

Lloyd glares back. "Do not."

"She's right, you do," Cole echoes.

"Kinda do, bud," Kai sighs.

Lloyd looks to Zane, pleading. Zane just shakes his head, pityingly. Lloyd sighs. "No faith in me at all," he says, forlornly.

"We've got total faith in you," Cole says. "You just need to have faith in yourself."

Lloyd groans, leaning back so he's fully sprawled across the living room floor. "You sound like Sensei Wu's lesson book."

Nya pokes him in the ribs, and Lloyd jerks away, yelping. "Listen to him, Lloyd. Not that I'm against sudden passionate outbursts, but…healthy talks. We need to work on healthy talks." Her voice wavers, and Lloyd glances up at her. She looks down, then holds her head up, taking a deep breath.

"Which is why, when this blows over, I'd — I'd like to talk about Nadakhan," she announces, a little unsteadily, but determined. "For — for real, this time." She gives Lloyd a shaky smile, and he beams back, trying not to look too shiny-eyed about it. Going by her expression, he's failed, but she spares him the embarrassment and turns her attention elsewhere. "Jay?"

Jay's shoulders almost go boneless, and an expression of what could be relief flashes across his face. "I'm down if you are," he exhales.

"Wait, what exactly are we talking about with Nadakhan, here?" Cole says, suddenly wildly concerned. Lloyd feels a brief spark of victory, and not a small amount of vengefulness at the look on Nya's face — it's about time someone else is on the chopping black.

"Nothing," Jay says, waving his arms. He blinks, then suddenly backtracks. "Wait, I mean — it's definitely something, but, uh — Nya said later! So we'll talk later, haha?"

"Jay—"

"Hey," Kai catches him off to the side, as the others dissolve into bickering. His eyes are serious, but the dark circles aren't quite as bad. Not as awful as they've been, which is the best Lloyd can ask for right now, he guesses. "You've got this, no problem," Kai continues, under his breath so the others can't hear. "But on the off chance you want out, at any point? All you gotta do is yell for me and I'll swoop in for you and run, just give the word. We can always work this out another day."

Lloyd bites his lip, looking down. "I need to talk to him, Kai. I can't leave it like this forever."

"Well, yeah," Kai says, evenly. "Maybe not. But as far as I'm concerned, you're still Master Lloyd to us. We'll follow your lead."

Oh, now he's done it. Lloyd's throat goes painfully tight, and his eyes burn as he struggles to swallow back anymore embarrassing displays. "K-kai, you—"

"Please tell me I didn't make you cry again," Kai says hurriedly.

Lloyd shakes his head, elbowing him lightly in the side. "I wasn't gonna cry," he huffs. "I was just gonna say that I—" Lloyd swallows again, and murmurs, "I really missed you, Kai."

Then, realizing he sounds entirely too vulnerable right now, he clears his throat and gives Kai a shaky grin. "Especially since now I really need you as my right hand man—"

Kai swats the back of his head, scuffing his hair down. "Lloyd, you're my brother and I love you, but if you make another horrible arm pun, I'll never forgive you."

"Please," Lloyd snorts. "You didn't bring me a dragon back. If anyone should be never forgiving anyone, it's me."

Lloyd's not one to let fear get the best of him — for very long — but nothing's really rooted him to the floor in terror like the sight of his uncle's closed door has. Well, besides maybe his undead father dangling him off the floor in Kryptarium, or the sight of the Bounty getting crushed to pieces, or the way Skylor had collapsed in his arms, or the sensation of twin points of pain on the back of his hand—

Okay, so maybe fear's been a pretty big player in his life lately, but still. Lloyd doesn't let fear win out over him. He shouldn't let fear win out over him.

Fear isn't a word where I come from, Lloyd's mind echoes half-hysterically at him.

Absolutely none of this helps the way his hands tremble violently as he knocks on Sensei's door.

"Come in."

Sensei Wu's voice is quiet and level, no revealing trace of emotion in it. Nausea wells up in Lloyd's throat, but he swallows it down. Kai's "all you gotta do is yell for me" lingers in Lloyd's mind, but he shrugs the thought off. As tempting as it is — Kai snatching him up from this conversation entirely and saving Lloyd a lot of awkward stuttering — he can't just take the easy way out. Cole's right — Lloyd needs to face this eventually. Letting things fester never helped anyone.

Harumi drove that one home pretty well.

Sucking in a breath, Lloyd finally pushes the door open, cursing his shaking fingers as they clack on the doorknob. His courage — if he can even call it that — falters, and he keeps his gaze rooted to the ground like it's the most riveting thing in the room. The familiar smell of incense wafts over him, and Lloyd struggles not to throw up again.

There's a measured intake of breath, before Sensei Wu exhales quietly. "Lloyd."

Again, there's little to no emotion in his voice, just that infuriatingly calm serenity, which is no help at all, because Lloyd has zero clue whether he's furious with him or just — just disappointed, or something worse. And he's sure as heck not going to look at his expression to figure it out, because that will require meeting his eyes, and Lloyd would rather combust on the spot.

He's already faced one family member's eyes burning in hatred on him. If he has to see Uncle Wu, too — Uncle Wu, who Lloyd's always thought believed in him from the beginning—

"Sit, please."

Lloyd shakes his head. He can't. He's already losing the battle to nerves, he can't just — pretend this is another master-student talk. He needs to get it over with now, before he goes to pieces again.

"I…" Lloyd swallows. His mouth is painfully dry, and he still can't get his hand to stop shaking. The metal one is finally listening to him, at least. He finally forces out a shuddery exhale, then curves his spine into a bow, his head hung low.

"Sensei," he says, almost proud that his voice only wavers the slightest bit. "I've come to apologize for my actions earlier. And my words, I — I shouldn't have spoken to you like that."

Sensei Wu is silent. The air is so thick Lloyd almost struggles to breath, and a part of him faintly wonders if the incense hasn't grown a mind of its own and is actively trying to suffocate him.

"I just — it hurt, when you went behind my back, and I know — I know I'm a mess." The admission stings, but it's true. It's way too true, but that still doesn't give him the right—

"And I'm trying," Lloyd continues, his voice cracking in all the worst places. "I'm trying so hard, Sensei Wu, I am, but I can't — you were gone, and I tried so hard to be the-the leader you would want, I really did, but things just — everything went so wrong, and I—"

Lloyd cuts off, swallowing back a sob. "But I didn't meant it," he croaks out. "When I said I hated—"

He doesn't get to finish that, because he's suddenly being dragged out of the bow by Sensei Wu, and pulled arms-first into a tight embrace before he even realizes what's happening. Lloyd's poor brain short-circuits in surprise, and all he can really do is hang there like a dead fish while Uncle Wu clings to him like he hasn't since Lloyd was nine.

He might also be crying, maybe, but he's also in dead-fish-mode, so who knows—

"No, Lloyd," his uncle says, and there's an edge of a sob in his words, just like the one Lloyd was choking back earlier. "I am sorry. I am so, so very sorry, not only for going behind your back, but for everything—"

He cuts off, inhaling sharply, and Lloyd stares blankly into his shoulder as his eyes decide to run like a leaky faucet. This is — this is not going according to plan. He's not prepared for this, he was ready for Uncle Wu to yell at him, to be angry, not—

"And you have every right to be angry with me," Uncle Wu continues, his hold on Lloyd loosening, but not letting go. "But I must — please, Lloyd, you must know it was never you that I doubted, it was me."

He takes a ragged breath. "I failed your father, Lloyd," he says, his voice wet. "I failed him, and I lost him. I failed Morro, and I lost him as well. I've failed you too, Lloyd, and I've almost lost you far too many times, because of my failures, but I still — I still have you, Lloyd. The idea of losing you, for good, because I was not there when you needed me most—"

Uncle Wu's holding him tighter again, and his word are finally starting to make sense through the haze that's fogged up Lloyd's brain, just in time for him to hear the next part clearly.

"You're my family, Lloyd," Uncle Wu rasps, suddenly sounding very old. "And I don't tell you this as often I should, but you should know how very proud of you I am, and the person you've become."

Lloyd sucks in a shuddering breath, his eyes welling over. Oh. His fingers fist into the fabric of his uncle's robe, tentatively clutching back.

"You should also know," Uncle Wu says, his voice wet but steady. "How very much I love you, regardless of what title you choose to bear. You will always be my nephew, no matter what color you wear."

Oh. Oh, no, here he goes again. Lloyd clutches back tighter, drops his head onto his uncle's shoulder, and tries very hard not to cry like a total baby.

He's about five percent successful.

The scent of incense isn't so suffocating anymore, even if Lloyd can't breathe through his nose for crying right now. It smells a little more like he remembers, when he was younger.

Like home.

"It can be very hard," Uncle Wu tells him later, over the light tea he's made them both. "To love the people in this family."

"But you do," Lloyd voices, watching him hesitantly.

"But I do." Uncle Wu gives a wry breath of laughter. "Not as well as you do, though."

Lloyd ducks his head, staring into his tea. "I don't think it helped very much," he whispers. "Not with…with my father."

Uncle Wu's hand is gentle where it rests on his shoulder.

"You have a big heart, Lloyd," he says, his voice sad. "And that means there is only that much more to break." He shakes his hand, and Lloyd sways the tiniest bit back and forth. "That does not mean you are any weaker for it, nor that you are wrong."

Lloyd gives a snort that is definitely not an attempt to hide welling tears again. "Tell that to my father."

"You should tell him yourself, if you want."

Lloyd jerks his head up, his eyes widening. "Then…does that mean I'm off the blacklist?" he asks, tentatively. "For the prison?"

Uncle Wu sighs. "If you are certain it will not break your heart anymore," he says. "Then you may go whenever you wish. I have already removed the block, but…I would ask that you be sure. For your sake, Lloyd."

Lloyd stares at his hands, the metal one glinting in the dim lamplight. He thinks of cruel words echoing against prison walls, of how his heart had splintered into pieces long before his father had thrown him through that last prison wall, or he'd taken a sword to his own arm. He thinks of the TV broadcasts that Nya and Jay will never be able to wipe completely from the web, no matter how hard they try. He thinks of how his father will never know the pain of his heart splitting into pieces, certainly not for Lloyd, because it'll never be the same heart Lloyd knew once.

And yet…

One of them is sitting in a cold cell, and one of them is drinking tea with their uncle, with the people they love most a mere room away (or right outside the door, Lloyd's overbearing-sibling-radar has been acting up).

Lloyd shakes his head. "I don't break," he says, firmly.

He won't. Not this time. Because his father — his real father, the father he loves, who he'd promised he'd live for, even in the depths of the Cursed Realm—

"I'm a Garmadon," Lloyd says, his voice steady. "I don't break."

Uncle Wu is entirely unsuccessful at hiding the teary sort of smile he's making in his teacup, but Lloyd will give him credit for trying.

It's easier walking into the prison again, the second time.

Is what Lloyd is going to say, when the others ask him how it went when he gets back. The reality is that Lloyd is every bit as mind-numbingly terrified walking through these stupid doors as he was the first time. Except this time might even be worse, actually, because he misses a step on the way in and almost trips flat on his face, which totally ruins the badass power walk he was trying to do.

It's not like he'll ever be able to stride around like his father, anyways, Lloyd thinks dully, even as his face burns. Not when Garmadon's got about four entire feet and the malevolent energy of Darth Vader on him.

Lloyd spends the next three minutes cursing himself for giving in to the Star Wars references, enough that he almost forgets the growing sense of anxiety writhing in his gut as he hurries through the prison. He doesn't spare the walls a second glance this time, making a beeline directly for the isolation cell.

He holds his breath, just a tiny bit, as the guard scans him in. He's almost surprised as he immediately waves him through, but forces himself to shake it off.

He's not going to walk out of this with crippling trust issues all around. He's not. Uncle Wu said he'd told them Lloyd could go, so Lloyd trusts him. And Uncle Wu is trusting him not to break down over this, so Lloyd isn't going to. He's just gonna have a…a nice little chat, with his father, that's all. Maybe ask about the impending doomsday stuff he was muttering about, and make sure he isn't planning to break out. Definitely not going to bring up anything related to Lloyd's emotional state, that's for sure.

It's going to be just fine, Lloyd assures himself, even as his metal fingers twitch, the occasional static of green buzzing between the joints. He needs to keep an eye on that. Nya's started getting him to run actual tests on it, so he knows the green power works fine with his arm, but still.

It's the fight that fuels his father, and Lloyd hasn't needed a lot of encouragement to go off on someone lately.

He shoves those thoughts back as the guard takes him deeper into the prison, the hallways growing darker and narrow. Lloyd has to swallow back a growing sense of claustrophobia the farther they go, his skin crawling as unbidden memories of the fight flicker in the back of his mind.

His hands ball into fists. You're fine, he tells himself again. This is different. It's fine.

His power buzzes in the back of his head, as if attempting to voice that it disagrees. Lloyd studiously ignores it, because the guard's letting him in now, and he's got a lot more problems to worry about.

Or just one big one, he thinks faintly, staring at his father where he's illuminated in the middle of the dark room, sitting calmly in his cell as he stares at the ceiling.

For a beat, Lloyd's rooted to the spot — half from a dizzying sense of nausea, half because he can't find the walkway they've built.

…mostly because he can't find the walkway they've built. Lloyd spends an embarrassing ten seconds thinking that Garmadon's cell is just floating there, and he's going to have to holler this conversation back and forth across the dark expanse, before his eyes finally catch on the dim-lit walkway.

No railings, Lloyd notes, and half of him wonders how funny it'd be if, after everything, he accidentally slipped and fell on the way to visit his imprisoned father, and that's what did him in. It'd be a real spite to Harumi, that's what—

"I was wondering when you'd come to visit."

Lloyd swallows at the voice, and forces himself to meet the crimson eyes staring at him, so much like his own.

"Father," he says in greeting, as tonelessly as possible.

Garmadon scoffs, but he says nothing to refute him. The tiniest embers of hope light in Lloyd's chest, before he violently smothers them. He's not here to get hurt again.

His father's eyes are moving down now, coming to a halt on Lloyd's prosthetic. Lloyd shifts uncomfortably with the urge to hide it from view, forcing himself to stand steady.

"I never did like snakes," Garmadon finally says, his voice even, then returns to staring at the ceiling.

Lloyd blinks. That's it? That's it. Lloyd's lost an entire arm and — yeah, Garmadon already got a face-first introduction to the prosthetic back on Borg Tower, but he'd — he'd thought —

Lloyd doesn't know what he'd thought, actually. He doesn't have any footing with his father, anymore. He doesn't know this person like he used to know the father who loved him.

"You said something to me, back on the tower," Lloyd says, rallying himself. "About how they were coming. I wanted to ask you what you were talking about."

Garmadon tilts his head, regarding him through slitted eyes. "Why don't you ask your dear uncle?" he says, derisively. "I'm sure there's plenty more he knows that he hasn't told you."

"Sensei Wu tells me enough," Lloyd says, flatly. "If something's coming, he'll make sure we're ready."

"If you are the best he can offer, then you're already doomed," Garmadon scoffs.

Lloyd grits his teeth. "And yet," he says, with forced calm. "I still beat you."

"Watch yourself, boy," Garmadon snarls, his teeth glinting. "You won on a technicality. Don't be so quick to forget how easily I broke you before."

Pitching himself off the walkway is sounding like a better option by the second, which means Lloyd should probably get out of here soon.

"This threat," he forces out, yanking them back on track. "You keep talking about. Want to share any more on that?"

Garmadon rolls his eyes. "The danger I spoke of has yet to pass," he says, unconcerned. "I wouldn't let it worry you and your pathetic friends' little heads so soon. Like I said, I doubt you could handle it."

Lloyd stares at him, incredulous. "So what, you're just going to sit around until it's here? And do nothing? That's just going to make — make whatever it is worse."

Garmadon snorts, his laugh caustic and bitter, but offers nothing else.

Lloyd's lip curls. "Forget it, then," he snaps. "If you're not going to talk about anything useful, I'm not wasting my time on you. I can always come back."

He means to storm off after that, but his feet falter, and he hesitates. He stares at his father, this hollowed-out version of him slumped in defeat in a prison cell. Something in his chest twists.

This is never what he wanted. He never wanted any of this. Is this what destiny does to them all, then? Chains them to each other until they've all brought each other down to their lowest point? Destroys everything thats good about them until there's nothing but an empty shell left?

The edge of the walkway looms on either side of him, dropping into suffocating darkness. Lloyd balls his hands into fists, and remembers the crushing hopelessness he'd felt as Harumi had laughed at him on the train. It feels a lot like his grandfather's laughing at him now, watching their stupid family drama play out like the worst kind of tragic soap opera.

Lloyd's fists tighten. No, he tells himself. No. That's not what destiny will do to him.

He's the one that got away, isn't he?

Garmadon finally seems to lose patience, his eyes flashing as he stands. "If you're still here to gloat, boy—"

"I'm my own person, you know," Lloyd speaks over him, cutting his father off. "I've got more than just you. I'm not just some fragment of your broken legacy."

Garmadon stares back in surprise, but he says nothing.

"But I'm still your son, no matter what you say," Lloyd continues, his voice steady. "And I'm keeping your name. So deal with it, or whatever."

And with that, he turns around and paces steadily from the cell, back into the light. He doesn't look back, not even once.

He can come back later, anyways. But right now, he's gonna be late for practice.

"—left, he's on your left, Jay, are you blind?!"

"He's fast! I don't see you catching him!"

"That's 'cause you're supposed to be guarding the left, we're cornering him!"

"On the contrary, you are leaving your right side wide open for me. By my calculations, neither of you will ever corner me."

"Oh, I'll show you, tin can—"

Lloyd gives a breathless giggle as he listens in, confident in Zane's ability to distract Cole and Jay for now. Nya's still a possible threat, unless she's going after their flag right now, but Lloyd's pretty secure in the hiding place they'd picked.

"Head in the game, green machine!"

Lloyd shakes his head, jerking himself back the present at Kai's whispered hiss. He wobbles precariously from where he's standing on Kai's shoulders, throwing his arms out for balance. He glares up at where Cole's managed to hang their flag, dangling cheerfully from the tree branch far above the ground.

"Give me a sec," Lloyd hisses back, right arm straining as his fingertips brush the air just below the flag. He scowls, biting back a curse.

"Do not tell me you're too short to reach," Kai whispers, before wavering a bit and tightening his hold around Lloyd's ankles.

Lloyd scowls down at him. "I'm not," he grumbles. "Just hold on."

Kai makes an anxious sound. "Lloyd, Nya's gonna catch on to us any second—"

"Hold on, hold on," Lloyd mutters, reaching for the prosthetic port. With a click, he detaches the arm and steadies it in his other hand, then hoists it up and neatly catches the edge of their flag with it, knocking it into Kai's waiting hands.

"Nice!" Kai crows in victory — only to turn to a yelp as Nya comes barreling around the corner, her expression borderline terrifying.

"You're supposed to be watching our flag!" she roars at Cole and Jay, before diving for them. Lloyd shrieks as Kai launches him from his shoulders, giving a desperate cry of "Run, Lloyd!"

Lloyd flails wildly before managing to hit the ground in a roll, somersaulting once before scrambling to his feet. He spares a moment of memoriam for Kai as Jay tackles him, before being forced to break into a dead sprint as Nya comes in hot on his heels.

"Go, Lloyd!" Zane calls, from where he's tussling with Cole. "They haven't found our flag, we can win!"

"Not if I catch him," Nya hisses, the hair on Lloyd's neck standing up at how close she is. He puts on a burst of speed, streaking across the grassy field toward their base. Nya's a blur in the back of his vision as he turns his head, but he might be able to outrun her if—

Lloyd yelps as he's jerked backwards. "Gotcha!" Nya yells triumphantly as she locks a hand around Lloyd's right wrist, firmly holding him back.

Lloyd doesn't hesitate. Shoving the edge of the flag between his teeth, he reaches up and disconnects the prosthetic, shooting forward as Nya's left stumbling, holding his arm.

"Lloyd Garmadon!" she cries indignantly. "That's cheating!"

Lloyd cackles wildly as he runs, wavering a bit at he's thrown off-balance from being one-armed, before quickly adjusting to the weight change and sprinting faster. Nya's started chasing him again, but it's too late — she's lost valuable time, and Lloyd skids over their base line with a whoop.

Kai and Zane burst into cheers as Cole curses, finally letting Zane free from his grasp. Nya slides to a halt beside him where he's doubled over panting, breathing heavily herself. She's glaring at him through the sweaty hair that's hanging in her face, and Lloyd gives her a sunny smile in return.

"You're a dirty cheater," she finally huffs.

"No rules in capture the flag against taking your arm off," he replies, cheerily.

Nya rolls her eyes, but there's a pull at the edge of her mouth like she's trying not to smile as she thrusts his prosthetic at him.

"I don't appreciate you treating my creation like that," she sniffs.

"Aw, c'mon," Kai grins, having caught up with them. "That was classic."

"Yeah, if you're a cheater," Jay scowls. "I vote a rematch."

"What, so you can lose a fifth time?"

"It has not been five times—"

"Yes it has, Zane's been keeping count."

"Zane's a dirty cheater too!"

"How dare you—"

Lloyd snickers as they dissolve into arguing, carefully clicking his arm back into place. There's still a flicker of pain as he does, but it's getting easier. It'll take time, he figures, just like everything else. You can't fix all your problems in a day, no matter what Uncle Wu's said before.

But for now, he can play dumb training games with his team. He can forget about whatever threat on the horizon, if only for a moment. Uncle Wu can amend his stance on what counts as training, because this is Lloyd's turn to lead practice, and if he wants to play capture the flag, then that's his call. And he can cheat with his arm if he wants to, because the universe can take his arm from him, but it's not gonna take his ability to be a terrible little brother.

And it's not going to take the fact that he's Lloyd Garmadon, either, Lloyd thinks, as he straightens, his arm swinging into place. No one is. Not Harumi, not his own father, not an entire legal team from child protection services like Cole keeps joking (threatening) to call. Lloyd Garmadon is his name, and he's keeping it.

...arguments could be made, though, for changing it to Lloyd Arm-Is-Gone.

"Lloyd, no."

"That was awful."

"You guys just have no taste!"

"We have plenty of taste, but the puns—"

"It's my missing limb, I choose the coping mechanism."

"You wanna miss another one, punk?"

"I'd like to see you try. At least I have an excuse for losing capture the flag. Oh wait, we won."

"Oh, you're on. Same teams as last time, you better watch your back—"

—yeah. They might not be perfectly fine just yet, but they're going to be. And no one can take that from them, either.