Work Text:
Goodbye Note | Neglect | “I thought they were with you”
When Zane made his decision, it was a quiet Thursday afternoon. It wasn’t a conscious decision, but one that whispered into his mind, embedding itself in the digital fissures of his brain. It took hold and brought a sudden sense of calmness. He breathed a sigh, feeling the tension slowly ebb from his shoulders.
He moved his arm to push himself off the ground from his sitting position, and it was harder than he expected. As he shook his arm free from the invisible binds, he saw why – a thick casing of ice had formed around the gaps in his plating where his joints were. He frowned. Ever since his time in the Never Realm, his powers had been far more unpredictable than he thought possible. He had a better grasp on his ice spread even when he had just started training under Master Wu, a fledgling having barely attempted to fly. The ice was jagged and pointed now, screaming to make itself known, no longer the gentle swirls it had once been.
He hadn’t told the others about Vex’s manipulation, but Lloyd knew. Lloyd knew and hadn’t said a word, to his knowledge. He had sternly pulled Lloyd aside and told him to keep this between us , and the Green Ninja had nodded frantically and jerked out of his grasp, scared. Scared of Zane. The memory made him wince. It reignited a spark of the nausea that had plagued him since his return. He was sick of himself. Yet he was all he had, his refusal to talk to any of the ninja about what had happened left him shut out and alone. So alone. It was a hole he dug himself into but he bit his lip and resisted. Soon. He could live with the gut-wrenching feeling of being so alone. If anything, the solitude was a comfort now. He agreed with his own mind.
He walked back inside, headed straight for his room. It didn’t feel like his room, but he knew it was. It was soft, with a comforter and a warm desk lamp and old journals stacked against the corner of his desk. He was used to jagged edges, a jagged mind, jagged words. The journals were written by him, but he just as well could have been reading the work of a stranger. That wasn’t him .
Yet he took one out, the one on top, and opened to a fresh page. The last entry was dated a few months ago. It contained benign things, such as dinner plans and petty arguments among teammates, moments that Zane would’ve liked to remember as he had to make room for important information on missions. Something to jog his memory of the good times. All it did now was make him feel bitter, marking the empty page with the current date. He wrote in a fervor, his knuckles cracking under sheets of ice formed on top, emotion pouring out through his fingertips. Anger. Loneliness. Neglect. Blindness. Aimlessness. Hopelessness. The truth.
He sat back, stretching his aching joints. They hadn’t been repaired in decades, after all. There was only so much he could do without asking Nya or Jay, trying to reach the difficult spots with some lubricant as a temporary fix. Even walking pained him. He hadn’t been made to train much since his return, the ninja sensing enough was wrong that they allowed him to meditate most of the day, even if they grew a tad more worried with every passing day that something was wrong. Lloyd seemed to truly be a great secret keeper. That, or he was utterly terrified by the consequences of spilling the truth and facing Zane for it. Either way, time was bought.
Zane tore the page out of the notebook, folding it up neatly and tucking it into his chest panel for safekeeping. Now, he waited.
“I will be away on Saturday,” Zane said to Kai while the two were doing dishes. The Fire Ninja hummed.
“Where? You haven’t even left home in a few weeks,” He said dryly, hoping that his nosiness was masked well enough as concern.
“Going into the city with Jay for some new flat head screws,” He replied as casually as possible, and Kai seemed to buy it.
“Oh, okay,” He responded, seemingly disappointed at the lack of detail.
Next was Jay, approached by Zane while tinkering at his work table.
“I will be in Ninjago City with Cole on Saturday to look at new art brushes. Do you need anything for your work while I’m there?”
“Uh, not that I can think of,” Jay paused his work, flipping up his welder’s mask. “Ready to venture out again, eh? That’s a good sign. Proud of you, buddy.”
Zane was flashed a toothy smile, and he gave a polite one back. Jay turned the mask back over his face, and Zane took the hint, walking away to his next target.
Cole was reading in his room with the lights off, the setting sun through the window providing just enough light for him to read the words on the page.
“Do you need any ingredients? I know you were going to try a new recipe soon, and Nya and I are going into Ninjago City in two days to look at some spices.”
“Oh, uh, I’ll need fresh basil. And some oregano. But we probably have that,” Cole rambled. “I think that’s it. I dunno, you’re the one that does the shopping.”
“Will do. Thank you.”
“No, thank you, Frosty. Glad to see you’re getting out again.”
Last was Nya, scrolling on her phone on a kitchen bar-stool, nursing a cup of tea.
“Good evening, Nya,” Zane greeted, making himself a mug of tea as well to make his entry a bit less suspicious.
“Evenin’,” She nodded, her eyes scanning text Zane couldn’t see on her screen.
While he waited for the water to come to a boil, he decided to close his loop.
“While you’re here, I was going to go into Ninjago City on Saturday with Kai to look at new boxing tape. Do you need anything similar while we’re there?”
“Boxing tape, eh?” She murmured, half paying attention. “Yeah. Just bring back a few rolls.”
“I will make sure to do so,” Zane nodded, hiding his smile. Finally. Complete.
If anyone had bothered to look, they would’ve seen that Jay always had an abundance of flat head screws, Cole had a brand new pack of brushes he had yet to open, the kitchen was fully stocked with all sorts of spices, and they had rolls upon rolls of boxing tape hidden in the weapons case. Zane knew no one would have noticed. They never noticed .
Early Saturday morning, Zane removed the pages from his chest panel, finely creased after being tucked away for so long in a tight space, and set it on his desk. For good measure, he placed his pen across it, weighing it down with the heft of a fountain pen that he refused to give up. Silently, stealthily, he exited his room, taking care not to wake anyone or arouse suspicion from anyone that had already begun their day. As soon as he exited his room, he was out the front door, closing it behind him, a quiet farewell dancing on his lips as the lock clicked. Silence filled the air, suffocating.
At lunchtime, Jay and Cole were surprised to see each other entering the kitchen.
“You and Zane headed out later?” Jay commented, grabbing the lunch meat from the deli drawer.
“Huh?” Cole cocked his head. “Since when was I going with him? You need to check your memory, dude.”
“No, he definitely told me he was going with you. To get art brushes”
“Why the hell would I need more brushes? I’ve got a fuckin’ hoard of them.”
“Well who was going with him then?”
“He told me he was going with Nya!”
“Nya and I made dinner plans yesterday, there’s no way she’s going with him!”
The two's loud bickering alerted those nearby, who were in various stages of alertness, even as the clock struck noon. Nya poked her head in.
“What are you two idiots fighting about now?”
“Nya! Were you ever going with Zane into Ninjago City?” Cole sputtered, panic slowly bubbling in his throat.
“What? No. He told me he was going with Kai.”
“KAI!” Jay yelled, and angry footsteps down the hall sounded soon after.
“What the hell?” Kai fumed, entering the kitchen. “Leave me out of your fucking fights.”
“No, Kai, were you ever going out with Zane today?” Nya asked, and Kai paused, glancing between all of the present ninja. “Uh, no, he told me he was headed out with Jay. Something about new flat head screws.”
Jay scoffed. “I have more than enough flat head screws. They practically multiply somehow.”
“So he told all of us he was going with different people? Why the fuck would he do that?” Kai narrowed his eyes, and before anyone could reply with even the beginnings of a theory, a wail sounded from the hallways.
“Lloyd!” The team gasped at once, fumbling over themselves. Kai threw open the door to Lloyd’s room, but he wasn’t in there. So where-
A sharp gasp emitted from behind him, where Cole had thought to open Zane’s room instead. Inside, Lloyd sat sobbing on the floor, a severely creased piece of paper laying on the ground in front of him. The dread that filled the rest of the team’s stomachs was thick and vile. I'm sorry, I'm sorry was pushed out of his throat over and over again, said like it was a desperate, woeful repentance.
Shaking, Cole picked up the paper, tears rolling down his cheeks before he even made it through the first line.
By the time you read this, I-
Zane had left. But unlike the first time he had, way back when they were all so young and naive and foolish, Cole knew he wasn’t coming back. This time, he had run away, in the same manner a cat does when it knows it's about to die, to breathe its last breath in solitude, to save the tears of those that care about it most. As Cole’s brain became clouded with grief, one thought echoed with enough reverberation to make his skull shake: I hope we can at least find him to bury him .