Set after S10, but Cole never returns.

TW: Death, depression, crying, funerals.

Cole doesn't survive the fall, and the ninja have to find his body in the wrecks of the building left.

• • • 

They'd survived the fight. 

Barely. 

Lloyd was still recovering from using so much of his power- it sapped all of his strength, so much more worse them them. He'd been insisting on coming along the trip, but was fought down by Pixal and Wu, finally forced to stay home. He could barely stand, let alone walk.

Kai was glad. He didn't want his baby brother to see anything he didn't need too. He couldn't stop Nya from coming, though. He knew she needed to do it just as much as he did. Lloyd still caught them before they left, holding on to Kai's hand.

"Bring him back." They both pretended to ignore how his voice cracked midway though the sentence, making him sound younger than he looked. "Tell him I miss him."

He was younger than he looked, Kai realized. Sometimes it was easy to forget what the Tomorrow's Tea had done. Lloyd didn't deserve all the grief and the pain and the responsibilities, but life had just thrown it at him anyway. None of them did, really.

Lloyd was still waiting for his answer. "Y-yeah, buddy. I will. I'll tell him." Kai promised, forcing a small smile to his face. "We'll be right back, okay? Go rest." Lloyd nodded uneasily, turning to return to his room.

But when Kai took one last look at the monastery from the steps, Lloyd was still at the door. 

Waiting. Hoping. He wondered if it had been as painful waiting for them to return. Keeping hope, staying alive, just waiting one more day after the next.

• • • 

Jay was silent the whole trip. Unlike the normal lighting ninja, who talked so much he'd been nicknamed 'master of blabber.' Cole had been the one to gift him the nickname, bringing it up every chance he had. 

Cole might never call him that again. The realization struck him deep in the heart, and the hurt was different this time. Not the hurt of losing someone, the hurt of not knowing. That might be even worse. Was it what Lloyd and Nya had gone through, waiting for them to come back?

Everyone was silent this trip. Nobody had words to spare in the worry they were all going through. Inside, a part of him was telling himself it would be fine. Cole had survived much worse. They all had.

The worst part was that he'd been the closest to Cole when he fell. He was hanging onto the rope ladder right next to him, and it could have been Jay who fell. Not Cole. He might... he might have preferred that to this. 

He was the one who had to watch his face as he fell, gone into the darkness, and he was the one who would always have to remember that second the rope had broken—

But maybe Cole would appear from the building, a little banged up or bruised, but fine and probably hungry as always. Laughing, maybe, and joking about it—

Nobody survives a fall from a twenty three floor building, his brain interrupted, and Jay shook his head, as if that could clear the depression thoughts echoing in his mind. 

Jay would get him anything he wanted to eat, if he came back. 

Hope can be a cruel thing.

• • • 

Nya tightened her fingers around the wheel, knuckles turning white. She refused to let anyone else drive the trip to the building. She needed something to do, to distract herself from the other thoughts that threatened to swallow her up.

 Like the darkness had done to Cole.

And all she had been able to do was push a button and push them further away from her friend, her brother, falling through the darkness and disappearing from them. Kai had fought, fought to go back and rescue him, please. 

Nya couldn't lose anyone else, though. Not now. She'd kept going, kept driving, only just in time to catch Lloyd and Pixal and Garmadon. The instant they fell onto the ship, and she made sure they were fine, a catch seemed to release in her, and something keeping her together broke.

Giving way to the regret, the sadness, the anger at herself for being so dumb, and forgetting such a simple thing. The pull of a lever had determined her brother's chances of survival, and she'd messed it up because she couldn't remember. 

And then Lloyd had found out, and nothing she could say would be able to describe the pain in his expression at the moment. Finding out that his brother might never make it back to him because of a mistake that she had made. 

The car swerved dangerously close to the side of the road, and she steadied her grip, refocusing her eyes on the road. She wouldn't let herself go. Not now. Not when there was still a chance, albeit how small. Zane looked over at her from the passenger's seat, and she could feel his gaze filled with worry. 

They should hate her for what she did, really.

• • •

Zane could tell his family still held hope for Cole's survival. 

He didn't. 

Not as a pessimist, but as the only one who could not ignore his system telling him all the logic and the facts he did not need. But the truth was there, staring him in the eyes.

Nobody survives a fall from that high. 

But he was the Master Of Earth. They'd been through so many dangerous, life threatening situations, defeating basically impossible chances of survival. 

What was one more? Just one more.

Cole had been the foundation of the group, ironically. Keeping them reassured, keeping them safe, keeping them...together. Zane knew the group had fallen apart after he had died. 

What would happen to them if Cole was gone? 

Would Kai leave, out of anger and defeat? Would Jay and Nya disappear to make their life the way they'd always wanted it, build a family without them? Could Lloyd even take another loss amongst the ones he'd been through already?

Questions that could only be answered once they arrived. 

They were getting dangerously close to the building, and Zane knew he was letting himself hope with the others.

Hope was dangerous, but they would hope for as long as they could.

• • •

Kai slammed the car door shut a little harder than he meant to, and winced at the sound, hoping he didn't break anything. The building stood ahead of them, tall and menacing. Afternoon light glanced off the glass, and he shaded his eyes.

All they had to do was find Cole. Easy, maybe. Maybe he was waiting ahead, leaning against the doorframe like he usually did. Wearing the easy grin he always had, asking them what took so long.

• • •

He found his broken body on the ground of a shop, pieces of the glass ceiling he crashed through laying around him. They sparkled in the sunlight, making the ground around him glitter. 

It made him look almost angelic, in some way.

Hope was fatal. It dragged you into the pretense of convincing yourself everything was fine, and abandoned you when the truth came out.    

Nya appeared behind him, and he pushed her back instinctively, some part of him knowing she shouldn't see. But he was too shell shocked to really do anything, and she screamed, a terrible sound grating his ears, his soul. Gasping, shaking, sobs escaped her as she ran, and Kai distantly thought he should go after her. 

Jay didn't even come close enough to look. All he had to see was Kai standing stone still, staring at something on the ground, and Nya escaping from the scene as if the most terrible monster was chasing her, tears streaking down her face.

Maybe it was. He didn't need to see. He didn't want to see it, however much selfish that was. And he followed her away, a resounding crash echoing in his ears of something inside him collapsing, breaking, disappearing. 

Kai staggered closer to the body, dropping to his knees uselessly. He heard the sound of glass crunching under his feet, but he didn't feel the pain of the sharp shards cutting into his skin. 

He could only stare at the empty gaze his brother held towards the sky, looking upwards at the blazingly bright sun. Zane knelt down next to him, and shuffled closer, brushing his delicate metal fingers over his face to close his eyelids. 

The worst part was how there was no blood. No anything.

 No obvious sign of death except the lack of breath. Cole looked like he was sleeping, like he'd just — just get up any moment and ask why they were sitting around him. 

Kai thought he might be in shock.

"I have...I have called the ambulance. They will be here shortly to bring Cole back to...to bring him home." Zane said softly, and Kai nodded. 

Everything felt unreal.

The car came faster than he expected. red blue lights flashing silently. They blurred in his eyes, and he blinked,  hot tears spilling down his cheeks. Leaning against the wall, he watched them carry Cole's body into the ambulance, a few people dressed in white staying behind to clean up the place. 

The doors are about to slam shut when he steps forward suddenly, a unknown force in him bringing his steps over. The doctor is looking at him curiously, eyes filled with pity.

"I-Can I ride with him?" His voice was thick, words getting stuck at a lump in his throat. "Just one last time." Kai doesn't think he could stand riding back with the rest of his teammates. 

"Of course," he swings open the door and Kai steps up onto the inside of the van. The man hesitates before closing the door. "Uh, I really appreciate everything you guys have done for the city. We all do. Thank you. And I'm so sorry for your loss." 

Kai nods, a ghost of a smile passing over his lips. Then the white doors slid shut and as he sits down on a thin metal bench next to the bed, all the energy keeping him up seems to disappear into thin air.

Cole looks just as peaceful as ever, a white sheet pulled up to his chest to hide the bruises and cuts littering his body. 

"Wake up." His voice is scratchy and dry, and he doesn't know why he said it, but he knows that's all he wants now. For Cole to wake up from this cursed eternal sleep. "Please, wake up." 

If he doesn't talk, it's silent, and he suddenly hates the quiet. He remember's his promise to Lloyd.

"Lloyd misses you, Cole." He tries, and tears travel faster down his cheek, dripping onto his lap. "Come back so—" he stops. Come back so I don't have to tell him, he thinks. Or anybody.

"We, uh, we did it." Kai says, a small voice in the back of the mind reminding him that he's talking to a dead person. He brushes it away, ignoring everything else. 

"We beat the darkness. And it was because of Lloyd. Again. That boy's gonna put us out of our jobs pretty soon if he carries on saving the city like this. 

"And Lord Garmadon, surprise surprise. Although I don't know where he's gone, now. Hopefully not to take over Ninjago again."

He talks, and talks, filling the dreadful silence, until all too soon, they arrive back at the monastery. It means talking to Lloyd, and Sensei Wu, and Pixal, and seeing the rest of his family.

And Kai's not ready to deal with that. But he picks himself out of the seat anyway, and staggers to the door, a hand on the wall. The now familiar white doors slide open again, revealing the glaring sunshine. Zane waits outside patiently, hands fidgeting with each other nervously and eyes cast downwards. 

Kai steps down from the ambulance, the red and blue lights still flashing noiselessly. Lloyd is waiting anxiously from the door, wearing a big smile. Kai realizes how this must look. Coming home in a ambulance looked hopeful. Like Cole was waiting inside, injured but alive. 

Lloyd all but throws himself down the stairs, making his way to the van before anyone can stop him. 

"Lloyd, wait, please—" Kai throws his arms out, catching the boy, but he slips out from under his grasp, clambering up the tall step in. There's a excited shout of 'Cole!' and Kai thinks he may throw up. He slowly turns around, afraid of whatever's about to happen.

"Cole?" Lloyd says from somewhere inside the ambulance, voice filled with confusion, and Kai steps up again, just in time to see Lloyd make the awful, terrible, realization they've all gone through in the last hour. 

"Kai? He's not breathing, he's not—" Lloyd unwillingly catches his eye, and the look is enough to smash the fire ninja's heart to pieces a hundred times over. 

Somehow, Lloyd is in his arms now, and looking smaller, more fragile, more broken than he's ever been, and Kai puts a arm around him, and starts to wish he could fade away in the air.

"Did you- did you tell him? What- what I said?" There's a question forced out between the sobs and the tears, and Kai realizes, oh,  Lloyd thinks Cole passed in the van with him. He debates with himself whether or not to tell the truth for a moment, but he doesn't even want to imagine telling Lloyd that he'd been dead for a while when they found him. 

"Of course I told him, bud." 

• • •

Then suddenly it's been three days, and they're getting ready for his funeral, and Kai supposed to say a few words but he has no idea what to say, of course. He doesn't know how he got the role of speaking. 

And then it's time, and he's suddenly pushed out into the stand, and all Kai can do is look at his brother's body in the open casket and wish it wasn't like this. That they'd somehow defied the impossible odds once more, just once more.

But they didn't.

And looks are getting thrown around within the crowd, and whispers starting to spread when he finally speaks up.

"We all loved Cole more than anything in this world." Silence settles over the masses of people standing there, and words fill his mind, rushing over one another to get out.

"He was the one who always made us feel better. We couldn't have done anything without him offering a helping hand, or-" tears suddenly blur his vision, and he blinks them away. 

"None of us will ever forget everything he did for us. He died saving people, and I know that was the way he would've wanted to go out. He was the rock of the team," there's a few small smiles in the sea of faces, and Kai feels lighter. 

"And, Cole was the one we could always count on. I remember once. Once, I was trying to fix this car on a mission. I, uh, well, I was having trouble. Cole came and sat down next to me. He didn't say anything, he just handed me the tool I needed. I don't know how, but he made me feel better just like that."

"So, uh, whether it was fixing a broken car engine, or saving Ninjago City, he always gave us hope. It's our turn to take that hope and live on. It's what he would've wanted. " Kai finishes, and knows he's struck on the right thing to say. 

"And I hope you're somewhere happier, Cole. We'll see you there." 

Hope was many things. Painful, cruel, dangerous, fatal. 

But it was also needed. People needed it to survive, and they would survive. 

No matter what.