I'M ALIIIIIIVE!

Hello, everyone! It's been forever! :D But, I am happy to announce that I am SO CLOSE to the end of school, and to celebrate, I decided to post the first chapter of Zane's Five Times! I've already written the first five chapters (but I am having a *little* trouble with Zane's, so any suggestions you guys want to throw my way would be greatly appreciated! ;D)

Also, with this story, I wanted to focus a little more on the later seasons, since I haven't really written anything past Season 7. So! These chapters will be in chronological order, with this one right after Season 7 :D (Future chapters will take place in later seasons, but I'll preface which season in case you are worried about spoilers ;D)

In other news, I am STILL going to finish replying to all the backlogged reviews from Forgotten Memory and Getting to Know You, AND I'm working on other stories as well! ;D

Lastly, TheYellowNinja: THANK YOU SO MUCH for your birthday review! Happy birthday to you too! This can be a sort of belated birthday present to you XD

So, without further ado: here's Kai!

"I'm fine, Zane," Kai stubbornly insisted for the fourth time as he tried to shake off the nindroid's freezing cold hand currently pressed against his forehead. "Just because I'm feeling a little under the weather doesn't mean I'm dying."

The white ninja hummed disapprovingly but removed his hand. "Hm, no fever…" Zane tapped his chin as he continued studying his irritated brother in the foyer of the Airjitzu Temple. "What did you say your symptoms were again?"

"I just said my stomach hurts," Kai reminded his brother with an eyeroll. "It's probably just something I ate. Now, can I go lay down?"

Zane pressed his lips together in dissatisfaction. It was only a handful of weeks after the defeat of the Hands of Time, and between their relentless searches for Master Wu, Kai and Nya had decided to spend their weekends at their parents' blacksmith shop to catch up on the past thirteen years.

And yet, here Kai was, returning from the first trip on the same day because of this illness. Sometimes fate seemed particularly cruel to the ninja, and even something as small as taking away Kai's quality time with his newly rescued parents only rubbed salt into that wound.

At length, Zane answered with a sigh. "Of course. Would you like me to bring you anything? Some soup perhaps would settle your stomach."

"Thanks, Zane, but I'm good. I promise," Kai said, patting the nindroid on the shoulder as he walked past him toward the hallway.

"I am sorry that you could not spend the time with your parents that you wanted to," Zane said quickly. He couldn't help it; something in his chest ached when his siblings hurt, and Kai, who had spent almost his entire life without his parents and had to go even longer without them now, was only bringing all the grief over his own father to the surface.

"It's okay, Zane," Kai reassured with his trademark grin. "I've got time."

"Yes," Zane agreed, though he couldn't help but recall the death of his father when they thought that all they'd had was time. "I will stop in to check on you later."

The white ninja laughed when his brother groaned and muttered something about a "mother hen," but Zane did not see how he was supposed to take that as an insult. He only hoped he could be as proficient as a hen in protecting his family as she was in protecting her chicks.

Kai was rather sluggish and without an appetite throughout the rest of Saturday. He seemed to recover on Sunday but had to excuse himself from the table while Nya was enthusiastically recounting the story of her weekend with the parents she was just getting to know. Zane hovered over Kai in order to be able to respond immediately should Kai collapse, vomit, or do a combination thereof; but Kai went to bed early without incident and by the next morning, he was completely better (though Zane made sure to ask for a status report every hour on the hour.)

After an arduous and fruitless week of searching for Wu, the strain of which showed in Lloyd's irritability, Jay's nervous chatter, and Cole's withdrawn nature, Kai and Nya left on Saturday morning to decompress at Four Weapons.

And, on Saturday afternoon, Kai returned alone.

Zane spotted him from a distance, rubbing his chest as if it hurt with a distinctly pained look on his face.

Again? The nindroid thought, trying to wipe the perplexed look off his face as he rushed to meet Kai in the courtyard and help him inside. Maybe Kai wasn't as over this little bug as Zane thought he was?

Kai was in his pajamas, laying down in bed, a thermometer in his mouth and his feet elevated on a pillow in a record time of three and a half minutes.

"Still no fever…," Zane remarked after studying the thermometer. He had thought as much, but afraid that his internal sensors were busted, he figured he might as well confirm it.

"I said, I'm fine, Zane!" Kai protested with a huff. He tried to sit up in bed, but Zane was pushing him back down. "Really!"

Zane frowned, sitting on the edge of Kai's bed as he continued to stare down at the thermometer in consternation. "No fever, chest pains, stomach pain but no vomiting… I apologize, Kai, I am just having trouble diagnosing you."

"I don't need to be diagnosed!" Kai insisted, shaking his head against the pillow since his overbearing brother would not let him sit up to do so. "Sometimes, you just don't feel good!"

"Still, the chest pain concerns me," Zane commented, mostly ignoring Kai's argument, since he knew it was in the red ninja's nature to be as obstinate as possible, even when it went against his own wellbeing. "If it persists, we should go to the hospital."

"Well, it doesn't hurt anymore," Kai stated, crossing his arms. "And, I definitely don't need to go to the hospital."

Zane sighed, sitting the thermometer on the nightstand beside the glass of water and bottle of ibuprofen that Kai claimed Zane had made magically "appear" there through the sheer power of brotherly love.

"Are you sure these are your only symptoms, Kai?" The white ninja asked, turning to look seriously at his ailing brother. "I cannot help you to the best of my ability unless you are completely honest with me."

For the first time, Kai seemed uncomfortable rather than recalcitrant, his eyes trailing to the side before coming back to rest on Zane. "I really don't think it's a big deal, Zane. Okay? I appreciate you taking care of me like this, but I'm fine."

Zane pondered this before cocking his head. "You know I do not mind whatsoever, Kai, but why did you not choose to stay at Four Weapons? I am sure your parents are eager for the chance to tend to you in this way."

After all, Zane overall had a pleasant association with repairs and tune-ups; his father had always made it a tender affair. A labor of love, not an inconvenience.

Kai offered a shrug, awkward as it was with his shoulders flat on the mattress. "My bed there is for a little kid. And, I don't want to screw up Nya's good time, you know?"

Zane continued looking down at Kai. He imagined that his bright blue eyes looked like twin lighthouses in the dim room, trying to lead Kai toward honesty, openness. Kai was not an abysmal liar, but it did not take a nindroid to see that there was more to that answer.

Still, Zane did not see it fit to push his patient. Standing up, he patted Kai gently on the chest. "Fair enough. Please do not hesitate to call me if you are in need of assistance."

"Okay, Zane," Kai replied rather quietly. It was like a lion meowing, and the incongruousness stuck Zane as equally concerning as the chest pains. "Thanks."

That was when the seed had been planted, but Zane continued to nurture it over the next week, watering it with Kai's avoidance of Nya, his hyper-focus on the search for Wu, his foul mood steadily growing more foul as the week went on.

The seed reached maturity, though, when, on Friday night, Kai announced that there was no way he could even attempt to travel to Four Weapons, as he constantly felt as if he was moments away from throwing up.

Once again, Zane bundled Kai into bed, going through the motions of taking his temperature and making sure his brother was comfortable, though at this point he was fairly sure he knew what Kai's diagnosis was.

"Maybe I'll be good enough to go tomorrow if I get a good night's sleep," Kai offered, pulling up his red comforter to his chest.

Zane nodded absently as he pulled out Kai's desk chair, turning it around to sit down in it so he was facing Kai.

"Kai," Zane addressed. Normally, he had no trouble finding the right words, but now, he felt somewhat lost, an actor without a script. "Do you know what the word psychosomatic means?"

"No…?" The red ninja responded, sitting up against his headboard. He had sensed the shift in mood. Zane was no longer his nurse, but Kai wasn't exactly sure what Zane was at the moment. "What is it?"

Zane folded his hands together carefully on top of his crossed his legs. He was hoping to come across as non-confrontational as possible, since he knew Kai well enough to know that his defenses would pop up at the first hint of a threat. Zane considered himself more of a diplomat than a warrior, but he was well aware of what he might have to resort to.

"A psychosomatic illness is one that is brought about by mental causes rather than physical ones," Zane explained. "If one believes that they are sick, then they will actually start to become sick."

Kai recoiled, a somewhat disgusted expression on his face. "What, and you think… that's what's happening to me?" He shook his head, trying to shake the accusation off like a dog shaking water off his fur. "You think I'm lying about being sick?"

"No, not at all," Zane responded calmly. "I think you are truly in pain. I was only suggesting that perhaps your illness is resulting from something aside from a bacterial or viral infection."

Kai crossed his arms, raising a defiant eyebrow. "You're not joking? This is a real thing that can happen to people?"

"I am quite serious," Zane rebutted. "After all, it is real to you, is it not?"

"Well, yeah, because I really am sick," the red ninja insisted, sinking further into his bed. "Why on earth would I want to pretend to be sick?"

Zane resisted the urge to correct Kai yet again on the difference between a psychosomatic illness and "pretending" (and was unfortunately reminded of their brief stint as teachers, trying to impart the beauty of math and science to the insufferable former Darkley's students.)

"You tell me," he said instead. "I could not help but notice that this affliction appears to strike you every weekend-"

"So?"

"So, you are avoiding your parents," the nindroid stated unflinchingly. "But, I will admit that I do not know why."

"Avoiding my parents?" Kai repeated incredulously. "Why the heck would I do that? I've only spent, like, ten years looking for them."

"Kai, I only-"

"Look, Zane, thanks but just- can you just leave?"

Zane couldn't help but recoil at the sharp tone. Sure, he knew Kai was only lashing out because Zane was right, like a patient flinching away from a doctor when he had found the place that hurt the most. Still, it didn't stop it from stinging, just like he couldn't stop himself from feeling like a failure whenever he looked out over his students' faces to see everyone's eyes glazed over despite Cole's assurances that Zane was doing the best he could.

"Of course," Zane eventually said, coming across as polite as ever. He stood up. "Goodnight, Kai."

The red ninja didn't respond. He was still glaring at his comforter when Zane closed the door behind him.

Zane was sure the noise wouldn't have woken him up under normal circumstances, but he wasn't sleeping. Not physically needing to sleep made going to bed when your brother was mad at you that much harder for the nindroid, so Zane was already up, finding things to do to keep his hands busy. He was currently knitting sweaters for orphans, but once the sun was able to motivate itself to creep a little further up into the sky, Zane would begin preparations for a huge breakfast for his family.

He looked up when he heard the noise; someone was rifling around in the bathroom. That alone didn't arouse suspicion at first- after all, Jay was notorious for his nocturnal bathroom trips (and tripping over something on the way back to his room that caused a cacophony that would wake half the city)- but considering Kai's sickness and the fact that whoever was in the bathroom had not come out for close to twenty minutes prompted Zane to get up and check.

The light from behind the ajar door was spilling into the hallway. Zane tiptoed past Cole's room (briefly wondering how he could hear anything over the earth shaking snores) and tapped on the door. Though he had somewhat internalized the concept of "privacy," he still pushed the door open without waiting for verbal permission.

Kai was curled up into a ball beside the bathtub, his knees pulled up to his chest and his arms wrapped around his stomach. His tan face was creased, little hills and valleys erected by his tense jaw, his eyes squeezed shut. He was very clearly in pain, and Zane was immediately struck with a reciprocal pain in his stomach.

He entered the room further when Kai didn't protest, and hesitantly sat on the floor beside his brother.

They were quiet for a minute. Several times, Zane reached out a hand to rest on Kai's shoulder, back, knee, something to physically impart support, before retracting it again. This was one of the few times the red ninja seemed fragile, like iron that had suddenly become glass, and the nindroid did not want to break him.

Kai was the one who spoke first.

"This… this psycho semantic thing…," he said quietly, though his eyes were still squeezed shut. "You promise it's a real thing? It doesn't make me crazy?"

"Psychosomatic," Zane corrected automatically before wincing. Now was not the time for spell check. "Yes, it is a very real thing, and, no, it does not make you crazy at all. Stress can drive you to make yourself sick, Kai."

The red ninja sighed, opening his amber-brown eyes, though they stayed focused on his knees and not on Zane.

"It's just so… stupid," Kai admitted, running one hand through his unruly brunette spikes before replacing it around his stomach. "You know, I spend my entire life looking for my parents, and now I've finally found them and… and now when I think about them, I feel like I'm going to throw up."

Kai went on before Zane could respond. "And-And, it's just so unfair you know, because Nya didn't even care about finding them, but now she's catching up with them and getting to have the relationship with them she never had and she's so happy and… And, I'm glad, but I want to feel that too, and I just… don't."

Zane nodded slowly, pondering this. "And, how do you feel when you're around them?"

"Like I said, sick," Kai answered. "I get this, like, pain in my chest, and I'm on edge like I want to hit something and…"

The red ninja trailed off. He had just answered Zane's question, and they both knew it.

"It is alright to be angry with them, Kai," Zane said quietly, scooting a little bit- just a little bit- closer to his brother.

Kai huffed frustratedly, rubbing his sleeve against his eye even though he wasn't crying. "But, it's not their fault. I know it's not their fault. I can't be mad at them for getting kidnapped."

"Yes, you can. You are allowed to feel whatever it is you are feeling," Zane said automatically, and it was the firmest his tone had been during the entire exchange. "You were abandoned in a way that Nya was not. That is not something that can be erased."

Finally, Kai looked at Zane, his jaw working as he attempted to maintain his hold on the reins of his emotions. "But… being mad at them's not going to fix it either."

Zane nodded. "No, but talking to your parents about how you are feeling might."

Kai looked scandalized at the notion of talking about his feelings. "But, I can't… I don't want them to think…"

He huffed, pressing his hands into his eyes.

"Kai, I…," Zane faltered. He cursed himself; after all, he was the one telling Kai to open up, so he had to be willing to do the same. Then again, telling someone to move mountains was a lot easier than doing it yourself.

"I think I can relate to how you are feeling," he eventually forced out. It was as painful as pulling a shard of glass out of his skin, but just as much of a relief now that it was out. "It was… confusing, to say the least, to find my father in that lighthouse after so many years. It wasn't his fault that he was gone, and he did what he did to protect me… but it still hurts."

Zane swallowed. Yes. It still hurt.

Kai was looking back at Zane with that deep focus, that intensity so hot Zane could feel it burning him. Kai gave his whole self to his brothers, even when there was barely anything left to give, and Zane had never admired that trait in the red ninja more.

"But, I promise you," Zane continued, finally reaching out and placing his hand on Kai's shoulder. Kai was hot against the cool titanium of his hand- not feverish, but warm. Alive. There.

"Hating him is better than feeling nothing at all."

Day upon night upon day, wandering the Birchwood Forest. Drifting from place to place, testing himself as if that way he could find himself. Being thrown into Sensei Wu's crazy world of ninja and prophecies and snakes, and yet still not able to tell what was missing, let alone where it was.

Zane looked away, collecting himself. "Hatred is born from love," he stated, squeezing Kai's shoulder. "Only nothing is born from nothing."

He took a deep, shaky breath, but when he replaced his hands in his lap and smiled at Kai, it was steady. "In short, I think you should talk to your parents honestly. They will understand. But, only then will you be able to move forward and perhaps regain the relationship you lost."

Kai's eyes dropped to his knees once again. "But, what if we can't? What if it's always broken like this?"

Zane thought back to finding his father in that lighthouse. Everything he had seen and learned. More than he ever had in the treehouse. Met more people and felt new feelings that he'd never had the opportunity to. Asking his father to remove the memory switch and revealing, however subtly, the betrayal he felt that his father had ever installed it, let alone used it.

But, the way his father had hugged him on those steps of the lighthouse. The way he humble-bragged to Garmadon and Wu, saying "my son," "my boy." The way they said goodbye a second time...

"It will be different, but it will not be broken."

The two brothers sat there on the bathroom floor for some time after that, Kai still curled up into a ball and Zane sitting in a proper cross-legged position, letting their minds wander down different paths.

Shaking his head, as if coming out of a reverie, Zane stood up, dusting off his pajama pants. "I think I will begin cooking breakfast."

It was said as an invitation without the invitation part, an offer without the "you can come with me if you want to" that Kai would definitely misconstrue as condescending.

Fortunately, he heard the invitation and accepted, unfolding stiffly- more like a living statue than a person- and followed Zane to the kitchen.

By the time the sun had risen, Kai had sitting in front of him a short stack of pancakes topped with every berry available and a generous helping of powdered sugar. The tines of his fork left little tire tracks in the snow.

Nya was the first to enter the kitchen. Her yawn got caught in her throat when her eyes landed on her brother at the kitchen table at the crack of dawn. Usually it was her nursing a cup of coffee at the table while Zane cooked and the rest of the house slept.

"Hey, Kai," she greeted. "Do you feel up to coming along today?"

Kai looked up from his pancakes. Glanced at Nya. Then at Zane. Then at Nya.

He snatched the bottle of syrup off the center of the table and emptied its entire contents onto his pancakes.

"Oh, yeah," he replied, a flicker of his trademark cocky grin peeking through as he cut into his pancakes. "I'm feeling much better."

Zane smiled from where he was minding his pancakes but didn't turn away from the stove.

Zane couldn't help but be jittery throughout the rest of the weekend, which was good news for the sweaterless children of the Ninjago City Orphanage, but bad for Zane's sanity. Part of him was dreading Kai's unexpected arrival with the excuse of his "illness." Part of him was terrified that he really had misdiagnosed his brother, and Kai was currently collapsing because of some terminal illness that he hadn't-

But Saturday and Sunday passed along to the tune of knitting needles clacking together, and no Kai or Nya.

Until Sunday night, when they came back together, both teasing the other for losing a spar against their mother. The enthusiasm with which they described their weekend breathed a little bit of life back into the kitchen that had seemed mostly empty without Master Wu in it.

But, it wasn't until Kai caught him alone afterward that Zane knew really and truly that he was going to be okay.

"We all talked for a long time about… you know, everything," Kai said quietly. He kept the water running as he washed the dishes, as if afraid of spies overhearing. "And, it was good. It was… really, really good."

"I am so happy for you, Kai," Zane exclaimed as he accepted the damp plate and slid it into the dishwasher.

Kai nodded. Without looking up from the soapy water filling the sink basin, he said, "So…, thanks, Zane. You always just… When I fell asleep on the couch and my dad threw a blanket over me, I could have sworn it was you at first."

He held out another moist bowl to Zane. "So, thanks for being that for me."

Zane accepted the bowl and held it between his two hands, pressing it against his chest for a moment despite the warm ring of water it left on his white gi.

"You-" Zane laughed a delighted little laugh as he secured the bowl in place in the rack. "You are very welcome, Kai."

So, I really hope you guys liked it! Hopefully not everyone's forgotten me after being dormant for so long XD

Also, once again, if you guys have any ideas for Zane's chapter, feel free to let me know! :D

Next up is Nya ;D (Updates will be weekly for now, so expect the next chapter sometime next weekend :D)

I love you all! :3