Chapter Text
When the strip turned pink, Nya’s heart stopped. It picked up moments later, slamming itself against the inside of her ribcage as she lifted the test from the bathroom counter to study the lines which proved that she was - undeniably - pregnant.
“Oh, First Master,” she said, her fingertips running across her grinning lips as she blinked, looking back at the lines of the test. Still bright pink. Nya put down the test, moving her hand to caress her abdomen. It was too early to matter, she knew that, but she still felt giddy at the thought of a baby clinging to her insides. “Holy shit.”
The week of symptoms made sense with the confirmation, clicking into place. The missed period. The elevated tiredness after training, the aching muscles that made her want to curl up in bed and hibernate. The waves of nausea that rolled through her stomach when she was offered her favorite foods, the way she burst into tears and ran to her and Jay’s room at the thought of not getting to eat them. Holy shit. She was having Jay’s baby. Nya giggled, a giddy feeling enveloping her, cascading over the nerves that she was sure would continue plaguing her for the next months.
It wasn’t like they had been trying, but they had stopped taking their regular precautions after the ceremony that officially made them one, with the villainous threats winding down providing them some peace. As a result, they had been talking about the future. A lot . Nya wasn’t worried about Jay’s reaction to the news, she was just freaked out about finding the perfect way to tell him.
She settled on simple, normal. They never really had a chance to be normal.
The boys were playing video games in the living room, their shouts echoing down the hallways of the monastery as Nya stepped into the doorway, taking in the scene. Cole and Kai were side-by-side on the couch, with Kai seconds away from taking his hand off of his remote to slap Cole with a ball of fire so he wouldn’t run ahead and get the kill onscreen. Zane, who had been sitting on the arm of the couch, moved down to sit between Cole and Kai, his attention not wavering from the screen. He even managed to double his score in the seconds that the movement took. Lloyd was in the armchair beside the couch, his legs draped over the side as he watched the screen, his eyes drooping shut, then snapping open as his teammates shouted at each other. Nya beamed as her eyes fell on Jay, who was sitting on the floor, his back propped against Cole’s legs. His tongue poked out from between his lips as he concentrated, squinting at the screen as an explosion covered it, signaling that Zane was victorious in the level. He whooped as the rest of the team groaned. Nya took the seconds before they booted up the game again as the opportunity to interrupt.
“Hey, guys,” she said, stepping into the room.
“Hey Nya,” they chorused back. Jay smiled lopsidedly up at her as she stood next to the couch, his glasses perched haphazardly on his nose. She had suggested that he invest in some blue-light blocking eyewear following the time he ran straight into a wall after a marathon round of Prime Empire, and it was one of the best ideas she had ever had. She was pretty sure the entire reason she was pregnant was because he wore those glasses.
“You wanna play?” Kai asked, gesturing toward the coffee table, where extra controllers sat between empty cans of soda. Nya shook her head. Even after years of living with a group of rowdy guys who loved playing them, she had never gotten into video games. It was mostly because of the anger that boiled up in her when she wasn’t immediately good at the games, leading to a broken controller on more than one occasion when she had tried to play.
“No, I’ll get the next one,” she said, knowing that nobody in the room believed her. Nya turned back to Jay, who was still studying her face through dough eyes. Her stomach erupted in butterflies. She lowered her voice as she spoke directly to her Yin. “Um… can we talk?”
“OoOooooh!” Cole and Kai teased from above Jay. Nya snapped her attention up to them, silencing them with a single glare before she softened her face and turned back to Jay, who was already putting his controller down on the coffee table and shifting to get up.
“You’re not in trouble, I promise. No matter what these clowns think,” she said, shooting Cole and Kai another look. They quickly looked away, acting as if they were engrossed in the paused television screen in front of them. Lloyd rolled his eyes and pulled his phone out of his pocket, clicking away at it. Nya reached out her hand to help Jay off the ground.
“Will you be back?” Zane asked, turning to Jay and Nya as she gripped his hand. She shrugged.
“Depends.”
Jay turned to her, squinting at her lack of clarity in the nindroid’s question. But he trusted her, squeezing her hand in return as he turned to his fellow gamers. “Keep playing. But if you beat my high score, I’ll rewire you so you talk gibberish again.”
Zane scoffed at the blue ninja’s threat, turning back to the screen as he unpaused the game and he, Cole and Kai dove into another round. Nya guided Jay through the door, her heart pounding in her throat as they made their way to their room. Boom boom boom.
“You okay?” Jay asked as they stepped into the room, their hands still intertwined as Nya pushed the door shut. “Your hand’s shaking.”
Nya looked down, seeing her trembling fingers tangled between Jay’s steady ones. Boom boom boom. “Yeah, I’m fine. Do you wanna sit?” she asked, letting go of Jay’s hand and gesturing for him to take a seat on the blue quilt that covered the bed, a handmade wedding gift from Edna. He nodded, eyeing her with concern as he plopped down, pulling his glasses off.
Nya moved to join him, but her feet felt like they were glued to the floor. Boom boom boom. She took a deep breath, running her hands along her abdomen subconsciously, letting excitement spark back up inside her as she focused on deep breathing. She worked hard to put her foot forward, stepping across the room to stand in front of where Jay sat on the mattress.
“Nya, you’re obviously freaked out about something,” he said, eyes wide with anxiety as he reached for her hand, swiping his thumb along the back of it. Pops of electricity followed behind his touch as he lowered his voice. “You can talk to me. I’ll love you no matter what,” he promised.
“Jay, I…” Nya paused, the words getting caught in her throat. She breathed through them, her smile pulling at her lips as she moved her other hand so both of hers cupped Jay’s. “I’m pregnant.”
Jay’s emotions ran wild across his face, clear for Nya to watch. His eyebrows scrunched together as he took in the news, then un-creased as a tentative smile tickled his lips. His breath hitched. “We’re having a baby?” he whispered, his smile clear in the soft words. Nya sunk her teeth into her bottom lip and nodded, watching Jay’s eyes crinkle as his grin consumed his face. He shot up from the bed, his hands wrapping around Nya’s back as he pulled her into a tight embrace, lifting her feet off the ground with his enthusiasm. Nya giggled and hugged him back, nuzzling her face into Jay’s shoulder as warm, happy tears sprang forth in her eyes and he swung her back and forth gently for a few moments, then put her back down on the floor. As he kissed her, she could feel that he had started crying, too. The saline on their cheeks made her feel whole and hopeful as Jay moved his fingertips to brush along her abdomen. He looked at her through tear-soaked eyes, his smile electric. “How long?”
Nya shrugged, putting her hand on top of Jay’s. “Only about a month, I think. I’m not sure-” she was cut off by another kiss from Jay. She beamed into his lips as he tugged her toward the bed, sitting down and pulling away, shaking his head slightly in disbelief.
“Holy crap,” he murmured. Nya could see the news repeating over and over again in his head. “I’ve gotta start growing a beard.”
Nya giggled, tilting her head at him. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Nya, dads have beards,” Jay said, his tone implying that he was making an obvious connection. Nya breathed out a chuckle, his words hitting her. Dad, him. Mom, her. They were standing together on the precipice of something big, their biggest adventure yet. The beginning of something new.
Nya and Jay kept the news to themselves for the entirety of the first trimester. At first, it was because Nya was worried that something was going to go wrong, and she didn’t want to have to bring the rest of the team into the goings-on in her body. Then, Jay mentioned how the team was too codependent and constantly in each other’s businesses, so they agreed to wait to fill everyone else in.
Not that their teammates didn’t have their suspicions.
When Nya sprinted out of the dining room more mornings than not, Jay on her heels to hold back her hair as she puked, Cole raised his eyebrows as he watched them go. She had only ever reacted to his food in that way, which had led Zane to take over the cooking duties.
When Nya sweated through her layers during training, stripping down to her undershirt as she threw a punch at the dummy in the middle of the frigid courtyard, Zane and Kai (the only other two ninja outside, both of them immune to the weather) exchanged a look. Zane immediately began running a diagnostic of the Master of Water, but he didn’t have enough data to come to a logical conclusion.
When Jay hurled a jolt of lightning at Lloyd during a sparring match in which he had used his glowing green powers to counter Nya’s burst of water, causing her to tumble to the ground, the green ninja squinted across the courtyard at them. He watched as Jay helped Nya up, one set of fingers brushing along her face, the other ghosting across her hip as he checked her over. Lloyd knew that he hadn’t hit his sister hard enough to warrant Jay’s worry, but he didn’t want to push. They had been acting weird for weeks.
When Jay’s avatar got cubed in Prime Empire and Nya burst into tears in his lap, causing rain to begin slamming against the window, Kai hit his breaking point.
“Okay, what in the Departed Realm is going on with you?” he snapped from the other chair in the living room, where he had been furiously slamming his fingers into his own video game controller. Nya sniffled, her chin wobbling as she looked across the room at her big brother, and he immediately softened, standing up and plopping down on the couch next to her. “I just mean… you’ve been weird for a while. We all noticed.” Jay helped Nya sit up, wrapping his arm around her as she settled on her side, glassy eyes focused on her brother. The rain subsided to a drizzle as the flow of Nya’s tears slowed, quiet enough for her to hear Kai when he whispered “We’re worried about you.”
Nya’s eyes filled with tears yet again, the rain outside following suit as she wrinkled her eyebrows. Kai’s hand found its way to her knee, squeezing her leg through her sweats as he waited patiently for her to find her words. Nya rolled her head back to look up at Jay, their eyes searching each other, wordlessly discussing whether or not they should fill Kai in. His worry made Nya more willing to tell her big brother that he was going to be an uncle and she nodded, asking Jay with a slow blink if he could say it, knowing that her words would get caught in her throat if she tried to speak.
Jay held Nya’s hand and he turned to Kai, whose eyebrows were knit together as he watched the exchange between the two elemental masters in front of him. Nya squeezed Jay’s fingers, butterflies fluttering in her stomach. “Nya’s pregnant. We’re having a baby.”
Kai’s eyes widened, his gaze flickering from the Master of Lightning to the Master of Water, his lips slightly parted. “Really?” Nya nodded, a smile overtaking the tears as Kai launched himself forward, tackling her in a hug.
“Hey! Careful!” Jay barked, only to be ignored by the siblings on the couch beside him. Nya was just glad that Kai hadn’t gagged at the thought of his sister and one of his closest friends engaging in baby-making activities, like he always had in the past.
Nya giggled and sat up, hugging Kai back so tightly that she was sure she was going to crush his shoulders. Outside, the sun peeked through the clouds, warm light spilling into the monastery living room through the window. After a moment of tight hugs, Kai pulled away and clasped Nya’s hands in his, his eyes only flitting to Jay for a moment before he focused back in on his sister, beaming uncontrollably. “How… uh. How long have you known?”
Nya turned to grin at Jay, who had tears sparkling in his eyes. “A few months.”
“Months?” Kai asked, his voice booming through the room. Nya widened her eyes at the Master of Fire, and he focused on keeping his words at a steady inside volume. “You’ve known this for months and you didn’t tell me?”
Nya shrugged. “We wanted to make sure it was real,” she said quietly, putting her hand on top of Jay’s, which had rested on her stomach. Kai wrinkled his nose at them.
“I blame you, Jay.”
“What did I do?” Jay asked, the volume of his voice rising quickly in self-defense. Nya leaned back into him and his posture relaxed slightly.
Kai pursed his lips, eyes narrowing at his brother-in-law. “I don’t know, but I’m sure you did something.”
“Oh yeah, something besides kno-“
“Do not say the words ‘knocking up my sister’ to me, Jay!”
“Okay, okay, enough. You two are making me nauseous,” Nya said, sitting up slightly as Jay’s face scrunched with worry. Huh. That’ll come in handy. Nya pressed a reassuring kiss to Jay’s cheek and readjusted on the couch.
“Fine,” Kai said, his grin creeping back onto his lips. “Am I the first to know? Y’know, besides Zane.”
“Zane knows?”
“Yeah, I mean… he suspects. He’s been monitoring your behavior. I think he thinks you have a parasite, which… yeah,” Kai said with a shrug.
“Do not call my unborn child a parasite, Kai!” Nya said, her voice warning as she glared daggers at her older brother. He raised his hands defensively. “But… yes, you’re the first one we’ve told,” she continued. Kai pumped his fist triumphantly.
“I’m gonna spoil the shit out of this kid, you know that, right?”
Nya’s lips stretched into a smile. She remembered how good Kai had been with her when they were growing up, how he had always been there for her. She knew that her kid was in for one hell of an uncle. “Yeah, I do.”
“Can I tell everyone else?”
“No, you cannot,” Jay and Nya said together, causing Kai’s shoulders to slump as he pouted. Nya rolled her eyes at him and turned to Jay. “But we should probably tell them soon. You may be the Master of Blabber, but Kai can’t keep a secret to save his life.”
That night at dinner, Jay and Nya made their announcement at the dining room table, which exploded. Kai immediately bragged about having been the first one told the news, sputtering as Cole slammed a fistful of mashed potatoes into his face to shut him up, leaping from the table to hug Nya, then to jump up and down excitedly with Jay. Zane congratulated Nya as Jay continued bouncing, telling her that he was glad she had not come down with an uncontrollable illness. Pixal offered to help in any way the Master of Water needed, which Nya accepted graciously, along with Lloyd’s tight hug. His hands glowed green as he gripped his older sister, and she giggled when he pulled away, eyes widening as he shook out his fingers, dispersing the light with a chuckle.
Nya hoped that the cells in her body that would someday become her child could feel how loved they were. She hoped they could sense the family waiting for them, ready to shower them with affection in the same way that they had showered Jay and Nya upon hearing their news. She hoped they could feel how excited the team was to meet them.
“Okay, what about… bedtime stories? What’s off limits?”
Nya raised her eyebrow at Jay, circling the back of his hand with her fingertips. “What do you mean?”
“Nya, c’mon,” he said, settling on the bed beside her so he could rest his cheek on the top of her head. “In our lives we’ve been through… so many adventures. Some of them are not child-friendly, but I wanna impress our kids.”
“Kids?” Nya asked, turning to Pixal. “There’s only one in there, right?”
“Yes, Nya. Everything looks as expected: perfectly healthy,” Pixal said, running the ultrasound wand along the base of Nya’s stomach, which had just started to poke out a few weeks before. Pixal had been in charge of Nya’s checkups throughout the course of her pregnancy, as they had decided that - should anything go wrong and villains reemerge in Ninjago city - it was best that Nya’s condition remain under wraps. She tried not to let her mind wander to what had happened to her parents when she was a child.
Nya turned back to Jay. “I’m planning ahead,” he explained. She crinkled her nose at him with a smile.
“Okay, well. You’re not allowed to talk about all the times we almost died. At least not as a bedtime story.” Jay nodded. “You are allowed to tell them about our first date at Megamonster… dancing in Prime Empire… oh! And you can tell them about your gameshow. Mostly because that one’s funny.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
Pixal watched the exchange with a small smile, choosing the right moment to interject with her medical procedure. “Would you like to know the sex of your fetus?” She reached up as a MiniPix flew by with a towel, wiping off the tools as Nya and Jay shared a look. Jay raised his eyebrows at her, prompting Nya to share her thoughts first.
“Is it bad that I kind of don’t want to?” she asked, fiddling with the Yin pendant hanging from his neck, peeking through her eyelashes at him.
Jay shook his head. “Not at all. Then, we can be surprised when she gets here.”
“She?”
Nya could see Jay’s mind flitting back over his words, catching on the pronoun. Blush spread underneath his freckles and he grinned bashfully at her. “Yeah? I don’t know… I have a feeling. You remember the reflections we saw in that cave when we were searching for Morro?” Nya nodded, recalling the visions from years passed that had pushed them back together. “I didn’t just see you and me… I saw two daughters.”
Nya’s smile widened at the thought, her heart fluttering. “A lot has happened since that vision… what if it’s changed?”
Jay shrugged. “As long as I get to be with you, it doesn’t matter to me,” he whispered, pressing a chaste kiss to Nya’s lips and whispering into them. “But baby blue is a girl, I can feel it.”
Nya chuckled, kissing him again before she and Jay turned to Pixal, both wordlessly asking for confirmation. Pixal kept her face cool and level as she continued tidying up her station, skillfully avoiding eye contact.
“Pix..?”
“You just told me that you didn’t want to know the sex of your fetus,” she said. “Just because Jay guessed…”
“Oh, come on! It’s our baby!” Jay protested. Nya squeezed his side with a grin.
Pixal didn’t budge. “I’ll ask you again at your next prenatal appointment, so you two will have time to discuss what you want.”
“Fine!” Jay said, crossing his arms over his chest, then quickly gave back in. “Is a tenner gonna change your mind?”
“No.”
“Okay, well, I don’t have any more cash on me. What about a piece of candy?” he offered, rifling around in his pocket. Nya rolled her eyes with a tiny giggle as Pixal put her hands on her hips.
“No.”
“What about two pieces of candy?”
Pixal turned on her heel, grinning over her shoulder once more as she left the room. “Check back in a few weeks!” she called, stepping out of the room. Nya pulled her sweater down over her stomach, scooching aside to cuddle up to Jay on the infirmary bed.
“Why did we ask her to be our midwife, again?”
“Because she’s the only one besides Zane who knows anything about medicine. And Zane hasn’t finished downloading all of his files,” Nya said, gasping as a flutter rippled in her stomach. The baby kicking was still a new sensation, but one that she had quickly come to look forward to. “Ah! I think baby blue heard your candy offer,” she said, tugging her shirt back up and snatching Jay’s hand, pressing it to her skin so he could feel the tiny feet striking against her insides.
“Woah…” he whispered, moving his hand slightly as the tiny feet pushed back. “Does this happen a lot?”
Nya shrugged. “A lot more, recently. I don’t really- hey! Don’t shock the baby!”
“That was an accident!” Jay said, tugging his hand away from Nya’s waist, an involuntary surge of lightning having ricocheted along her belly. Then, he cast a classic Jay Walker smirk in her direction. “But, really, the sooner baby blue gets used to her Dad’s lightning, the better.”
Nya gasped at him, the smile still firmly on her lips. “Okay, another rule: you are not to shock our child.” Jay pouted at her, poking her shoulder with a tiny zing of electricity. “Okay, fine. Not until she’s old enough to fight back.”
“Deal,” Jay said, leaning in to press a gentle kiss to Nya’s lips, pulling a larger kick out of baby blue and a giggle out of her mother.
Nya gazed out the window, watching a cluster of seabirds fly by on their way West. She was sitting on the rocking chair by the window, switching between looking outside at the baby’s future view and admiring Jay as he worked on putting her room together, sweat brewing on his upper lip. She enjoyed watching the way his muscles rippled, exposed in the tank top he was wearing as he put together the crib, which he had been designing for weeks, claiming that he wanted it to be perfect and ready for the child.
A knock on the frame of the open door pulled Jay and Nya’s attention from the lazy afternoon they had been enjoying. They both turned to see Lloyd standing in the opening of the room adjacent to theirs, a small smile on his face as he took in the scene.
“Hey, you guys busy?”
“Do you think this crib’s gonna build itself?” Jay asked, gesturing around at the scraps of wood and fabric around him. Lloyd looked down at him, an eyebrow raised.
“I think you’re gonna keep tinkering with it even after baby blue’s here, so you have time to step away for a bit.” Jay rolled his eyes, but Nya grinned at her little brother.
“No, we’re not busy, Lloyd. What’s up?”
Lloyd’s lips curled into a small smile, his green eyes lighting up. “Oh, nothing. I just need you guys to come with me to… look at the new training equipment in the courtyard.”
It was Nya’s turn to raise an eyebrow. She could tell that Lloyd was lying - terribly - about something, but she had no idea what his true intentions were. With her curiosity piqued, Nya moved to get up from the rocking chair. “Alright. I guess we could sneak away for a bit.”
Jay scrambled to get up off the floor, leaving the pieces of his project littered on the nursery floor in favor of helping Nya get up. Her rounded belly made it difficult to stand up and sit down, but Jay was always by her side, ready to help her move. He took her outstretched hands and gently pulled her up, wrapping one arm around her, his hand settling on the small of her back as they followed Lloyd down the hallway together. He practically bounced as he led them through the building, stopping just before they reached the opening into the courtyard. Then, Lloyd turned, putting his hand on Jay’s chest to stop him from walking any further. Nya swore she heard hushed voices just past the door.
“Okay, cover your eyes.”
“What? Lloyd, I’m not covering-”
“Cover your eyes! This training equipment is shy!” Lloyd said insistently, pushing against Jay’s chest. Nya giggled, putting a hand over her eyes as Lloyd continued urging Jay to do the same, his hands finding their way into Jay and Nya’s to pull them into the courtyard. “Okay, step down. Be careful, then take another big step and… boom, you’re in the courtyard. Okay, open your eyes.”
“Surprise!”
Nya laughed as she pulled her hand away from her face, a smile pinching at her cheeks as she took in the crowd in front of her, packed to the brim of the courtyard. Balloons were tied all around the training equipment, streamers hung from the roof. Across the wall was a banner reading Oh, Baby Blue, We Can’t Wait to Meet You! Tears burst forth in Nya’s eyes and her chuckles turned watery as Jay tightened his grip around her, taking everything in. Gifts and drinks and food, stupid baby shower games and guests that they hadn’t seen in years. Skylor and Vania, in particular, were the first to bounce forward and embrace Nya, subtly tugging her away from Jay. He smiled in greeting, then wandered into the party, nearly getting tackled by his friends.
“What are you guys doing here?” Nya asked, beaming as she watched Bentho join her Yin and her friends, his smile wide. Skylor chuckled.
“Lloyd called me. You’re having a baby! You think I’d miss this party?”
“This is the most excited I’ve been since you guys first visited Shintaro,” Vania said, her smile so wide it looked like it hurt her pale cheeks. “You and Jay are totally my OTP. And now, there’s gonna be a baby! I love babies!” she gushed, and Nya grinned. “I just… I’m so happy for you two. And I’m so happy to be here, I’m just so happy…” Vania continued, her voice trailing off as her happiness spilled out in liquid form, running down her cheeks.
“Oh, honey,” Skylor said, chuckling as Vania hiccuped, her grin wide. “Let’s get you some punch.” She turned to Nya, reaching out her hand that wasn’t wrapped around Shintaro’s queen. Nya took it. “C’mon, Mama to be. The party can’t start without the guest of honor.”
As she was tugged into the surprise shower, Nya felt surrounded by warmth and affection, and was sure that her child could feel it through her skin as she showered with joy, wrapped up in love.
Despite being ready for the baby to drop at any moment, baby blue was not ready for them. One week past Nya’s due date passed, then two, only adding to her frustration and anxiety. She was tired of being pregnant. Tired of the mood swings and difficulty focusing, tired of having to pee every five minutes, tired of not being able to sleep with her daughter constantly squirming around in her belly, which only added to her exhaustion. At least she had Jay by her side, dutifully providing everything she needed as they attempted to meet their child. They walked the monastery every morning and every night, added hot peppers to every meal, even the ones that didn’t make sense. Jay mused about trademarking flaming hot cereal even though it didn’t help induce. It was just that delicious.
Still, Nya’s irritation mounted as more and more days passed with no baby. And she took it out on everyone else.
“Woah, you haven’t popped yet?” Cole asked, his hand digging into a bag of chips before he shoved a handful into his mouth, most of the crumbs settling on his chest. He had crashed Jay and Nya’s movie night, preventing them from another attempt to get labor going. One that they weren’t willing to continue with the Master of Earth stuffing his face in the room with them.
Nya glared at him. “No, Cole, I haven’t popped yet,” she snapped, moving to pull herself off the couch but falling short, her swollen stomach getting in her way. She groaned, wanting to throw something as Jay moved to help her. “I’ve got it, Jay,” she said through gritted teeth, pushing him back by the chest and using the momentum to haul herself up. Once she was standing, a pain ripped through her lower body, a pool of liquid running down her legs and through her pajama pants. Nya looked down, her eyes wide. She couldn’t see anything below her waist, but the rolling pain making its way through her was enough of an indication that the moment long overdue was upon her. “Shit,” she muttered, turning to Jay and Cole, whose eyes looked like they were going to pop out of their heads as Jay shot up, grabbing Nya by her elbows and looking her over.
“Shit, is this it?” he asked, his hands shaking. Nya rolled her eyes.
“I don’t know, Jay, I’ve never been in labor befor- ah!" she groaned as another shooting pain ripped through her. She screwed her eyes shut, her hand running along the stretched skin of her abdomen.
“Okay, yep, this is it,” Jay said, springing into action as Nya took a deep breath, which caught in her throat as another cramp started tightening against her side. He dipped his head slightly to catch Nya’s eyes, which were watery and nervous as she looked back at him. “Can you get to the infirmary? Or do you need us to carry you?”
Nya shook her head. “I can- ah - walk. It’s just… on the other side of the monastery.”
Jay took Nya’s labored breathing to mean what she wouldn’t say: she couldn’t walk across the building by herself. He wrapped an arm around her waist to hold her up, turning to Cole. “Rocky, get Pix and Zane to the infirmary. They’ll know what to do, this is what we’ve been planning for.”
Cole nodded dutifully, dropping the bag of chips on the couch and sprinting out of the room, shouting “We’re having a baby, everyone!” as he dashed down the hallway.
From across the monastery, Kai screeched “HERE WE GO!”, which was followed by a clatter. Jay and Nya turned to each other, pausing for a second before laughing. Nya’s was cut off by a wince.
“Okay, honey. Let’s go,” Jay whispered, tightening his grip around his Yang and scooping her off her feet, thankful for his trained muscles as he carried her bridal style down the hallway and through the monastery. Nya leaned her head into his shoulder, pressing a kiss through his t-shirt.
“I’m sorry for being mean,” she whispered, tears pooling in her eyes.
Jay shook his head as he continued walking her through the hallway. “I don’t know if you noticed, but you’re having our baby.” Nya would have been irritated at his joke moments before, but she was comforted by it now. “As long as you don’t… I don’t know, cut me with the razor blades hidden in your hair, or something, we’ll be fine.”
“I’m scared, Jay,” she confessed, whispering into his clothes as they rounded the corner into the monastery’s makeshift hospital, which had been fully stocked for the occasion. Jay placed her down gingerly on the bed, leaning down to kiss her.
“You’re gonna be so great, Nya. You’re the strongest person I know. I won’t leave your side, I promise,” he whispered, holding her hair and pressing a kiss to her forehead.
“I love you, you know that?” Nya said, tears glistening in her eyes, both from the pain of her situation and her love for the Master of Lightning.
“And I love you. So, so, so, so much.”
When Kai came tumbling into the infirmary moments later, Nya pulled her lips away from Jay’s to turn, reaching out for her big brother before she saw the gift clutched in his hands.
“No, Kai!”
“What?” Kai asked, jogging across the room with a plushie of himself - one of the big ones that could be won at an amusement park ring toss, showing that he was already sparing no expense in spoiling the child - clutched in his arms.
“You’re not giving my daughter that abomination right after she’s born,” Nya said, groaning as she shifted to sit up on the bed. Kai threw the plushie version of himself down on a chair in the corner of the room and reached forward, scooping up Nya’s empty hand.
“She? I thought you said you weren’t finding out until… now,” he said, eyes widening nervously when Nya only slightly suppressed a nearly inhuman noise, the pain crashing like a wave across her abdomen as her nails clamped down on the back of his and Jay’s hands.
“We are,” Jay said, brushing a kiss to the back of Nya’s in return and then turning to Kai. “But we have a feeling.”
“The only thing I’m feeling is my body getting ripped in half, get that thing out of here!” Nya shouted as another contraction ravaged her body. Jay brought his hand up to push a chunk of hair out of Nya’s face, but she snapped at him.
“Hey, do not bite me!” Jay said, yanking his hand away, only to let it return to cup her cheek moments later, fear of being bitten by his Yang be damned. “That’s not gonna help with the pain, Nya!”
“Well, can I throw something, then?” Nya asked, gritting her teeth. “Preferrably… at my idiot ah- brother?”
Jay cast a glare at Kai, who rolled his eyes and got up to put the gift in the hallway, where Cole and Lloyd were waiting. Nya’s gaze wandered over Jay’s shoulder to her brothers in the doorway and she pushed a smile to her lips, waving them inside. She begged them to stay with her, they were her brothers, after all, but quickly backtracked when Lloyd’s face paled at the thought as Zane and Pixal, scrubbed in, made their way into the room, ready to put their hours upon hours of medical knowledge downloaded to use and make sure that the ordeal was as smooth as, you know, having a baby could be.
“Alright, Lloyd. If you’re not going to be of any comfort during the procedure, I request that you wait in the hallway. It would be unsanitary should you vomit,” Zane said, turning to Lloyd, whose face remained a ghostly white. He turned to Nya, asking her permission to leave her side as Pixal began taking her vitals, making sure that everything was going according to plan. Nya nodded, not wanting Lloyd to puke on her. She would have plenty of time to deal with vomit when she finally got to meet her baby.
Contrary to the pain-fueled sense of urgency, labor didn’t happen as quickly as any of them had anticipated. In the next hours, all they could do was wait. Nya got up, pacing around the room as Jay and Kai watched her, wide-eyed, and Pixal and Zane monitored every tiny change. She only stopped when her legs cramped up and she crawled back into the bed, whimpering through her stubbornness for Pixal to administer pain medication. That helped for a bit, but didn’t make the dull ache and shooting pains below her waist fully disappear. She was relieved that Jay and Kai had stopped their normal playful banter, which always turned into bickering, and focused instead on her. Kai warmed his hand and put it on the cramp in Nya’s calf, taking her mind off of the pain as he filled her in on the complicated relationship between him and Skylor, and then those of the relationship between him and Cole. Jay and Nya had been paying close attention to the developments in Kai’s love life for years, and listened intently to his testimony of it. When Nya’s contractions got closer together, Kai pulled away, taking her hand but staying slightly further away as Jay comforted her, talking her through every rolling pain, praising her when they were over. For the entirety of the tear-filled hours, Jay had repeated how much he loved her more times than she could count. Nya yelled at him to shut up as pain consumed her with every push, forcing anger to outweigh everything else to keep her grounded, like she always did. She apologized moments later, whispering the words back to him. Then, it was time.
When her child was born, Nya was surrounded by comfort and security. One hand was clutched in Kai’s as he distracted her with stories, the other squeezed in Jay’s as he kissed her sweat-slicked hairline over and over again as Pixal lifted the sobbing newborn, announcing that Jay and Nya’s intuition had been right. They had a daughter.
“Holy crap… that’s a baby,” Kai muttered as the nindroid passed Nya her freshly cleaned up baby, letting the infant rest on the skin of her chest as she exhaled thankfully, a blissful smile spreading across her lips. The Master of Fire turned to look at Jay, who was still clutching Nya’s hand beside the bed, his face blotchy and tearstained, with more brewing in his eyes. He was a mess. “Okay, I’m… umm…” Kai trailed off, realizing he didn’t have to say anything, because Jay and Nya weren’t listening to him. It was like he was never there, so when he exited the room with Pixal and Zane - who had deemed mother and child healthy enough to soak in the moment of privacy - they didn’t realize that he had left.
Jay brought Nya’s hand to his lips, kissing the back of it, then carefully wiped away the snot he had left behind. “You did it,” he breathed, looking down at their daughter in Nya’s arms. She turned her head, grinning up at him, then carefully clutched the newborn as she scooched to make room for Jay beside her on the bed. He climbed up gingerly, half of his body hanging off to ensure that she had more space than he did. Jay only pulled his gaze away from their baby to brush a kiss to Nya’s lips, beaming into it as the tiny creature fussed gently, pressing a miniature fist into Nya’s chest. She pulled away and looked down, then turned to Jay.
“Here, take off your shirt.”
Jay’s lips pulled into a teasing smirk. “Nya, I know I’m hot and you love me and all, but you just had a baby. I don’t think you’re supposed to do anything for-”
“No, you idiot,” Nya said, rolling her eyes with a grin as Jay grabbed the hem of his shirt, tugging the fabric over his head. “It’s for skin to skin.”
“Yeah, yeah, a likely story,” Jay joked as Nya passed the baby to him. His humorous expression melted as soon as she was pressed against the freckled skin of his chest, his chin wobbling as he immediately dissolved back into a puddle of tears. Nya put her head on Jay’s chest, just above the baby’s head, one of his tears falling into her hair. His voice wobbled when he spoke, but Nya knew that it was overjoyed tears that consumed him. “Do you think she looks like an Amaya May?”
They had come up with a handful of names, but only one of them felt right in Nya’s mind. She had been referring to the baby by the name for weeks in her head. It was like Jay could read it right from her mind. As she looked down at her daughter, overjoyed tears rising in her eyes, she knew it was the perfect name. “Yeah, I think she does.”