Dear reader: This particular section of the story is not entirely necessary. No. However, it might give a better sense of character to start out with and explain the style in which the rest of the story is told.

Disclaimer: I Do not now, nor have I ever owned TMNT or any of its affiliated characters. I DO own Geneva, Elena, and Jennifer.

Prologue – in which fries substitute therapy.

"I'm not sure I understand…" A tall blond across the table shifted to accommodate the girl sliding into the booth next to her.

"I'm having a crisis, Jenn. In fact, it's kind of a ginormous crisis and I'm just this side of a non-reversible panic attack."

The blond nodded around her ice cream. "Alright, Neeves, alright. What is this 'crisis'?"

There was silence. At a Meeting of the Minds this was unusual enough to be shocking. The other girl gave herapparently crisis-riddled friend a long stare.

"Neeves? You're not kidding, are you?"

"No, 'Lena. I…I'm married."

All available oxygen in the immediate vicinity found two sets of lungs to inhabit, and the room's gasp-o-meter blew a fuse.

"You're—" Elena paused to choke on her breadstick. "You're married?"

"Yah."

"Wait, you…seriously? We weren't invited?"

"I know, Jennifer, and I really, really, really, really reallyreallyreallyreally…"

"Ok, assuming you wanted us to be there…"

"Urm, yes, assuming. I was in New York at the time."

"You got married-"

"Yes, I did."

"In New York-"

"Correct."

"To who?"

The redhead coughed. "I think you mean 'to whom'."

"I think I mean 'I'm going to kill you'."

"Right. Here's the thing, I haven't told my mom yet."

A low whistle erupted from the small audience followed by the smell of smoke as mental gears began to grind. Well-remembered pictures of a lovely, diplomat's wife and a brilliant cook, were quickly replaced by vaguer memories of a short, angry, Irish woman. Geneva's mum sweeping in to exact vengeance. All three girls attempted to sink further into the booth's seats.

"Dude, I love your mom…but…she's going to kill you."

"It's worse than that, she's going to be disappointed."

A sharp intake of breath.

"Yeah. That's worse. But if she's only disappointed you might end the meeting with your spleen still attached…pass me another breadstick."

Jennifer threw out a line in the hopes of resolving the situation.

"How long ago was this?"

Geneva swallowed. "About seven months ago."

Half of a breadstick found its way across the table, the other half apparently lodged in Elena's windpipe.

"Neeves…"

"I know. But it gets worse…"

"How?"

"Weeeeell, you know I'm working with TESOL in L.A., right?"

"Teaching English, yeah, I know."

"My boss doesn't know."

This took a moment to register, but Geneva's audience was catching up quickly. She almost wished they weren't. Trust her to have the only friends in the entire world who could believe something like this. But conclusions must be reached by proper routes.

"Your boss doesn't know that you're married?"

"Urm, no. Also, he kind of has a gigantic crush on me."

Elena and Jennifer slapped available spaces of forehead before calling the waitress over.

"Well take tea."

"Yes, a lot of tea."

"But we'll start with one pot. As hot as is humanly possible."

As the waitress bustled off Jennifer tried to frown and failed miserably. She was much too curious at this point to be displeased.

"Try again. More concise this time."

"Righto. So, to recap, I'm married, and my mother doesn't know, and my boss doesn't know, so the head of the school where I work now has a crush on a married woman, and…"

The two-girl audience leaned forward.

"…And?"

"And my husband can't leave New York. And I'm stuck here for the next nine months, you know, until the end of the course."

"He can't leave New York? Why not?"

An expression, clearly born out of deep, murky reserves was finding its way across the redhead's face. It was not a pleasant expression and did, in fact, make her look entirely unattractive, pulling at all the wrong muscle groups around her face. Considering the circumstances, her audience thought maybe now was a bad moment to mention this. It was something between confusion, frustration, a deep desire to lie and a natural inability to do so.

"Pikes' Peak."

"What the hell are you talking about, Jenna?"

"It's a mountain out east, sits right on the corners of, like, five states or something." She pointed to the redhead's face. "Neeves's expression."

"Ah…yeah, I can see it."

"I look like a mountain?"

"Explain your man's issue first, then we'll talk metaphors."

Geneva hesitated, squirming in her seat.

"He's…physiologically interesting…"

"He looks weird?"

A long, slow nod, and then an interesting eyebrow issue. Geneva was trying to work her way around this and it was getting more difficult.

"Do you have a picture?"

She went a bit whiter than usual, her freckles standing out in patterns.

"Um, yes."

"Well, let's see."

A backpack was opened, and after digging through two folders of homework to be graded and a series of notes on P.G. Wodehouse, an envelope was produced and handed over. Geneva nearly threw herself into the plate in front of her, making violent work of the burger and muttering something about wishing she had avocado to put on it.

"So, what's with the costume?"

The burger paused on its way to the redhead's mouth and she looked up pleadingly.

"It…isn't…a costume…"

The silence stretched thin, and kept stretching, while Geneva's burger and fries were disappearing as fast as they could be brought to her mouth, clearly attempting to keep words from spilling out all on their own. When was that blasted tea going to arrive?

"Geneva Rose Rockeman."

There was nothing for it. She winced and cleared her throat.

"…yes?"

"You married a giant TURTLE!"

"Yes. Yes, I did."

The deepest nature of the crisis was making a wide, deep, meandering track through the consciousness of Geneva's friends.

"…Your mother, and your boss, have no idea that you're married to a giant turtle."

Her audience tried to wrap their minds around this.

"The other turtles here are…"

"My brothers-in-law."

"The…fuzzy thing?"

"My father-in-law. He's a rat."

Another long pause before Jennifer leaned forward, her eyes as wide as Geneva had ever seen them and her nose doing that stress thing where it bent downward at the end. Geneva panicked and swallowed a quarter pound of food in one go.

"Explain. As simply as possible."

"Think X-men."

The girls looked at each other, then back to the picture, both tilting their heads and squinting a bit.

"That's pretty simple."

"Yah."

Elena spoke this time, hands moving as though she was trying to shape the thought properly in mid-air but was unsure as to specific desired outcome.

"So, he's…Sentient, like, human, only he looks different."

A hurried nod with eyes the size of light bulbs.

"Yes! Exactly."

"X-men, huh? Why didn't you pick Wolverine, or whatsisface, the one with the wings?"

Geneva nodded. "Archangel. They were fresh out."

"Right. So, you got a Turtle."

"It's a really long story."

"Look, Neeves, I think you should tell us everything, from the beginning."

"Yes, don't leave anything out. How did this happen?"

Geneva slouched as far down as she could in the booth, breathing deeply and bringing her plate to rest on top of her boobs. This was going to take a lot more fries.

"Right…well… I was at my cousin's house…"

Soooo - yes. Proper chapter 1 will be up soon-soon.