This takes place in season one. I'm not sure how long this fanfiction will run, or if it will run into season four, but I do know that updates will be highly irregular.

Being different was okay. Alex stared at her reflection in the mirror, new outfit standing in its strange, over the top glory. Yep. Different was good. She loved the outfit. It made her stand out. In a positive way.

Ugh. Forget it. Shedding her scarf, Alex turned away from the mirror in disgust. She did love the outfit, but there was no way she'd actually wear it in public. The bright colors and stripes and exaggeratedly long scarf…That'd be too embarrassing and honestly, she wanted to fit in.

It was harder for her to fit in for some reason. Maybe her sense of humor was too dark. Maybe she didn't have enough conversation material. Whatever the case, she didn't have any friends. Well, not any that she'd consider close, at least. Some people she talked to, and some she had spent some time with, but no one really knew her, and she didn't really know them.

There. She gave a half-hearted smile at her reflection in the mirror. Jeans and a fading red shirt with three yellow, overlapping circles on the shoulder. Simple, but decidedly her. This hair of hers had to be dealt with, though. It was too curly. A straightener won't do any good. Maybe she can talk to her mom about getting it professionally done. Like an opposite perm.

"Alexandra Charlene, what are you doing up there?" her mom's voice echoed from downstairs. "Your eggs are getting cold, and I'm not warming them up for you, again!"

Sighing to herself, Alex took one last look at herself in the mirror before opening her bedroom door, which proudly presented a life size poster of Jason Voorhees. The feet had to be folded under, but there was no way she wasn't putting something that cool somewhere like that.

"I'm coming, Mom," she responded as she evenly marched her way down the steps. Upon reaching the downstairs she promptly plopped into the wooden chair that sat in front of the round table, immediately reaching for the tobasco to cover her entire plate with liquid burning. It still made her eyes tear up, but for some reason Alex found it irresistible.

Alex's mother was already wearing her business attire, hair pulled back and full lips emphasized with lipstick. She wasn't a supermodel, Miss Brandin, but she surely wasn't easy to miss in public. Alex shared similar traits. They had the same eyes and hair color, same noses, full lips, and as Alex matured, similar body types: Long legs and broad shoulders. But Alex had a lighter skin tone, rounder face, smaller mouth and larger eyes. She has an idea where these traits came from, but avoided dwelling on it too much.

Mouth on fire, Alex guzzled the milk her mother had already set up for her.

"Why do you put so much of that stuff on your food?" Miss Brandin shook her head in bewilderment. "You're always acting like it's so hot for you."

Alex shrugged taking another bite of her well-done egg.

Her mother sighed and stood from the table to rinse off her dishes. "Austin and I are going out tonight to watch a movie. He was suggested taking you with us this morning."

Alex smiled to herself. Austin Brandin was her mother's husband, who she had remarried last June. They had been dating years before that, but took it slow for Alex's sake. She liked him. He genuinely cared for her, treated her like his own daughter, if a bit over protective, and worked hard to support her and her mother. But, as much as she enjoyed his company, she thought it'd be a good idea to give her mother some alone time with him tonight. They never went out often, so this would probably be a good opportunity to let them have their moment. Besides, as a teenager, Alex needed her space, too.

"No, thanks," she answered, finishing off her milk, and therefore her breakfast. "I think I'll just rewatch Hellraiser and finish off that pizza before it goes bad."

"Alex!"

"What? It's a genuinely great movie that shows quality doesn't have to come from huge budgets or fancy modern technology. A lot of the makeup and effects still holds strong today."

"I don't like you watching that stuff!"

"But, Mom, it's not like I'm going to turn into this killer from watching a crazy person or monster going around and stabbing some people," Alex has had this argument with her mother before, but she thought of a backup argument after their last related conversation. "If anything it'll keep me from going places I shouldn't, or kissing boys in a car, or staying up late drinking with friends."

"What friends, Alex?" The teenager shut her mouth. "You stay up in your room all day, doing God knows what. When I was your age I was out playing basketball with my guy friends, and having bonfires on Fridays. You aren't healthy. And Alex, I'm worried about you. I'm all for you doing what you like, but you need to get out, sweetie."

Alex stared at the small pieces of cooked yolk on her plate wordlessly and stood up. She took her plate and squeezed past her mom to reach the sink and rinse her dishes. Then, she soundlessly grabbed her bag from the living room where she left it, and tied her shoes on by the door.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"School," Alex muttered.

"I'm driving you today," her mother was clearly getting irritated. Alex didn't care.

"Don't bother," was what Alex muttered before slamming the front door.

It only took a few steps before her mother opened the door behind her and started yelling about getting back in the house and growing up. Instead of doing as she was told, Alex took off running. Her adrenaline was peaked, and she could feel her heart in her head. There was no way she was sitting in a car with her mom. Not after that. She could hear her mom running after her, screeching in fury. Alex picked up the pace, using that adrenaline to power her legs. Faster. Faster.

Apparently, her mother was just as able to use her legs. Fearful of what her mother would do to her if she caught up, Alex dashed off route, taking a sharp left. The street was closed off. A manhole was open, railing lining the outside. Fearing the worst, and mind not exactly working she went for it.

The metal ladder was cold, and it stank down there like…well, everybody's business. Alex held her breath and lightly jogged away from the manhole, sticking as close to the wall, and as far away from the sewage as possible. A faint hum of electricity echoed steadily under the sound of Alex's converse smacking the hard ground, and the occasional needed breath.

Eventually, Alex gave up on avoiding the need for air and decided to just suck it up and deal with the stench. Not long after she slowed her pace to a decent walk. She kept walking like this for what felt like forever, mind numb and throat burning. It felt like she wasn't even there, really. She wasn't thinking about what just happened. She wasn't thinking at all. It felt like a dream. She didn't realize that she was wandering down a random path through random tunnels for almost two hours straight.

She happened upon a wall of rocks and bricks and chunks of concrete. Alex reached out a hand to pull at them. She didn't know why, it just felt right. Lifting a brick, she immediately lost interest and dropped it. Instead, she retraced her steps and went down a tunnel that had been ignored earlier. Then she took a right. Oh, look. The sewage is gone. Instead the entire floor of the tunnel was concrete. It looked old, and admittedly kind of cool.

A noticeably large crack seemed to welcome Alex, and she trudged to it. It was big enough for her to fit into it, and there was an opening on the other side. Why not? However, when she tried to ease in, her backpack decided to hold her back. So, she promptly slid it from her shoulder and left it on the ground before squeezing through the wall. On the other side a pair of long, metal lines sat cozily before her. Alex slid onto the ground and tried balancing on one, before trying the other. She wasn't very good at it.

This went on for what seemed another long time. Finally, she found a car of some sort. Like on subways. But this one had tires. And teeth. And a gun on top.

Oh, hey, voices. Alex decided to follow the voices in her monotonous state. It looked like an abandoned subway, with the turnstiles and subway looking entrance. The platform was connected to stair s which led down to a…living room?

And those were…humanoid…somethings. Were those shells on their stomachs? Were they human-turtle hybrids? How would that work? And why were they staring at her?

"Uh…Leo?" the one with the red mask looked at the one with the blue mask.

"I don't know!" the one with the blue mask threw his hands up.

Then the one with the purple mask said something at the same time as the one with the red mask, and Alex decided to ignore them. She sat down on the stairs, plopped her head in her hands and her elbows on her knees. She was tired. She had no idea what was happening.

Then, for some reason she cried. It took a while for her to think about why she was crying, then when she realized, she cried some more. Then some more after that. She had just run away from home. She got into a fight with her mom and she ran away. Oh, God! And she had no idea where she was. She had just been walking for…sobbing and shaking, she pulled out her phone from her pocket, looking at the screen to see it read 10:08. She had been wandering aimlessly for three hours in the sewage. What was wrong with her?

She should call her mom. No signal.

"Hey, we're not gonna hurt you," a voice gently cooed at Alex. "We don't eat people. Promise."

Alex looked up to see one of the humanoid turtle things crouching in front of her, a few steps down. Orange mask, friendly blue eyes, and freckles. His three-fingered hands were held out in front of him passively.

For some reason, Alex didn't even care that some talking turtle-human was even possible, let alone existing. Her brain wasn't working properly, and it was at about this time that she realized this. She wanted to care. In all honesty, it was both cool and scary, and she had no idea how she would normally react, but right now it all seemed…wrong. Numb. Monotonous.

The one with the blue mask crouched next to the freckled one and held his hands up, rather than out, peacefully. "We're just going to ask you some questions, okay? We promise not to hurt you."

Alex's heart ached at their gentle tones, and she couldn't help but sob some more. They weren't even humans and they were being so nice. Why couldn't she react properly? Why was she such an incoherent, babbling mess?

"Oh, for the love of…" the one with the red mask marched past the other two and bent over, directly in front of Alex, placing his hands on each shoulder. He had green eyes, and Alex noticed a chip on the front of his shell. "See? Not gonna hurt you."

Alex felt her lip quiver, and she instinctively wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him in for an awkward hug. She didn't notice that he had to stand on his knees on the step in front of her, nor did she notice how uncomfortable the gesture made him. She couldn't help it. It admittedly made her feel better, even though her sobs grew into full blown wails and hiccups, but it wasn't a conscious decision of hers in the least.

Had she been paying attention, she would've noticed the one with the purple mask reenter the room, even though she didn't even know he left, and she would've seen the giant rat with him. Instead she wept and shook like a fawn just learning to walk.

Finally, tired and out of tears, she slid her arms down and wiped her nose on her arm before curling up into a ball on the stairs, cushioning her head with her arm. She fell asleep in thirty seconds.

Well, that's that. As said in the summary, there may be some romance between Alex and Raph, seeing as I originally paired her with him in my old story (this is a rewrite). It depends on if it'll seem forced or not. I want to concentrate more on her relationships with all of the turtles this time. You won't be able to tell since I haven't published any other stories here, but I'm trying to do something different with this character. If things seem a bit inconsistent with her in the next few chapters, please, let me know. It's kind of difficult doing something new.

Also, the state that she's in for most of this first chapter is an actual feeling I had for some time under a similar experience. (I didn't run away, though. I'm a good noodle.) I have no idea how many other people out there have had this experience, but I'll just throw that out there. And let me say that it's really hard to describe, but I hope I did a decent job.

Okay, then, so I hope you liked it. Any comments or criticisms, please let me know. Rude criticisms will also be read and taken seriously, but I won't promise not getting butthurt and turning whiny. I'm a sissy like that. Anyways, I hope you have a great day, or evening depending on when you're reading. :3