A/N: Hello readers! I have been encouraged by nemoshewolf to re-upload a previous story that I titled 'Wells Run Dry'. This is about secret meetings between Leonardo and Karai. I've set this to have taken place between the 2k14 movie and my first story Predators and Prey. You may read this as a stand alone, although of course I encourage anyone to read my other stories.

Thanks so much for reading and all the support and reviews that I have gotten. Special thanks to nemoshewolf for encouraging me to repost this.

All was quiet. Leonardo sat in the dojo trying to clear his mind and figure out just what the hell had happened. Even though he had already met with her, he still held the little note with her slanted handwriting scrawled across it.

Meet me. Water tower. Come alone
-Karai

He had been ready for anything. It could have been a trap or an ambush, and for those reasons he should never have gone alone. He should have told his family immediately, but something stopped him from doing the right thing, the safe thing. Like a moth to a flame he was drawn inexplicably to her call. Now, sitting alone with time to think over the night's events he still couldn't bring himself to tell anyone, and he had every intent to see her again. What if what she was saying was true? What if the Foot Clan was no longer a real threat? Their activity had been next to nothing for almost a year now. He tried to reason with himself, tried to make his actions justifiable. He couldn't rationalize his actions. Leonardo took a deep breath and released it slowly. If any of his brothers had known about this they would hang him by his shell. He kept replaying the scene over and over in his mind. The way she had held her hand to her mouth and giggled. The smell of her, oh the smell of her. It was cherry blossoms. Even now he could smell it. He shook his head. What was he thinking? This is Karai, he thought to himself. It was because of her and the Foot that Splinter was hurt, that the old lair was destroyed, and that they were captured. It was Shredder's plan but she was the instrument he used. What had she said about him being dead and her being alone? Perhaps she was as much a prisoner as any of the foot soldiers? Sometimes good people get caught doing bad things. Sometimes they are even fooled into believing that these bad things are good and worthy things. After all, Karai was a woman and Shredder a man. Wasn't it at least remotely possible that she had been lured into that life and just didn't know how to get out? Look at me, he thought again. I'm ridiculous. Why am I so eager to give her all these excuses, and jump to all these conclusions?

Because you like her already

That was insane. How do you already like a woman who so far as you know was perfectly willing to execute innocent hostages, and be complicit in the attempted murder of the majority of New York City?

The heart wants what it wants, and in any case you are more alone than she will ever be, sewer freak

No, I won't think like that. Slowly he rose to his feet still clutching the useless piece of paper. The meditation was going nowhere fast. He trudged to his room, mentally exhausted. He laid on his bed staring up at the ceiling, willing himself to sleep but his mind just kept churning. Her kimono, her demure manner, the cherry blossom scent, and the way he could tell she was strong despite being small. His tail twitched. He rolled over on his side and did his best to bring his knees up, curling into a loose fetal position. He could think clearer in the morning...he hoped. Leonardo closed his eyes and begged sleep to overtake him.

Karai had made her report to Shredder. He listened quietly, and gave only a single grunt and slight nod, dismissing her. Whether he was pleased with some piece of information or development she never actually knew. She figured as long as he wasn't executing you on the spot or threatening it you were okay.

In her private quarters she undressed and showered. In order to fulfill her ultimate mission of recovering mutagen, and synthesizing it she had made a few small rooms into a private apartment in the underground facility in Brooklyn. As the warm water washed over her all she could was think about the mutant turtle. Their size and strength she had already noted from their fight in the subway, and the day they abducted them from their hideout.

Karai thought back to the day they brought them to the labs. She decided that she would not meet their gazes, or listen to any pleas from them. She did not like mutants as a rule, but creating them, and in that particular case killing them, served as a means to an ultimate end. For all that, he had penetrated some small part of her psyche. She had made the mistake of looking into his eyes, those small oceans of his. Karai had turned her head that day, instead focusing on some task or another, anything to distract her from the sight. She ended up looking again in the few minutes before Eric Sacks had entered the holding area where they kept the mutants. It was Leonardo that looked at her, threatening to peel away her layers without speaking a single word. To her surprise he did speak to her.

"Let my brothers go. I will stay, you can do whatever you want with me but do not hurt my brothers." He said, pleading but not at all begging.

"You should know your pleas are falling on deaf ears. You and your...brothers will be more than hurt, you will be dead before nightfall. I suggest you find solace in that fact." Karai said coolly, being direct but ever so slightly averting her eyes from his.

"Solace?"

"Yes. Your death will be quick, relatively painless, unlike your miserable rat father." She said, pleased to have shut him up.

His mouth became a thin line as he set his jaw, and thankfully did not speak to her again.

Karai stepped out of the shower, dried off and laid in her bed. She slept in the nude more often than not, and only when she was not at Shredder's compound. She viewed the simple act as a moment of freedom. You were never as vulnerable as when you were naked. She had very few chances where she could allow herself to feel vulnerability, or a sense of ease and comfort. Her life was rigorous from the beginning. For as long as she could remember she had been with Shredder. She didn't remember a time where she wasn't training, fighting, and eventually stealing and killing under his command. He was for all intents and purposes her father. He held that position because he raised her, if you could call that raising a child. He didn't do fatherly things. Karai tried to think back to a hug, a kiss, a smile, a moment of tenderness. She couldn't recall any such memory. It had created a cold, ruthless, and callous woman. He used to touch her, but there was neither love nor good intent behind that. She pushed it away. Karai turned on her side, reaching underneath the pillow and running her fingers across the small sheathed blade she hid there.

Karai's mind kept turning. She was in the underground labs to ensure the successful completion of the mutagen recovery mission. As always she was determined not to fail. Shredder had tasked her with not only mutagen recovery, but the building of a mutant army that would be under his control. She was also thinking of this other side mission to infiltrate the turtles group. He commanded it of her in almost an off-handed way. His reasoning was to find out where they were holed up, and simply to watch their every move and report it. She was specifically instructed not to fight them or try to destroy them. That was odd considering that was all he could talk about for the past two years. He was extremely one track minded when it came to them. Personally, she was tired of hearing about the turtles and mutagen. She could think of several different ways to take control of the city that didn't involve either of those things. Her father had been extremely secretive about the origin of the mutagen, and how he came to know about and use it. When she thought about it, he had become increasingly secretive about a great many things, gradually excluding her from his more closely guarded plans and thoughts when once she was his one trusted confidant for such things. She turned on her back. The thought of that made her somewhat sad. It was bittersweet. She both loved and loathed her father and all his plans and vendettas. He was entrusting Eric Sacks more and more. She absolutely hated him, always had. He was sneaky, vindictive, manipulative, and she believed he had ulterior motives to overthrow her father for control of the foot.

She forced her eyes closed. When she did, she saw only Leonardo's piercing blue eyes. They were captivating and terrifying when she thought about the intelligence behind them. How could a mere turtle transform into something like…them? She couldn't keep thinking about it. She kept her eyes closed and eventually felt sleep stealing its way over her. Before she could fall off the edge of wakefulness, she thought about the next time she would see him. She told him to meet her again, and that she would have answers for him. She wouldn't disappoint. For the first time in a long time, Karai smiled as she drifted off to sleep.