It was a cold winter, that year.
Snow covered the whole city like a blanket, forcing even the city that never sleeps into a deep, soft slumber. The neon signs of bars and clubs seemed muted in their hums and dimmed in their lights, the voices of the people inside hushed and whispered. The late hour only added to the quiet, making every breath and every snow-crunching step like a scream in the night air.
Of course, Splinter made no sound.
It was a thankful thing that his family had enough to eat this year. The boys had been getting bigger, their appetites more ravenous. Soon they would be able to begin their ninja training, and then even more food would be needed, but for now all was good.
As it was, Splinter had ventured to the surface for gifts, not food. Christmas was just around the corner, and his boys were eager, if wary, for a visit from Santa Claus. And who was he to disappoint?
Michelangelo's gift was easy enough, paper and the biggest box of crayons he could find. The boy had an artist blooming within him. Donatello was more difficult. The rat had a feeling giving that son the toy tools they sold to human children his age would be a grave insult. Instead he'd managed to find some real tools, rusty but usable. Leonardo had requested nothing, of course, but Splinter had seen the way his oldest son had been eying the stories he read the turtles before bed, so he'd picked up a few of those to give to him.
It was his second oldest whose present was giving him trouble. Raphael had been quite insistent that Santa bring him a toy truck, so indeed Santa would. However, all of the toy trucks he had seen thrown out thus far were damaged beyond repair. Fixing things had never been one of Splinter's strengths, nor was this something that he could bring to Donatello, young genius he was becoming. So on he went looking.
The ninja dropped into an alley, having sensed no presence within beside his own. He suppressed a groan at how the fall had jarred his bones. He was getting old. Shaking his head to rid himself of his pending mid-life crisis, he focused his attention on the open dumpster in front of him instead.
There was no truck in there either. Splinter nearly huffed. It was getting too close to the holiday for him to be coming up empty everywhere he looked. He realized that at the rate he was going he might have to get it from a real store to have the gift in time. It was not a realization he was particularly fond of. They had the money, yes, but doing such a thing was always risky, and Splinter could not take the risk in getting caught and leaving his boys alone over something that was not an absolute necessity.
Yet the father knew not getting his son the toy wasn't an option.
He almost chuckled aloud. Parenthood certainly changed a person.
Splinter glanced skyward. His old habit of reading the time from the sun or moon came in handy, as he noticed that it was getting too late to be up. It was about the time Michelangelo would try to sneak away from his bed to use the bathroom, and then inevitably get into some kind of mischief if he were not there to prevent it. Yes, it was time to go home.
But a cough not more than five feet away set him instantly on alert.
Splinter retreated into the shadows on instinct, letting the night hide his figure. He moved over the snow with the silence only a master ninja could ever obtain. Internally he was berating himself. How could he have let someone so nearby go unnoticed? Even at that moment he would not have known there was another in the alley besides him were it not for that cough. Perhaps he really was getting old.
The rat vowed to himself that he would increase his training regiment. No matter how exhausted his sons made him by the end of the day.
Keeping to the edge of the far wall, the ninja crept just close enough to view who it was that had eluded his senses. When he was able to see who it was, he stopped dead in his tracks and everything in his mind came to a grinding halt.
It was a child.
She was a tiny thing, filthy and so gaunt that she looked older than she was, which could not have been much older than his own sons. Asian, if the dark narrow eyes were any indication. They were half-lidded, staring up at the starless sky and watching her foggy breath vanish into the darkness above. She alternated between stillness and violent shivering, huddled up against the dumpster by a corner where no snow laid. Threadbare clothes and a thin blanket that barely covered her legs were the only protection she had against the winter air.
Splinter felt his heart clench, at both the scene and at a thought.
His thoughts changed from those of the past to those of the present, and he frowned. Why had he not been able to sense this girl? Children were always the easiest to sense as their presence was almost impossible to mask. Their souls were the brightest, bursting with new life and energy, a beacon of light to even the most untrained ninja eye. Even without his new animal instincts he should have known she was there without any trouble.
The child abruptly began to cough again, resting her head against her knees to muffle the sound. Her long black hair, its true color or from grime he did not know, created a curtain that shielded the side of her face from Splinter's view. Her entire body shook with the force of her coughs, and did not stop shaking even after they had ended.
Understanding came to him all at once. The child had almost no presence because she was dying.
A surge of rage overcame him in that moment. Who would allow a child to roam the streets like a stray dog until they were at death's door? Surely by now, long before now, the girl must have been noticed by someone. And yet the girl still laid there, on the concrete in the alley, too still once more and gazing at the moon with tired eyes. Why had no one taken her to a hospital? To the police station? To an orphanage, even? Had this city no humanity?
His temper evened a moment later, only to be replaced by an aching sadness. There was nothing he could do for her. All the places he had thought to take her were too heavily populated, with technology that he did not know how to get around. There was no way to take her to any of them without being seen or heard. The changing world prevented him from helping the girl. And he had never felt so helpless.
But perhaps...
His thoughts wandered to the candy bars he held in his robe. They had been intended as a Christmas treat for his sons, along with some candy canes he had taken prior. Looking at the starving girl made him rethink his intentions. What the boys didn't know wouldn't hurt them, after all.
He waited until the girl closed her eyes and coughed again, and then Splinter threw one of the treats, a Hershey bar if he recalled the name correctly, into the air. With a skill gained from many years practice it flew high before falling straight to the ground with no arch or indication of which direction it came from. The candy hit the ground in front of the girl just as she opened her eyes.
The child's lips parted in a silent gasp, disbelieving of her good fortune. She snatched up the treat as if she expected it to vanish as suddenly as it had appeared. It was devoured in seconds. Splinter doubted she'd even tasted it.
Tasted or not, the candy bar in her stomach nonetheless brought a brightness to the child's face that it had lacked before. It broke Splinter's heart to see her so joyous over something so small. Children were usually happy to be given sweets, of course, but this girl acted like she had just been given the greatest gift in her life.
A voice whispered in the back of his mind that it might have been.
The idea sickened him enough that he couldn't bear to look at the girl. No child should have to suffer like that. Especially not one so small and young like her.
Were she not so skinny she might have...
He snapped himself out of those thoughts and turned his attention back to the girl, only to find her staring at him.
Splinter's frown deepened. Her stare was not wavering. She was looking right in his direction, as if she could see that he was there. But he was hidden in the shadows, too dark for any normal person to see. Her gaze lowered suddenly, and the rat found his own eyes following.
Lost in his thoughts, the moon had moved. Part of his robe was now set in the light.
When he realized this he inwardly cursed and retreated back into the shadows. His eyes snapped back up to the child to see what reaction his carelessness had caused.
She was moving to stand – no, not stand, to sit on her knees facing towards him. Her eyes never left where he guessed she believed his own were, which were higher than where she looked. Her hands extended slowly out, palms upward, and she bit her lip before glancing at the candy wrapper on the ground beside her and looking back at him.
She was begging for food.
Splinter's heart broke even further.
He vaguely recalled hearing somewhere that having too much food after going a long time without eating could have horrible consequences. Despite knowing that, he didn't have the heart to deny her more. He tossed another candy bar, a Snickers this time, and it landed directly in the girl's hands.
She tore open the wrapper with a gusto and took a large first bite, but chewed it much more slowly this time. Her eyes still did not leave where he stood, gaze bright and curious and so grateful that Splinter could not help but smile. She reminded him of his sons looking like that. She reminded him of...
"Child," Splinter spoke without thinking. The girl's dark eyes widened at the sound of his voice. "where are your parents?"
She pointed to the sky. Then, after some thought and a purse of her lips, she shook her head no and pointed to the ground instead.
Splinter's heart sank. "Dead?"
The child nodded, swallowing her mouthful and taking another much smaller bite.
That a child would even know what death was at such a young age filled him with sorrow. Too soon his own children would be learning about death, how to avoid it, how to prevent it, and how to cause it. They were all too young for such things, but there was no choice in a city like this. In a world like this.
"What is your name, child?" Splinter asked, wanting to take his mind off those musings.
The girl shook her head.
The ninja raised his eyebrows. "You will not tell me your name?" It made sense that she would not give her name to strangers, though it surprised him that she would know this rule given most commonly by parents. Perhaps it was a rule of the streets as well.
But the girl shook her head again.
Now the ninja was confused. "You cannot tell me your name?" He ventured, unsure of what it meant to be denied a name when she was apparently willing to give one.
She nodded her head once, but then pursed her lips and shook her head once. Furrowing her brow, she eventually settled for moving her head diagonally, as if she were combining a yes and a no. Splinter might have laughed under different circumstances.
The reason she would not tell him came to him all at once. "You cannot talk."
Having finished her candy, the child made a motion with her empty hands like she were holding something small. He'd gotten part of it, it seemed.
His own brow furrowed, Splinter wondered what other reason there could be. He doubted it was because she couldn't write. If she had been able to there would have been no conflict from the beginning. She simply would have written her name in the snow. But that lack of knowledge would not make her act like there was a greater reason. Amnesia seemed a ridiculous possibility, as did her lying to him, but he was falling short on ideas of why she would not tell him her name.
Unless, he thought, there was nothing to tell.
"You have no name."
She pointed to him and smiled as if he had just won a game of charades.
Somehow this saddened the rat more than anything else. He had hoped he was wrong in his guess.
He had lost his name, once. In a time that felt both days and decades ago. In his human life he had been Hamato Yoshi, before that fateful day he gained four mutants sons and became a mutant himself. Then he was Splinter, and his life changed forever. His old name, his old family, even his old self were all gone, never to be returned to him. But never had he gone without them. Even forced into the sewers of New York he had an identity, had his children, and spent his new life raising and loving them.
But this child had none of that. To not even have a name, one of the first gifts that could ever be given...it pained him in a way he almost couldn't comprehend. And that she was no wiser about how different her life could be, should be, made the old man want to weep.
Splinter opened his eyes, finding that he had closed them, to see the girl shakily get to her feet. She took one trembling step forward, then another, and another, and it was only when she was just a few feet in front of him, reaching with a tiny hand towards the shadows where he stood did Splinter realize her intentions.
"STOP!" He bellowed.
The girl froze. After a few long seconds she snapped her hand to her chest and looked at him with wide eyes. Whether she shook from cold, surprise, or fear he could not tell.
The ninja was immediately remorseful. "Forgive me, child. I...dislike being touched." He took the last two candy bars out his robe, not taking his eyes off the child this time, and tossed them so they fell in front of her feet. "If you wanted another...well, I suppose you could not have asked, could you? But these are the last ones I have, I am afraid."
But the girl was shaking her head, ignoring the sweets entirely and pointing at him.
Splinter was puzzled. "I have no others, child. Nor anything else for you to eat."
She shook her head again and pointed at him a bit more insistently.
"I do not understand."
She seemed to be getting more desperate, jabbing her finger at him repeatedly with a frantic look on her face.
"I am sorry, child, but there is nothing else I can do for you and I must be getting home-"
Those words had the girl shaking her head so hard that her dark hair went flying back and forth. She was trembling so much that the motion nearly made her lose her balance. Her finger kept pointing to him even as it shook, her eyes spilling over with tears while her gaze did not waver from Splinter's own.
Said rat was very alarmed by the sudden shift in mood. He reached out a hand to cup her cheek and wiped away her tears with his thumb. "Do not cry, child."
The girl stiffened the moment he touched her, eyes going wider than he'd known possible. Splinter nearly cursed when he saw why. His hand, no, his paw, was fully exposed to the light and in plain view. Somehow he had forgotten himself in his efforts to comfort the girl. He made to pull it away.
But the child was cradling it with both of her own hands, grip tight even as they quaked. She leaned into the touch and continued to sob without sound as tears ran hot down her icy cheeks, falling onto Splinter's hand and robe in a rapid stream.
There was no force in the universe that could have prevented Splinter from taking her into his arms then.
He rocked her back and forth as she cried, letting the soothing motion comfort her as he cradled her. Under his breath he sang a lullaby he knew from long ago, one that had been sang to him as a child when nightmares kept him awake. In that moment he was not Splinter but Hamato Yoshi again, cradling a different but oh so similar child in his arms and singing her to sleep while her mother watched on with a serene smile.
Both too soon and too long a time later the tears slowed to a halt. The child pulled back to look at who she was being held by. When she saw, her gaze filled with curiosity and awe as she lifted a hand to stroke the rat's face, which was now fully under the moonlight.
Splinter, himself again, whispered the question. "What is it you want, my child?"
She threw her skinny arms around his neck, clinging to him as if she would never let go.
It finally made sense. "You wish to come with me?"
The girl nodded against his neck before pulling back to give him a determined look. Clearly this was non-negotiable.
Splinter had to smile at that. "Then, let us go..."
It was selfish. It was dishonorable. It was wrong. Yet, looking into those eyes, bright and alive and so much like hers, he found he could not stop himself.
"...Miwa."