A/N: I admit, I'm fascinated by the Fast Forward season of TMNT. I know a lot of people didn't like it, but I thought there was a lot of potential there that wasn't explored (and I love aliens and the like too XD) A while back I signed up for the TMNT 100 challenge over on Live Journal keeping myself in the Fast Forward seasons. While I'm not sure if I'll ever finish it, I did get a couple of stories written. This is one of them.

Summary: He would see the city's animal life begin to wake up, and hear the murmur of conversations as they started. He would watch and hear all manner of things. But his favorite, they were the children. (Don centric)

School

By RealityBreakGirl

Don went out sometimes, alone. Often it was early in the morning. He didn't say where, which normally would have been some reason for concern, but as Splinter did not seem to mind, no one questioned it. If pressed about it, Don would say that sometimes he needed a change to clear his head. It was a little odd, but soon enough everyone just stopped questioning it.

Some days he would leave early and come back while it was still morning. Some days he would leave in the middle of the day. Sometimes it was the afternoon. Sometimes the evenings. Sometimes he would come back rather quickly while others he would stay gone the entire day. But as genius didn't seem to be on a schedule, no one really questioned this either.

Don, though, did prefer the mornings. He would roll out of bed—or the lab—before it was light out and quietly leave the penthouse. He would make his way to midtown, arriving at an early morning café just as it was opening and the sky was beginning to lighten. He would usually get himself a cup of coffee and maybe some sort of pastry, go to the outside tables and just sit and watch. Sometimes he had his notes with him, spread out on the table in their holopads, but most of the time he would just sit back and watch.

He would see the people out walking their pets, people heading off to work—and some returning from work—paper boys, peacekeepers and children on their way to school. He would see the city's animal life begin to wake up, and hear the murmur of conversations as they started. He would watch and hear all manner of things.

But his favorite, they were the children.

There were two schools not too far from the café. One was a public school, the other, a private school. Both were large and well known. And both were close enough to this neighborhood that most parents just let their kids walk to school.

Don would watch them, seeing the kids going in two different directions. The kids in the uniforms would head one way, the others, the opposite. But they all acted the same. They called to each other about homework, about teachers, and about their classmates. The air seemed energized with their calls and shouts.

They would share homework, show each other things they had with them. Sometimes there were fights, sometimes forgiveness, sometimes hugs, sometimes fists. There was laughter and tears, joy and shame, acceptance and ostracization, excitement and trepidation. Yet in their own way, they all looked forward to the day.

On the days when he would stay all day, he would watch the kids come back out of the schools. They would fairly burst out of the schools—or that's what he assumed, given how they acted coming home—and come pouring down the street, excited to be out of the classroom and into the outdoors where they could let all that pent-up energy out.

Again, the air would be energized with their calls. Shouts about the night's homework, what Mr. or Ms. What's-her-name had said, the latest gossip. Kids that had been accepted might now be ostracized, while the kids that were ostracized would be accepted. Some would be walking back with papers in their hands, smiling wide and fairly running home while others would be in tears or trying to figure out how to hide it from their parents.

Plans for the rest of the day, sometimes the weekend would be shouted. Sweethearts would be holding hands, or perhaps not even looking at each other. Some would head straight inside their houses, starting work on their homework right away, while others would drop books and backpacks by doors and run off to play.

And Don would sit there, watching, sipping his coffee or whatever beverage he had and wondered:

What would it have been like to go to school?