It has been on my mind for some time that many people who enjoy my fics have not read all my fics, for the simple reason that many of my stories are only posted in obscure locations (and some of them are posted nowhere, since the original Stealthy Stories forum exploded). I refer to these as my "hidden" or "secret" fics, and they make me happy because I enjoy having pointless secrets. But as I mark my tenth anniversary of being in the TMNT fandom - and nearly my tenth anniversary of writing in the fandom - I wanted to bring these stories into the light.
In early 2007, when I was a senior in college, a friend burst into my dorm room and said, "There is a new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie coming out, and we are going to see it."
I said, "You mean that show I watched as a kid?"
Remembering almost nothing about that weird cartoon, I visited a newfangled website called YouTube to see if I could find some episodes. Stumbling across something called "The Lost Season", I decided to watch that, on the grounds that I probably hadn't seen it before.
I certainly had not, and it had been so long since I had watched the '80s cartoon, I didn't even realize I was watching a completely different show. (It is for this reason that I have never been able to shake the impression that the Ancient One is some sort of mutant pig.)
At any rate, I went to see the 2007 movie at a small local theater down the road from Northampton, had a great time, and the rest is history.
The story below is my first TMNT fic. It was originally posted April 21, 2008, on the TMNT-L forums.
Lay Me Down
His brothers had passed on - each in their own time, in their own way - and he was the last of his kind.
He rested his arms on the faux wood of the familiar table. "I'm done."
She reached for his plate.
He put his hand on top of hers. "No. I'm done."
She looked at him through dark eyes. Her mother's. "You're only ninety-eight."
He laughed hollowly. "We always were more human than turtle."
They were silent.
"I'll miss you."
"I know."
She turned her hand over, stroking his palm with her fingers. The clock ticked.
"You know what to do." It wasn't a question.
"Yes."
"The lair. Three days."
She nodded. He squeezed her hand, pulled back.
"Take care of yourself."
"I will," she said. But he was already gone.
He lay down on the old couch. Breathed deeply, in and out, and focused his mind. His last thoughts would be of his family.
He was falling.
And then his brothers were there, lifting him up, helping him stand with them.
"Hey, kid. Been waiting for you."
It was three days after they brought home their baby boy that she remembered. She moved to the antique desk as if in a dream, opened the drawer, pulled out the envelope from the past. The one waiting for her when she visited the lair in the sewers for the last time. (Burn and scatter, he had made her promise, as he had done for his brothers, each in their own time.)
Open when your first child is born, the envelope said. His handwriting. Always like a child's.
She turned over the thick package, slit the seal, shook open the paper within.
Cody August Jones
November 4th, 2088
7 pounds, 13 ounces
Tell him how cool his great-uncles were
There was still something bulky in the envelope. She upended it over the desk, pinched the sides together.
Four ninja masks, tied with a ribbon, tumbled out. Looped onto the ribbon was another scrap of paper. It read, simply: For his collection.