Disclaimer: I do not own the TMNT, nor do I have any knowledge of sewer maintenance work, or life in other countries other than what I read or my coworkers tell me.
The Sewer Santa
Jorge trudged slowly through the silence, trying to find consolation in the faint jingling noise of the tools on his belt. It was Christmas Eve. He should be home with his wife and daughters preparing for Los Posada, the Christmas procession, and joking with his brothers. At the very least he should be above ground, singing hymns at the cathedral with the other church goers. Not slogging through the sewers of a city half a world away from his little girls, listening to the perpetual dripping of the pipes and waiting for the echoes to play tricks on him.
He missed his family. It didn't matter that he knew he was doing the right thing for them, that he was making a better life for his family. It didn't matter that the money he was earning right now was several times what he could have expected in his home village. He missed his daughters, the way they would come running up to greet him, and missed the warmth of his wife beside him. It was Christmas Eve. He wanted to be home.
Sighing heavily, he paused under a small pipe junction, inspecting the screws that held them bolted to the ceiling. Still good, but they would need replaced soon. No leaks here, and certainly not the backup they'd feared when he'd been called down for an emergency pipe burst. He frowned, thinking. This area wasn't due for maintenance for another month if he remembered right. The screws would probably hold that long, certainly another few weeks, but it would probably be worth letting the higher ups know about it since the pipe was now carrying the higher, redirected load.
Pulling out the grubby little notebook shoved through his belt, he moved a few feet further down the line to see if there were any identifying symbols or numbers on the pipes.
"..gry."
Jorge stopped in the act of retrieving a pencil, listening intently. The noise had been just faint enough that he wouldn't swear that he'd heard anything at all.
"…rry, Mi…"
It sounded… human. Sort of. The distortion from the drips and grumbles of the pipes echoing around the old tunnels had almost completely masked it, but it had been just distinct enough to be made out between the more familiar noises of the sewers. There wasn't anyone else in either direction that he could see before the line curved gently away several hundred yards down, but it sounded as if the noise was closer than that.
It was probably a few homeless guys high on something. There was a cluster of the steam pipes they liked to huddle near when the temperature dipped below freezing not far from here, and there had been a few reports of strange noises and the occasional illicitly smuggled down bag lunch going missing in this area.
There were good reasons sewage workers were expressly forbidden from walking the tunnels alone. Strange gases building up in odd places and unexpected leaks or flash flooding were not hazards to be trifled with, nor were the strange echoes that could play tricks on your mind, or the occasional brain-addled homeless or drug addict. One guy had been assaulted by what he claimed was a giant rat when he'd split off from his partner to investigate what he claimed had sounded like a scream. He'd been fined for disobeying regulations and going off alone, and his boss had threatened to sack anyone he caught spreading "disgusting rumors" of giant rats in the sewers.
The problem was that he was required to report if there was someone down here. It was dangerous enough for city trained workers, let alone anyone else.
"…ami…"
Cautiously, listening intently as he replaced the notebook back in his belt, he crept closer to where the voices seemed to be coming from, eyes peeled for anything unusual. Nothing. The tunnel remained indistinguishable from every other tunnel.
"…urn. Gimme…"
"No…isn't!"
Here. The sounds were clearest here, and they were definitely human. And equally clearly, very young. As far as he could tell, they were coming from the other side of the wall, but there was no service area there that he knew of –and the city certainly didn't employ children.
They had to be runaways. He couldn't think of any other reason for children to be down here. He groaned, feeling his heart fall. Children could get into smaller areas than adults, and were generally unaware of the dangers present in the sewers. Bad enough that the city occasionally had to identify the sad remains of preteens who found their way into the subway tunnels or teens so spaced out on drugs they'd forgotten their own names. But the voices sounded about the same age as his little girls…
Did this line run parallel to any others? He didn't know. It was one of the older parts of the system, where the storm water system was still intertwined with the actual sewers, and unknown lines laid down in the early days of the century were still discovered on occasion. Even the official blueprints were more of a maze than a plan, and there was no telling where the kids could be in the mess.
"Hey! That's mine!"
"Liar!"
The shouts rang clearly through the wall, and Jorge paused before turning, intending to backtrack to the rest of the crew. They were flagrantly ignoring regulations by checking the lines alone like this, but they were short-staffed for the holiday, and none of his coworkers had any more desire to be down here on the holy day than he did. His stomach knotted. That had been a third voice just now. How many children were there?
"But it's my turn!"
"No it isn't."
Four children? Oh no…
"Stop hogging the ball!"
"Leo's right, Mikey. It's his turn, so he gets it."
"Yeah, Mikey. It's my turn."
"But I'm not finished!"
It sounded like four children –or maybe three, it was hard to tell through the muffling of the old bricks and the wheezing pipes. They sounded about the same age as his oldest, although that didn't reassure him any –they were still far too young to be in the sewers. He couldn't tell if they were boys or girls, but he wasn't sure it mattered. He needed to figure out if they would still be here if his foreman could figure out exactly where they were.
"All right." The last voice sounded disappointed, and there was nothing for a few seconds until,
"Hey! That hurt!"
"Sorry."
"It's your own fault, Donny. You should have blocked."
"My turn! My turn!"
"No it… where's the ball?"
"You lost the ball?!"
"I didn't! He took it!"
"No I didn't!"
Jorge nearly choked, trying to hold back unexpected laughter. He couldn't understand all the words with his less than perfect grasp of English, but the meaning had been clear enough. The four voices were arguing over a game, the same way his daughters had at home.
His daughters. His lovely little girls. He hadn't seen them in nearly a year now. They must have grown –Sofia had been shooting up when he left, and Maria had been nearly to his waist. Lupe and Pilar had hit a lull between growth spurts, but he knew that they were probably still taller than the two youngest. He missed them terribly, missed listening to them play while he and his wife talked. He should be home with them.
"Raph's got it!"
"No I don't!"
"Get him!"
The sounds of a juvenile scuffle filtered through the wall beside him, and Jorge found that despite the ache in his heart he just couldn't stop the smile. If he closed his eyes and ignored the scents and sounds of the sewers around him, he could almost believe he was home again, listening to his girls playing in the other room and his brothers wrestling outside.
"Get offa me!"
"…Mmph!"
"I got it! …Yauugh!"
"WATCH OUT!"
A crashing noise caused him to flinch, fatherly instincts sending his heart jumping into his throat as he listened breathlessly for any sign of what had happened on the other side of the wall. The last scream had been practically beside him. Had they run into the wall? Were they hurt?
"…okay?"
"Ow…"
"Baby."
Jorge breathed a sigh of relief as the voices trickled through the hum of the pipes, much quieter now than before. The wall had to be thin here, for him to hear them so clearly.
Boys, he decided. They were definitely boys.
He leaned against the brick wall, resting his head against the aged masonry and closing his eyes. He had to go back, meet up with the rest of the crew and let them know about the boys.
But… Perhaps he should wait a few moments. It was Christmas Eve, and he was a long way from home. A long way from his family, and these kids, if only for a moment, had let him pretend he was home again. He could at least let them finish their game before he brought the authorities down on them…
"My turn."
"No, it's my turn!"
"You tried to hide the ball! You lost your turn."
"Uh uh."
"Uh huh."
"Just throw the ball!"
Jorge chuckled softly, relaxing against the wall as he listened to the words from the other side of the wall. After a few moments, he could almost believe that he was back in the rickety old kitchen, listening to the water humming in the pipes behind the sink and his family in the main room. The occasional metallic screech of the pipes became the banging of pots and pans, the shrieks of the boys on the other side of the wall the sounds of his own young family.
"…Leo?"
The quiet question startled him out of his deliberate reverie, forcing him back to the cold reality of the New York sewers in late December.
"…I'm hungry."
The last vestiges of his guilty daydream shattered in the edges of his vision, his heart twisting and sinking in a horrible echo of the day his little Sofia had come to him begging those same words in another language.
"Me too, Donny."
His throat closed at the young voice that echoed the same pain he'd felt over a year before when he'd had to look into his little girl's brown eyes and tell her he had no money for food. He could almost see her now, staring up at him with that innocent hope, that utter confidence that he could make everything right if she just asked.
"When do you think Father will be back?" The voice was wistful, and Jorge reached out to steady himself on the brick wall at the words. They weren't runaways then. But what father would leave his children in a sewer?
"I don't know, Mikey. Maybe later."
"Do you think he'll have food?"
The long pause after the hopeful question gave Jorge all the answer he needed. He sagged against the wall, letting his knees slide him all the way to the dank floor.
They weren't runaways. They had a father somewhere, out trying to find food for them while they played and hid in the sewers beneath the celebrating city. A father doing
all he could for them despite the terrible situation that forced him to leave them alone.
He'd been imagining them as his own children. Now he saw that save for a lucky chance that had allowed him to get a job in a distant city, they could have been.
"…I don't know, Mikey." The voice whispered, barely audible through the cracks in the bricks. "There's sooo many people out right now. He might not."
He could see Sofia's beautiful eyes filling with tears as he betrayed her trust for yet another day, because there were too many people trying to get the same jobs, to work the same impossibly low wages barely adequate to support one person let alone a family…
"Maybe we could find some?"
…Pilar and Lupe helping his wife in the kitchen, dutifully drawing water from the pump to make the meager meal stretch farther, only there was never quite enough…
"No! Father said we had to stay here or they'll take us away!"
…And the long hours he'd spent going from place to place, doing odd jobs and trying to get training, filling out paperwork he didn't understand in the hope that he could somehow be able to support his girls, before finally discovering that the only way for him to keep his family together was for him to leave them.
No.
He wasn't going to report them. The boys clearly knew what would happen if they didn't stay hidden, and at least this area was warmer than most because of the steam pipes. He knew that if they were discovered later and the city realized that he'd failed to report them he'd loose his job, but he was not going to separate another father from his children.
But…
Jorge pushed himself to his feet, taking a long look around at his surroundings and committing every detail he could to memory. He wanted to make sure he knew where to come back to. While he doubted they would move from their secure hiding place, there was no guarantee that the kids would still be awake later for him to hear.
~*~
It was nearly three in the morning when Master Splinter hurried down the tunnels towards the hiding place he'd left his children, finally certain that the sewage workers were gone and that hoping desperately that his sons hadn't been discovered. They'd come so close…
He'd wrapped his few finds in a scarf that had blown away from someone's winter coat, but the few scraps of sandwich were not going to go nearly far enough. There were just too many people out and about, hurrying here and there for all manner of reasons related to the impending holiday for him to have any hope of getting real food for his children without being seen. Worse, the dumpsters were largely empty of food, as people saved space in their refrigerators for the remains of their Christmas feasts. He knew that in a few days there would be plenty of food, leftovers pitched and unwanted deserts discretely bagged away, but it didn't help him now.
He froze, sniffing the air around the corner from the bend that led to the hidden doorway to their current home. Someone had been here, for quite a while. He could smell the sweat and grease of their hands and…
There was a lump on the floor by the wall a little ways down the tunnel.
It smelled faintly of food.
Hunger and fear overrode his caution, driving him forward to the brown grocery bag sitting on the floor of the tunnel. He couldn't sense anyone else here, and the sewer worker had left a short while ago. As he drew closer, the scent of food grew stronger.
His stomach growled, and he froze, looking around furtively, but nothing moved in the shadows or the light. He looked at the bag again, praying it was some sewer worker's dinner accidentally forgotten. He'd started stealing lunches from the workers when they brought them down out of desperation.
Gingerly, he pulled at the brown paper, and dropped his carefully hoarded finds in shock.
Food. The bottom of the bad was covered in canned goods. Cheap, filling stuff, enough to feed his little family for days if he was careful. There was even a loaf of bread sitting proudly on top of the cans, and tucked in around the bread were four cookies and a candy bar.
It was as he was closing the miraculous bounty that something colorful fluttered to the ground beside his foot. Craning his head, he saw that there had been a piece of paper taped to the bag, from a grubby yellow notepad that had probably seen better days. His brows drew together as he pieced together the strange words scrawled so carefully in an inexperienced hand, and he swallowed hard, the simple message bringing tears to the old rat's eyes.
Feliz Navidad.