"But paradise is locked and bolted…
We must make a journey around the world to see if a back door has perhaps been left open."
–Heinrich Von Kleist, On a Theatre of Marionettes
Courage of the Heart
Gears ground as she spun the handwheel; the plastic bag handles digging into her inner elbow. Something groaned and then squealed briefly as she pulled the lever and shoved with her shoulder against the slab. It resisted for only a moment before creaking open. A cascade of rusty metal flakes peppered her head and shoulders.
She ducked, but it did little to keep it from settling on her lower lip. Spitting, she wiped her mouth on one shoulder as she sidestepped and squeezed through the barely open space. Not for the first time, April made a mental note to get some WD-40 for the old hinges.
The rear entrance of the lair had been her entryway of choice, ever since the alarm system fried, going off and on sporadically the closer she'd come towards the front of their home. In lieu of upsetting the peace of the lair, and possibly waking Splinter, she'd slip in through the back, bearing the shower of rust. She'd grown accustomed to it.
Leo had meant to get alarm system repaired. He could do it himself, April was sure, but he hadn't. And she knew what kept him from the job.
Leo was the most patient of all the boys. He waited on the one who installed the security devices in the first place. Holding out hope that Donatello would return from whatever corner of the globe his espionage, code writing and hacking had taken him to. But he hadn't, and probably wouldn't. Ever.
She knew this better than anyone.
He wouldn't be distracted from his obsessive focus on his stealthy career. Not for a visit. Not even for a phone call.
Her irritation at the second oldest flared, but soon succumbed to the cobwebbed guilt. She knew what kept him away.
Once the threats from Kraang and the Purple Dragons diminished and faded. Once the Shredder was defeated and the Foot Clan slunk back to Japan, taking her with it.
April chewed the inside of her cheek, refusing to picture the girl's rotten face, even as her traitorous mind conjured and displayed her glorious resurrection from the retro-mutagen; fresh, healed, whole.
April's fists clenched as she refocused.
The fabled last straw collapsing the preverbal camel's back: once the proposal was made and the affair executed to the final detail of purchasing the land surrounding the abandoned church outside the train depot on the edge of the city, just so their special friends could attend in privacy and some sense of comfort.
There'd been, obviously to his mind, no reason for him to remain.
He'd been there that night. Her special night. But when the night wore on, and she'd gone to find him for a dance, just the two of them so that she could thank him for all he'd been to her, all the good he'd done for her and her father; he'd gone.
Never said goodbye. Never looking back.
So, April forgave Leonardo for not fixing the security system. He'd had his hands full.
And after Splinter slipped in the bathroom getting out of a shower stall a few months back, things had been especially hard on him. The ancient rat hadn't broken anything that they could tell, but bruised his side severely for such a small fall.
Bed rest and a particularly long-lasting winter brought a rattling cough alongside the aches and pains that kept son and father up all hours of the night. And his sick body struggled to heal.
There was nothing to be done. It was his age.
When April had examined him just after the first of the year, when he'd fallen, he seemed shrunken and frail beneath the robe and blankets. He was all sharp angles. Bony joints, loose skin with patches of missing fur, matted where it hadn't thinned so much that she could see the liver spots. Gone were the wiry muscles and padded flesh.
His eyes wept constantly and one of them were obscured by a thick curtain of milky cataract. He slept more hours than he was awake; lightly dozing, sometimes with eyes half open, a gentle smile playing along his mouth, as though he were reminiscing on some long-ago told joke. Leaving Leonardo alone to meditate on his life. The choices he'd made. The sacrifices.
But he'd been lucky, she reassured a shaken Leonardo later, it could have been much worse had he broken a hip.
Much worse.
She stopped between the kitchen and living room. The lair lay tidy and quiet. Dust motes twirled through bracketed beams of light. The tree at the center of the living room remained twisted as it always had, but for the past three years, no longer sprouted leaves.
She set down the bags of groceries and took note of the broken twigs and fallen branches scattered around the base of the trunk. With a sigh, she crossed the room, stooped and picked one up.
Glancing around, the room seemed to contract and expand against the contrary push and pull of memory versus reality. Contracting with the absence of boyish teasing and laughter - expanding with the memory of four boys bursting with life and energy and potential - contracting once again with the muted late afternoon haze, accentuating the hollow loss. Cementing it in place.
April felt it coming and braced herself for the familiar hit of melancholic emotion. How could she not, standing here in the center of what was once the entire universe for her friends? And the sting of bitterness made her watering eyes flutter closed.
How could they have left you? Going on with their lives to leave you here to rust and rot.
With little pressure, the twig snapped sharply between her fingers. Dry and brittle. An aged bone. The tiny fragments scattered between her hands, showering her boots in miniscule particles.
Knowing him, he wouldn't have allowed it otherwise. Always the hero, but particularly when it came to his brothers. He could not escape what he was – who he was to them. Escape was never an option for the honorable.
Her eyes roved upwards, still trusting to see new growth somewhere in its branches. Blinking at the burning in the corners of her eyes. Hoping in spite of her tendency towards realism, and – as Casey had pointed out, loudly and often, just before the divorce – her cynicism, to find some indication of life. Of rebirth. Renewal. Anything.
From the corner of her eye, he emerged from his master's room.
She turned, beaming suddenly despite the wetness in her eyes. Dropping the ends of the twig she still held, she straightened her blouse and hair. Looking up, she opened her mouth to call out to him, but hesitated, taking in his posture.
Leonardo stood with his shell to her, head low, one hand resting on the rice paper, the other still on the handle.
Even in the low light, she made out the scars. The long diagonal ridge lines and gouges which cut through and into his carapace. The lighter patches and raised scar-tissue which dotted along the backs of his calves and thighs.
She mapped the lines of his pain with her eyes despite knowing every single one by heart. And for every tear he stubbornly refused to shed, she'd cried double for him, over the years. She'd carried the weight of his suffering alongside him, unbeknownst to him. Honored to do so. More than willing to do that and wanting to do so much more.
And she wondered what he would say if he caught even a glimpse of what else she hid from him. Perhaps tonight she'd finally learn.
He stayed that way, unmoving, lost in his contemplations of what lie beyond the door, until April could stand the sight no longer. She shifted her feet, moving forward. She hardly made a sound, but it would be enough.
The soft rustle made him jump. He spun around and seeing it was only April, instantly relaxed. His face softened, the tension in his shoulders dropped away.
"April," he said, moving towards her, eyes darting around and face turning as though she'd brought his brothers along with her and he failed to notice them. His voice carried the same roughened intonation of his injuries from the Shredder, so long ago, but his maturation added a rich depth to it that made her heart thrum with each syllable. "I didn't know you were coming down here."
He finished scanning the room for his siblings as he finished speaking. And when his eyes met hers, there was the glaze of disappointment along with the abiding sorrow that made her heart hurt and kept her up long into the lonely nights since she first acknowledged her feelings for him had long ago been more than platonic or familial. Back before the divorce. Before the other one made her lasting mark on his tender heart.
The smile froze on her face. Her heart pounded with a mix of emotions that sickened her stomach. She once again forcibly removed the image of the snake-girl, who despite the retromutagen's effects, stayed true to her deceitful snake-heart until the end, from her mind's eye.
Determined to keep things light, she said, "Well, I got my taxes done and actually got something back from the government for a change." She rubbed her hands together. "So, I decided to splurge big time. You know, just the finer things in life for me. Like bread. And milk."
"Heh," Leo breathed, but the sound came without a grin. If anything he looked unsure of what she meant. His brow quirked.
She blurted, "I thought I'd treat you to dinner." She turned and indicated with a gesture of her hand the bags near the kitchen floor. "Uh, and Splinter, of course. If he's up for eating with us."
He brightened, gaze falling on the bags, then to her. "You brought food?"
Her heart stumbled at the note of excitement in his voice. She nodded. He hurried over to the grocery bags.
"Everything we need for a fine dining experience."
"There's," he counted quickly, "nine bags here, April," he said, softly accusing her.
"Well yeah. Dinner a-nd a few other things. Heh. I found the cough syrup that I know Master Splinter can have without a reaction on sale, so I bought a few bottles."
She followed him and stood behind where he crouched and started to rummage through the bags.
"Th-This is great!" He pulled out bread, coffee, sugar and flour. Stacking everything neatly to one side. "You really didn't have to go to any trouble." Eggs, sour cream and bacon were removed from another.
"No trouble at all," she said around her spreading grin. "If you ever need anything, anything at all, just let me know. I thought you'd like me to make that lasagna recipe we had at Christmas. Hungry?"
He glanced up at her and her breath caught. There, dazzling as it ever had been, rare and wonderful, was his smile. It transformed the serious twenty-eight-year-old's face into something boy-like and sweet. Even the scars seemed to fade in the light of it.
"That sounds great!"
At a loss for words, April hugged herself. "O-kay! I'll get started!" She grabbed the plastic handles of the bag full of her ingredients and swung them into the kitchen to the table. A nervous laugh bubbled free from between her lips and she sucked them into her mouth, cursing herself internally for being so painfully obvious. Behind her, Leo filled the refrigerator with the perishable items.
She busied herself, chopping green peppers and onion while the ground beef and ground pork sizzled on the stove-top. Over her shoulder, she glanced at him as he carefully folded the paper bags against his stomach. She deliberated for only a minute before she told him, "I spoke to Mikey the other day."
He looked up, staring into the air in front of him, "Oh?" He gave her a quick sidelong glance from the corner of his eye, but kept his voice neutral as he stuffed the bags into the cupboard. "How is he? How's . . . Renet?"
"They're both great. They may find some time this summer to visit."
He straightened up where he placed the empty bags, shell to her. She spilled two cans of diced tomatoes into the meat, then threw the peppers and onions into the pans and shook them, coating everything in the luscious sauce. She dashed everything with salt; faltering as the next question came.
"Did he say when, exactly?"
She shook her head. "No."
"Oh, that's . . . too bad. I was hoping he and Raph might come up for a visit this month."
Hating the disappointment in his tone, despite his effort to conceal it, she chewed her lower lip. This was supposed to be good news, her talking to Mikey. "I'm sure Raph would try to make it," she said and cringed at how lame she sounded. Raph coming up to the city from the bayou was not going to happen any time soon. Christmas and their mutation day. That was all he committed to. Otherwise, he liked his swamp. He preferred his sanctuary away from the general populace. Even if it meant keeping away from his family.
"Oh." Leonardo moved around the chair and began to set the table. "Splinter was looking for Mikey."
She turned with a frown. "Splinter was up?"
Leo met her eyes then dropped his gaze to the plates in front of him. There were only two. "He was asking for him, I meant. He got confused. Thought he heard him playing guitar in his bedroom."
"It was probably just the television," April said, forcing her tone to remain light. Easy. Her mind raced to find something neutral to talk about. She got nothing.
"Yeah," Leo made that soft huffing sound again. The laugh sans humor. "Only the television's been out since February."
She turned around. Mouth agape in mock horror. It was easier to fake offense over a non-issue than address the elephant in the room. Namely: his brothers' growing reluctance to come back home to face a dying father and the brother they all left behind to tend to him.
"Leo," she chastised and he looked up, eyes wide and nervous. Looking adorably guilty. "Why didn't you tell me? I would have bought you another one."
He shrugged. "Force of habit? I thought Don might," he faltered. "Thought he might come around for a visit and just, um, maybe take a look at it for me."
April felt the wind slip from her sails. She turned back and jabbed the meat sauce violently with the spatula. The pot next to her roiled and bubbled.
"Well, if he does, tell him I said hello. Haven't heard from him in," she slammed the spatula down with more force than she intended, "oh, I dunno, was it . . . When was it? Halloween?"
"Uh, before that," Leo responded and his voice sounded funny.
She told herself not to turn around. But did anyway.
His eyes were downcast, but overly bright. The fury melted away and with a rough wipe of the heel of her hand to her cheek bone just beneath her eye, she sniffed.
Way to go, April! Do not make this worse, dammit!
She smacked her hands together, once.
His face shot up, then over his shoulder towards Splinter's room.
She didn't have room in her heart at the moment to feel bad for the noise. Not right now. Right now she was barely wrangling her tumultuous emotions.
"I almost forgot!" she announced, causing him to swivel back to her. She marched to the table and pulled out a chair where she'd placed a lone bag. From it, she produced a bottle of wine.
Leo looked as though she'd just pulled out a snake.
"I-I know you're not fond of drinking, Leo. But, hear me out. A nice dinner deserves a good accompaniment. And besides that," she said. "We have something to celebrate."
# # #
She cleared the dishes as Leonardo slipped away to check on Splinter. They'd eaten without further mention of his brothers, and she was proud of how she'd manage to keep the conversation rolling along.
From the latest book she'd finished and highly recommended to Leo, a trashy paranormal romance whose summary had Leo both chuckling at and – to her everlasting joy – blushing, albeit, only momentarily; to her successful sale of her old apartment; to her job as an assistant secretary to the chief editor of a small, but steadily growing, gossip magazine: Splash!, she filled the dinner with light-hearted rambling.
The sale of her old place was reason to celebrate, since it coincided with her moving into an apartment only two blocks from the lair's entrance.
Leo returned to the table and frowned as she pushed the refilled glass of wine into his hand. "Splinter's sleeping soundly. Uh, I think, maybe," he said as he placed the glass on the table. He gave her an apologetic ghost of a smile. "Thank you for dinner."
April fingered her glass and tipped her head to one side. "If Splinter is . . . settled, do you think you could slip away?"
His gaze sharpened. He fidgeted.
"I'd like to show you my new place. It's not five minutes from the lair, remember?"
He turned his head to look at Splinter's door.
"I haven't gotten the chance to show it off to anyone, since, you know," maybe it was the wine, but she threw caution to the wind, reaching out to snag his wrist with one finger, "you're really the only person I wanted to show it to."
He jumped slightly when she touched him, but did not back away from her touch. And that, perhaps, was the wine, for any time in the past, however slight or innocent, whenever she'd touch him, to lay a hand on his shoulder or arm, to sit close enough so the outside of her foot met his, he'd ease away. Gentle. Nearly unnoticeably, but still.
He'd place distance between them. She knew the reason. And it sported a girl's pretty face but a snake's treacherous heart.
And though it should have persuaded her to leave what had been unsaid, unexamined, silent and near-dead in her heart, it only served to enflame her need. Stoking the fires of a love that could not be, but nevertheless, was.
Her fingers wove around his wrist at the first sign of hesitance.
Her voice was a whisper, "Please, Leo?"
"Sensei," he started, unsure and yet, there in his eyes, a strange light, wine or no, it seemed to April like a beam of something resembling hopeful longing, shining out from the deepest, most distant part of his soul. It chased away the lonely hue which so often dimmed the azure glow of his eyes.
He ran his tongue along his bottom lip.
April watched the pink tip with studied fascination and felt her cheeks warm. She wondered if she kissed him then, would he taste of wine and the earthy spices of her lasagna? She blinked away the heated thought. Her heart thudded against her ribs. Her body rooted in place, teetering on a precipice.
"But . . . he might . . . he might need me."
"He's asleep, isn't he?" She spoke in a hushed voice, as if even now, she might ruin the moment by awakening the old master.
Leo stared at her, then nodded. Returning her whisper, he said, "But what if he wakes up."
"I'm sure he'd be okay. It would be . . . just for a little bit." She didn't want to sound as though she were pleading now, but could not help it.
He swallowed, eyes bouncing between her own. She felt her heart stagger for she felt sure he'd decline. But something changed; in his posture, in his expression or eyes, she wasn't sure. Some tectonic emotional plate slipped, allowing the light of hope to shine a bit brighter in his gaze. His decision firming before her very eyes even as her heart soared.
"I'll leave him a note."
April's lips split into a wavering smile. "Yes. Good idea."
Leo turned, but still, his hand had at some point slid low to clasp hers. Tethering him in place; until he looked back and down, then up again at her.
With some reluctance, she released him.
"Just a few minutes," he said, as though needing to confirm it. Like a pact made and sealed. A promise that of all of them, she would never break.
April nodded and shook her head, "Th-That's all . . . a few minutes."
He smiled.
Her heart tumbled.