Leonardo's Good Deed

By Kazza

2120 A.D. in a city alleyway.

"Ewwwww!" Dani DeBarbarac wiped the mess off her feet. Scraping garbage out of her hair and off her flat, square backpack, she stared up a window two floors above her. The hand that had dropped the garbage moments before was now pulling the window closed.

"Watch where you're dumping stuff!" she yelled up at the hand. She picked up a half-eaten tomato that had been one of the few bits of garbage to miss her and threw it at the window. It splattered on the glass with a satisfyingly loud squelch.

The window opened and a handsome young man peered out of it. "What do you think you are doing?" he yelled down at her.

"Just the question I was asking you, moron!" Dani yelled back. "I don't like garbage landing on my head!"

"That's your fault for walking there!" The young man smirked.

"Why you arrogant..." muttering under her breath, Dani reached for the nearest thing to throw to hand, an open pack of mouldy apple sauce and hurled it up at him. The pack missed him and hit the window frame but the impact splattered apple sauce across the young man's face.

"How's it feel now?" Dani yelled up at him as she skipped backwards to avoid falling apple sauce.

The window slammed shut.

"Moron," Dani muttered as she scraped more gunge off her classic, retro, sound-sneakers. "Darn it," she said as one shoe gave an electronic squeal, "the slime's got into the speaker." She was muttering about "darn hand-me-down 21st century technology" when a pair of large astro-boots stopped in front of her.

"Perhaps some apple sauce will help."

Dani looked up at the occupant of the boots, the owner of the very handsome face from the second floor window. 'Hmmm,' thought Dani, 'He's pretty all over.' She blushed slightly and then gave her mind a mental kick. 'Heel girl. You might be standing in the gutter but your thoughts don't need to be there. Besides, this one's out of your league.'

"Nothing to say?" Henry Francis stared down at the girl. He worked hard to keep his face stern while wayward thoughts scampered around his mind. Most of the thoughts he ignored but the little voice telling him that, with the help of some soap, water and decent clothes the girl standing before him would be very nice indeed, kept rising to the surface.

"Why should I say anything?" Dani replied. It was the only thing she could think to say as her brains had apparently turned to mush when he arrived.

She glared up at him and he glared back. They stood this way for almost three minutes before a voice interrupted their glare-a-thon.

"Excuse me, do you have my pizza?" The voice sounded like its owner was trying hard to avoid laughing.

"Pizza?" Henry looked at the owner of the voice and did a double-take. "Uhhh..."

"Aw, geez," Dani said, rather embarrassed. "I'm sorry." She wiped a bit of garbage off her wrist organiser and read out the address.

"Yep, that's me." Leonardo's eyes were twinkling with amusement as he watched the two young people. With a bit of encouragement a nice little romance might just start here. This girl just might make that silly young man grow up. Leonardo was getting rather tired of watching Henry moping around the neighbourhood.

Dani sighed and unclipped the flat backpack. She flipped the backpack so that it was horizontal, turned off the low-level magnetic field that held the topping onto the pizza and opened the flap.

"One Peperoni Thai supreme with extra cheese." She held out the box and for the first time looked at her customer. Her elderly customer winked at her and rescued the pizza before it fell from Dani's limp fingers. 'It's him!' thought Dani. 'What's someone that famous doing here?'

"Thank you," Leonardo said cheerfully. "Ah, it's been so long since I've had a nice proper oven-cooked pizza. Those new fangled laser cookers just don't make them right. It is oven cooked?"

"Uh, yeah," Dani said quietly. "I made it myself."

"Uh, you can cook?" said Henry, still stunned.

Dani nodded. She watched her customer turn to leave. "Umm, excuse me?" Dani blushed as Leonardo turned to look back at her. "Could I have your autograph?"

"Sure. Why don't you come and have a bit of pizza with me and we can chat about the old days?" Leonardo grinned. "Both of you?"

Henry and Dani looked at each other then back at Leonardo.

"Do you have a feeling of déjà vu?" Henry said to Dani. He smiled and Dani felt like someone had turned on a light and the world had got a bit brighter.

"Now you come to mention it..." Dani grinned up at him. "Nah, we can't have done this before."

"Hey Dudes," called Leonardo. "Are you two going to stay out there all day?"

"On our way," called Henry. He grinned at Dani, "Come on, we'd better not keep him waiting."

Leonardo, the last surviving Ninja Turtle, chuckled and climbed creakily down into the sewers. "Pizza, memories and a bit of romance," he said to himself, "today is going to be a fun day."

And it was.

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The End

Disclaimer: Ever After, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and all their characters are not copyright to me - they are owned by people far more talented and good looking than myself. This story is simply meant as a tribute and for a giggle.