A/N: Hello people, sorry about the long wait for this one, haven't had much time/inspiration for writing lately. If it's any consolation, this is the longest chapter yet, if not by a huge amount. I hope it's worth the wait, or at least the time it takes to read it.


"… and then the crocodile was sad because all the animals said its teeth was too big."

"Were too big."

"Were too big."

"I see." Kirby navigated April around a sandwich board advertising a new pizza topping and tried to make sense of the story so far. He was giving it his all but having a hard time keeping up with the saga of a group of what were, in his view, unrealistically judgemental jungle animals. He had noticed that in spite of the best intentions things tended to get rather drastically restructured when being narrated by a three year old. The changes were unexpected and often interesting but did not make any great concessions to listener comprehension.

"Daddy!" April had stopped short, gripping his hand tightly and pointing down a side alley.

"What is it?"

"There's someone there."

Kirby glanced along the alley. It was the usual grotty affair, festooned with trash and graffiti tags, the former none too fragrant after last night's downpour; now he was paying attention, he too could hear a busy rustling from behind a dumpster. Rats, probably, or perhaps a raccoon – at any rate, something unsavoury which could deliver a nasty bite. He made to move off and continue their journey home, pulling gently at April's hand, but it slipped from between his fingers and she tottered down the alleyway.

"April!" Faintly alarmed, Kirby gave chase and followed her to the source of the sound. As he scooped her up, turning to shield her from the plague-ridden contents of New York's elegant waste disposal system, he thought he heard from the far side of the dumpster a tiny intake of breath.

Turning his head slowly, he surveyed the corner of the dumpster. A few seconds passed in silence. Frowning, he took a step back, and then another, and half turned away again, because whoever was lurking behind that rusted red box was no doubt best avoided, especially by a man with a young daughter to take care of. Then he set April down and walked back, because no one could call themselves a scientist who heard mysterious noises from behind dumpsters in sketchy alleys and didn't need to find out what made them.

And really, who ever heard of a rat that could gasp?

Placing a hand on the corner of the dumpster, he stepped forwards and looked down into a pair of huge, unnatural green eyes.

His first thought was of aliens. Little green men, that was the classic description; few digits, big head, slender limbs, not much by way of a nose. It more or less fit the creature in front of him, except for the fact that this one had a distinctly stocky build – no bigger than April, but rather wider - , but then, he reasoned, even assuming the classical "little green men" description was accurate, a stretch given the typical sources, anatomical variation was ubiquitous among humans, and there was no reason the same shouldn't be true for life originating on other planets… He looked at the crouching creature in consternation, a multitude of thoughts vying for supremacy in his mind. He would be the first to admit that the observation that won out scored few points for practicality.

I always thought alien invaders would be taller.

The creature was green, roughly humanoid in shape, and looking distinctly the worse for wear. Its face was filthy, masked with grime around the wide eyes; it was breathing rapidly through clenched teeth and in one hand it gripped a rusted fork, evidently salvaged from the garbage. He could just make out that beneath the dirt its skin was composed of tiny, tessellating shapes, which looked - if he squinted - almost like scales. He wondered what substance made up the armour plating that covered its chest and the shield that projected from its back; he felt an absent desire to touch it, to run his hands over the alien material, which looked hard, smooth, and yet somehow organic – somehow familiar. Apparently aboard the same train of thought, April detached herself from his knee and trundled forwards, hands outstretched in that gesture of welling juvenile adoration which sends even the most dignified of cats bolting for safety.

But this creature didn't run. Instead it gathered itself for a leap, launched itself off the ground and sank its teeth into her hand, at the same time stabbing the fork into her shoulder. Kirby yelled and flung out a fist to knock it back, sending it flying. It bounced off a trash can with a hollow clatter, rolled and sprang back onto its feet, its eyes two furious lime-green slits. Heart pounding, Kirby looked at April's hand – the skin wasn't broken, much to his relief, but the side of her palm bore a pronounced bite mark.

April, still staring at her hand, took a moment to register her injury. She exchanged a saucer-eyed stare with Kirby before rounding on the creature.

"… you bite me?" she demanded, and Kirby heard her voice shift from incredulity to indignation. "You bited me!"

Kirby looked at her attacker. It was crouched low to the ground, fists clenched, breathing hard; its eyes were restless, darting from him to April to the fork which had fallen to the ground, thwarted by the strap of her dungarees, as though it was calculating how to get it back. As the fear that had seized him when it leapt at April subsided, Kirby looked more calmly at the tension etched in its shoulders and its dilated pupils. He felt he was entitled to lay claim to some experience in this field; only a fool could incur as many rat bites as he had in his time as an experimental psychologist without having learnt the difference between aggression and simple terror.

Slowly lowering himself to a crouch, he smiled gently and held out a hand to the creature.

It eyed his hand suspiciously but as he waited he saw its breathing begin to steady. He leant a little closer and at once it tensed up, tiny fists flying forwards like miniature green boxing gloves.

"hottoite kure yo!" Its voice was high and shrill and communicated far more effectively by its pitch than by the staccato torrent of syllables.

"It's all right. I'm not going to hurt you." Kirby said gently and, much more slowly this time, reached forward. The creature swiped frantically at the air in front of it.

"No! Go away!"

April's jaw fell open, neatly reflecting Kirby's own mental reaction. She tugged at his shoulder. "It can talk!"

Having established that it could in fact talk, rather than merely make angry-sounding noises, he tried to engage it in dialogue.

"Are you lost?"

There was no response, only more suspicious glaring. Kirby tried again.

"Where's your mother? Your father?"

"Your mom and dad," April translated helpfully.

This seemed to prompt a spark of recognition. "chichi -" it said, looking round uncertainly.

This meant nothing to Kirby, but he tried to tease out the story. "Where is your… chichi?"

"I don know." The panic in its voice was palpable now. It clenched and unclenched its fists. "My brothers gone."

Brothers…?

Kirby leant back on his heels. April was looking up at him with big, trusting eyes, perfectly confident that he would know what to do. And the worst part was he did. If one thing was clear, it was that he couldn't leave it here. It was small and alone and very frightened and as if that didn't provide obligation enough, it bit. He couldn't leave it here for the next unsuspecting graffiti artist or wandering drunk. Kirby sighed. Being responsible could really, to use the vernacular, suck.

How was he going to get a small green whatever-it-was to the car without sacrificing any fingers? Clearly its coping strategy for vulnerability was violence. It had a precocious grasp on the practicality of armed combat and a frightening willingness to improvise when it came to weaponry. In short, it was small but vicious, and he wasn't about to risk April's safety.

Besides, surely even in New York there was a limit to what you could carry down the street without attracting someone's attention.

Kirby turned to his daughter and gestured to the end of the alley.

"April, honey, go and wait for me up there."

She squeezed his hand and gave him a supportive pat on the shoulder. "OK."

Carefully avoiding any sudden movements he turned back to the creature, easing off his jacket.

"Now, why don't you let me help you. We'll find your brothers, and "chichi", and take you home. I'm sure they'll all be pleased to see you. " He kept his voice soft, aware he was rambling slightly but trying to offer reassurance through his tone as much as his words. As he gathered his jacket in his right hand his eyes fell on the fork that had recently been wielded against April. He picked it up, causing the creature to stiffen, and held it out in offering, handle first, keeping up his stream of comforting nonsense. "Oh look, it's your fork. What a nice one, where did you find this? It's got almost all of its prongs as well. Always useful to have a -"

The creature, which had been edging forwards, eyes locked on him, made a sudden grab for the fork, snatching it and darting back again. But before it could escape, Kirby made his move. He bundled it into his jacket and knotted the arms while it was still flailing around in fury at his betrayal, then got to his feet and strode to the end of the alley, clamping the struggling mass of coat and green limbs and outrage under his arm.

It was fortunate Kirby O'Neil didn't speak Japanese, because at this moment he was being treated to the worst insults a two-and-a-half-year-old vocabulary has to offer.

April gave him a concerned look as he caught up with her. He reached out to take her hand and spoke loudly to drown out the rising torrent of invective issuing from under his right arm.

"So what happened to the crocodile in the end?"


He insisted that April sit in the front on the way home, but she twisted around to converse with the angry coat prisoner, which seemed by this time to have worn itself out.

"I'm April. I'm three." She held up the corresponding number of fingers, to within a tolerance of one. "What's your name?"

The response was muffled by Kirby's jacket, although not enough to conceal its surliness. "Rurfurel."

Kirby glanced at his mirror. "Russell?"

"Nmm! Rufururl!"

"Raphael? Like the painter?" That's an odd name for a small green monster, thought Kirby, only to wonder a second later why Russell would be any less odd.

"Raphael's a nice name," said April generously. "When we get home we're going to watch Ses - Sesame Street, and we can play with my hula hoop. I can do six hula hoops without dropping it!" she said proudly. "And we're having pizza for dinner, and maybe - maybe ice cream if we're good, and we can have a sleepover tonight, you can sleep on the beanbag. And…"

As she continued to outline the delights of what was apparently going to be their bright new future as a family - apparently all was forgiven as far as the biting incident went - Kirby heard a smothered groan from the backseat and saw Raphael's head slump forwards in an oddly precocious display of exasperation. Somewhere towards the end of April's inventory of her toys he realised Raphael had fallen asleep. He caught her eye and she gave him a tolerant smile. "He's sleepy."

"Hm." Kirby slowed to let a car turn onto the road ahead of him. …"April. When we were walking past that alley, how did you know he was there? And that he wasn't just a rat in the trash cans?"

April frowned in puzzlement. "I knew the same way like you, Dad."

"No, sweetie, I couldn't tell. How did you know?"

His daughter screwed her face up some more and then let it go blank, shrugging her shoulders. "I just did."

"Hm."

Kirby pondered this as they turned onto a larger street, joining a scudding, metallic flood of cars surging through the city like the sucking tide over rock pools. April turned to look out of the window, watching the figures thronging the sidewalk and the neon lights beginning to emerge as the sky turned dark. The rest of the journey home passed in thoughtful silence.


Unbelievably, Kirby got through Sesame Street (Raphael was not a fan), pizza (this he liked, once he had made it clear he would not put it past Kirby to poison him and stopped sulking long enough to try it), ice cream (strawberry was acceptable, chocolate was not), hula hooping (April was tired and only managed 4 revolutions; Raphael refused to participate) hide-and-seek (Raphael was very good at this, and for a worrying ten minutes Kirby thought he had escaped into the city in spite of the fact that he had closed every window in the house) and a turn with April's coloured puzzle blocks (these had completely failed to catch his interest, leaving him asleep where he had dropped on the kitchen floor, surrounded by painted pieces of wood) before having the epiphany which explained the last few hours of nagging familiarity and made him clap a hand to his forehead in exasperation.

"He's a turtle!"

April, still playing contentedly with her puzzle, looked from their sleeping guest to her father - not unkindly, but in a way that suggested she was questioning his sanity.

"Turtles can't talk. And he's too big."

"Sweetheart, until this afternoon I didn't think anything apart from people could talk. But look at him."

He beckoned her over, guiding her small hand onto the hard surface of Raphael's carapace. He kept his other hand on the arch over the turtle's neck, ready to restrain it if it decided to defend itself again, but it was fast asleep and made no resistance to April's investigation. She traced a finger along the groove between two scutes and in spite of everything else, Kirby was transported by the sheer unadulterated love he always felt when he saw that look in her eyes – the moment when she found a piece of the world that didn't quite fit and had to adjust her worldview until it did. Every time it happened, he knew, that perspective grew a little bigger, and the care with which she found a place for the new knowledge told him there was a sharp intelligence burgeoning behind those innocent blue eyes. She looked back up at him, intrigued.

"How did he learn to talk? You said real animals don't talk."

"It looks like I was wrong." Kirby ran a hand through his thinning hair and looked down at his latest project. He knew there was a lot he was deliberately pushing to the back of his mind that would have to be dealt with sooner or later, such as where it came from, how he could return it to its kin, or… or whether there was some higher authority who should handle this. But for the moment he was held fast by simple curiosity. He might have taken it off the street out of a sense of responsibility, but he knew the real reason he had brought it home was that it would drive him crazy not to at least try to figure out what its story was. Exactly how he was going to accomplish that was another matter.

He clapped a hand on his knee and got to his feet. "Bedtime, April."

Immediately she twisted her head to look sharply at him. "What about Raphael?"

Kirby groaned inwardly. Another way his curiosity was going to come back to haunt him… to April this wasn't a stray they were offering a temporary resting place until it could be returned home, or a science project they had taken on in the noble pursuit of discovery; in April's eyes, Raphael was now a fixture. He had been well and truly adopted.

"He'll be fine, April. Look, he's fast asleep," said Kirby, trying to hint that this was a state of being to be emulated.

"I said he can sleep on my beanbag."

"No. April." No way, he added mentally. Bringing it home was one thing; leaving it in the same room as his infant daughter overnight was another. Had she forgotten that its first action on being discovered had been to bite her?

"I said."

He looked down at her lowered eyebrows, noted the stubbornness emanating from every freckle. Kirby recognised the tone of her voice as the same one she would use to remind him of his own promises and sighed the sigh of a parent who has lost the moral ground. He couldn't very well fault her for keeping her word.

"Fine, he can sleep on your beanbag, but he stays in the kitchen."

The wail of protest went up immediately. "But, Dad –"

"No, April. He's staying in here until we know he's safe."

"Safe?" April looked around the kitchen in bewilderment, but found no signs of imminent danger.

"I meant…" Kirby sighed again. "Of course he's safe. But he's sleeping in the kitchen. Go and get your beanbag."

She scrambled up the stars to fetch it and came back barely visible behind the mass of whispering Styrofoam beads. It was a rose pink affair, adorned with silver stars, and if Kirby had to guess he wouldn't have said Raphael would approve of the colour scheme. But the turtle accepted it happily enough in his sleep, burrowing his face into it without waking when Kirby carefully picked him up and moved it under him.

April noted this with delight. "He likes it!" she said, giving Kirby a smile which made him feel sadder than any number of tears.

As he followed her into the bathroom and handed her down her toothbrush he tried to find a way to explain the temporary status of their adoptee. In her bedroom, helping her look for her preferred pair of pyjamas, he began, haltingly.

"April… you know Raphael won't be here forever."

She paused, resting her hands on the edge of the open drawer. "No. I know."

This was surprising; he had expected more resistance to the idea.

"How did you know?" he asked cautiously.

"Mom went away too."

His throat constricted at the almost matter-of-fact tone of her voice, which couldn't quite conceal a note of wistfulness. For a moment he couldn't speak. He wasn't sure how much April understood about what had happened with her mother, but for a moment he cursed himself for ever bringing Raphael home, if it meant she was only going to have to live through his loss. She couldn't learn that this was how it worked – that people came and left, that grief was the inevitable conclusion to love… or perhaps that was exactly what she would have to learn, but not yet. He couldn't bear for her to live with that knowledge just yet.

He knelt behind her, turning her round to face him, and placed a hand on either shoulder.

"April. I know we lost Mom, and I don't know how long Raphael will be with us, but I'm not going to leave you. I'll always be here, I promise."

She looked at him in surprise, taken aback by the solemnity in his tone, and a small part of himself was troubled by the inaccuracy of his promise. He never lied to her, he didn't believe in contorting or glossing over the truth because of her age; he had always rejected with contempt the fantasies other parents fed their children just to save themselves the trouble of explain the complex. And yet how could he tell her that he could be taken from her at any time, by an illness, an accident, any haphazard stroke of bad luck? Surely no parent could be that honest? He might love the truth, but he loved his daughter too. And at this precise moment when he felt that, more than accuracy, she needed a sense of permanence.

He wrapped his arms around her and felt her small hands come to rest on his back, squeezing him in return.

"I love you, April."

"Love you too, Daddy."

After a moment he pulled away and smiled at her, a tad blurrily. "Time for bed."

He tucked her in and switched off the light.

"Goodnight, sweetie."

"Goodnight."

After checking the doors and windows again, hovering for a moment in the kitchen doorway to watch the still sleeping form, he made his way to his own bed and lay in the dark, turning over his many questions in the dark. How was he going to find out the truth about Raphael? How could he locate his brothers, and his… was it chichi? What was a chichi?

How was he going to keep April's heart from being broken?

As his thoughts grew drowsy, his thinking less clear, the answers he provided for himself became less and less grounded in reality. Perhaps they could keep him, he mused sleepily. April seemed to like the company. He could study him at his leisure. The house was big enough…

He yawned, now closer to sleep than waking.

What was the worst that could happen?