Note: These last couple of chapters have been awesomely long, internet, I apologize. I know your internet brains can't handle it. I'm kidding, I love you (please be literate gaaaah I go to community college and there are IDIOTS EVERYWHERE). My first draft of this chapter sucked, so here's the like, 612th draft. It was ridiculously hard to write because college gets in the way of everything.
The next chapter is upon us. If you haven't noticed, I've been trying to write them all one after the other in a vain attempt to get this story completed before my TMNT nerd fetish dies down and I'm stuck with YET ANOTHER half-completed fanfic.
I'm so lazy.
I also understand that I widely overuse the words "dude" and "bro", but I don't know what else to use.
This lazy bitch does not own TMNT or anything related to it. All I own is Jerry. That's it. Seriously. End of discussion. No questions. None. Nada. Zip. Niente. Ze + Ro.
Je N'ai Jamais eu Cœur Avant (I Never Had a Heart Before)
"Come on, dude, if you keep staring into space all the time, you're never gonna get upgraded past the 'chucks, man!" Mikey called. He was training with Jerry, one nunchuck-weilder against another.
Jerry snapped back to his senses. "Quoi? Euh... oh." Jerry flipped back around into a fighting pose. "Sorry, Michaelangelo, I was lost in my thoughts."
"Yeah, dude, I kinda noticed." Mikey said. "Dude, you've got to pay more attention. A real ninja enemy isn't gonna tell you when you're spacin' out, ya know? He's just gonna hand you your shell on a silver platter."
"Je n'ai pas une coquille , mon ami ." Jerry said cheekily. (I don't have a shell, my friend.)
"Yeah, but dude, you totally knew what I meant."
Over the months Jerry had been living with the Turtles, they had learned to pick up his language through context clues and Donny's translator software. Their grasp of it wasn't perfect, but it was good enough that they could confuse enemy ninjas by giving basic orders to each other in French, a language the Foot clan were not familiar with. Not really complex orders, but basic orders like "Stop", "Go", "Attack", and "Retreat" were among the one-word orders that Leonardo had learned to master. It turned out to be a very effective technique, and one that Leo planned on getting more familiar with. Any technique that confused the shell out of Foot ninjas was a technique filed under Leo's Mental Sticky Notes, cross-referenced with F for French, J for Jerry, and W for Why Didn't We Think of This Before.
Yes, Leo's brain actually cross-referenced itself when needed. He prided himself on a fast an efficient brain system.
"Hm." Jerry made a noncommittal sound, staring past Michaelangelo's shoulder.
"Dude, you don't seem to thrilled about training today."
"No. No, I am fine. Do not worry about me. I am... tired. I'm just tired." Jerry said dully, slithering away.
"Dude? Dude!" Mikey called, as Jerry dropped his nunchucks and sltihered into his room, shutting the door behind him.
Inside his room, Jerry stared at his dark, barren walls, with the small smoldering holes from where he'd shot venom in frustration. There were claw marks from when he'd thrashed out wildly, in the throes of a psychotic episode. There was his bed, a little cot, fully furnished with a thick blanket and pillow. Being a cold-blooded reptile, Jerry needed a thicker blanket than his comrades to keep him from going into hypothermic shock in the cold fall nights underground in New York. He didn't like it, it was scratchy and musty, but he didn't really have a choice.
Jerry sat on his little cot, wrapped himself up in his blankets, and sang to himself, a simple little song that he had made up years ago by himself, to sing Annabella to sleep on the long cargo-hold ride to America. "Je prie à la lune , afin de protéger ceux que j'aime , je prie le Dieu qui vient de plus haut, nous donner la force de l'amour et la liberté , laissez-nous aller à la terre où nous serons libres ..." (I pray to the moon, to protect the ones I love, I pray to the God that hails from above, give us the strength for love and liberty, let us go to the land where we will be free...)
He admitted now that it sounded better in English than it did in French, but he had to translate it into French for his sister's sake. He shrugged, got up, and decided to climb somewhere high up to sleep for a while. He liked being off the ground. He had always dreamed about flying. He slithered up the wall, using broken bits of wall as hand-holds, and jumped onto the broken chandelier. He curled around it, and quickly fell in a heap, closing his eyes and trying to sleep.
Mikey heard him singing and grimaced. "Dude, I hope he's just singing and not flashing back again... I should tell Donny anyway." Mikey rushed off to Donny's room. He was going to knock on the door, but it whizzed open as he brought his fist up. "Dude... magic door?" Mikey asked.
"Dude, magic security camera?" Donny retorted mockingly in the same surfer-voice, pointing up at the monitor which showed the outside of Donny's door and the hallway. "I opened the door remotely, you doof. Now what did you want?"
"Dude, you're being hostile today." Mikey replied.
"I'm not being hostile, I'm being deprived of sleep." Donny said, finally turning and looking at Mikey.
"Yikes!"
Donny had bags under his eyes, a pale complexion, and generally looked haggard, like he was very tired and hadn't slept in days. He was slouched over, with an expression on his face of tired annoyance that seemed plastered on his green cheeks.
"Dude, what up with the shopping bags? It looks like you're carrying home the groceries on your face, bro."
"I haven't slept in two weeks, save for one half-an-hour nap before the Foot clan broke into April's antique shop."
"Oh yeaaaah, April. Whatever happened to her? I haven't seen her around in months."
"I decided to keep her and Jerry separate. With Jerry's obvious (and somewhat violent, I may add), dislike and distrust of humans, I figured letting him know we were friends with more than a few would set him off. He'd probably call us traitors and run off, probably get himself killed. He's impulsive like that."
"Oh. So what happened with April?"
"The Foot broke into her antique shop and demanded she give them the new passwords for the security system I've set up down here. She didn't know the passwords so they forced her to call me anyway. I traced the call and showed up to kick some shell."
"How many were there?"
"Only about ten of them, but I learned that Casey didn't handle it himself because he was on the other side of the city at work."
"Oh." Mikey shrugged. "Anyway, that's not why I came, dude. I wanted to tell you Jerry was all spacin' out again, and then he wandered off into his room and started singing in French. Sounded like a lullaby or somethin', and I didn't know whether he was having an episode or not, so I came to get you. I figured we'd be on the safe side."
"Good work, Mikey. I'll go check on him." Donny said. He got up from his chair and made his way into the hallway, where it was quite apparent where Jerry had been due to the fact there was a large legless reptile hanging off broken chandelier still hanging from the ceiling, where Jerry lay curled upon it, sleeping peacefully.
"Dude, he was not up there when I came to get you." Mikey observed, staring up at the peaceful reptile.
"Where was he?"
"In his room, staring at the wall."
"Well, we've certainly trained him well, then, haven't we? The little ninja. Well, he seems to be alright." Donny said, smiling softly. He left, Mikey in tow. Jerry cracked an eye open.
"But how the shell did he get up there?" Mikey insisted before shaking his head and following after his brother. "So why haven't you been sleeping, bro? Anything I can help with?"
"I don't know, Mikey, maybe. I don't know why I can't sleep lately. General insomnia? Something more? I just can't seem to stop thinking long enough to get forty winks. I can't sleep and I don't know why."
Mikey walked up and started digging his fingers into Donny's neck. "Why don'tcha lay back and tell Mikey everything that's on your mind, bro. It'll probably make you feel better."
"You promise you won't get bored and wander away?"
"No promises, but I'll do my best, dude."
"Well okay. Right now I'm thinking about how we get Jerry to trust humans a little so I don't have to keep hiding April and Casey from him. I feel bad for both him and her. I feel bad for him because we're hiding something from him. We're not being honest with him and frankly dishonesty leaves a bad taste in my mouth. And I feel bad for her because we don't get to see her or Casey for months on end because we're down here with Jerry. It's not that I resent Jerry, not at all. Au contraire, I think he's a wonderful guy and an excellent friend. I'm glad we came across him. But he's keeping us from friends we've known far longer, even if he doesn't realize it. I don't know what to do."
Mikey's mouth twitched in concern. He gave Donny a hug from behind. "It'll be okay, dude. We just need to come out and tell Jerry about April and Casey. Explain that yeah, they're humans, but they're trustworthy and would never hurt or betray us. They love us. They're like family, dude."
"I'm just afraid of the backlash if I do so. Jerry's so fragile and telling him news like that, that we're friends with the very creatures who were responsible for ending his sister's life and nearly ended his out of fear and prejudice... It would break him, Mikey. We think he's bad now, with his flashbacks and psychotic episodes... what would happen if he completely snapped? He could kill himself or something!"
"He's got guts and smarts. He's a smart guy, Donny, he'll understand."
"This has nothing to do with intelligence. You could tell an infant someone's friendly and they'll believe it. It's about his fragility. He's strong physically. I've seen him lift the fridge over his head to get underneath it. But his mind is like glass. His body is steel, but his mind, his psyche... A blow like that could kill him psychically. His mind is haphazard, like a fractal made up of smaller pieces, each piece another event in his life that made him who he is today. Each piece shakily held together with wishes and dreams, but with no logic or hope to seal the cracks. Without those wishes and dreams, he'd be completely destroyed. I've never met anyone else so strong, but so..." Donny trailed off, not able to find the word he needed.
". . .Broken?" Mikey suggested softly.
"Exactly. I've been doing research and I believe he's got paranoid schizophrenia, but... I don't know, I don't have a degree or anything, so I could be wrong."
fwp...
Mikey and Donny's eyes darted towards the door, and scampered towards it. As they bolted for the door, they noticed a distinct black-and-green tail slipping past the entryway, out of the lair.
"Jerry, no!"
"Shell, he must have been listening!"
"What's all the yelling?" Leo called tiredly, stumbling out of the bedroom he and Raph now shared. Raph was following him, but instead of a look of adorable innocent tiredness on his face, it was a look of pure annoyance and anger at being woken up.
"Jerry heard us talking about April and Casey and has run off." Donny explained quickly. "We have to go after him! The Foot are still looking for us. If he makes his way to the surface with those Foot ninja crawling around, it'll be the end of him!"
"My sons, please be patient." Splinter piped in, coming from the dojo.
"He could get killed out there! He was almost killed once, who knows what could happen to him now?" Donny replied frantically.
"Donatello, calm your mind. We have taught the young serpent well. He needs time. He will not allow himself to be captured."
"Time? You're talking about time? We don't have time! He's fucking schizophrenic!" Donny shouted angrily, grabbing his bo staff and running out the door after the legless reptile.
"Shell. I have never heard Donny curse before. It's weird." Mikey noted. Raph and Leo simply stood, mouths agape at their purple-masked brother.
"Give them both time, my sons. Donatello will come back with Jerry. We have no choice but to wait and see under what circumstances Jerry returns."
"We'll try, Master Splinter, but forgive us if we can't help being concerned." Leo said.
"I understand, my sons. But worry not. Donatello is smart and strong. He will succeed." Splinter said, going back in his room to meditate.
Trahison ... Doulour ... Pourquoi?
(Betrayal... Pain... Why?)