Chapter 7: Open Wounds

The night had fallen across the trash strewn streets as the late autumn sun had dipped behind the skyline buildings. By the time April's car pulled up to the crumbling stoop of her worn apartment building, blackness had swallowed up the alleyways. The golden pool of headlights congealed with the dark pierced by lamplight, sickly compared to the silver fingers of starlight, but the early autumn chill was more solid than ever.

As soon as the tires ground to a stop, the car doors flew open like the first gasping breath after birth. The last half hour had felt like drowning, locked in the throes of a stifling, pregnant silence. But the fragile air was tender, weightless and brittle despite its gripping chill. Hollow- it could never fill them with what they craved. It bore with the coming winter only cold and silence. It could do nothing to break the tension that buzzed in the back of restless minds.

What had happened at the bridge, Mike would rather just forget. So he didn't move as quickly as Don, already racing up the old cracked stoop, head down and silent like a ghost. He just couldn't feel as distraught and wound as Raph seemed to be. Instead, he gazed lazily out the car window, his breath fogging the glass only slightly. But he still felt numb ever since that moment, like none of it had a chance to take hold of him yet. So he sat, waiting for his vision to clear enough so his own reflection wouldn't get in the way.

Behind the glass, life seemed like just an act. The street, the lamplight- a stage, and everyone he ever knew- its players. Casey pulled open the old wooden door, his lopsided smile quickly fading into surprise as Don pushed past him, silently swallowed by the dark.

Raphael was stalking the shadows just out of reach of the hazy street light. When the darkness spat him out, he was battling invisible demons. Something like guilt, grief, anger, fear played with the shadows on his face. He and Casey talked noiselessly, mouths forming words like the old silent films. But Mike didn't need to hear it. He didn't want to hear it. When he and Casey disappeared into the alleyway next the old worn building, he knew what they'd be doing for the rest of the night- forgetting.

It was times like these that Mike could see just how much they shared in common. Amnesia almost seemed like a blessing. At the moment, it felt like he could sell his soul just to forget.

He breathed a sigh, letting his shoulders fall and his breath uncurl silver in the cool night air that had crept its way into the idling car. It was the first time he'd seen it since the last winter's past. It was like the breath of ghosts. "I'm sorry about this April," he said breathlessly, waiting for her, but it seemed like the chill in the air caught her too.

She sat there for a while after they disappeared, hands clamped white knuckled on the steering wheel, but finally she cut the engine and the street went quiet. Mikey, waiting with those patient eyes- they caught the streetlight from her rearview mirror.

She cracked a smile, but it wavered. "Oh, come on. This is nothing! You should see it when Robyn and I have at it. It's funny, really," she sighed, giggling nervously as she flung the car door open and stepped into the street. The old grim fingers of the chill tangled in the loose strands of her auburn hair.

But she was fooling no one. She was shaking, and Mike could see something in her eyes that told all the words she didn't speak. Every inch of her spoke the helplessness she wouldn't dare to show. She was invincible, the rock. How could she ever be so weak?

With a breath, he opened his door and followed her out, shuddering against the wall of sudden cold. But before he could blink, she had her thrown her arms around his neck, her eyes damp and her skin warm upon his shoulders. For a moment, he was trapped, eyes wide and frozen in shock but quickly, he forgot it. He drew her in closer, held her like she needed to be, and wondered- maybe she hadn't cried about it since the last time. If that was true, it had been way too long.

It didn't last. It felt like only a second until she pushed herself away and was blushing there in front of him, frantically scrubbing the tears from her eyes with the heels of her hands and shivering just as enthusiastically. She flashed a nervous smile, her cheeks nipped pink by the cold, but her heavy gaze still shone like oceans in the lamplight. She breathed quickly and turned away.

"Um… I'm sorry Mikey. I didn't mean…" She said hoarsely with her back turned, clearing her throat as she opened the old Toyota's trunk. It groaned, needed oil. "Do you think you could help me carry this stuff in?"

"Sure," he said casually, as if he had already forgotten, pushed it into the back of his mind so it couldn't haunt him anymore.

They gathered their things in silence, just a few bags and Raph's half finished case of beer was all that was left of their belongings, just trivial things they had gathered over a year of silence.

But all of that was over. The city meant new beginnings, and silence was buried in a monster's grave. Yet, he cringed when he saw those bags, that half finished case of beer. They were like reminders- little notes and memories come back to haunt him. It made his stomach do a funny turn inside him even after he had tried so hard to numb it.

Nothing ever came easy.

If that car ride back to the city had taught him anything, it was that the wounds were being reopened, and holding this in was only going to make it fester. Raph had been brave enough to finally tell it like it is, maybe he had to show some courage too.

He couldn't forget. Not this time. Right then and there, Mike promised himself he wouldn't.

"I should be the one who's sorry, April," he said quickly, turning his eyes to the ground as he opened the old wooden door, waiting for her to slip by, a bag in either hand. "You've done so much for us and now you let us move back in…"

"Mikey, please," she grinned from atop the stairwell, catching his eye as the dark played with the shadows and lines that spilled across her face. Even though the tears were gone, her lips were pursed into a frown. She looked so much older than he remembered. Quickly, he decided- a year of this could make even the most beautiful worn. "I've told you that I don't mind. If you think I'm even a little sorry about inviting you guys back here again, do you think I'd do it in the first place?"

She stopped in the doorway, letting the cold air in, but no one seemed to care.

"Well, no…"

She turned, making her way up the old wooden stairs. "Plus," she continued, "if you want to find more about that monster, we need to get a hold of that girl you saw on the news, Katelynn Freeman. Casey's been filing through the old police records whenever he can, and he found that she lives just a few blocks away. If we didn't want you guys to be here, do you think we'd do all of that?"

"I…"

Mikey hesitated as he reached the top of the ancient stairway and stopped. April had the door swung halfway open, propping it with her hip. But before she could disappear, she turned, and winced.

"Wow, I'm sorry," she breathed, stepping into the brightly lit kitchen. She set her bags down on the white ceramic counter and reeled to face him, brushing the hair from her face. "That came out really bad. I didn't mean to make it sound like that. It's no problem, really!" She smiled sweetly. "I practically lived with you guys at the farmhouse anyways. This is just easier for all of us. Plus I know you guys would rather be here than stuck out there, especially with those monsters lurking around."

"Let's just not apologize anymore, okay?" Mikey said finally, returning her nervous grin with his trademark sideways smile. April choked on something that resembled a laugh.

"Agreed," she beamed, picking through the bags with sudden curiosity. "What's in here anyways?" she pried, the mood in the kitchen almost physically lifting. Even the shadows seemed a little lighter.

"Dude, no!" he yelped, snatching the bag away so fast she didn't even have time to undo the zipper. "Don't you know not to go through a guy's personal stuff?"

"Personal stuff, huh," she smirked, snatching at the bag, but coming up empty handed. "Like what?"

His eyes darted guiltily around the room as he hugged the old green duffle bag closer to his plastron. "Um, like, private… reading material?" Those last two words came out sounding unintentionally like a question and he mentally kicked himself for it. It was more than obvious April was not buying.

"Porn," she said firmly, suddenly stone-faced.

Mike grinned sheepishly. At the moment, he was trying his hardest to look as cute as possible without looking utterly pathetic in the meantime. But at this point, he figured even looking pathetic may win him some extra brownie points. When April had that look on her face, it couldn't hurt.

Still, she looked unimpressed.

In cases such as these, Mikey decided honesty was the best policy. He hugged the bag tighter and pouted. "It's… porn. But I'm twenty years old and it's mine! Mine! You can't take it away!"

Her starkly serious expression cracked before she could utter another word. She had to literally bite her lip to keep herself from falling into hysterics at the stupid look on Mike's face. He looked utterly horrified and so painfully pathetic. She just had to laugh. "Don't worry, Mike. I know better than to get between a guy and his porn," she laughed. "But I do wonder how a giant turtle gets his hands on something you need an ID to buy."

Mike gulped. She was using that look on him again, that look that made his insides squirm. Uh oh. He released his death grip on the duffle bag and rubbed the back of his neck nervously. "I… uh… found them?" He winced. There goes making things sound like a question again. He'd always been an awful liar.

April quirked an eyebrow and snatched the half empty case of beer on the counter, holding it up like a game show hostess. "And I'm guessing you guys found this too."

Mike could only try his luck with another one of his award winning smiles. Oh, he felt stupid.

April sighed, opening the fridge and placing the case inside. When she turned back, she shook her head slowly, almost defeated. "Casey loves you guys to pieces, he really does. But for some reason he feels like he needs to buy you guys stuff like beer and reading material. I don't even want to know how much of the money I sent him over with for groceries turned into beer and… god knows what else."

Mike shrugged placing down the duffle bag. "Have you seen our refrigerator? Yeah, putting Raph in charge of grocery duty was a bad idea, but I thought it would give him something to do instead of sit around and mope all day."

There was a pause, like a breath of air and sudden realization. They caught themselves staring at each other suddenly from across the kitchen, almost bewildered. Life… it hit them like a wall of bricks, and here it was, changing again.

Mikey took in a sharp breath to break the silence, turning to take a seat at the kitchen table. "Speaking of things Casey shouldn't be doing… is it okay that he's rifling through old police records looking for that Kate girl? 'Cause I have a feeling it's not."

April rounded to the other side of the table, something like defeat written across her face for the second time that night. "Well, you know Casey. Like I said, he'd do anything for you guys, and when Raph told him about the monster, he got all excited about it. He said it would be just like old times, you know?"

Mike was busy staring at his hands folded on the table when he nodded. "It is kind of like old times, isn't it," he murmured, almost a whisper, but he didn't look up. "Yeah, that's Casey for you, but I'd hate for him to lose his job before he even gets started. I mean, he's still in the academy. He's like… a fake cop- which, I still can't even believe he's a fake cop. That's weird enough, dude." He lifted his eyes to her and smiled.

April grinned back, brushing the hair from her face with the back of her hand. "Oh trust me Mikey, we've been over this and, well, I think I've decided that after all the rules I've broken in my life, what's it going to hurt to break a few more?"

Her grin turned devious and Mike gave out a little chuckle. "Oh, you're a badass April. I always knew it. Even when you try to play mommy dearest, you aren't fooling a soul."

She snickered a little at that. "If you think that's badass, wait 'til I tell you my surprise," she grinned. "Casey got a hold of her number from an old record and… I scheduled an interview for tomorrow! We can get some real dirt on what's going on. Also…" she trailed, sliding out of her seat to grab a stack of newspaper articles off the kitchen counter, unceremoniously plunking them down in front of Mike. He fingered the pages gingerly, reading each headline.

"Murders," she said quickly. "Gruesome murders that have been increasing in number over the past year. And when I mean gruesome, I mean these killings… it's almost as if they were made by-"

"-monsters," Mike interrupted, eyes widening without taking his gaze off the headlines.

"Yeah."

"Do you really think…"

Her eyes were cold, dead serious. The look she was giving him made Mike's spine tingle.

"There's been talk about aliens, monsters roaming around the city. I've heard the rumors, seen it on the news. People are starting to panic, and… The world you guys left behind four years ago is way different than what it is now. Bishop had the entire city living in fear of alien invasions, mutants coming out at night and snatching sleeping children out of their beds… I've heard it all and people believe every word. People are less likely to be skeptics after the things Bishop broadcasted to all to us. Like the Lair, the museum he built around it, it was all a ploy to get people thinking they really needed a savior, and he was the one to count on. Now that he's gone, everybody's paranoid again. They know monsters exist, and they're not afraid to jump to conclusions."

Mike fingered an especially disturbing article clipping. Its headline: Twelve Year Old Girl Found Decapitated in New York Alleyway. He shuddered and put the paper down. "And do you think they're jumping to conclusions now?" he breathed, peeling his eyes away.

"No."

"This is big," he breathed, letting his shoulders fall. Suddenly, it felt like the weight of the world was pressing down on them. Tiredly, he rested his head in his hands.

After a short silence, April's expression quickly changed. "Mike, are you ok?"

He lifted his eyes, flinching as if he'd just been startled awake. "Huh? Oh yeah, I'm fine. It's just…"

April's face shadowed concern. "Just what?" she pried.

Mikey sighed, turning his eyes back downward, but then forcing them back up again, as if locked in a battle with his own free will. "April, I need to talk to you, about some things Don said to me tonight… at the bridge."

Leaning backwards in his chair, he could peer into the living room and see where Don had planted himself on April's couch, staring blankly into the blue glow of the television screen. It was easy to tell he wasn't actually watching it.

Mike lowered his voice. "He really scared me back there."

Concern was etched across her face so deep at that split second, it startled him to see how quickly her expression could harden. It was times like these that he realized just how close her friendship was with his troubled brother. She'd been his savior a thousand times over, getting him to eat, come out of his room for at least little while, talk- every time she did it, it was like a small miracle. No one else could get through to him like April could.

It was that same closeness that made Mike wonder- how much of the situation didn't he know? For the longest time he thought he could handle it, thought he understood things at least a little bit. But the more distant Don became when April wasn't around, the more he began to doubt himself, the easier it became to ignore everything below the surface of the issues and pretend things were getting better.

But at the bridge, he was soon reminded, things could get so much worse.

He couldn't hold it in any longer. Before he could breathe, he finally burst. "Has Don ever talked to you about killing himself?"

He wanted to clamp his hands over his mouth the second he said it, the second her eyes went wide and he knew his were too. Just the thought of it was like a bolt of lightning struck the room. The look on her face was answer enough.

She leaned forward on the table over top the scattered newspaper clippings. All of that was forgotten now. "No, never. Wait… what did he say?" she gasped, an air of panic about her as her eyes wandered into the living room. All she could see was the television's glow, but she knew he was there.

Mike's eyes had wandered to the doorway too. He prayed Don wouldn't overhear. He couldn't afford to make things any worse than they already were. "Um… I dunno… just something. It worried me, but… it's nothing." Really, he just wanted to believe it was nothing.

Pushing his chair away, he was halfway across the kitchen before he said another word. He spoke as he swung open the fridge door. "I… I think I'll go see what Raph's doing," he said, grabbing out the half finished case of beer. A peace offering.

April didn't move from her seat. She just watched him with that same worried look on her face. "Ok, Mikey," she sighed, eyeing the beer in his hands, "but… if you hear anything else, tell me, ok. I'll do the same."

Halfway onto the fire escape, he nodded her a feigned smile and shut the window closed behind him. He stopped to watch her through the glass a little longer before climbing up the ladder, mentally kicking himself at every wrung.

He promised himself he wouldn't forget. Out in the street- he promised. But all of this was getting way too real. He was finally seeing that things hadn't gotten any better since the day he convinced himself they had.

He had to forget. Just one last night, he had to forget it all.

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A/N: So I've been doing some major reconstruction on a bunch of my fics. This chapter is short, so I apologize. I love writing long chapters, but with school, work, etc. plaguing my life, they just take far too long to complete.

On that note, a fairly uneventful chapter, but chapter eight is nearly completed, so I hope it will fulfill your expectations.

Much Love,

Willowfly