Chapter 7: And The Bough Breaks


Mikey was just finishing up the story of the Little Mermaid, where the human Prince had a beautiful castle built on the beach half in the ocean, so that he and his mermaid bride could live together happily ever after, when suddenly there were two more turtles sitting next to him, bandanas blowing in the night wind.

"You're sure that's this is where he lives, Mikey?" Donnie frowned, his eyes critically scanning the decrepit, run-down apartment building with boarded up windows.

Mikey nodded towards the one window with the curtain pulled back. "He's sleeping in there."

"Shit." Raph growled, glaring at the building's condition and occupants, then his gaze turned back towards the sleeping form just visible through the window, and his face softened. "Is he okay?"

"I think so. None of the adults seem to be bothering him." Mikey nodded, gnawing on his lower lip in worry. "He seems cold, though. I don't think the heat is working in that place."

"Let's get a reading on the place while we wait for April and Casey to get here." Donnie pulled out some militaristic-looking goggles, pulling them over his purple bandana, and scanned the building. After a moment, he frowned. "I can make out what looks like nine obviously intoxicated adult figures downstairs, plus two doing unspeakable acts in a side room, one large man who appears to be sleeping upstairs, and, of course, Leo there." His face grew unusually hard, and he actually swore under his breath as he lifted up the goggles a little to look at his brothers. "The heat readings on this building are appalling! From what I can tell, the whole building is currently only heated by several portable heaters, all located downstairs by the partying adults. Not only is that incredibly dangerous, foolish, and an obviously serious fire hazard, but Leo's room itself only reads at forty eight degrees. He could get hypothermia in temperatures like that!"

Raph paused, then shifted in place, his jaw tight and looking much more tense as he looked towards the window of their brother's room once more.

"Dudes! What if he gets sick?!" Mikey shivered himself as if in sympathy. "He only had a thin wool blanket when I first found him."

Raph noticed the thick blue comforter currently covering the ten year old, and looked at Mikey questioningly.

"Eh-heh." Mikey rubbed the back of his head, then shrugged sheepishly. "I saw that in the window of a nearby store, and thought that he might like it. I left money for it, I swear!"

"An' he didn't wake up?" Raph asked, more curious then anything.

Mikey snorted. "Of course he woke up. He's Leo!" He flexed his arms experimentally. "And let me tell you, dudes, that ceiling has almost no handholds! I thought my arms were going to give out hiding up there!"

"You're lucky he didn't see you." Donnie observed, pulling out his tablet and flipping out a touch pen to start typing things in.

"Man, it was a close one! If he had just flipped the light switch, he woulda seen me for sure." Mikey added, watching the window. "I'm not sure why he didn't. He just... went back to bed for some reason."

"How... how close did you get to him?" Raph's voice was quieter then usual, though he didn't take his eyes off the window and his sleeping brother's form.

"If I reached out, I could have touched him, I was that close." Mikey sighed happily.

Raph looked almost longingly across the street, then shrugged. "Meh, I think you did the right thing, Mikey. Leo was cold."

Mikey looked at his hands for a moment, then looked up. "Is it terrible of me to kinda wish he did turn the lights on?"

Raph was silent, then reached over and gave Mikey's shoulders a quick squeeze. "I miss him too, Mikey. We all do."

"Guys?" Casey called up to them questioningly, and they looked down to see the tan and green van parked down the street, and Casey and April waiting in the alley, where the occupants across the street wouldn't see. They all dropped down, settling onto the ledge of a fire escape so their human family could join in on the conversation.

"Donnie?" April asked quietly.

Donnie sighed and lowered his tablet, looking serious. "There are health and ordinance violations going back years. Technically, this place is supposed to be condemned and uninhabited." He lifted the screen up again and tapped it a few times. "The owner, a Agatha Freda, apparently owns dozens of such properties, and has been convicted several times for fraud and violations. She has a long history of running illicit boarding houses, renting them out in illegal manners to people who wish to stay out of sight for one reason or another."

"And... and Leo's family lives in a house like that?!" Casey asked in disbelief.

"I dunno. Maybe?" Mikey looked crestfallen and forlorn. "He... he looked pretty alone in there, guys."

"So we very well might be looking at a case of severe neglect." Donnie frowned, peering out the window and narrowing his eyes disapprovingly when he saw a drunk couple stagger out of the side door to settle for making out by the trash cans. "Though I call into question if there is any parental figure at all."

Casey watched the scene distastefully. "You said that this was an 'Off the Books' type of place? Now, if a kid was trying to live out on his own, but can't rent any place normal because he's underage..."

April groaned and ran her hand over her face. "Oh... Leo... Why didn't you say anything?"

Raph's hand tightened on the railing so hard that the rusty metal began to creak and complain. "Guys. Th' Plan fell to shit." he said in a dangerously tense, low voice. "My vote is that Leo needs an intervention."

"Agreed." Donnie nodded, tapping at his screen. "New Plan?"

"The new plan is that I'm going in there and getting him out." April stood up, her face hard and dark as she glared at the building.

"Are... are you sure that's a good idea?" Donnie glanced up. "He's not in any immediate danger, and we still don't have all the facts..."

I am not going to leave Leo alone in that moldy, sleazy roach motel one more night, Donnie!" April snapped.

"Right." Raph cracked his neck in total agreement and stood up, reaching for a handhold to climb up to the roof. "Keep your camera and mic on. You run into any trouble, give the word and we'll come in and rip the place apart."

"Oh, because that's the first impression that Leo needs to have of us." Donnie groaned, fingering his forehead. "Giant, violent mutants attacking his house."

"We're going to rescue Leo?" Mikey asked hopefully.

"Yes, Mikey." April glowered at the building as if were, in fact, the Foot Headquarters and not just some broken down old apartment complex. "We're rescuing Leo."

"New Plan it is, then." Casey flipped down his hockey mask in eager anticipation. "Let's go bring our lost boy home."


I was deep in strange dreams of frog knights fighting dragons while mermaids cheered on from the ocean below, when loud yelling from downstairs jolted me awake once more.

I grumbled to myself, at first thinking that it was normal party noise and sleepily annoyed by my noisy house mates. I was just about to roll over and fall back asleep, when I realized that something wasn't quite right.

I sat up, suddenly much more alert.

Something was going on. The party downstairs had shifted in tone, and there was a tense undercurrent to the murmurs and voices now.

One of the voices... it couldn't be her... She didn't know where...

I swallowed hard when I realized that all three of my Shadows were outside now, and from the flare of their auras, I could tell that something had gotten them tense and alert.

I began to throw off my covers, ready to investigate, when I paused. Then I looked down at my bed, confused.

There was a thick, Space-Heroes themed blanket now on my bed. I suddenly remembered how warm I felt when waking up.

But where had...? My... my Orange Shadow? Did this mean...?

From the sounds going on downstairs, I didn't have time to sit and ponder this baffling mystery. Somehow, I felt trouble in the air.

Pushing aside the warm blanket as a mystery to be solved later, I slipped on my shoes, moved the chair away from where it was propped under the door handle, and silently moved down the hallway. Stealthily creeping up to the railings of the upstairs landing, I peeked down to the scene below, and my breath caught in my throat.

April and Casey?! But... how?!

It truly was April and Casey down there, surrounded by the unhappy tenets who's party they had obviously just crashed. How had they even found this place?! What did I do now?!

April was right up in Mrs. Freda's face, looking extremely angry and unconcerned about the crowd around them. "...he's only a child, and you did nothing except exploit him!" she was in the middle of snarling at the short, weathered woman in an old scuffed up pink robe and patchy slippers.

Mrs. Freda narrowed her eyes at April, then calmly took a long drag on her cigarette, before deliberately exhaling the smoke right in my Sensei's face. I tensed up, jaw tightening, but then curiously noted that even though the smoke billowed around April's face, none of it actually got close to touching her, like she was able to put up some sort of invisible field. She didn't flinch at all, just glared at Mrs. Freda.

"Listen, girlie, you don't belong here." Mrs. Freda flicked some ash from her cigarette to the side. "Now I want you to stop sticking your pretty little, stuck up nose where it don't belong, and get the hell offa my property!"

"Not without Leo." April's voice was low and dangerous.

Mrs Freda gave a hoarse, barking laugh not at all filled with humor. "If that little snot is going to cause me this much trouble, I might hafta raise his rent even more! I'm basically renting it to him underprice as it is!"

Well, that was a lie. I knew that she was charging me more then some of the others. Mostly because I didn't have anything to offer her except money. And I felt my teeth grind just a little listening to how she talked to my Sensei.

"You a friend of the runt's?" Mr. Owen was creeping closer, and leered at April. "You got some fine legs on ya, girl. Tell ya what, wrap them around me, and I'll see if I can't spot the difference in the kid's rent for a few months."

Calm. Deep breaths. I needed to be in control of myself. Keep my emotions under control.

"Try anything, and I'll snap off whatever part you used to touch me off and force feed it to you." April warned him, her posture deadly.

This only drew an amused leer from the thin, balding man. "You're really an uptight little bitch, ain't ya?"

The drunk men and women surrounding them laughed as if he had just told some witty joke. And then the laughed turned to surprised yelps and cries of alarm as I launched myself over the railing like a bullet. Mr Owen gave a grunt of shock and surprise as all forty three pounds of a coldly furious youth slammed into his chest, knocking him back a few steps. I landed lightly, and like lightning swept my leg around, catching him in the back of the knee, causing the already off-balance man to crash to the floor onto his back. I pounced on him immediately, twisting his arm around and feeling cold rage burn in my chest as I looked into his bleary, drunk, and startled eyes.

"You should never, ever talk to anybody like that." I told him in a calm, quiet, and deadly voice that sounded like it belonged to somebody much older. "And you will never EVER talk to HER like that! Do you understand me?!"

There was a flash of genuine fear in his eyes, but then a second later he drunkenly blinked the fear away as he seemed to realize that, wait, this was just a small child sitting on his chest! "Get offa me, brat!" he snarled as he slugged me hard across the face with his free hand.

The blow sent me tumbling, but I caught myself quickly and ended rolling up in a crouch on the floor, muscles tense and ready to fling myself back into the fight.

But in that half a heartbeat that it took for me to right myself, it became unnecessary. Casey was there, standing defensively between me and the other adults with his hockey stick at the ready, and April was standing over Mr. Owen, who had the oddest look on his face and was sitting stock still, jaw clenched tightly. It looked like she was just lightly touching him under the chin, but the man's tense and quivering body language screamed that he was in pain but completely unable to move. The rest of the room had fallen into hushed quiet.

"Now you listen to me." April's voice was low, quiet, and controlled. "I'm touching a pressure point, pinning a nerve. That's why you're unable to move right now. It's painful, yes, but I'm not pressing hard enough to cause any permanent damage. Yet. If I were to shift my hold just a little, I could bruise, or even outright sever, some very important nerve endings. And I assure you that you do not want that to happen. So you just sit there and let this warning sink into your thick, drug addled brain."

Mr. Owen gave a strangled little whimper.

"You don't ever hit a child like that again. EVER." she hissed, her face and voice like ice. "If I ever hear of a repeat of tonight, I will come back, and I rip out what few teeth you still have remaining and use them to neuter you. Do you understand me?"

Mr. Owen's eyes were bulging, but he nodded as best as he could in April's grip. She stepped back, and he fell forward to his hand and knees, gasping for air while sweat dripped down his face.

"See, that's the thing." Casey conversationally observed, glancing at the other adults milling about uncertainly as if he were inviting them to step in. "People see us, and always seem to think that, me being the large, muscular, crazy dude that I am, I'm the one to watch out for. And yeah, I can more then hold my own in a brawl. But Red here? Phew. I've seen her clear out whole rooms of Purple Dragon thugs without breaking a sweat."

The adults crowding around us seemed to back off just a little, muttering darkly to each other and obviously a little intimidated.

"Leo, are you okay?" April had quickly moved over and knelt down besides me, taking my face in her hands and gently examining my cheek, which was already starting to swell a little.

"I'm fine." I said through clenched teeth, glaring around at all the adults in the room, both in an effort to protect my friends from any hostile retaliation, and to try and stem the growing panic building in my chest. Things were falling apart quickly. It was obvious that I wasn't going to be welcome here anymore. Now what would I do? Where would I go?! Why was April here?! I was doing just fine on my own!

"Red, I've got this. Just get Leo out of here." Casey said, casually propping his hockey stick up on his shoulder. "I'll gather up his things. These guys aren't going to be a problem."

"Come on, Leo. Let's go get your coat." April said gently, helping me stand up. "Everything's going to be okay. You're safe, and you're coming home with me."

I was silent as I reluctantly showed them my room and April helped me grabbed my coat and backpack. Mr Acosta had come out of his room at the commotion, and when he found out what was going on, he actually looked a little relieved, and offered to help Casey pack up what little possessions I had left in there. I wasn't quite sure what to do with the new comforter that had appeared on my bed, but decided not to say anything and let Casey pack that up as well. I wasn't sure if it was actually from my Orange Shadow or what, but there was too much going on tonight for me to worry about it now.

As we walked out the door, Mrs Freda glared at me out of her one good eye, the end of her cigarette glowing. "I don't want to see your scrawny ass here ever again, you hear me, brat?" She exhaled a bit of smoke. "It'd be a shame if the wrong people were to hear of your little adventures, right?"

I tensed up a little.

April stopped dead in her tracks, and turned towards the woman, suddenly steely and cold again. "Are you threatening him?"

Mrs. Freda paused, then gave her a mock, insincere smile. "Of course not, dearie."

"Good. Because I ever find out that you, or anybody in this room," April paused to let her steely gaze glance around the room, "ever touched or harmed Leo, in the past or in future events, then you had better pray to whatever god you believe in that I am the one who comes after you, because there are others out there who will wish to call dibs on tearing you apart, and I assure you, I am by far the least terrifying option."

The people in the room didn't look completely convinced of that last fact.

Mrs. Freda seemed to have to good sense to know when to back off, though, and stepped back, nodding towards the door. "Just get outta here."

"Gladly." April grumbled under her breath, her hand on my back as she guided me out.

Everything was going to be okay. Everything was not falling apart. I could figure this out.

Oh, how badly did I need my Shadows right now!

I closed my eyes, trying to pick up on their auras once more, needing the reassurance that they were still there.

There. They were still on that rooftop across the ... Were Orange and Purple really sitting on Red Shadow? Why? If I strained, I could swear I could hear angry cussing faintly off in the distance, though it might have just been a normal city background noise. Maybe it was just wishful thinking.

April's van was parked down the street, and we climbed in. April started the van, and then began driving away down the street. Away from Mrs Freda's boarding house, and towards... what? What would I do now? Where would I go? Would April call the authorities on me now? Would I get taken away again? How far would my Shadows follow me? Would they give up? Were they even really up there?

I felt hot tears sting at my eyes, but I stubbornly refused to let them show.

Finally, we arrived at the old antique store that we had been using as a dojo. April put the van into park, and exhaled with her hands still on the steering wheel, obviously trying to decompress. Then she twisted about, rummaging around and pulling out a surprisingly well stocked first aid kit from the back. "Here, let's take care of your cheek before the swelling gets too bad."

I pulled my knees up as I hugged my backpack tightly to my chest as she reached over and began fussing over my cheek. Finally I couldn't hold it back anymore, and I blurted out, "What were you doing there?"

"The real question is, what were you doing there, Leo?!" April gave me a look, not backing down an inch as she dabbed some ointment on the tiny cut.

"I was doing perfectly fine!" I argued back sullenly. "I had everything under control! I am quite capable of taking care of myself!"

"Leo! You're ten years old! You're just a kid still!" April paused and looked at me gently, seriously. "You shouldn't have to take care of yourself!"

"I'm doing fine! I was doing just fine!" I slumped down in the seat, before looking away. She was just trying to protect me. She didn't know. "I... I know you only meant to help, but I really wish you hadn't done that."

"Leo, that was no place for a child." April said, gently applying a cold pack to my cheek. "Why were you there? What happened to your parents? Your home?"

I was sullenly quiet.

"Leo. Please... talk to me." April looked at me with those large, understanding green eyes.

I swallowed hard. Then I sighed miserably, looking away. "I... I'm sorry. I can't tell anybody. Not yet. I... I just need to figure out a few things first."

She was quiet for a moment, and then reached over and cupped my face with her hands, lifting my face so I was looking her in the eyes. The warmth of her hands felt nice. "Leo..." she said seriously, searching my face. "I'm your Sensei, remember? I'll do whatever I can to help you, but you need to be honest with me. You have people who care for you more then you can possibly know. Please... trust me."

I hugged my backpack more tightly to my chest miserably. What should I tell her? How could I get through this without losing everything? How could I fail so badly?!

"Leonardo..." she quietly put a hand on top of mine.

And then it was like a dam broke. All the emotions and secrets and failures that I had locked away over the years all suddenly burst forth and bubbled to the surface at once, boiling out uncontrollably.

"Peter Eastman!" I snapped at her.

"What?" April was obviously confused and taken aback by my reaction.

"My name is supposed to be Peter Eastman!" I pulled away from her hand, tense and tired of everything. "But that never felt right, and one day when I was learning to read, I saw the name Leonardo in a book and it seemed right, like that was actually supposed to be my name, not Peter, so I adopted it, and it felt right. Just like so many things that I do that I'm not really sure why I do them, only that I know that they feel right!"

It was like my world was finally starting to crack, and I couldn't stop myself. "I do stupid stuff like that all the time, and I don't know why! Like my coming here to New York City! I had no reason to actually come here, you know. I lived in California. Do you know how difficult it is for a kid my age to travel all the way across the entire country alone? With no money or parents or anything?! It was stupid and reckless and dangerous, and why here of all the places in the world?! I had no place to live here. That's why lived at Mrs Fredas! It's crazy to even think about doing something like this! But, like so many things, I just knew that I needed to come here, because somehow, I knew New York City is where THEY lived. And more then anything, I knew that's what I had to do! What I still have to do! I need to find THEM!"

"Th-them?" April stammered, eyes wide.

"My Shadows!" I yelled at her, tears forming in my eyes. "My three Shadows! Red, Purple, and Orange! They're always there, haunting me in forgotten memories and dreams! All I know is that I need to find them, that I need to protect them! That's my job! I need to take care of them! But I can't!" The words began to spill out faster and faster. "Then I finally thought that I found them! I can sense them nearby! They're close! Always so close! But whenever I try to go to them, they always stay just out of reach, they never let me find them! And then I thought that maybe, just maybe, if I got stronger, if I showed that I could be strong enough to protect them, then... then they'd let me find them! If I was strong enough, they'd want me!" I was ranting wildly now. "But I'm not strong enough, and I can't find them! And, to tell the truth, I'm afraid that I'll never find them because they're not actually real, that it's all made up in my head! I'm terrified that one day I'll find out that I'm chasing Shadows that don't really exist because it turns out that the real truth is actually that I'm really just CRAZY!"

I sat there for a moment, breathing heavily, and then what I just said washed over me, and my face went pale

Oh no.

Oh gods no!

I should not have said those things! I was never supposed to tell anybody about my Shadows!

Terrified, I looked over to April to see her reaction, and it was worse then I feared. She looked at me with wide eyes and mouth open, obviously horrified by what I had just blurted out to her.

I turned, shoved open the car door, and bolted for the alleyway.

"Leo! No!" she cried out for me, jolted into action. She threw open her car door and scrambled out, crying out behind me, "Wait!"

I ran as fast as I could, my sneakers slapping against the pavement as tears ran down my cheeks.

"Leo! Hold on! Wait, please!"

She was faster then I was, and would soon catch me. I changed directions abruptly, sliding down with a dive and pushing myself between a few cracked boards in a large fence that spanned between two buildings

"No!" she cried, stopping at the fence, too big to fit where I had gone. She tried to force her way through as I continued to run, leaving her behind. "Wait, Leo! I can help you find them! Your Shadows! They're real!"

I didn't stop, and her voice faded as I increased the distance between us.

Because I knew that she was just saying that so I wouldn't run. They weren't actually real.

Never before had I felt so terrified and alone. I had messed everything up! Now my only friends in the world thought that I was insane, and maybe I was! Maybe my future was to live my life forever alone and homeless, one of those broken creatures pushing rusty shopping carts up the street and muttering to myself about Red, Purple, and Orange Shadows that didn't really exist.

Speaking of which, I could sense them nearby. Because of course they would show up now. Red, Purple, and Orange, running over the rooftops towards me, brighter then I had ever felt them before. Their auras almost felt as desperate to find me as I felt.

I gave a ragged gasp, and pushed myself faster. I ran away from them.

I was so tired of grasping for colors that I could never reach!

I was so tired of all these memories that I couldn't remember!

I wasn't Leonardo! That was just some crazy delusion, like so many that I had. I was really Peter Eastman, a stupid, crazy, weak human ten year old boy who was insane enough to mistake dreams and delusions for reality.

The brightly colored shadows were gaining on me, and soon they would catch up with me. And once they caught me, nothing would actually happen, because they weren't real, except it would prove to me once and for all that they weren't real, and I didn't want that to happen, because to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that they weren't real would break my heart.

I shifted directions and, my legs burning with the strain, I bolted for a crowded street. There wasn't a huge crowd of people right now, but there were enough humans milling about that I could push myself between their legs and disappear from my Shadow's sight, going where they couldn't follow.

When I was finally sure that I had lost them, leaving them far behind to remain safely real in my dreams forever, I searched out and finally found an old abandoned car in a junkyard to huddle and hide in, trying not to let the tears fall as I tried to keep myself warm.


Author Notes:

My apologies to any actual Peter Eastmans out there. I needed a name, and I felt like it was less obvious then Kevin Laird.