Chapter Nine: Nee

It's been several hours since my confrontation with Mikey in the lab, and I still haven't emerged from his bedroom. I know I'm acting exactly how he'd expect, hiding from the problem in front of me, but I can't help it. His words shattered what little hope I had left.

There's a knock and then the door creaks open. Donnie sticks his head inside, his face softening when he sees me. "Hey," he says quietly. "You doing okay?"

"How do you think I'm doing?! My only friend just told me that he's going to murder me and drag me back to that hellhole I came from. Oh yeah, and there's the fact that he doesn't remember anything from before. On top of all that, my baby sister was killed because of my worthless hide. I'm doing absolutely fan-flipping-tastic, Donnie."

I know I'm acting like a brat but I can't help it. The words just poured out of me. But to his credit, Donnie doesn't turn around and leave. He just joins me on the bedroom floor, sighing a little. "That wasn't your-"

"If you try and tell me one more damn time that it wasn't my fault I'll kick you in the shin."

"Nee-"

"Don't you understand?" I ask him, my eyes stinging with tears. "I'm poison, Donnie. I hurt everyone I've ever cared about. Everyone who gets close to me gets killed. My parents, my sister...and now Mikey."

"Wait," Donnie says. "What about your parents?"

Oh yeah. He's never heard the story about them. "They died."

"...care to expand upon that?"

Not really. "I was eight years old when it happened. Neko was five. She and I were playing in the park right down the street from our apartment. Mom and Dad were supposed to have guests over that night so Mom wanted us out of the way, so she sent us to the park. Turns out that the guests were members of the Purple Dragons and my parents owed them money. They didn't pay it...and the Dragons burned our apartment to the ground with them inside." My gaze grows distant, focused on something he can't see. For a moment, I can almost hear the crackling of flames and the wailing of sirens. "I should've been there. I should've helped them. I should've gotten them out. I should've-"

"You were eight years old, Nee," the genius says, shaking his head. "You were only eight years old. There's nothing you could've done to prevent that...or to save them."

Hearing him tell me that, hearing that absolution...it's both a relief and a curse all at once. "But I could've tried. And even if I couldn't have pulled them out, I could've died with them. At least then Neko and I wouldn't have had to go through the Foot Clan - because that's the other way Shredder claimed retribution. He took the two of us for his own. I had to watch while he tortured my sister, while he denied her the right to a happy childhood. She grew up knowing nothing but the Foot Clan, Donnie. She should've gotten to go through all the phases of a little girl. The pink phase, the pony phase, the glitter phase. Even the annoying boy phases. But she couldn't, because I couldn't do my job as a big sister and as a daughter."

Self-loathing wells up inside me and I run a finger over the branding scar on my wrist. "You know, since getting out of the Clan, I told myself that I helped more people than I hurt. I told myself that I was doing it all for the right reasons and I-I believed that. But not anymore."

"Nee, listen to me." Donnie takes my chin in a gentle but unyielding grip and turns my head so I'm looking right at him. "You've been through hell and back, and none of it was your fault. Do you understand? None of it. Not Mikey, not Kaneko, not your parents. You couldn't have done anything. It's not. Your. Fault."

With those words - said so firmly, so quietly, so lovingly....I come undone. The walls I built up to protect myself - those scarred, dented walls - finally crash down, leaving me sitting amidst their rubble with nothing to cling to but Donnie himself.

He's there for me when I cry - really, truly cry - for the first time in ten years. When I shatter like glass. When I finally allow myself to mourn for my parents and my sister...and most importantly, for the loss of my childhood. A childhood that, I'm beginning to understand, was wrongfully taken from me.

And for the first time in my entire life, I allow myself to be free from blame.