Ch 10 You've Got a Friend.
The knock on the door brought Leo out of the exhausted sleep he had finally fallen into. It had been twenty-four hours since Donnie had made the revelation of what the Kraang had done. Leo had woken up in the lab after blacking out to find only his father sitting with him. Splinter had forced his brothers to leave so he could tend to him without interference. When he was finally allowed to leave, he went straight to his room and had not come out since, instead he sobbed til he fell asleep.
"Ohhh," Leo groaned into his pillow. "Go away guys," He said thinking it was one of his brothers coming to check up on him. He had been feeling extremely warm and the thought of his brothers being around him was giving him very uncomfortable thoughts.
"Leo?" Leo looked up at the sound of the voice on the other side of the door. "It's April, can I come in?"
Leo let out a tired sigh and got up. He walked over to the door and after opening it, looked out to make sure April was alone. "Promise I'm completely alone." She assured him as he allowed her to come in.
April looked around Leo's room, it was dark, no lights were on, not even a candle, Leo's preferred form of lighting, was being used.
"Um, how but some light?" She asked.
Leo walked back to his bed and laid down. "If you want." He told her.
She flipped on the switch and walked over to the chair by his desk. Leo kept his head turned away from her so she couldn't see his tired puffy eyes. But he knew she could probably tell, just by the way he had been acting, he had been crying.
"So, umm," She began. "How are you feeling?" She instantly regretted the question. As soon as the words came out of her mouth, Leo flinched, sat up and looked at her with both a confused and angry expression.
"How am I feeling?!" He looked at her incrediously. "Really?" He stood up and started pacing his floor. "How do you think I'm feeling?!" He stopped and looked at her. "For the past two weeks, I've been trying to come to terms with the thought of being held captive by the Kraang, dealing with nightmares I can't remember, and now I have to deal with the fact that the Kraang experimented on me and gave me female something or other so they could breed me with who knows what and you ask me 'HOW AM I FEELING?!"
April turned her head away from him as the words hit her full in the face with his anger. She tried to hold her temper in, she knew he was upset and she knew from what she had been told that he was dealing with more then anyone should have to deal with. But, she thought, he had no right to yell at her. So when he leaned in and yelled, she took her hand and slapped him across the face, no too hard but hard enough to try and get him to calm down.
Leo put a hand to his cheek and sat back down on his bed staring straight ahead with a surprise look on his face. The next thing April knew, Leo began crying, hard into his hands. "I'm sorry April." He sobbed. "You are the last person I should be angry with." April walked over to his bed and sat down next to him, placing her arms around him, she give him a firm hug.
"All this is my fault." He continued. "I let myself be captured, I let the Kraang do what they did and I couldn't stop them." April allowed him to cry into her shoulder for several minutes before finally pushing him away and stared at him with such tenderness that for the first time in a long time he finally felt safe.
"Leo," She started. "It's not your fault." She placed her hands on his shoulders. "You never asked for any of this and regardless, they had no right to do what they did." She lifted his chin up so he would look at her. "Look, your overwhelmed and there's so much going on that I think you could do with a break." She smiled at him. "Hey I got an idea, why don't you come to my house for a little bit, I think you could do with some fresh air and getting away from your brothers."
Leo sniffed and looked up at her and smiled. "Do you think your dad will mind?"
"Nah, besides he kinda understands what your going through." Leo gave her a doubtful look.
"I said kinda." She laughed as she went to speak with Splinter, who was more then happy to allow his son to go with her.
Eager to get out of the lair and away from the confusion that his life had become, Leo followed April to her house, jumping from roof to roof and enjoying the cool night air. They stopped for a short time so Leo could look around the city, a city he hadn't seen for some time. The view was breath taking and Leo took it in. He breathed the night air in deeply and smiled. For the first time in a long time, he felt free and happy, he missed this feeling of just running and having nothing to care or think about.
As he and April ran along the roofs to her apartment, a large figure watched from the street below, smiling at the sweet aroma that was coming off the blue turtle.
They arrived at April's where her dad greeted Leo with a warm handshake and quickly offered to make him some tea to go along with some cake April had made earlier that day, which Leo gratefully accepted. He had forgotten that it had been almost two days since he had a bite of anything.
"So how are you feeling these days Leo?" Kirby asked.
Leo smiled as he sipped his tea and took a large bite of chocolate cake. "Still a little off but I'm better now, thank you Sir."
"I'm sure you're going through a lot but I want you to know both April and I are here for you if you need anything."
Leo smiled and nodded at the red bearded man. He too had been through so much that Leo wondered if maybe he might be able to help him move past what had happened. But right now, he would keep things to himself, he only hoped that Donnie could find a way to reverse what the Kraang did to him. He missed being able to spend time with his brothers, weather they were on patrol or just sparring. 'Soon,' he thought to himself, 'hopefully soon.'