Disclaimer: I do not own TMNT.
11
Raphael stumbled so far backwards he found himself standing on the roof ledge, unable to keep the shock he felt from permeating his features. He opened his mouth to respond to what Emmeline had just told him, but no sound would come. His voice felt trapped inside his throat, lodged there, and his breath came out in short, sharp gasps. He was hyperventilating, he realized after a moment. He had to pull it together, but...Raped?
Emmeline had been raped by….He couldn't bring himself to finish the thought.
Emmeline took a hesitant step towards him, her voice coming out choked as she spoke in between fresh sobs. "Raphael?" She sounded ashamed. Ashamed and terrified, but of what?
Raphael thought back to all the stories he seen on the news. Stories like hers about young girls and women being raped or groped or harrassed. He remembered how the news reporters would call them out on national television, demanding to know what they had been wearing or what their thoughts were about the men whose life they had just ruined by accusing them. He remembered how they mourned for the accused while the victims sat silent, brushed under the rug. How long had Emmeline been silent for? He couldn't help but wonder.
Suddenly, he found his fists closing around the sai that dangled from his belt and he turned away from Emmeline, ready to run.
As if on cue, Emmeline rushed over to him just as he was about to leap from the roof and told him firmly, "You can't go after him!" She grabbed him by the arm and pulled him down from the ledge.
Raphael scowled down at her. She looked relieved but still terrified. Still ashamed. His gaze drifted to where her hand lingered on his bicep. "Why not?" he demanded, surprised at the way his voice trembled with quiet unsuppressed rage. "Why the hell not - don't tell me you're defending him!" He pulled sharply out of her grasp.
Emmeline stared at him in disbelief. "Are you kidding me?" she asked him bitterly. "Are you freaking kidding me - use your head, Raphael! Think!"
"Then why?!" Raphael spat at her, his voice just below a shout.
"I just fingered him for rape, genius," Emmeline reminded him, jabbing herself sharply in the chest. "If something happens to him tonight, who do you think they're gonna come after for that, huh?"
"Son of a -!" Raphael spun around and punched the wall of the group home so hard he swore he heard a crack, but it was impossible to tell in the darkness of the night.
He pressed his head against the cool rock of the brownstone, panting slightly, defeated. He couldn't go after Hun.
Not without putting Emmeline even more at risk than she already was. Not without putting her family at risk. Not that he gave a rat's ass about them, but she certainly did. He remembered the way she had flown into a panic when Hun had texted her, saying he was coming for them. Now, he knew why.
As that thought entered his head, Raphael turned back to Emmeline. "Tell me something," he said. "How did that kid - his kid - end up living with your family, pretending to be your little brother?"
Emmeline frowned at him. "Owen isn't pretending," she told him. "He's never known me as his mother. For as long as he can remember, I've always been he's big sister."
"But why would you keep him, though?" Raphael said, not giving a damn if it sounded fucked up or not. He needed answers. "Why would you keep a - a baby that's a constant reminder of what he did to you?"
Emmeline sniffled loudly and shook her head. Then she looked down at her fingertips and whispered, "I didn't want to keep him. I wanted to get rid of him the instant I found out, but my parents-" She broke off as fresh tears welled up in the corners of her eyes.
"What about them?" Raphael demanded, cutting off her sobs.
"They walked in on it that night," Emmeline said, and suddenly she felt too weak to stand as the rest of that night came flooding back to her. The night she had tried so hard not to remember. "My dad knew something was up when he saw the kitchen all shot to hell." She shook her head and sank slowly to her knees, refusing to meet his gaze. "So he went for the gun in his closet, but my mom - she walked right in and saw the whole thing. Then before anything could happen, my dad came in and started shooting. He told them to get the hell out before he called the cops, so Hun and the Dragons ran. But it was too late. The damage was done."
"What are you talking about?" Raphael asked her. "Didn't they save you - I mean, they're your parents…?" His voice trailed off along with his thoughts, unable to piece together where she was going with this.
"They thought it was all some prank on my sister to traumatize her before she went off to college," Emmeline choked out. "To hurt her chances of getting in or something. I don't know. They thought it was all just an act and that I had some twisted fantasy that I was acting out, and that I wanted what Hun did to happen me - that I had been enjoying myself."
Raphael stared at her, unable to respond. What the hell kind of people were her parents?
"They took me off their medical insurance after I told them I was pregnant," she went on, never meeting his gaze. "I was too afraid to go to Planned Parenthood or one of the free clinics because of all the protests, and if I had tried to get an abortion, they would have thrown me out. They're not exactly wouldn't even drive me to my doctors' appointments, and I'm still paying off the bills. And Hun was still bothering me, still harassing me. My parents had to take out a restraining order just to get him to stop coming around the house. But he had Fong and the other Dragons watching my school. I knew he would find out I was pregnant eventually, and if I did anything to hurt the baby…." She shook her head, unable to finish. "Finally," she said after a short pause. "I decided to put the baby up for adoption. Hun signed away his rights like it was nothing. He didn't care about the baby as long as it was alive. I was the one he really wanted. But when the time finally came, no one wanted to adopt my baby." She shrugged, now looking more ashamed and embarrassed than ever. "I made the mistake of telling a few couples about the rape and that scared them off. The rest wouldn't adopt the baby because of my parents. They demanded to have a say in who got the baby, but no one ever lived up to their standards. When he was finally born, Owen would have been placed in the foster care system without someone to adopt him." She looked up at Raphael and sighed. "So my parents adopted him as my brother. The last favor they ever did for me was letting me name my own son. Owen Lin Harris. His middle name means 'forest' in Chinese." She smiled sadly at the thought.
Raphael stared down at her. He wanted to go to her and hug her. Instead he reached out with one hand and place it on her cheek. He used his thumb to wipe away a stray tear that streamed down her face. "How could you live in the same house as him?" he couldn't keep from asking her. "Without being reminded of that night?"
Emmeline grabbed his hand and used it to pull herself to her feet. She sniffled loudly. "I couldn't," she said simply. She walked to the edge of the roof and started to lower herself onto the fire escape. Then she stopped and turned to face him. "You will tell your brothers, won't you?"
Raphael blanched. He hated the idea of telling his brothers this story - her story, but at the same time, he knew he couldn't make her relive it again. All he could do was nod.
Emmeline tried her best to smile gratefully at him as she lowered herself down the ladder.
Raph walked over to the ledge and stood, staring down at her. He waited until she was safely on the escape platform before he spoke. "Hey," he said simply, causing her to look up at him inquiringly. He dropped down in front of her onto the platform and before he could think about what he was doing - before he could stop himself, he grabbed her and pulled her into his arms, crushing her tiny frame against his chest. "I'm sorry," he murmured quietly into her ear. "I'm sorry this happened to you."
Emmeline's spine went rigid as Raphael's arms closed around her, caging her in with his strength. A part of her wanted to collapse into him and just be held there, locked in by the first person who didn't call her a slut for getting pregnant at fourteen. Raphael was the first one who had ever listened to her, and he was the first one she had ever told that as much as she loved her brother, sometimes she couldn't stand to look at him without thinking of what Hun had did to her. And she hated herself for it. But a larger part of her couldn't help but wonder what the hell was happening between the two of them in this moment. This was very un-Raphael-like behavior, and had he been anyone else, she probably would have slapped him. She pulled away slightly to look up at him.
At that moment, Raphael couldn't help but look down and realize that he could count the mere inches his face and hers. He could smell the scent of strawberry shampoo wafting off her hair and see the flecks of silver in her eyes wide, confused, questioning. A flush rose to his cheeks as he pushed her away and put his hands on her shoulders.
"Don't be who they think you are," he told her firmly. "Don't be who he thinks you are. You're better than that." Inside he felt like something had been crushed into a pulp, deep within him. He needed her to be strong, so that he could keep being strong. This was an Emmeline he had never seen before - she was a teenage girl with all her walls down, acting just as scared and broken as he now felt. He turned and climbed over the wrought iron gate that enclosed the fire escape, and dropped away into the darkness.
Emmeline stared down at the spot in the street where he landed, watching as he disappeared into the night.
Raphael stood perched on the gleaming skyscraper that stood kitty-corner to the apartment building where Emmeline's parents lived along with her - son - brother? He wasn't quite sure what to think of Owen and his connection Emmeline. He wanted to think of the sweet, blue-eyed boy he had seen only in passing in pictures on her T-phone as just an innocent little toddler. Just another member of Emmeline's family. Instead, he couldn't help but think of him as Hun's offspring.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Leonardo's voice rang out, breaking him from his reverie. "She was raped?"
"By Hun?" Donatello added for clarity.
Raphael tore his eyes away from the Harris' building and spun around to look at
his brothers. Normally, he would be relaying information via the T-phone, but this was the sort of conversation that needed to be had in person. Even he knew that much. "That's what she said," he told them, nodding. "And I'm pretty sure even she's not messed up enough in the head to lie about something like this. Besides, it would explain a lot…" He voice trailed off as he thought the now eerie resemblance between Emmeline and Owen. She had forwarded a picture of the kid to his T-phone as proof in case his brothers questioned her story.
The two of them shared a lot of the same features - skin tone, eye color, hair color. There were only minute differences between the two of them - Owen's too straight nose, the more almond-shaped set of his eyes, and his stick straight hair. All traits that he had inherited from Hun, Raphael could now see.
Leonardo handed Raph back his T-phone. "It definitely would."
"Yeah, look at this," Donatello said, gesturing to something he had brought up on the screen of his own T-phone. "Nightmares, depression, PTSD, substance abuse - all common in sexual assault survivors. How didn't I see this before?"
Leo reached out and put his hand on his shoulder. "We didn't know what to look for."
"And she wasn't assaulted," Raphael corrected him with a scowl. "She was raped. That asshole ruined her life when she was even younger than we are. It's no wonder she had problems with the people at school. How the hell do you live down a reputation like that - especially when your family thinks you started it all yourself?"
There was a moment of silence as the others stared at him, unsure of what to say. Unsure of what they could say. There wasn't any way to dress it up: Emmeline's family, her friends at school, even the teachers had turned against her and betrayed her for something that wasn't her fault. The worst part was that none of them had been willing to listen to her side of the story.
Even Raphael had made snap judgements about her. He thought back to the time he had accused her of sleeping with Hun for drugs. It was a comment he would regret making for the rest of his life. His brothers were the only ones who had been able to look through the rouse and see how very not alright Emmeline really was. Now, he couldn't help but wonder if it was because they were not so alright themselves.
"So, like, what happens now?" Michelangelo asked, breaking the uneasy silence that had fallen over them.
Raph threw his hands up, frustrated. "If we go after Hun and the Dragons, the cops will think Emmeline did it."
"But she's in the group home," Leo reasoned.
"Then maybe they'd think the other girls helped her," Donatello chimed in. "They all have records, and so does Em. They all have something that makes them look bad."
Raphael shook his head and let out a breath. "She told the cops everything. I think we might just need to let them handle it."
"What if she doesn't want them to handle it?" Michelangelo said, twirling one of his nunchucks on his middle finger. "I mean, people do that, right - they don't always press charges or whatever."
"She's gonna press charges," Raphael said, jabbing him firmly in the chest with the blade of his sai.
"We can't force her, Raphael," Leonardo sighed heavily.
Raphael spun around to face him. "So what then - we just let him get away with it? We let him get away with raping our friend?"
"Of course not," Leonardo said. "All we can do is try to convince her to press charges, and support her decision either way."
Donatello reached out and put his hand on Raphael's shoulder. "That's what friends do."
Raph shrugged out of his grip and turned back to the Harris' building. "So who's got next shift?"
Emmeline slept in until well past eleven AM the next day. When she finally did wake, it was to see stripes of feeble, grey winter sunlight streaming through her window. She sat up and grabbed her T-phone to check the time. "Shit," she muttered, wiping sleep out of her bloodshot eyes. It was almost one O'clock.
"Hey."
She looked up to see Natalie standing in the doorway of her room. "Yeah?"
"Get showered and get dressed," Natalie instructed her. "You've got therapy at two."
"Well, that was fast," Emmeline said, climbing out of bed and wandering over to her dresser.
"Be quick," Natalie said as she started to walk away. "You have visitors."
Emmeline paused in front of her open dresser drawer. "Visitors?" she echoed, watching her go.
Ten minutes later, Emmeline bounded down the stairway that led to the front hall. She paused on the bottom step when she saw April and Casey lingering in the doorway to the staff office. "What are you guys doing here?" she asked them.
"Raphael gave us the address," April smiled at her in greeting. "He asked us to stop by."
"He also told us about Owen," Casey added.
Emmeline crossed her arms and couldn't help but scowl. She knew she should have expected Raphael to share her story with them, but she wished he had at least asked first. "So he just asked you to check up on me?"
"Sort of," April said with a shrug. "He really just wanted to know what you were gonna do now that cops know your story."
"Whether or not you were gonna press charges," Casey clarified.
Emmeline cast a wary look at the other residents in the house who were sitting in the living room just off the hall. She started off down the hall for the front door. "I haven't decided what I'm going to do," she told April and Casey as they trailed along behind her. She opened the door for them and followed them onto the front steps.
"Well, why not?" April asked.
Emmeline sighed and sat down in one of the worn, plastic garden chairs that stood at the foot of the steps. "If I press charges against Hun, then there's a chance he might retaliate."
"But isn't that why the guys are watching your - uh - Owen?" Casey said, frowning.
"He's still my brother," Emmeline said firmly. "And, yeah, that would be why. My lawyer says if I were to take Hun to court, it'd be a media circus."
April frowned. "Is that the only thing holding you back?"
Emmeline pulled out her T-phone and brought up a picture of Owen. "He doesn't know that I'm his mother. Taking Hun to court would mean putting everything out in the open, and Owen would find out that his father is nothing more than thug who raped his mom."
"But Owen is so young he wouldn't even remember any of it," April reminded her.
"Well, yeah," Emmeline said. "But once the story hits the media, there's no erasing that. And I wouldn't be the only one in the limelight - Owen would be, too, so would my whole family."
"Yeah but don't you want the world to know what they did to you?" Casey demanded, throwing his hands up. "How this whole thing got brushed under the rug because they thought you were just being a stupid teenager?"
Emmeline frowned up at him. "And what about when Owen finds out what they did - and he will find out. Eventually. When he's older."
"You won't have to worry about that for years, though," April countered.
"And what about how the world will react to what they did to me?" Emmeline asked, looking from April to Casey and back again. "Do you really think they would let Owen stay with my parents after that?"
April exchanged an uneasy glance with Casey. "Maybe your nanny could guardianship over him like she did with you."
"Maybe you could even get custody of him," Casey suggested.
Emmeline shook her head, frowning as she got to her feet. "Those things take time. Where would he be until I did - in a foster home? My parents deserve to be put through hell for what they did to me, but Owen is safe and happy with them. He shouldn't have to have his whole world up-ended because of something that happened to me." She pushed past the two of them and stomped up the front steps of the brownstone, slamming the door behind her.
A/N: Alright, so I am uploading early this week because I will not have access to Wifi this weekend. Hopefully, you guys like it.
Thank you to everyone who read and reviewed the last chapter. I cannot tell you how much your reviews mean to me, really. I'm glad you don't think I took this to too dark of a place, but I did this story would deal with some adult content, didn't I? Please, feel free to weigh in on this chapter. Where do you think Emmeline's story will go from here now that the past is out in the open? R&R, guys.
Thanks for reading.
