Alrighty all, anyone wondering where the story is going, I think this will very much be a defining chapter.

And as always a big thank you to my reviewers Rocky181, D'Fuentes, Chibiwolf33 and Kaaayyytteee!

Chapter 20

Donatello looked at his oldest brother in worry. as he paced the length of the garage. It had been over a week since they had returned from the lair and he and his older brother had an uncomfortable and slightly alarming conversation in the garage.

Donatello looked up at Leonardo in confusion. "I thought you already went to bed?" He questioned as his brother walked into the garage. It had been a couple days since they had returned from the lair and Raphael had yet to remember anything.

"I did." Leonardo said as he picked up a random piece of machinery. "I couldn't sleep. I keep thinking about Raph and how he doesn't seem to want to get his memory back." He said softly.

Donatello slid out from underneath of the wreck of Katherine's uncle's car, and stood. He walked over to the workbench grabbing a cloth and wiping the greese from his hands. "It makes sense. Raph doesn't trust us, he was ashamed and horrified at what he did to you and he was nearly beaten to death. We don't know what kind of pain and terror he went through. It makes sense that he wouldn't want to remember that night at all, and thus can't remember who he is since it is because of who he is that that night happened in the first place." He shrugged as he thought about Raphael."And besides, he has Katherine now. The thought of losing her terrifies him, more than never remembering who he is." He paused and then continued. "Mikey thinks we should just leave Raph here. He'd be safe and happy. All of our enemies think he's dead. He would be free of the fear, danger and misery that periodically invades our lives." He finished softly.

Donatello watched as loss and pain rose up in his brother's eyes. A fierce light of determination lit his eyes banishing these emotions.

"Raph deserves better than that." Leonardo said angrily. "Raph is a fighter, a warrior, it is who he is. Raph isn't himself right now, it's him, but not." He protested.

"Yes, but isn't this version of Raph better?" Donatello asked him.

"No, because it isn't him."

Donatello sighed. "There isn't anything we can do to make Raph remember who he is Leo, other than to just be here and constantly remind him of who he is."

"There is one thing we can do." He said softly. Donatello looked at him in confusion.

"Raph is scared of losing Katherine, so we take away that fear."

Donatello looked at him in growing understanding. "You want them to break up?" He asked slowly.

"It's the only way Donny. If Raph loses her, he'll only have us." Leonardo said reasonably.

But Donatello could see the sick feeling that welled up within his brother at what he was proposing.

Donatello frowned. "The logic is sound Leo, but it isn't right." He said shaking his head.

"I know Donny." He said softly.

"So just leave them alone." He said sternly.

"I can't Donny." Leonardo said, his voice shaking with emotion.

"Raph would never break up with her Leo, and Kitten won't break up with him, even if it will help Raph get his memory back." Donatello pointed out.

"I know." He said softly.

"What are you planning to do Leo?" Donatello growle,d an uncomfortable feeling of worry and eventual culpability welling within him.

"I don't know Donny. I figure I will try to warn her away, threaten her, try to tell her who Raph really is, find the weakness in their relationship, anything."

Donatello frowned, shaking his head as he tried one more time to dissuade his brother from the course he was going to take . "I don't like this Leo. You do this, you might get Raph's memories back, but he'll most likely hate you for it." He warned.

"I don't think Raph can hate me any more than he already does Donny." Leonardo replied softly.

"Are you okay Leo?" He asked. His brother looked tired and worn, and yet somehow he looked better than he had a week ago. He had regained much of his muscle mass and looked otherwise healthy. Even the worry lines that had been etched into his face seemed to have lessened to a certain extent. Not that he was surprised. Katherine was a force to be reckoned with. None of them could escape her. She considered all of them under her charge and so she made sure they were fed, rested, entertained and cared for. He would think of her as motherly except here was nothing motherly about her.

Even he had brought down her wrath when he stayed up too late a few nights in a row and she had found him sleeping at the workbench in the garage. She had threatened to lock him out and take away all of his tools if he didn't start getting some rest. He hadn't though she was serious and when it occurred again she was true to her word. The garage had been locked and when he had managed to break into the garage, it was empty of anything but some dust and the clunker car of her uncle's. But with no tools there was nothing for him to tinker with.

He had been awed that she had somehow managed to clean out the garage without him noticing. He was still trying to figure out how she had done it.

"Yes Donny, I'm fine." Leonardo said as he walked out the open door of the garage.

He still didn't know what his brother was doing regarding his plan to break Raphael and Katherine up. He had tried to convince his brother on several occasions to just leave them alone, but Leonardo was adamant in retaining his course.

Leonardo walked into the Kitchen as he towelled off the sweat from his face and neck. He had been rising early and trying to get a rigorous workout in before the rest of his family woke up. He had even managed to get Raphael to agree to train with him in the afternoons along with Donatello and Michelangelo

"Good Morning Leonardo." Katherine said brightly.

Leonardo looked at her in surprise as she placed a cup of tea in front of him.

He looked at her in confusion. "I know you've been getting up early and training outside." She said pleasantly to him as she set a plate of pancakes in front of him. His stomach grumbled loudly. He usually never went for heavy breakfasts in the morning, but he had found he had a weakness for Katherine's pancakes.

He studied her for a moment. He had been acting cool towards her, he knew, but if she noticed or if it bothered her in any way she didn't let on. "Thank you." He said softly as she went about cleaning up her own dishes and putting the rest of the batter in the fridge to be used when the rest of his brothers woke up.

He studied her as she cleaned.

He had found that Katherine fascinated him. She was so like, and yet unlike him, in every way. She was controlled, funny, smart and caring.

He liked to think he was in control of his emotions, but when faced with Katherine's iron control, he knew he had just been fooling was not a jokester like Michelangelo, and did not consider himself humorous by nature, and yet he found himself laughing with her and making her laugh in turn. He knew that he was intelligent, not as intelligent as Donatello of course, but he was continually awed by Katherine's quick mind and understanding of him and his brothers. He cared for others, but the way she had opened her home and looked after them left him humbled.

And yet he had spent the better part of the last week and a half trying to figure out how to break Raphael and Katherine up.

He contemplated his dileman, the same dilema that had been plaguing him for the past 10 days. He knew Raphael would never leave her, but he had tried to find some way to possibly make him think that Katherine wasn't as great as she seemed to be. But the problem was that she was perfect.

She wasn't actually perfect, she was stubborn, bossy, blunt, completely scatterbrained and incredibly forgetful. And yet, these faults just seemed to enhance rather than retract from her personality.

He was used to being the leader, the one his family turned to, but now Katherine seemed to have taken over his role. He didn't expect Raphael to come to him for advice or with his problems or concerns, or even just some ideas of what to do that day, but Michelangelo and Donatello now seemed to go to Katherine first for everything as well. And this wasn't even the worst part. She had been able to get his generally slovenly brothers to help with all of the chores around the house. Leonardo knew he was already a bit of a neat freak, but the fact that Katherine had managed to get his brothers to pitch in and help left him in awe of her abilities of persuasion.

His traitorous stomach grumbled again as he shoved a forkful of pancake into his mouth and his taste buds sighed with pleasure.

"Is there anything else you need Leonardo?" She asked him.

Yes, for you to break my brother's heart so he can come home with us and remember who he is. He silently said to himself. "No thank you." He said instead.

"You'll clean up when you are done?" She asked as she walked towards the back door.

He nodded as she walked outside. She would be back in an hour or two. She was going to weed the garden, which she hated. She had told him that she would rather do toilets then weed, and he had to agree with her. Donatello didn't seem to mind weeding too much and his younger brother would usually help her, which he guessed by the slightly evil expression on her face as she left, Donatello was going to get a rude awakening for sleeping in the garage last night.

Leonardo smiled to himself. It had been fun helping Katherine empty out the garage that one night. He, Raphael and Michelangelo had all helped. Donatello's expression had been priceless when he found himself locked out of the garage, but when he finally managed to pick the lock, he found the garage empty. She never had let on how she had done it, and they had kept silent as well.

Leonardo shook his head trying to get the pleasant thoughts from his mind. The only fault he had found with her that he could see Raphael having a problem with was that she completely ignored everyone and everything when she painted. Raphael should have been bored and irritated. He trained with them in the afternoons, but when the weather was unpleasant Raphael was up in Katherine's room watching her paint.

He remembered watching her the one day but although he had watched her, he hadn't really paid too much attention to her. But one day when Raphael was out helping Donatello with some heavy lifting, he had decided to see why Raphael wasn't bored.

She hadn't acknowledged him when he had entered her room which meant he now fell into what she considered normal and 'not important', which actually made a warm feeling well up in him.

He had sat on her bed and watched her for a few minutes. After two hours had gone by, he finally understood. Watching Katherine paint was like watching a sunset, or revelling in the beauty of a quiet lake or waterfall. She was beauty in motion. She had stripped down to a pair of shorts and a bikini top. And although he was momentarily sidetracked by this, when she painted it was like she was working magic. Paint was applied as if she and the canvas were doing a dance. Colours were changed and added and mixed. He found himself amazed at her abilities to coax life into a flat white canvas board, and make it breathe.

So he abandoned any hope that Raphael would leave her. It would have to be Katherine to leave Raphael. He reviewed Raphael's faults. Raphael was stubborn, obstinate, egotistical, proud, loud, easily irritated, quick to anger, irrational, narrow minded, violent and selfish.

Leonardo sighed in frustration. The problem was Donatello was right. This version of Raphael was better. He still had all of his faults, but somehow, they had been tempered. He wasn't sure if all of Raphael's faults were to keep everyone as far away from him as possible and not let anyone close to his heart, or if Katherine was just really that good for him. For all he knew it was a combination of both.

Even Raphael's temper was not as easy to ignite. He angered, but somehow Katherine was always there to talk him out of it. And she was able to. He listened to her, and some small part of him was jealous that this woman was able to handle his brother better than he was.

Also Raphael's temper did not seem to bother her, which meant he had no recourse but to either warn her away or threaten her, and it made his stomach feel ill just thinking about doing either. But he had a duty to his brother.

He stood and walked out the back door.

He found Katherine alone, kneeling in front of a flower bed. Katherine had on a pair of gardening gloves and was abstractedly pulling weeds.

He knelt down beside her. She gave him a wry smile. "Come to help Leonardo?" She asked him.

"Yes." He said as he looked over the flowerbeds. "Donny still sleeping?"

Katherine chuckled. "I was going to wake him, but he seemed so peaceful and my uncle's car looks so much better than it did."

Leonardo nodded and studied the flower bed. Everything was green. He didn't know what was a weed and what wasn't. He reached down and began plucking some of the smaller flowers from the bed.

"Those are the ones we want to keep." Katherine said with a smile leaning in close to him.

He started because he hadn't known she had gotten so close to him. He had been trying to figure out how to warn her away from his brother. He looked at his hands in shock as he dropped the plant in his fingers.

"Sorry." He mumbled.

"It's okay, I barely know what's a weed and what isn't. I don't see why my uncle doesn't just hire a gardener to do this, but I don't really think my uncle even knows he has a garden here." She said with a shake of her head and a fond smile. "I love the look of gardens, and I am always left in awe of people who can pick all of the right plants and flowers that seem to go together to make amazing gardens. I however do not possess that talent." She shrugged as she pointed to a small tiny bit of plant. "That's a weed. Anything bigger than that I figure if it managed to escape me pulling it, deserves a chance to get bigger so I can actually tell if it is a weed or not." She said with a laugh. "Like this one here." She said pointing to a prickly spindly looking plant. "Weed." She pulled it. It had actually gotten pretty big. "And that one." She pointed to a green plant with yellow flowers. "Weed, but pretty non spiky weed, so I will keep it." She said with a joyous laugh.

She brushed her cheek with the back of her hand spreading a smudge of dirt across the pale plain of her cheek.

"So what did you want to talk to me about?" She asked him as she turned back to her haphazard weeding.

He swallowed. "Has Raph remembered anything new?" He asked her.

"Not really. A few random observations about your personalities, but no actual memories." She said softly.

He nodded. "Our lives are dangerous Katherine." He said to her.

"I know." She said as she continued to weed. She had lost her smile, but her emotions were closed to him.

"By knowing us, you could be in danger." He continued.

She straightened and looked at him. Her eyes searched his and he didn't know what she found, but she nodded. "Raphael was hurt, but he healed. His memory will return. We have to be patient Leonardo. In everything we must always be patient. Sometimes the waiting is worth it, and sometimes it isn't, but we will never know which it will be until it happens. Don't pull the daisy, it's my favourite weed." She said as she stilled his hand with her own. "The term weed is a completely arbitrary word you know. If it is considered a nuisance or is not regarded as pretty or helpful it is classified as a weed." She cut a flower from the plant he was about to yank. She smelled it and smiled brightly at him then tucked it into the side of his mask. He was entranced by her smile and her sparkling eyes.

She stood and he followed. He looked at the garden and realized that it was a chaotic as she was, and somehow, that made it beautiful, because she didn't care if there were what most people would consider undesirable plants in amongst the flowers. She liked them because they were beautiful to her. "Katharine." He said as she was about to turn away. She looked at him inquiringly. "You have..." He said as he reached out and brushed the smudge of dirt from her cheek. She looked at him in surprise a blush spreading across her cheeks. She gazed at him as he gazed back at her. The moment he touched her cheek he felt a fission of awareness blaze through his fingertips and up his arm.

He felt caught by her, as if he was unable to turn away or move. And he knew that whatever he was feeling, she felt it too.

"Dirt." He managed to say. She looked at him in confusion as they both seemed to shake themselves out of whatever had just happened between them. "There was some dirt on your cheek." He managed to mumble.

"Oh. Thank you. I just need to..." She said pointing in the direction of the garage. He nodded as he watched her turn and enter the garage.

He looked at the garden as a thousand thoughts flew around in his head. He took the daisy out from where she had tucked it into his mask. Her cheek really was as soft as the finest velvet. He thought with abstraction as he tucked the flower into his pocket.

He swallowed and his stomach churrned. He now knew how to break Katherine and Raphael up.

Katherine walked to the garage and slipped silently inside as not to wake Donatello.

Leonardo's disapproval and coolness towards her hadn't bothered her. She could understand that he was feeling powerless and a degree of resentment towards her in regards to Rogue trusting her more than he trusted his own brothers. She got that, and yet at the same time she tried to be as pleasant as possible to let Leonardo know that she wasn't the enemy, that she had Rouge's best interests at heart as well. So even when he was acting cool towards her she would occasionally see the real Leonardo poke through, as if he would forget that he was supposed to be haughty and disapproving. And she rather enjoyed his company when he let his guard down.

And she knew Leonardo didn't seem to approve of her relationship with Rogue, but he had never outright told her so. But just now she had felt as if he were attempting to warn her away. And yet she had gotten the impression that there was an underlying message he was trying to tell her with his eyes. She felt as if he were somehow blaming her for Raphael's memory still not having returned, though how she would be responsible for that, she wasn't sure.

So what had just happened? She asked herself as she closed her eyes and tried to get her wildly beating heart under control.

If she was honest with herself she knew that she had always felt an awareness of Leonardo when he was around, but she had been completely staggered by the heat that had coursed through her at his touch. She had been, in that moment, aware of Leonardo. Not just as Rogue's older brother, but she had been aware of him as a man, and that terrified her.

BUM BUM BUMMMM! Thought opinions?