A/N: Okay, fair warning: This story is really pretty sad - but I hope in an uplifting sort of way. Tissues may be needed, that's all I'm saying.
Words: 1830 Rated: K+ 'Verse: Any Genre: Hurt/Comfort (maybe?)
January 5th – Reunion
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"Rivers and roads, rivers and roads.
Rivers
til
I
reach you." –Rivers and Roads, The Head and the Heart
Reunion
The snowflakes swirled in the twilight, catching the solar street lamp's glow as they tumbled, glinting shades of pale blue and pink. Above his head, between the elongated lengths of skyscrapers, where any exposed surface blinked and flashed with animated advertisements, speeders and hover-taxis zipped between the congestion of the last of the evening rush.
It was late. But not that late, he told himself.
"It'll be open."
He coughed and it turned into painful hacking, slowing his pace until he stopped to lean one shoulder against frosted bricks. The thin fabric of his scavenged clothing gave little protection from the cold. This January was the worst on record since the invaders from Kli492-8 wrecked the planet's weather conditioning satellites twelve years ago.
He remembered that night clearly – it was when he'd celebrated turning sixty by eating two whole pizzas by himself, which he regretted terribly the next morning. It would have been better had anyone been there to share it with him.
But that was a thought left to darker days and sleepless nights.
He shuddered and struggled to catch his breath, pain lancing through his chest, neck and head, making his knees quake and his body contort with cramps. Turning his head, he spat the glob of phlegm into the snow. Black.
He started at the sight, morosely and with no small amount of resignation. But immediately brushed the heavy thoughts away.
"Gotta be open," he murmured, wiping at his glistening bottom lip.
He wouldn't have ventured out in this cold, not in his condition, but he didn't have a choice in the matter. He had to go out tonight. He'd gotten the call twenty minutes ago that the book had come in, at last. Only, Mr. Clarence Capra's bookshop was closing any minute.
He straightened up and took one wavering step, followed by another. And another, through the streets he'd once dreamed of walking so freely upon.
Streets that remained unwelcoming despite alien visitors and deep space diplomats broadening the minds and hearts of Earth's residents. Streets that offered little and less to a mutant who'd lived in shadows his entire life; no life skills to barter other than antiquated fighting skills that were considered passé at best, ridiculous at worst.
Still coughing, he hurried through the thinning crowds, mostly homeless and begging at this city level. He stumbled past a squid-like creature. It wrangled its young with four tentacles further away from the over-flowing gutters where the rodent cousins of rats – brought to Earth as stowaways aboard alien ships - were known to pull an unsuspecting youngling down into the storm drains.
Leonardo dashed, a limping gait, past darkened shop windows shuttered with iron. The clang and rattle of the owner's closing shop speeding his footsteps.
His confidence waned as his strength faded. His knees buckled, but he pushed forward.
"Be open. Please be open," he murmured in a chant, breath puffing in the frigid air as he rounded the corner and hustled towards the end of the street. On the corner, he could just make out the glow from the sign, flickering: Open.
"Oh thank goodness," he wheezed.
But as he skidded to a halt and reached for the brass handle with a fingerless glove and gave a tug, it did not open. He froze and tried again. He jiggled the handle harder.
Nothing.
He glared at the open sign. It flickered cheerily as it lied, glowing a warm tone of golden-yellow that gave him no comfort or heat.
Peering through the slotted blinds covering the door, he could make out no movement inside. He coughed until he doubled over. Blinking, he stared at the speckles of blood sprayed out over the snow before him. With a trembling hand, he wiped at his bottom lip. Ignoring the sticky moisture, he shuffled back to lean on the glass. His breath squeezed in painful wheezes. Dark spots whirled in his vision.
He turned and rolled to one side. Covering the glare against the window with his hands to see better, he gazed inside through the large front display window. He thought there was someone in the far reaches of the narrow store and frantically tapped at the window.
"Hello!?" He tapped harder. More insistently. "Hello? Clarence?" He choked and cleared his throat. Raising his voice as much as possible, he called, hoarsely, "Mr. Capra? It's me, sir. I-I won't take long, I just need that book we discussed last month. Clarence? The book that you called about?"
"Seems you're too late," a feminine voice spoke up next to him, startling him.
He glanced to one side and did a double take, gasping.
She stood just below his chin. Slim and petite, composed with her hands tucked neatly into the side pockets of her long coat. Her head was covered in a thick furred hat which came down to the very tops of her eyes. Her green, thick-lashed eyes that he'd recognize anywhere stared at him with expectation.
His heart stumbled.
He stood gaping, staring like a child witnessing a miracle. The snowflakes settled atop her narrow shoulders, upon the dark woolen coat she wore. Each tumbled upon the other. Each spiny branch in stark relief, superimposed. Just as the crimson of her lips, the supple smile just at the very edges of her mouth as she considered him from beneath that hat.
To speak her name would be to shatter the illusion. For this could be nothing else.
Karai had been gone for . . . for a long time now.
His mouth worked but no sound came forth. Tears pricked the backs of his eyes.
Taking her gaze from him, she leaned forward and peered into the window, then straightened. "It's closed all right."
Reluctantly, and with one more glance back at her, he checked the sign. "But," he started, thinking he was speaking more to himself than the apparition next to him, "the sign was just. He just . . . He just called."
His sentence cut short as he started coughing again. Blinding pain sliced through him, crippling him and folding him over his knees until he fell forward onto his knees.
When the fit passed and he opened his watering eyes, he saw a white cloth held out to him just in front of his nose. Hesitantly, he reached for it, expecting his fingers to go through the thing, since it could not really be here.
Just as she could not, possibly, reasonably, be here, next to him.
Of course, he could have finally gone mad. Like his father before him in his last months of life. The memory speared a surprisingly painful spike through him. It had been years since he'd last thought of his master. Yet, the pain was real.
He took the handkerchief. It, too, seemed very real. He wiped his mouth. It came away blotched in crimson. He folded it and tucked it away, oddly ashamed.
"It's okay."
He looked up and blinked at the snow in his eyes.
"Keep it." She looked behind her, over one shoulder as if distracted by something or someone.
He leaned forward to see what or whom might be back there, tipping slightly to one side as dizziness swept over him, but could only see the distant street blurred by some soft glow or light. Try as he might, he could not detect or understand the source. A sudden urge to keep her here, to grab her attention and make her turn back to him gripped him.
"I'm sorry," he blurted.
She turned back to him. "What's that?"
Relief swelled past the pain, easing it to the shadows of his mind.
He sniffed and gathered his courage. Pushed back against the poisonous waves of regret and guilt. "I said I'm sorry." He braced for her recrimination, her damning him and his brothers, her anger, her vengeful vows, curses, anything.
She tipped her head and her smile only softened along with her eyes.
He thought then that he'd never seen her eyes that way. He swallowed nervously.
"I am, too."
She sighed and gave a slight roll of her eyes, so much like how she was back then - a million years ago, when they were young, children playing with sharp things, chasing vengeance that had nothing to do with them - that he choked on the sorrow of lost years. Of actions taken in the name of honor that were anything but.
"I know, I have to do it right," she said, speaking to no one that he could see. "I mean. I'm sorry, too. For everything."
They stared at one another. His hands rubbing along his thighs after a while, unsure of what to do - realizing that he didn't feel cold any longer, didn't feel the press of his sickness in his chest when he took a breath, realizing that he wasn't breathing at all, actually - when she suddenly reached out to him.
"Friends?"
He stared at her hand for a beat and then, slowly, reached up to take it. With her help, he rose up to stand, still holding tight to her hand. Close to her, so close he could see the happiness in her eyes, the real happiness. Something else he didn't remember ever seeing in her before.
And what a sight it was. Enough to stop his heart.
She made a small sound that might have been a laugh, but turned away before he could return her blushing grin.
"C'mon, hero." She gave a slight tug on his hand. "Let's go home."
He moved to go, but hesitated at the window, glancing once more at the books beyond the glass. A shadow passed over his face.
Karai turned to catch his hesitation and she tugged once more at his hand. "What are you waiting for?"
"My . . . book."
"There's books to read, more books than you can ever imagine. But Donatello keeps everything organized, even with Mikey knocking them over every chance he gets." She smiled and Leo could only feel the tightening in his throat. "You'd be so proud. And Raphael has a few he's been saving for you. Stacked up to my hip."
He looked back at her, blinking, pulling away, suddenly afraid.
"Hey," she said softly. "They're waiting for you. Have been for so long. Do you really want to keep them waiting any longer?"
"I-I'm not sure. There's things I need to . . ." He shook his head. "I can't. I can't face -"
She reached out and took his other hand. "Leo, it's okay. Trust me."
He felt her hands in his, the warmth so real and comforting, the light behind her welcoming and safe. Warm.
His eyes rose to meet hers and he saw only love there. The love he'd sorely missed for longer than he could remember.
Leo said, voice breathless, as he let go, "Okay."
He nodded firmly, feeling more sure, stronger. Whole.
"I'm ready."