ChangelingRin: I honestly forgot there was a category entitled "Tragedy". ;) Thank you for reviewing!
Natalie Ryan: I keep apologising to you! I'm sorry! So sorry for your tears! But this stuff needs to be said. It needs to be done. Forgive me? Pretty please? Everyone needs a break, really. Thank you for reviewing!
Guest: You're more than welcome for the update! I refuse to leave you guys in suspense for too long! And don't worry about Donnie. :) Thank you for reviewing!
5Mississippis: Thank you so much! It was wonderful to sit back and watch this play out in my head. All I had to do was make sure my fingers could keep up. ;) Thank you for reviewing!
TMNT-Queen: Is that Portuguese? It looks like Portuguese! I tried to translate some of it but the only thing that came up was "eat my pants". (HAHAHA!) Aww, please don't hate it. *puppy eyes* Keep reading for more feels! Thank you for reviewing!
AlessandraDC: Sorry! So sorry! I don't mean to kill. I only mean to maim or seriously injure. ;) Please continue reading for answers to your questions. Thank you for reviewing!
Guest: Yeah, poor Don. Poor everyone. Thank you for reviewing!
tarin2014tfan: I'm sorry! Thank you for reviewing!
Guest: I answer some of your concerns and questions in this chapter. Thank you for reviewing!
theMusicofyourSoul: Ah, yes. Harry Potter moment. Good observation. ;) Thank you for reviewing!
prangersturtles: Sorry, sorry! I'm apologising left, right and center to everybody or so it seems! I don't mean to be mean! Thank you for reviewing!
TheDarkKunoichi: You guys are all so lucky I'm Canadian and I apologise to people all the time so this doesn't really bug me. Nevertheless, I apologise profusely for making you cry, my dear! I am a horrible person, I know, I know. But at least I channel some of that horribleness toward people who deserve it, like Laurent! I spit on his corpse with you! Continue reading for answers to your questions. :) Thank you for reviewing!
pownxmanonnie: Yeah...sorry. You're more than welcome for the quick updates. I'm trying to get the next few chapters written and posted because school starts a week from today and at that point I'll have very little time to write. I'm doing my absolutely best to keep the mess to a minimum. Thank you for reviewing!
lizzybudd: Aw, thank you! Raph has stuff to work through concerning Don so he needs his space. I'm going to give it to him. Thank you for specifically commenting on Laurent getting beaten up (and not just killed, a good couple of people cheered for that). I'm so glad that Mikey was the one to do it because Mikey has been Leo's greatest support during the whole blind-thing. He's got a lot of pent-up rage aimed at the collector and I was more than satisfied when Mike tossed him around a little. Splinter being the one to kill him was just icing on the cake. :) I'm sorry! It just came out that way because Raph was being stubborn, and Don and Mikey needed to have their moment. I'm glad Mikey's forgiven him, though. Sorry, so sorry to have made you cry. Thank you for reviewing!
Turtlecrazy714: I'm happy that I answered your questions! Thank you so much! To ease your concerns, here is an update. :) Thank you for reviewing!
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Chapter 26
It was nothing short of a miracle that no one really noticed the strange military vehicle, shadowed by a normal minivan, rumbling up the road and pulling into the alley between an old apartment building and the antique store. New York's citizens were glued to their TV screens and radios as they listened to live coverage of the gang war that had just gone down on private property – at least, that was what the media was calling it. The occupants of the two vehicles were none the wiser, however.
Don awoke when the Battle Shell squealed to a slow stop. He should ask Raph to help him check the brakes, he thought, but no. He could never ask Raph for anything ever again. His brother hated him, just as he hated himself, for what he'd done. He deserved it. He didn't deserve his baby brother's forgiveness or his father's gentle and comforting hugs. He had killed his elder brother, as much as if he'd euthanized him himself. He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, bracing himself for a world without Leo, and slid out of the van, helping Mikey who stumbled.
The four mutants were shadows as they darted straight from the vehicle to the shop's back door, and Casey let them in. Don heard April park out front and pull the blinds down to avoid curious eyes. Her light footsteps raced up the staircase just as he settled Mikey on the couch to check his side.
"Casey, I've got a couple of canvas tarps that we can cover the Battle Shell with. Come help," the woman ordered.
The man glanced at them and Donnie saw Splinter look back and nod. Casey left, the door clicking shut behind him.
"Bleeding's stopped," Don told his little brother quietly. "I'm going to wrap it, okay?"
"Okay" was all Mikey said, leaning his head on a pillow and closing his eyes.
When Donnie finished, he was hesitant to ask but he was still the family doctor: "How's your shoulder?"
"Sore but it's fine."
An icepack wrapped in a tea towel slid into Don's field of vision, startling him, but Raph ignored his reaction and placed the compress against the sore joint.
"Thanks, Raphie," Mikey whispered.
Don left the pair, hearing his immediate younger brother say, "Sure thing, buddy."
"Sensei?" he ventured when he neared the rat standing at the window and holding the lone katana. "Are you…unharmed?" There was an awful lot of blood decorating his father's robes and fur.
Onyx eyes blinked slowly and turned to meet his questioning gaze. "Yes, my son. I am unharmed. The blood is not mine."
"Right." He hesitated a moment before heading for the bathroom and running a couple of scrap towels April kept for emergencies under the tap. He returned to his father who still hadn't moved and took his elbow.
"Come sit, Father," he encouraged, drawing up a chair.
Master Splinter fell into the chair without thought but flinched when Don knelt and began wiping at his arm.
Don flinched back, hurt, pain and grief swirling through him. He looked up when Splinter gently took the towel from him and dabbed a dry corner to his cheek. "It'll be all right, my son," he said. "It's all right to grieve."
"It's my fault…" the purple-masked turtle began but Splinter cut him off.
"The fault lies with Laurent and those who followed his orders," he corrected firmly.
"I left him there!"
"We all did."
"I made the decision. It was my idea -"
"And we backed you. We all thought it was the right thing to do."
"Not everyone." Don glance at Raph sidelong and Splinter sighed.
Gentle fingers tucked under his chin, pulling him back to face the ninja master. "He told me to tell you that he doesn't blame you -"
"Well, he should!" Don interrupted wetly. "He should blame me! He should get back here and haunt my shell to my dying day, and I wouldn't care because at least I would see him!"
"No." Splinter took his face in both hands – when did he put down the sword? "Wish for no such thing, my son. Leonardo deserves peace. Let him have it."
Don held onto his father's arm as the tears streamed. "I promised we'd get him out of there!" he sobbed.
"He knew we did our best," Splinter said as he embraced him. "It's all right to cry, Donatello. It's all right."
Donnie wept quietly and bitterly in his father's arms, ignoring the gentle strokes down his head and carapace. There would be no comfort for this. Never again would there be a comfort.
-:-:-:-
Raph stayed as far away from Don as he could, not trusting himself to not hurt his brother with his fists or words. Even though his elder – eldest – brother cried quietly, the red-banded turtle still heard him. He heard his and Splinter's conversation, Don's guilt and Sensei's attempt at comfort and correction but both were lost on the grieving genius. It hurt how much Donnie hurt. Donnie didn't like violence or pain or hatred or anything like those things. He loved creating and books and coffee and them. Raph knew how much Donnie loved them, his family, and it killed him inside to see him cry because of that love. Raphael understood far more than he wanted to admit and he didn't want to hate his brother, but something ugly twisted around his gut, writhing and spitting like a cobra, poisoning everything from the inside out. He didn't trust himself to not hurt Donnie.
"Raph?" Gentle hands folded around his and he looked down into Mikey's thawing, blue eyes. He had been so cold earlier, like his sunny personality had frozen over, and it had scared Raph almost as much as knowing they'd been about to lose Leo. "Raphie?"
Raph blinked and tried to smile at his baby brother but the cobra coiled, hood expanding, and the smile died.
It seemed he wasn't the only one to understand because Mikey pushed himself upright and pulled him down onto the couch. Raph tried to hold back his tears as his head landed on his brother's uninjured shoulder but just like with the smile, he failed. Mikey's arms curled around him when Raph buried his face into the aqua-coloured skin, trying to be careful of the bandaged bridge, and cried. His little brother offered no words, his hands didn't stroke or soothe. He just held him, held onto him like one or both of them were about to float away. Mikey anchored him, his arms tight and his cheek resting on his crown. Raph let himself cry because, as Sensei had told Donnie, it was okay to cry. He didn't have to pretend that this didn't hurt. It was okay to cry.
-:-:-:-
It was too quiet for April. Too quiet and too sad. The very air was thick and she tried to funnel it out by opening a window but the fresh air and spring's late-evening birdsong only served to wrench more sobs from sore throats and more tears from dry eyes. Raph and Mikey lay curled on the couch together, not asleep but with their eyes closed anyway, perhaps trying to block out the world as it continued to spin on without their big brother. Don slept, though he did not do so peacefully; tears dripped off his cheeks to land on his arms which pillowed his head. Splinter was a restless phantom, sitting first in his chair and watching over Donnie then moving to stand at the curtained window, only to move again a couple minutes later toward the couch where his two youngest sons lay. The old rat never sat down and didn't stop moving for longer than three minutes. He even circled around April's desk where she and Casey worked through Don's collection of hacked files from Vince Laurent, no doubt including them in his vigil.
It was heartbreaking to watch and April wanted nothing more than to crawl into her own bed and pull the covers over her head until the world stopped turning but there was work to do.
Leo was dead. She'd thrown up the first time she'd thought it, barely making it to the toilet in time. Casey had held her hair and rubbed her back, but she had heard his quiet sniffs as he, too, mourned.
Glancing at him sidelong where he now sat beside her on a bar stool that would have been comically too small for him at a happier point in their lives, she wondered if he also felt like an outsider to this overwhelming pain that haunted her living room. They had been five long before she had come into their lives. Five was what they were and what she had always thought them to be. At the same time, though, she knew she was a part of this, knew that her and Casey's presence was welcomed and needed. When it had happened, April didn't know, but somewhere along the bumpy road that was life, five had become seven.
And now they were six.
The sun slipped lower and lower in the sky, dappling the walls in fiery orange, but no one made a move to indicate departure. Splinter was back at the window, his grey fur alight with dusk's glow. Slowly but surely, the orange deepened to red then faded to purple and at last darkened to after-sunset's inky blue. Still no one moved, and April could only be grateful, as she switched on the desk light, that her bizarre, adoptive family had chosen to not retreat to cold sewers.
It was almost midnight and April's eyes burned from staring at a computer screen for hours. Raph and Mikey had fallen asleep at last, and even Splinter had ceased pacing long enough to curl up between the couch and the coffee table and drift off. April leaned back in her chair and shared a look with Casey. As one, they stood and headed for the linen closet, taking out quilts and pillows. While April tucked in the two turtles and the rat, Casey gently lifted Don from his lonesome spot in the middle of the floor and settled him down by Splinter's feet. No one stirred, and the two humans' hearts ached for them.
April had half a mind to invite Casey into her room when the doorbell rang.
Everyone in the room snapped awake and to attention, hands reaching for weapons.
"Stay here," April commanded them all before jerking her head at Casey who grabbed two baseball bats and followed her out the door.
"Who d'ya think it is?" he asked quietly, passing her one of the bats as they descended the stairs.
The cool metal eased her racing pulse and she whispered back, "I don't know but I'm done playing the nice shop-lady."
Entering the main floor, April switched on the light and hid her bat behind her back as she unlocked the door with her other hand; Casey took up position on the other side of the door. "What?" she snarled, only to freeze at the sight that met her eyes.
A small army stood outside her door. Three large, white vans idled at the curb and what looked like twelve or fifteen men, all dressed in black, SWAT-like gear, gathered on the sidewalk.
"You are April O'Neil, yes?"
The question drew her attention down to a very short woman in her late thirties. Her mousy-brown hair was cropped short to just below her ears, her features were soft and round and entirely non-forbidding, but her grey eyes were hawk-like as she peered up at her.
"Yes?" April said slowly.
The woman nodded curtly and turned to her…goons? Henchmen? Minions? "This is the place" was all she said but the four short words had an immediate impact: men barged in and April made to swing her bat but suddenly found an assault rifle pointed at her nose.
"Back up, ma'am," the man suggested. "We're not here to hurt you."
"Clearly!" she spat, waving Casey down as she dropped the bat, lifted her hands and stepped away. "What is the meaning of this?"
The woman walked into the full light of the shop and it was only then that April noticed the pistol at her hip. "Miss O'Neil, my name is Special Agent Doctor Lindsay Burnette. I was an undercover operative at the late Vince Laurent's facility here in New York. I worked for eight years as a veterinarian for Mr. Laurent."
She paused and sidestepped to allow four men to carry in a large crate labeled with "Fragile" and "This Side Up" which they set down in the middle of the floor.
"Ya worked fer that creep!?" Casey exclaimed, his sapphire eyes dancing with malice. "And ya have the nerve ta show up here? Now?"
"Watch your mouth," snapped one of the rifle-bearing men.
"At ease, Ilya," Burnette ordered. She turned those piercing grey eyes on the civilians. "Are they here?" she asked simply.
April's heart seized in her chest. "What do you mean?" she stammered.
"I think you know exactly what I mean. Are. They. Here?"
Casey glared and snapped, "Look, lady. I think ya've got the wrong address or somethin' but there's no one else here!"
Burnette advanced like a small dog about to bite. She got right up into April's personal space. "I've worked for eight years busting my butt to bring that man to justice. Your ninja turtles and rat did the job for me so now I think it's only fair to return the favour." She gestured to the crate and understanding slowly dawned in April's soul.
"Give me a minute," she gasped. At the woman's nod, she bolted for the stair and threw open the door to find them there already. Splinter was in front with kitchen knives tucked into his sash and hands, Don, Raph and Mikey behind him all with their weapons out. "She's not going to hurt us," April managed to say.
But none of the mutants looked convinced, especially when their trained eyes landed on the weaponry their adversaries carried.
Burnette strode forward and two men, one middle-aged and the other looking barely in his early twenties, flanked her, rifles held in the rest position across their bodies. She stopped five feet away and inclined her head respectfully. "Master Splinter, my name is Lindsay Burnette and I have something that I wish to return to you."
April watched Splinter lift his grizzled chin. "I know of nothing you stole from me, Special Agent Doctor Burnette," he replied, purposefully using the title to let her know he'd been listening.
"It was not I who stole from you" was the solemn reply. "Jackson, Randall," she commanded over her shoulder.
The two men retreated and fetched out crowbars from the small duffels on their backs.
Burnette gestured the mutants and humans closer to the crate and they followed warily. As the men worked to pry off the lid, she spoke, "I was approached fifteen years ago as a newly certified vet by a director of operations. He needed someone of my expertise to infiltrate Mr. Laurent's New York facility and gather evidence of his crimes. I trained for seven years before heading into the field and I had Randall with me as my field partner." She smiled at the middle-aged redhead who grinned back. "We successfully made it into the facility as new employees and we gathered everything we could.
"Part of my job consisted of safeguarding the animals that came in. If they were deemed imperfect by Mr. Laurent, I faked a euthanizing and had conservationists on hand to either release them back into the wild or take them to zoos. Mr. Laurent rarely asked me to send them to his personal taxidermist but in those instances, I had to choose between blowing my cover too early or sacrificing a single animal. As a vet, it was the hardest thing to do. However, in the eight years I worked for him, he never suspected me."
All eyes fell to the crate when, with a last squeal of nails, Randall and Jackson pried off the lid.
Burnette waved a hand towards the crate. "I knew Mr. Laurent would want to send him to the taxidermist so I informed Randall who in turn informed the various agents we had managed to sneak in as employees, and we made our play. I knew of no zoo or habitat that would make him happy, other than the place from where Laurent's lackeys had stolen him."
"My shop," April whispered.
Burnette smiled at her. It did wonders to her stoicism. "Indeed."
It was like a spell broke: all thirteen remaining men lowered their rifles and all, including Burnette, Randall and Jackson, backed away to let the mutants and humans near. Don clapped a hand to his mouth and slumped to his knees, his free hand gripping the crate as tears streamed down his cheeks. Raph and Mikey both looked on the verge of tears while Splinter reached in and stroked Leo's cheek.
Because it was Leo. Curled on a nest of soft, blue blankets, it really was Leo.
Then Splinter panicked. "He's not breathing!"
"Relax," Burnette urged before everyone could freak out and knives and bullets could fly. "I gave him a toxin derived from the Rhododendron ponticum. It lowers his blood pressure and heartrate but I've been giving him a small dose of the antidote for the last several hours. He should wake up soon but he'll be disoriented. Don't give him solids for at least two days and keep him on bedrest for three." She smiled again. "He'll be fine."
April had tears in her eyes and so she wasn't sure if Splinter, too, was crying but his voice was thick as he said, "Thank you."
Of course it was Casey who ruined the moment by asking, "What took ya guys so long?" But the question was quiet and not an accusation.
Burnette turned kind eyes on the man. "We had to dodge the local authorities. I knew you were already on the compound but I feared you would be discovered so I erred on the side of caution and took Leonardo with me. I didn't dare leave any kind of message behind, in case Mr. Laurent came back."
"We made sure he didn't," Splinter put in, his voice low.
Burnette nodded. "We circled for hours to make sure no one had followed you or us, and we moved in once we were sure the neighbours were asleep." She jerked her head at one of her men suddenly and the dark-skinned man stepped forward.
"Um, sir," He ventured, plainly weirded out at addressing a four-foot-eight-inch rat but he rallied and held out a bundle. "These came in with him when Laurent captured him. We, uh, couldn't find the second sword."
Splinter took the bundle and undid the cords binding it up, revealing leather padding, a bloodied, blue bandana, a belt and two sheaths, one empty and one not. The grey rat trailed his claws over the katana and smiled. "We have it already. Thank you."
"We'll leave you now," Burnette said kindly, ushering her men out the door. "This never happened. My boys have already taken care of all the video footage and files concerning you and Leonardo. My director will never find out about this, not from me and not from them." She gestured to the men who now piled into the white vans. "This was a gang war, pure and simple."
"Thank you, Agent Burnette," Splinter said again. "This is a kindness we seldom find."
"All the more reason to give it." She hesitated for a moment but then shook herself and headed for the door.
"We'll tell him what you did," said Mikey, speaking for the first time in hours.
Burnette turned and smiled at them. "Thank you." Then she was gone, and the shop bell tinkled behind her as the door closed. She got into the lead van and all three peeled away from the curb, rumbling away.
April sank to the floor, her knees no longer able to hold her upright. Casey crouched beside her, mouth open to ask, but she shook her head. "I'm fine," she said. "Just…relieved."
"We should get Leonardo upstairs," Splinter murmured after a silent moment.
They moved seamlessly: Don supported his head and shoulders, Raph and Mikey took his legs and Splinter followed with the gear. Leaving the box where it was, April let Casey help her up and she switched off the light before ascending the stairs.
It felt like an ascension from out of the dark pit they had fallen into. Upstairs was hope and happiness and joy, and with each step upward, April felt her heavy heart and soul lighten.
It was heaven, in all honesty, and the golden lining was when Don carefully slid the single katana home in its sheath, only to find something at the bottom. Turning the sheath upside down dumped a USB stick into his palm with L's MRI printed on both sides.
-:-
Please review.
Also, please don't bash at my fictional ways of evading evil jerks via plant toxins. Burnette needed to knock Leo out but still in a way that if Laurent tried to feel for a pulse himself, he wouldn't find one. Recall the movie "Sherlock Holmes" with RDJ, Jude Law and Mark Strong. Same thing.