I own only my OC.

Yoshi ran through the pipe holding his turtles. He got to where the voice shouting "Heeeeeelp" was no longer coming from before his face, but below his feet. He placed his babies behind him, reached into his belt and clicked on a flashlight there. It came on despite being wet. He shone its beam downward.

There was a pipe stuck in a wide hole just before his feet. Jona was clinging to it with one hand. Some of her black hair was plastered to her face. Her other arm hung at her side. She stared up at him with wide, dark eyes.

There was no sign of Leonardo. She must have let go of him. She had begun to save him and let go of him.

He stared back into her wide, dark eyes. She grit her teeth beneath his gaze a moment and then raised a choked voice, "Yoshi! Please!"

He stared down at her another moment. Then he sighed. She had tried. She had been trying to help his sons ever since she first found them together.

He got down on one knee and reached for her arm with both hands, grabbing it from one side of the pipe. She let go of the bar clinging to him instead. He first pulled her over and then up. She emerged from the hole coming level with the floor he crouched upon. And then the hand of the arm hanging at her side was lifted into the light. She was clutching Leonardo's shell.

His little son squinted in the light. Then looked up at him. Yoshi's mouth dropped open. His voice was breathless, "Leonardo … Leonardo … Leonardo …"

He yanked Jona fully up and out. Before her feet rested of the ground, she pulled that other arm in and gripped Leonardo to her chest like he had the other three. So, he grabbed her, and drew her into him holding them both close to him. "You saved him; you saved my son ..."

She sniffed and spoke through a watery voice. "You named him 'Leonardo?' That isn't a traditional Japanese name. What would your father and mother say?"

He remained silent merely continuing to hold her and his son close. He could not answer now. It seemed so unimportant these questions that would have annoyed him under any other circumstances.

She continued on her own, "I guess it makes sense, though. You did want to be an artist."

He pulled away as the sensation of cold washed over him. It came from her body, and Leonardo's, and his other turtles behind him clinging to his legs. "We must go back to the lair and dry off in front of the heaters you brought recently whiel they run."

He heard a wobbly smile in her wobbly voice as she added, "And make tea."

He gave a swift nod. "And make tea."

A journey through what should have still been warm tunnels for the sewers since it was still the middle of an unseasonably warm day in the city above them felt very, very cold indeed. They were all shivering at first. Yoshi was more worried over the slowing movements of his turtles, Jona, and himself, however. When they got to the dojo even his hands were shaking as he attached the three appliances, two space heaters and a hotplate, to their power sources. Meanwhile, Jona had finally put down Leonardo and gone to gather old newspapers he had brought down to him.

Splinter eagerly took Leonardo and began drying him when she returned as she started on Donatello. He found something strange as he dried the neck of the son he had almost lost. Tiny, curved dents were pressed into the rim of Leonardo's carapace just below his neck. Considering he could have lost all of him forever the strange markings on his shell seemed insignificant.

After the turtles were dried, he noticed Jona rubbing some still dry newspapers over her outfit. It was tight, dark material that nonetheless was still more normal looking than ninja-attire. As he watched, Yoshi felt an awkwardness fall over him and the space they filled, made only more awkward by the fact Jona seemed not to feel it all as she busily went on in her obviously futile task, and she was usually so intelligent and practical.

Yoshi hardened his spirit. He sat up, fixed narrowed eyes upon her, and said in a deep voice "Jona." She paused and looked at him. He continued, "You have to remove that wet fabric."

Her eyes widened. She shrank back from him eyes narrowing. "No!"

He continued letting his eyes open and speaking more gently. "Jona … I am not saying this for the reason you might assume … You can have one of the robes you brought down for me the other day to wear instead. They are dry, and will be large on you, but that wet cloth has to come off your cold skin."

She glared at him in silence. Her face was wrinkled as if she was smelling rotting flesh. He sighed, rose, and said "Keep an eye on the children." Then he departed, his own fur still wet, and returned holding two robes out before him at arm's length, so they would not get wet too. "One for me, and one for you."

She was holding the turtles back from getting too close to the space heater, her back to the entrance and him. She did not respond to his words. Her form did not even flinch.

When he placed the robes down on the floor beside her, however, she replied. "Good. They will make a nice nest for the turtle-babies."

He sighed. "Jona … I am not letting you leave here wearing that wet fabric."

"You cannot stop me!"

"If I get properly dry and you do not, I probably will be able to."

"You're a long way from that yourself!"

His eyes scrunched up and voice thundered now. "Jona!"

She turned sharp, dark, narrowed eyes up to his face. He sighed, closed his own, and bowed his head before continuing. "I will not look. I swear it. I owe you a great debt now." He raised his head and opened his eyes again to meet her gaze. "But I am still in love with Tang Shen."

Her own gaze softened, but her voice came out sharp. "You won't look? You swear it?"

He nodded. "I swear it."

She sighed herself, then, "Turn one of the space heaters, so you and the turtles can face it while you have your back to me, and I can face the other with mine to you."

He nodded and quickly did as she asked. Then he pinned his gaze to the wall before him. His ears however, swiveled to listen to what went on behind him to be certain she was doing as requested.

His mind wandered to remembered watching Tang Shen disrobe one of his favorite activities after they were married. He smiled gently. Her full figure had already been different enough, clothed, from the kunoichi his father, he, and Saki trained in the dojo to catch his attention. She had never trained there, and he had secretly been glad since it meant he could keep those two sections of his life separate, and her lovely form would never lose its softness.

He really hadn't lingered in thought on such things since purchasing the turtles at the pet shop. He'd been so busy ever since. Now he realized his mutation had not changed his feelings for his wife as he remembered her.

He frowned as his mind shifted to thinking of the woman behind him muttering to herself about shaking fingers and clinging, stubborn material. Rin, or Jona, he'd seen by her clinging clothing had a form very like all the kunoichi he had spent time around growing up in the Hamato dojo. One reason, he supposed she had at first seemed more of the same to him, when they first met, and had thus failed to gain his attention like Tang Shen.

Suddenly, something changed in his environment that broke through his memories. He looked down into his lap and saw only three turtles again. This time it was Donatello who was missing.

He looked around and saw the last thing he wanted to, save maybe Saki himself. His little, smart turtle was crawling across the floor toward a bit of wet, black cloth lying on the ground. Yoshi spun around to grab him quickly, but he looked up to see if his guest had noticed.

Indeed, she turned, but not before he'd seen her bare back. His eyes widened and mouth dropped open at the sight. However, he then met her gaze. Sparks of lightning lit her eyes as her mouth opened. "You looked!"

Black, soaked cloth landed over his face. A voice shrieked on in Japanese and American English beyond it. In both, she mostly stated, "You promised, you swore you wouldn't!" However, these words barely sunk into his conscious. Even Donatello, who was obviously well enough to move around quite a bit now, had mostly slipped his mind.

Instead, he thought back to a time he had looked out a window so far above the ground, he had seen the mountains of his homeland beneath like rivers made of lumps, like barnacles on a ship, like new-tilled earth. Flashes of what they must have looked like when first formed oozing, and red, and hot burned into his mind. Yes, that was what the sight he'd just seen reminded him of.

He reached up smoothly, sadly, and removed the cloth from his face, but his eyes were already closed again. He pulled his hands, with the wet, black cloth in them, into his lap and bowed his head. His voice came out low and gentle as his guest paused to take a breath.

"Jona … how did you get all those scars?"

What do you think?

God Bless

ScribeofHeroes