I didn't sleep very much last night. I sat up with Athena while she slept. It was crazy how people get when they sleep. It was like she reverted back to a child, curled up against the couch's armrest, arms and legs tucked as close as they could be near her chest. Her face was relaxed, void of any frown lines, wrinkles, or fear.

I think she knows she's safe with us. Or at least I hope she does. April came at around eight, a styrofoam tray full of paper cups in one hand, a greasy paper bag in the other. Mikey was the first to pounce on her, his only target in mind was the pastries in that bag.

"Did you get the powdered type, like I asked?" Mikey peeked in the opening, eyes sparkling with excitement.

"An assortment of them, actually. I couldn't get all of one type. The owner wouldn't allow it." April explained with a roll of her eyes. "Make sure to save some for everyone, Mike."

"Yeah, yeah, I gotcha." Mikey practically galloped into the kitchen, face still stuck in the bag.

"Here, Leo. Green tea, with milk." April took a cup from the tray, and handed it to me. I set my journal face down in my lap, and accepted the cup with what I hoped was a gracious smile.

"Thank you so much. You know, you didn't have to do this."

"I know, but I wanted to." She set the tray onto the end table beside me, and took a seat on the ground. "And Mikey asked me, like, a million times." She reached up, and pulled at the zipper of her jacket. "I got a little bit tired of his nagging." She brought her legs up to her chest, and wrapped her arms around her knees.

"How is she?" Her voice lowered to a whisper.

"Good. She was tired." I flipped back the tab of my cup's lid and lifted it to my mouth. The pleasant warmth spread across my tongue, and immediately, I relaxed. "She slept through the night alright."

"Mmph.." One of Athena's eyes fluttered open, and then the other. She picked up her head, and looked around for a moment, just taking everything in.

"Good morning." April straightened up and squared her shoulders, as if she was trying to put her best foot forward in a job interview.

Athena raised a brow at the woman, and leaned back against the armrest, gaze unwavering. The sleepy daze had retreated from her eyes, and had been replaced with the sharpness and intensity that I had seen the night before.

"This is April." I said, as gently as I could. "She's a friend."

Her eyes were extinguished of their fierceness as soon as the word 'friend'. Her brows knit with confusion. "Oh."

April's pink-glossed lips turned up into a smile. "Hi."

"Hello."

"Did you sleep well?"

She pulled the afghan close to her chest, fingertips weaving in through the gaps in the hand-knitted loops. "Yes."

"Good. That's..that's good." April's smile grew tighter. Her eyes trailed over to Athena's arm, sheathed by the gaps of the blanket. I could see the slivers of red that traveled up her forearm. I hadn't noticed them before. And on her neck were these bruises, they seemed fresh, staining her skin red and purple.

"Do those hurt?" I brought my free hand up to my own neck, about where her bruises were. "I could have Donnie take a look at them."

She drew in a breath. "Lovebites."

"Lovebites?" I repeated. April's eyes went wide. She let out a little noise of shock, or maybe surprise.

"..From Paris." Her eyes lowered to her lap.

"Paris." Maybe he's a boy, a boyfriend, maybe? It's hard for me to imagine her with a boy, but who am I to judge? I'm a mutant turtle, after all.

"Yes." The harshness returned to her face. I decided not to press any further. Athena untangled herself from the afghan blanket, got to her feet, and trudged her way into the kitchen. She shuffled past Mikey, whose face was covered in powdered sugar, and his cheeks bulged with half-eaten pastry.

He waved at Athena with a white dusted hand, but she didn't even give him a passing glance. I watched from the doorway of the kitchen as she made a sharp left turn down the hall and headed into the bathroom.

"Jeez, someone definitely isn't a morning person." Mikey commented as he swallowed, and then belched. "What's a lovebite?"

"Uh.." I looked over at April, whose cheeks flushed red. "It's uh..nothing important, little brother."

"Yeah, it's nothin' important, 'til you fall in love." Raph lumbered in, and wrapped an arm around our youngest brother, but that soon turned into a headlock. "But the chances 'a that happening to you are close to nothin'."

He pinched the air in between the index finger and thumb of his free hand. Mikey stuck out his bottom lip in a pout.

"Hey, there's always some people out there that could benefit from having a little green in their lives. Just look at April!"

Raph's ridges creased. "Way to make it weird, Mike. Ick."

"What?" Mikey asked as Raph released him from his headlock. "What did I say?"

"Nothin', just, uh.." Raph took a peek in the bag of doughnuts. I could see the glint in his eyes - April had gotten him a jelly doughnut, for sure. "Shut your piehole, will ya?"

I left them to devour their feast, and headed back to the living room, tea still in my hand. April was sitting on the couch then, and was doing something I saw her do rarely, which was biting her perfectly polished nails.

"Sorry." She pulled her hand away from her mouth. "I was..just thinking." She curled her long, pale fingers into her palm. "..I just have this odd feeling that maybe she, Athena..ran from..someone that was using her."

I remembered the tattoo on her wrist. The string of random numbers, followed by her name written in delicate lettering.

"..Maybe she was a test subject at a lab, or something. I..I really don't know. She's hardly said anything."

"..I..I well, yes.." April pursed her lips, and I knew she wanted to say something else. "That could be the case..but I thought..someone was.." She trailed off, and then waved a hand in the air dismissively.

"What, April?"

"..Hurting her, in..a very..personal way."

My stomach turned a somersault. "I..I don't know."

Silence settled in between us, and didn't have any issues cutting off the conversation. I just kept on sipping at my tea until it was all gone. April had turned her attention to her purse, and spent at least twenty minutes rummaging through the contents, muttering to herself about a tube of lipstick she had lost weeks before.

My stomach had begun to growl by that point, and I quietly excused myself to the kitchen, taking my empty cup with me. I was surprised to see Athena, sitting across from Raph and Mikey at the kitchen's island, a plate with a single, strawberry-frosted doughnut sat in front of her. Sprinkles sat around it, in a circlet of confetti, almost.

"Leo, you shoulda seen it. She picked all the jimmies right off that thing." Mikey looked pained as he spoke. "I know you said that she was weird, but this is uber weird."

"How 'bout you just let 'er eat." Raph elbowed Mikey right in the ribs.

Athena didn't pay either of them, or me. She began to pick at the pastry, eating it bit, by bit, almost savoring every little bite. She only looked up every so often, and it was easy to see the hints of euphoria in her eyes.

She was happy, alright. Her eyes landed on me, and suddenly, the sparkle was gone. Her cheeks went red with embarrassment? Anger? I couldn't tell, but her hands slithered down into her lap and she looked down at the crumbling doughnut with shame.

"Hey, you know you can keep eating." I made sure to keep my voice soft, yet again. "We aren't gonna judge."

But you see, Journal, I was judging her, kind of. I could see how that t-shirt hung off her frame, and yet it nearly swallowed her up. She looked up at me again, this time, it was long and hard. She looked back down at the doughnut, picked off a bit of the dried frosting with her index finger, and stuck it into her mouth. Soon, she got into a rhythm of picking and nibbling yet again.

The day finally started, and we all got into our usual routines, circumventing our activities around Athena, who spent most of the morning sitting at that counter, working away at that thing with a focus like I had never seen. It was almost..amazing.

I kept watch on her from the dojo. The shōji were just wide enough so that I got a perfect view of her slender frame, bent over her plate. I could barely focus on anything but her, and because of that, I got knocked to the ground by Raph more times than I would like to admit. The third time I made contact with the scratchy, itchy Persian rugs that Sensei lined the floor with. I let out a yelp - I had landed on my arm funny.

Raph's expression had grown smugger and smugger each time he bested me, but when I cried out, he threw back his head and laughed at me. "Oh, man. This is something right here. Splinter Junior is fallin' for some weird, mute chick he made us drag back here last night."

I felt blood rush to my cheeks. I sat up, ignoring the dull pain that coursed through my left side.

"I'm..I'm not into her. I simply want to keep an eye on her. She's-"

"Frail, and weak, and the perfect princess to match your white-knight ass!" Raph leaned down so his face was only inches away from mine. Mikey and Donnie's voices chorused together in fits of giggles.

"Oh, grow up, Raphael!" I snapped. I set my hands on his shoulders and shoved him out of my face. I watched as he lost his balance and toppled back onto his shell. Donnie slapped a hand over his mouth, and Mikey's giggling turned to howling.

I had done it. I had poked the bear..er, the turtle, and he was bloodthirsty, and he wanted a prize to sooth his rage. Instead of Mikey's head, this time around, he wanted mine. We fought. I'm not proud to admit that I played my part as we rolled around, a flurry of fists and kicks and half-grunted insults, that only ended when Mikey and Donnie pried us apart.

"Woah, Leo, relax!" Donnie took hold of me. I was a puffing, panting mess, while Raph was still raging, thrashing wildly in Mikey's grasp, and he was losing hold.

I didn't even know myself at that moment. Since Sensei died, I've been trying to build myself up to be a good sensei, a better leader, and a better brother. But it's hard, switching between wearing all those masks, and playing three different parts. And I can never play them right.

I turn my head away from Raph, still in a writhing fit. Standing at the shōji, peeking from behind the rice paper screen is Athena. Her dark eyes bore into mine. She looks away, and in an instant, she's gone.

"Oh, no," Raph said in between huffs. "Looks like Sleeping Beauty isn't too happy, eh?" His eyes flickered and snapped with fading anger.

I didn't know what to say, so I just asked Donnie to let me go. I got to my feet, and turned to face the three of them and told them that training was over, and that they could spend the rest of the day relaxing. I relished in seeing their varying expressions of disbelief settle on their faces. I stepped away so that they could talk about their plans amongst themselves. I didn't want any part in it.

Athena was back on the couch, curled underneath the afghan, arms crossed over her chest.

"I'm sorry you had to see that. It was..rather unbecoming of us." The moment those words left my mouth, I wished so badly that I could take them back - shell, who was I? An old, Victorian man?

Athena looked up at me, and surprisingly, a smile played on her lips. "S'okay." She picked at the threads of the afghan that were piling. "Could have been..worse."

"I..I, yeah, I guess so. Raph just likes to egg me on. I'm not usually so quick to anger.." I didn't know what to do with my hands, so I was stuck curling and uncurling my fingers.

"Raph is your brother." She raised a brow at me, and tapped the corner of a fluffy, red throw pillow that sat at her feet.

"Right, he..wears red. Mikey, he wears orange. And Donnie, he wears purple."

Her eyes lit up in an almost childish way when I said the word purple. "..I saw." She hummed.

"..He's the one that fixed me up. Nice."

She leaned over and reached for the TV remote - it was sandwiched between two cushions. She stared at it for a moment, before setting it aside. She looked over at the TV, and that harsh, overwhelming stare returned.

The TV, an old, thick box, switched on. Whoever had last been watching it had left it on the Travel Channel. An aerial shot of the Eiffel Tower filled the screen. I saw her relax. She picked up the little red throw pillow, and held it close to her chest. Athena lanced at me again, and patted the cushion beside her.

"Oh? You..you want me to sit with you?"

"This is your home. Right?" She asked.

And shell, she wasn't wrong. I nodded, and took a seat beside her, making sure to keep some space between us, just to keep her comfortable. My eyes swept over her sliced up arm, the 'lovebites' on her neck that just peeked out from behind the blonde curtain that fell down her shoulder.

There's so much I want to ask, but it's all going to have to wait. We just watched the screen as the Eiffel Tower faded into the French countryside.