Comfort

Oh hold me now I feel contagious
And now I'm the only place that you've left to go
She cries that life is like
Some movie black and white
Dead actors faking lines
Over and over and over again

-Fuel
"Hemmorage"

LEONARDO:

His jaw was halfway to the floor. "Oh no," he stammered in disbelief. "You have fucking got to be kidding me…"

I sighed. I'd tried to warn him. He turned to me, his eyes wide with shock. "Tell me you're not fucking her, Leo!"

I stared at him, shocked that he would even suggest that. "Raph, you should know me better than that."

"What the fuck is she doing in your bed?" he demanded.

"Sleeping," she answered for herself.

He spun to her. "Did I ask you to open your mouth, bitch?"

"Raphael, knock it off!" I shot at him, authoritatively. "You're not gonna talk like that in here."

He turned back to me. "Did you hear one word of what I said?" he demanded, shock and disbelief still lining his features. At least he wasn't challenging me. "And how the hell did she end up sleeping in your bed?"

"We were talking," I informed him. "She fell asleep. It's nothing for you to be concerned about Raph. And at any rate, I didn't know I had to answer to you for my actions."

Anger flashed, but he held it back. "Leo, I am totally serious about what I said."

"I know," I nodded calmly.

"How do you know?"

"I told him," Sasha answered. He turned and stared at her in disbelief.

She breathed deep, and looked away. "Raph, I…" she started. "I don't know what you think but… I'm not proud of who or what I've become since Jackson died. I need help."

He stared at her, gaping. "Help? Sasha, you need serious therapy if you think I'm gonna believe that after that demonstration last night."

She began to cry. I saw tears pool in her eyes, but she tried to hide them. "Raphael, please," I sighed.

"No," he shot at me. "I don't buy this. She's fucking lying through her teeth and you're eating every word of it."

"Dammit, Raphael, what do you want from me?" she cried, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. "I can't change my past!"

She stood and ran from the room, past both of us. The door slammed behind her. I sighed, and turned to my brother. "Geez, Raph," I sighed. "Let it not be said that you're non-confrontational."

"You wanna tell me what the fuck is goin' on here?" he demanded. "What the hell is she doing in your room and what did she tell you?"

"She told me about her job. And that she doesn't want to do it anymore."

"Bull-fucking-shit!"

I glared at him. "She came to me, Raph. I didn't go begging her to tell me what she was doing."

"Uh huh," he answered cynically. "And she ended up in your bed."

He wasn't going to let that go. "I did not sleep with her, Raphael. I can't believe you'd even think that!"

He studied me for a moment, determining if I was lying. I was still shocked. The thought hadn't even crossed my mind. She'd come back in the middle of the night, crying, and knocked on my door. I wasn't asleep, and I'd invited her in rather than going into the living room. There was a reason for that. Raphael was sleeping on the couch, and I didn't want to bother him. We'd talked, she broke down, and she fell asleep. I didn't want to wake her up, so I let her sleep. And I slept on the floor. I didn't mind, really. But I couldn't believe that my brother didn't know me better than to know that that was all that happened!

"Alright," he mumbled, looking away. "Fine. I believe you. Just because I know you're not like that." He glanced back at me. "Did she tell you anything else?"

The tension in the room suddenly skyrocketed. I noticed it. I knew he did, too. "Like what?"

He didn't answer, just stared at me with a serious expression that I couldn't read. "Anything," he mumbled. His voice was as emotionless as his face. He was hiding something.

"She said a lot of things, Raph. We talked for almost two hours. What do you want to know?"

He studied me carefully and turned away. "Nothing," he mumbled, reaching for the door handle. "Forget it."

Author feels the need to cut in- You all didn't REALLY think Leo was actually DOING anything with her, didja? ;) Awww… give the poor guy some credit. LOL Okay, I'll shut up now. ;)

RAPHAEL:

"Raph?"

"Go. Away."

He cracked the door open and poked his head inside. I was off of the bed in a flash. "Dammit, Mike, what the fuck do you want!"

"Hey, dude, chill out, okay?" he answered timidly. "I'm not trying to start anything. It's just that…"

He studied me for a moment, as if determining whether or not I was prepared to kill him. He must have decided that I wasn't, because he slipped into the room and closed the door behind him. "Is this about Sasha?"

I tensed. "Is what about Sasha?" I snapped.

He shrugged and cut his gaze to the floor. "Well, I uh… I know there's something between you two and…"

In a flash, I had him pinned to the wall. He didn't have time to react, and didn't really try to fight back. Why should he? He was on my turf, after all. "There. Is. Nothing. Between me and Sasha," I growled.

He stared at me for a moment. The look on his face wasn't angry or defensive, although I sure as hell would've expected it to be by this time. And it wasn't really disbelief. It was something that vaguely resembled concern. I held him by his shoulders for a moment, studying the expression. Something broke inside of me as I realized what I was doing, and I let him go, turning my back to him.

"I'm sorry, okay?" I sighed, my shoulders slouching. "It's just… I've got a lot going on right now."

"I know that, bro," he answered. "I can tell. And it's okay. All I wanted to say is that…" He paused, considering his words. "Well, if you'd like to come out and join the land of the living, Sasha's not here."

No, of course she wasn't. She was out screwing people for money. Damn her. I didn't want that kind of casual sex anywhere near me. She needed to leave. "We ordered a couple pizzas. So if you're interested…"

He didn't say anything more. I listened to him walk out of the room. I sat down on the edge of the bed and buried my face in my hands. I had to stop this. I had to stop thinking about her. I had to just avoid her and forget about her and let the past stay in the past.

God, I wished it was that easy.

KATARINA:

I'd been at work since 9:00 this morning, and it was supposed to have been my day off. I was counting on a day off. I needed it. But it wasn't going to happen. I had five hours, then I was supposed to be at work again. That wasn't enough time to sleep. It really wasn't enough time to do anything. I should've just stayed there and worked the 10:00. After all, I'd done the noon, the five, and the six. What was one more show? I sighed, exhausted.

The management at Channel 3 was interviewing people. But they weren't hiring. The simple fact was, nobody would take the job once they saw how the employees were treated. And how we were paid. April made decent money. So did our chief meteorologist. Other than that, the pay sucked.

Underground, I made a conscious effort to stay alert. I didn't need Raphael scaring the crap out of me again. I did run into somebody, literally. But it wasn't Raphael.

"Whatcha doin'?" I asked as Sasha as she struggled to regain her balance on her high heels.

She laughed. "Just goin' out," she smiled. "To a club or something. You wanna go with me?"

I considered it, but not very seriously. "No, I gotta stay up all night so I should probably get some sleep."

She nodded. "I give you credit, Kat. I don't know how you handle that job."

I smiled. "To tell you the truth, it's been really rough lately."

"I'll bet. Guess you don't have a lot of free time, huh?"

I shook my head. "No. I mean, balancing eighteen credit hours at school and a full-time job is hard enough but with all this overtime…" I sighed and ran my fingers through my hair.

"It must be really hard on your relationship with Raph."

I smiled faintly. "Yeah. It is. He's a good guy though. He tries to understand. But I know it's hard."

She nodded, a sympathetic expression on her face. "You two don't get to spend much time together, do you?"

I considered that for a moment. "No. We really don't see each other much. I mean, except for when he does stupid stuff like showing up at my work."

She laughed. "Does he seriously do that?"

"Yeah," I grinned.

"Geez, doesn't he realize how dangerous that is?"

I shrugged. "He's ninja. And he's got a bit of an ego." I laughed out loud. "Seems to think he's invincible."

"Well, if he hasn't gotten caught yet… who knows. Maybe he is!"

We both laughed. We made small talk for a few minutes, before I glanced at my watch. "Oh, I'm sorry," Sasha mumbled. "I guess you need to get back and get some sleep."

"Yeah," I sighed.

She put her arms around my neck and hugged me for a moment. "Well, have a good couple of hours. I'll talk to you later."

"Yeah," I answered as we pulled away. "We really need to just sit down and catch up."

She smiled. "Good idea. Sometime when you're not so tired, though."

We smiled, said our good-byes, and went our separate ways.

AMY:

I sat on the couch quietly, observing the scene. "Mike, grab me a beer will you?" Raphael called over the back of the couch. I studied him for a moment, careful not to seem like I was staring. Music was playing in the background, and we were all sitting in the living room, doing nothing in particular. Although I was still nervous being here, the socializing was helping. Even if I was watching more than actually participating.

"Anyone else?" Mike asked as he stared into the fridge.

There was a collective "no" and Michaelangelo grabbed a can of beer along with his Mountain Dew. As he turned to Raphael, he pulled his arm back, like he was going to hurl the can like a football. Raphael glared at him. "Don't even think about it."

Mike laughed and lowered his arm. He handed the can to Raphael and backed away, a smirk on his face. There was a click as Raph pried it open, and was immediately sprayed with alcohol. "Ah!" he cried, jumping off the couch and trying to put distance between him and the erupting can.

Mike was doubled over laughing from the other side of the room. Donny hid a smile behind his hand. "You better run, bro," he suggested as foam spilled over Raph's hand.

Raphael set the fizzing can on the coffee table and flicked the beer off of his hand. He turned and glared at Mike. "You are going to die," he threatened.

"Uh huh," Mikey grinned. "But you gotta catch me first."

In a flash, Raphael was over the back of the couch. Mike was suddenly gone. Raph darted after him, nearly knocking over his unsuspecting girlfriend as she rounded the corner. "Hey!" she called after him. I don't think he stopped. She looked after him for a moment before turning back to the room. "What was that about?"

Donny glanced at her and smiled, but said nothing. As she approached, she saw the beer on the coffee table. "Nice," she mumbled, a smile crossing her face, too.

She glanced over at me and I tensed instinctively. "Hey, Amy. How are you doin'?"

I forced a smile. "I'm okay," I choked.

She set her backpack on the sofa and greeted Leo and Donny. A moment later, Kat was standing behind me. She rubbed my shoulders gently. "You guys already have dinner?" she asked. I relaxed slowly. These guys sure did touch each other a lot. Not that there was anything really wrong with that. It just seemed strange to me, when all my life I'd been taught the concept of personal space.

"Yeah, there's some pizza in the fridge," Leo mumbled.

Kat wandered into the kitchen and returned with a piece of pizza and a beer. "I'm thinkin' I need to go shopping," she mumbled. "Y'all are running out of food again."

Donny grinned at her. "Hey, we survived twenty years without shopping," he reminded her.

"Yeah, but you never ate as good as you have since I've been stocking your fridge," she smiled.

"This is true."

She sat down on the arm of the couch. A few minutes later, Raphael returned, holding a set of nunchucks. Donny laughed. "Uh oh. Where's Mikey?"

Raph grinned, shrugged, and tossed the weapons on the floor. He walked behind Kat, circling his arm around her shoulders. "Hi, babe," he greeted, kissing her cheek. "You home for a while?"

"Gotta work again at midnight," she sighed.

"What's with all these crazy hours, lately?" Leo asked. Michaelangelo appeared near the entrance to the lair. He was soaking wet, but smiling. I didn't want to know was he was drenched with.

Raphael walked around Kat and sat down on the couch. "They had four producers quit, one right after another," Kat explained as Raph slipped his hand into hers. "So now they're scrambling to fill in the holes."

She slid off the arm of the couch and into Raphael's lap. He wrapped his arms around her and buried his face in her hair. "One of these days, you're gonna drop dead, you know that?" Leo grinned. "I don't know how you do it."

She smiled and Raph whispered something into her ear. Suddenly, her jaw dropped. She jerked away, shoving him hard. "Raph!" she laughed, shocked.

He grinned and pulled her close again. I smiled at the scene and sank deeper into the chair I was sitting in, exhaustion seeping into my body.

DONATELLO:

It took a week for the pneumonia to fully clear up. I was relieved when it finally did, because I was running out of antibiotics. At that point, it was time to decide what we were going to do next. The police had found their suspect. Amy said it wasn't her father and quietly expressed her concern that the "innocent" man would be charged with the crime.

Her story was radical. It was a little too radical. But I believed her. The more time she spent with us, and the less hysteric she got, the more sense she made. And whether or not her father had killed anyone, I had no doubt that he had done something, though not necessarily what she believed he had, to her.

At first, I'd questioned if she could be mentally ill. But the more time I spent with her, the more convinced I became that she wasn't. She was just traumatized, and displaying symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder. She didn't talk much, and when she did she often sounded like a scared child. It had led me to question her level of maturity, too. But I was convinced that my knee-jerk reaction to that had been wrong as well. There was a difference between a personality and a learned behavior. And I was becoming increasingly convinced that her present state was nothing like who she really was. Her true personality had been suppressed, through years of... whatever she'd gone through.

"What are you doing up?" I asked as I walked into the kitchen. It was after midnight, and she was washing dishes again. That seemed a little unnatural to me. But she seemed determined to do it, night after night.

"I don't know," she mumbled. "I couldn't sleep."

She continued to sort through the dirty dishes, her mind obviously preoccupied elsewhere. "You need anything?"

She turned to me for a moment and smiled faintly. "Oh no, Donny," she smiled. "No, I'm okay. I'm just... I don't know." The smile fell. "Confused."

Big surprise there. "Anything I can do?"

She rested her hands in the soapy water, suddenly still. The space between us got remarkably serious. Then she leaned forward on the counter. She shook her head slightly, eyes closed. "No, I guess not. I just... I've had a lot of time to think now, and that kind of scares me." She looked up and our eyes met. "I'm frightened by the things that I'm realizing."

I leaned against the doorframe. "Like what?"

She rinsed her hands and dried them on a multi-colored towel before running her fingers through her hair. "Well, just... I don't know. A lot of stuff, really. I mean... With all of this that's happened, I really feel like... I don't even know who I am anymore."

One theory, confirmed. "That's okay," I assured her. "You have some time to figure that out."

She forced a smile. "I keep meaning to thank you guys," she mumbled, looking away. "But I guess I just... don't know how to say it. You really don't know how much this means to me. I mean, Sasha's been there for me, ever since I moved here. But there's only so much she can do. I mean, without a place of her own and all. I don't know what I'd do right now if not for you guys."

I studied her for a moment. So Sasha was homeless. Somehow, that didn't surprise me. "Hey, it's alright," I assured her. "It's no problem, having you around." I hesitated. "But you do realize that sooner or later, we're gonna have to do something."

She breathed deep, eyes closed, and let the air out of her nose, slowly. "I know," she whispered. "I can't stay here forever. It's just... I don't really know what to do next."

"I still think you should go to the police."

I waited for her reaction. She shook her head slowly, staring down at the floor. "It's... I know. I should. I mean, he killed my mother and my brother and I'm the only one who knows about it, right?"

She looked up at me, a pleading, pained look in her eyes. "It's just that... Donny, I don't know if I can face him again. And I know I won't live with him. God, I'd... I'll kill myself first."

I said nothing. She sighed in the long silence that followed. "I'm just a kid, you know? That's how the police treat me. Just a stupid kid." She brushed her eyes, determined not to start crying again. I felt my heart ache with sympathy pains for her.

"You know, when the police came to take us away," she mumbled, "they didn't even tell us what was going on. They didn't tell us anything. And they wouldn't let us talk in court. It was like they didn't even care that we didn't want to go with him." She sniffled and rubbed at her eyes. "Well, that I didn't want to go, at least. Timmy was only one at the time."

"And you were eleven?"

She nodded and there was a moment of silence. "That's when it started getting really bad, you know?" she sighed. "When he had full custody and he got a protective order against her, saying she was threatening him. I don't know if she ever really did. But I wouldn't blame her. She just... she couldn't stand it, knowing what was happening and that there wasn't anything she could do about it."

"When did you first tell her?" I asked quietly.

"When I was six."

"Did she believe you?"

She nodded. "Oh, yeah. She confronted him about it and he didn't deny it. Said a whole buncha shit about how he had a problem and needed help. Started crying. I heard the whole thing."

"And she stayed with him?"

Amy swallowed hard. "They got a separation. He went to counseling. So did I, but I don't think it really helped. When they got back together, he didn't touch me for a long time. I started to feel kind of normal. And then one night he showed up in my room again after I had a nightmare, and it started all over again."

The pain in her voice was evident. I didn't want to believe her. It was hard to think that someone could hurt their own child like that. But she was silently screaming for help. She needed someone to believe her. And it was obvious that I was the only person available. I pushed my own emotions aside and approached her slowly.

"I'm so sorry, Amy."

She wrapped her arms around me and I hugged her protectively, feeling her tears soak my skin. She cried silently for a few minutes, and then pulled away. "I'm sorry," she whispered, wiping her eyes roughly. "I'm okay now."

"Hey, it's alright," I told her. "You can cry. It doesn't bother me."

That was a lie. But she needed to hear it. She smiled through her tears. "Thanks, Donny," she whispered, clutching her arms over her chest. She smiled faintly and closed her eyes, dropping her head. "You guys are..."

She never finished. I put an arm around her shoulders. "Come on. You need to sleep."

She pulled back. "No, I'd really… rather not."

I studied her for a moment, confused. "Why? You must be tired."

She looked away. "Yeah, I just… I don't want to deal with the nightmares again. I'm not tired enough yet to sleep without them."

A smile crossed her face, a brave attempt at hiding her fear. But it was perfectly evident in her eyes.

A single tear ran down her cheek, past her smile, and she looked away. She was trying so hard to brave this. My heart softened and I turned her to me, wrapping my arms around her. She buried her face in my shoulder, and I felt the hot tears that flowed from her eyes. I held her close, wishing I could take her pain away but knowing that there was nothing I could do.

We stood still in the kitchen for a good ten minutes. I tried to think of what to do. I wasn't entirely sure. My people skills were kind of lacking. But I had to do something. I couldn't just stand back and watch her suffer like this. "Amy?" I finally questioned.

She pulled away and wiped the tears off her cheeks with the back of her hand. "What?"

"You think it would help if I…" Hmm… How do I say this without giving her the wrong impression? "…If I stayed with you while you slept?"

She studied me for a moment, trying to determine my motive. I immediately tensed under her gaze. "I mean," I quickly justified. "Not anything like… I just mean…"

She forced a pathetic smile and cast her eyes to the floor. For a moment, she was quiet. "Yeah," she finally whispered. "I think it would."

I put my arm around her shoulders and she wiped her eyes again. I hesitated in the living room, wondering which room I should go into. I decided on mine, just because there was less of a chance that someone would take the initiative to go ahead and open up my bedroom door. I was well aware of the rumors that would start amongst my three brothers if they knew anything about this.

I closed the door behind me and stepped away from her. I lit a candle on the bedside table, just so that it wasn't pitch black, and she looked around. "Wow," she mumbled. She walked over to one of my computers. "This is ancient," she smiled.

"Yeah, I know," I answered. "I use it as a dumb terminal. It manages the security system. Sort of. It's kinda hard to explain."

She glanced at me and smiled, genuinely this time. "Where's your mainframe?"

I nodded toward another computer. "Right there. Eighty gig hard drive and enough memory to make even my largest programs pretty instantaneous."

"Pentium Four board?"

"Six actually," I answered, inspecting her carefully. "I'm testing a new prototype."

She laughed quietly and nodded, looking over the machine. "I had to piece together my computer," she laughed quietly. "Babysitting money. 16 meg of RAM and hardly any disk space. I can't even get online without crashing it."

I smiled. "That's harsh."

"Yeah," she grinned back. "My friend and I wrote this one program that could scan through the sectors of the hard drive and locate a particular string of written information. Kind of like an unerase program. And it totally destroyed my whole computer because it was too advanced."

I chuckled quietly. "I never wouldn't though you to be the computer geek type."

She brushed her hair out of her eyes. "Yeah, well. Glad I could amuse you."

The smile fell from her face as we stared at each other for a moment. I glanced at the clock next to the flickering light. "It's three o'clock in the morning, you know," I reminded her.

She nodded and looked away. "Yeah."

I sat down on the edge of the bed. "Come here," I invited, laying down on my side, on top of the blankets. I lifted the covers and she slipped underneath them silently, settling on her back.

"Go to sleep," I mumbled, resting my arm on her stomach. She breathed deep and closed her eyes.

For a moment, it was silent. I began to relax. I'd never come anywhere remotely close to having somebody in my bed, and I still wasn't sure I liked the idea. There's a big difference between sleeping and having sex...

Yeah, I know that. Still weird though…

I looked down on her and brushed her hair out of her eyes. I wonder why they call it "sleeping together" when it has nothing to do with sleep…

"Donny?"

I opened my eyes, my thoughts interrupted, and stared at her. She was still, her eyes closed. "Yeah?"

She hesitated. "Thanks."

I couldn't help but smile. "Sleep, Amy," I instructed quietly.

She breathed deep again, and it was the last I heard from her until morning.