UNANSWERED QUESTIONS
-8 YEARS
I am SO sorry for the delay. My computer died a painful death, but IT WAS RESURRECTED!!! Updates for the rest of the book will be regular again. Thanks for all the support in this time of HELL for me and my writing.
LEONARDO:
The first thing I knew was that I was not alone. The second thing I knew was that I was in the presence of someone I could most definately trust. I smiled faintly, still half asleep, as I felt warm, moist kisses along my neck. She moved down over my shoulder and back up at a slow, steady pace. I laughed quietly as she closed her lips around my adams apple and sucked gently, running her tongue over my skin in a small circle.
I reached for her and pulled her close to me, rubbing gently at the small of her back. Her kisses continued until finally she nuzzled her face beneath my chin and sighed, her breath warming my skin. "Good morning," she whispered.
I smiled, my eyes having not yet opened to the new day yet. "Mmm... Good morning."
She nudged me gently and pulled in closer. "Sleep well?"
"Mmm hmm."
"You slept late."
My eyes opened and I glanced down at her. "Really? What time is it?"
"Almost ten."
I was awake in an instant. "You're kidding!" I never slept this late.
She laughed quietly. "You have to go, I assume?" she whispered. "I thought about waking you up earlier so I could spend some time with you." She kissed my neck again and snuggled closer to me. "But I figured I'd let you sleep."
I turned and kissed her forehead, then reluctantly pulled away from her warm body. "Yeah, I gotta get home."
Her fingers trailed down my arm as I pulled away. "You'll be back tonight?"
"Yeah, I'll try," I answered, slipping my pads on. I knew I should not be out this late. I should have been home hours ago.
I kissed her, ran my hand down her warm, naked body one last time, then pulled myself away, out into the rainy morning. I headed down and into the sewers at a slow jog. I never slept that late. I was still considering that as I climbed down the ladder into the lair and immediately saw Raphael.
I glared at him. "So did you finally decide to come home?" I shot at him.
He stared at me for a moment, as if I had just grown a second head, then shook his head slightly, half-laughing in what looked and sounded like disbelief. He didn't speak as he pushed past me and walked up the stairs to the exit. I watched him go, anger burning inside of me, and then turned to the living room. The door to Donny's room was open and I saw him inside.
"Hey, Don."
He glanced over his shoulder at me, then went rigid and turned. Beyond him, I saw Michaelangelo lying on his bed. I blinked a few times at the scene. "Is something wrong?"
Don's head dropped. "Leo..." he started hesitantly.
I felt every muscle in my body tense. I stepped forward, into his room. "What?" I asked, dread creeping over me. "What happened?"
He looked up slowly. "Mikey tried to kill himself last night."
I felt my eyes widen to the size of saucers. "He did what?"
"He's gonna be okay," he whispered. "But... there was a while there where we weren't sure."
I leaned back against the wall for support, a million thoughts hitting me all at once. Was I really hearing this? I ran back over my last conversation with my brother.
"How are you doing?"
"M'okay."
"You sure?"
"No. But I'll lie if you really want me to."
He'd been so quiet, so withdrawn. So alone. I knew something was wrong then. "I'm so sorry, Mikey... I should've been here last night." I didn't do anything about it.
"Is there anything I can do?"
"No."
"If you need anything..."
"Don't worry about me."
"Oh my god," I whispered, my voice catching.
"He's alright," Donatello assured me again. "But I still don't know what he took. Raph and I have... been up with him all night."
Guilt swept over me. I hid my face in my hands. "He..." I stammered. "Oh, god."
MICHAELANGELO:
"Do you want to die?" The voice is so familiar, and yet I can't place it. "Do you believe in God?"
"I don't know what I believe right now."
"Do you believe you are alive?"
I shake my head. "No."
"You have left them."
"I know."
"They'll fall. Without you. This does not phase you?"
I open my eyes. I see nothing. I consider the words. I realize that it doesn't hurt here. I don't want to leave. I know I can't stay. I think of heaven. I think of hell. I think of the man on the street, the price of death. Money could buy anything these days. I think of love. I think of pain. I think of life. I think of my brothers. I can see them. Standing around my grave. Raphael at a distance. No tears, only pain. Torn apart. Totally destroyed. Our family. Gone.
"I... don't know anymore."
"You have a responsibility. All of you. To help each other."
"I can't."
"You must."
"It's over."
"Life is not finished until you allow it to be finished."
"I can't go back."
"You must."
"I can't."
"Michaelangelo..."
"Please."
A new scene. Raphael. He's at a distance. Leo and Don are on their knees on the grass beside a freshly dug grave. He's watching. He's crying. Silent tears. Regret. Guilt. Pain. Could I do that to him? Could I force that on him? I have no right to break him that way...
"Please..."
I opened my eyes. I knew exactly where I was. I knew exactly what had happened. I didn't have to ask. I didn't have to look around. I knew.
Tears burned. My insides hurt. My heart ached. My eyes came to rest on Raphael. He wasn't asleep, but he was pretending. It was quiet. It was dark. A candle burned. I could feel tubes in my body. "You're alive."
The voice was cold, heartless. I felt nothing. "No," I protested, even though I knew he was right.
"You ever try anything like that again, Mikey, and you won't be," he swore. "If the drugs don't kill you, I will."
"I wasn't trying to die," I whispered. "That just happened."
"Well, what the hell were you tryin' to do?" No emotion. His voice matched mine. "Make it go away." I felt pain.
"It ain't gonna go away, Mike." Heartless. "Learn to live with it."
"Like you?" I breathed.
"Like all of us."
Silence.
"You don't," I finally managed.
"Don't what?"
"Live with the pain."
"I don't take drugs to try and drown it out, either," he snapped. "I don't try to kill myself."
"I shouldn't have been there."
He paused. "Where?"
"With you. Tonight."
"That was almost a week ago, Michaelangelo."
The words made no sense. I chose to ignore them. "I could've hurt her."
"You did hurt her, remember?"
No. I didn't. My eyes closed again. Regret. Shame. "I should've died."
He sighed. "Shut up, Mike."
I shut my mouth. I felt pain. I wished for something more than this.
LEONARDO:
Michaelangelo's eyes opened and he moaned slightly as he looked around. I watched him for a moment, then moved toward the bed. His eyes darted to me, but he didn't speak as I sat down at his feet. He looked away again, and closed his eyes but I knew he was awake. "You're alive," I observed.
"Mmm," he agreed, not opening his eyes.
"Why would you do that?" I asked, curling my legs underneath me. That question had been haunting me from the moment I'd seen him, and I studied him carefully as he thought of an answer.
"I wasn't trying to, Leo."
"You could've said something," I managed, my voice catching. "Mike, I didn't know you were..." I ran out of words and looked away. Tears stung my eyes as I realized what had really happened here. It hadn't even been a week. My brother had attempted suicide and I wasn't even there for him.
"Don't you ever do that again, Michaelangelo," I growled at him, forcing all of the authority I could find in myself into those words. "Do you hear me?"
"I hear you," he whispered.
I hid my face in my hands as I felt tears sting my eyes. "How long have I been out?" he finally asked.
"Three days," I managed, through my hands.
He paused for a moment. "Raph said a week."
I looked up at him, brushing the tears away first. They hadn't had a chance to fall yet. "Raph's been gone ever since he brought you back."
He shook his head. "I talked to him. When I first woke up."
I sighed. "You dreamed it, Mikey. I've been here the whole time. He wasn't."
He blinked a few times. "But it was real."
"A lot of things are real when you're in a coma."
There was a long silence. I stared down at the floor, jaw clenched. I should've been here. I should've known something was wrong. It was my responsibility.
"It's not your fault, Leo."
I looked up. "What?"
He sighed deeply. "I said it's not your fault. There was nothing you could've done."
He was reading my mind. I wondered if he realized it. "I should've been here," I whispered.
"No," he mumbled. "It wouldn't have done any good." He pushed himself up into a sitting position and stared down at the blanket. "I wasn't looking for someone to talk to. I was looking for someone to make the pain stop. And you can't do that, Leo; you're not God."
My eyes dropped again. "I still should've been here."
There was a long silence. I heard him sigh. "Leo?" I looked up and met his stare, but didn't answer. "I'll make you a deal."
"What?" I asked quietly.
"I'll forget I ever did anything so stupid. I'll never even think of doing anything like it again. Any of it, even the stuff you don't know about. I'll promise never to do it again if you promise me you won't blame yourself for this."
I sighed. "I promise."
"Give me your word."
I stopped. I knew I would tell him just about anything at that point, but to flat out lie to him was not within my power to do. Not even if I wanted to. I looked up and our eyes locked. "Mike..."
"Please," he interrupted. "I need you to do this for me. I don't want to be haunted by all the ways that my decisions have hurt you. Please just promise me this. Lie to me, I don't care. But I want to hear you say it. Swear it."
I climbed off the bed and sat down on the edge of it, closer to him. I watched the tears trickle from his eyes as I placed my hand over his. I would have given him my right arm if it could have stopped his pain. "I swear," I whispered.
His eyes closed slowly. He sobbed quietly, his shoulders shaking. "I'm so sorry, Leo."
I leaned in and hugged him. He clung to me like I was his life support, his body shaking as he cried. "Tell her I'm sorry, Leo," he pleaded.
"Tell who?" I asked, trying to pull away. He wouldn't let me, and I didn't fight him.
"Just tell Raph," he sobbed. "He'll know. Please. I'm so sorry."
I held him, not knowing or really even caring what he meant at this point. "Okay," I promised. "It's okay."
RAPHAEL:
I heard a faint whisper behind me and knew that I wasn't alone. Anyone else probably would not have even acknowledged it. But I'd been trained to notice everything. And I could feel each one of his steps as he approached me. He was slow, hesitant, like he wasn't sure if he was welcome or if I was going to turn around and kill him where he stood. I let him come, keeping my back turned to him.
He leaned forward on the ledge beside me and for a moment, it was silent. "I'm sorry," he finally whispered.
I didn't answer. Part of me wanted to snap at him, to threaten him that if he ever did it again, I wouldn't help him. For all that I actually did, anyways. He'd pulled himself through. I just got him home.
"I guess I just... don't know enough to live your kind of life."
I closed my eyes, sighing deeply. "I don't do drugs, Mikey."
"I know that," he whispered, resignedly.
"What you did was fucking stupid."
"The whole thing was stupid, not just the drugs," he mumbled. "And maybe that's why I took the damn things in the first place, to make everything else that I was doing not seem so bad."
I considered that for a moment. "If you didn't want to do it, why did you?" I demanded, not looking at him. "I gave you plenty of opportunities to walk away."
"I didn't want to walk away, Raphael," he sighed. "I wanted to do something to make the pain go away."
"So all this is about him?" I challenged. "Because he died, you're gonna go fuck up your life?"
I shook my head slightly, disbelieving. God, he was dramatic. So fucking immature. And I hated myself, because I'd known that. I'd known from the moment he showed up in that bar that he wasn't supposed to be there. In battle, we'd always been taught to fight side by side. Not to take on too much, to rely on each other for help and watch each other's back, but stay out of each other's way. But in life, it was different. In life, as hard as it was for me to understand, he couldn't stand on his own. And I'd let him down. Goddamn it, Mike, you're twenty-two fucking years old. Why can't you stand on your own two feet?
"It's not about him," he choked. "We were falling apart before he left us."
"Look, just stop it, okay?" I shot at him. "Just knock it off with the melodramatics. You got your point across already, alright?"
I felt him tense up. He pushed away from the wall, angry, and spun to leave. I let him go. At this point, I didn't really care where he went. But he stopped a few steps away and turned back to me. "Honestly, Raph," he shot at me through clenched teeth. "Do you even care that he's gone?"
I glared down at the street below me. "Mikey, he's dead, okay? No amount of regret is gonna bring him back. He wanted to die and you had to let him go."
"That's not what I asked."
His voice staggered, and I knew he was crying. Somehow, I didn't really care. "Honestly?" I growled. "He was dead to me a long time ago. I didn't even know him anymore. Maybe you did and I'm real sorry for your loss. But that's no reason to throw your fucking life away."
"Fine," he choked. "But if I had died, would you have cared about me?"
His words hit hard. For a moment, I was caught off guard, and I didn't open my mouth. I felt him leave before I had a chance to think of an answer for him. And I was alone again.
MADONNA:
The window opened, and I turned, sitting straight up in the bed. The figure who entered was familiar. I felt relief, annoyance, and anger all at once. "Where on Earth have you been?" I asked, swinging my legs to the floor.
He stopped just inside the room, and didn't move. I clutched the blanket around me as I studied him. I was clothed, but the breeze from the window was cool. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "I... had some things happen."
The tired, sad tone of his voice warned me not to attack him. I put my own emotions in check and watched him for a moment. "I was worried about you," I informed quietly. "You could've called me."
His head bowed. "I'm sorry. There was a lot going on. I didn't think about that."
"For a week?" I questioned. "Leo, that's forever. I thought something had happened to you."
He looked up slowly. "My brother tried to commit suicide."
I was taken slightly aback. For a moment, I couldn't speak. "Oh my god, is he okay?"
Leo nodded and walked to the bed, sitting down beside me. He'd left the window open, but at the moment, I didn't care. "He's..." he started. "He's alright. I just... I should've been there."
I studied him for a moment. "You don't have to stay, Leo," I whispered sincerely. "If you need to go, I understand. I'm just glad you're okay."
He shook his head. "No, he went out. He's not even home."
"Where did he go?"
He sighed. "I don't know. I can't follow him everywhere." He looked away. "Hell, if he really wants to do it, we got a whole goddamn room full of weapons in our own home."
"How did he...?" I began. The words were lost as I tried to think of how to finish the sentence.
"He took something. Drugs. He doesn't know what it was and Donny can't even guess. I guess he got real violent before he passed out and none of us can even think what might have caused that."
"It may have been a known drug that just reacted differently because he's not human," I offered.
He nodded. "That's what Don said."
I rested a hand on his shoulder. "I'm so sorry, Leo."
He sighed deeply. "He's okay. I just..." He looked up and met my stare. "I need to spend some time with him. So if I'm not around much in the next few weeks..."
I shook my head. "Don't even think of worrying about it," I assured him.
He looked away. I watched him closely, my heart filling with a sense of love. He was so dedicated. I remembered how little I had seen him before his sensei had died. It was only after he was gone, when there was nothing else that could be done, that he allowed himself to be comforted. I thought of how wounded he must be right now, but knew better than to try and console him. His own pain, in his mind, would have to wait. His brother needed him. I was not about to get in the way of that.
I released the blanket and put my arms around his neck, hugging him close for a moment. He sighed, and his arms slipped around my waist. There was very little, if any emotion, but I was fine with that. I knew why. I didn't try and fight him. I kissed his cheek and pulled away, placing my hands on the sides of his face.
"You take as long as he needs, Leo," I whispered. "Just come back to me when it's over."
He stared at me for a moment and a faint, tired smile crossed his face. He reached up between us and cupped my chin, then pulled my lips to his. He kissed me, slow and gentle, then pulled away slowly. "I promise," he breathed.
I nuzzled the side of his face, then moved back, away from him. He ran his hand over my hair, then down my arm, and stood up. I watched as he walked back to the window and slipped outside silently. And I wondered when I'd see him again.
