I know what you're thinking.

I mean, I would be thinking it too if I was you.

Your thinking what a bitch I am. After everything they did for me, After all the kind words, I was still talking about putting them in a lab somewhere. Selling them to the highest bidder.

And selling my soul in the barging.

You're probably right in thinking that. I guess I am one. After a lifetime of trying to stay human, I find myself more and more called on to have make choices that mean I'm less than I want to be. Don't get me wrong. I'm not complainin'. That happens, and you live with it. It's just a fact.

If you are thinking that, I can't blame you.

Some of you might be thinking of me with pity. Please don't. I don't deserve it. Splinter and his boys, they deserve kind thoughts. Pity. Not me. I had hard choices to make, but they were choices I earned. I mean, I went looking for them. I decided to go after the "prize". I don't know if I'm a bitch or not, but...I don't deserve pity. I know that.

All I can give you is one image. That's all. One thing that I hope makes my heart a little more clear. A little more real, and a little less dark.

Look here for a moment in my memory. See this? One picture of me, laying in that warm little sewer room with Rabbit in my arms. She's laying wrapped up, but not able to sleep. And so she asks me the same thing she always asks me when she can't sleep.

"Tell me 'bout the house Cat."

So I talk, and I tell her about the big white house I saw once, a thousand years ago before I knew what hell was. When I was a child like her. When I could truly say I was innocent. That one weekend in Massachusetts, in the back of the car that belonged to my mother's best friend, Jeanine .

"There's this little town called Northampton" I tell her "And the streets are full of shops with everything you could ever want in them. There's a candy shop, Rabbit, called Sweeties and they have containers full of gumdrops, and licorice, and chocolate coins. We'll go there someday, and you can pick out all the candies you like best. And there's flowers everywhere, and people on the street who play guitars and sing. And a store that sells nothing but popcorn in every flavor you like, and lemonade in the summer when its hot."

Rabbit giggles "The house, Cat...."

"There's a big white house with tall green trees and a yard big enough for a pony. And a long back porch with a swing. And inside there's an old bathtub with claw feet, and it fills with hot water on cold winter nights and bubbles...."

"And a fire" Says Rabbit "We can have a fireplace right?"

"A fireplace" I agree "And we'll read the secret garden there when the fire burns. And upstairs is a little room just right for a Rabbit. Inside is......"

That's the picture. Two dirty, hungry girls seeing this dream. Its the same story I tell her every time. The same "Someday" house, the same escape to the small town full of color and people. A place where I would never have to steel again, and Rabbit would never have to hide in an ally wondering if this time she was going to get away.

Its not an excuse. Its not. I know it sounds like it is.

I know it sounds like it.

" This is so wrong, and I still want the money. I want to give Rabbit what I don't have. I want to give shadow what we don't have. And I know its wrong, because........"

That's what I said to him, but I couldn't finish. I had to send him away making myself a villain.

"Because I like you." I would have said if I could "Because He loves you, and you all love him...just like fathers and children are supposed to be. I can tell. Because you're kind to me, and I....Like you."

Its true. And I'm a little jealous too.

......like fathers and children are supposed to be.....

Oh Mikey. I'm so glad you don't know that not all fathers love their children. No. Not at all.