Disturbing Recollection
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Mikey stood up from the couch as Donny appeared form his and Leo's room, closing the door gently and quietly behind him.
"Is he okay?" Mikey asked, finding himself slightly cold with the after shock of seeing three bright lights in a triangular shape pass over him less than a half hour ago.
Donny nodded, and Mikey found himself relaxing at the calm expression on his brother's features. Leo had been put to bed as soon as they got back into the lair, though they were all slightly relieved when they had gotten below ground level that Leo had regained himself and was talking normally; but he seemed shaken, so Donny suggested he should get some rest, and he helped him into bed.
"Yeah, Splinter's with him, he's just tired, as am I," Donny said, rubbing his hand over his face. He stopped and looked at Mike. "Did you see . . . what I thought I saw, flying in the air, passing right over us?"
Mikey nodded wordlessly, and he looked behind him at his other brother in Splinter's armchair. Raph had not said a thing since they returned to the lair. He too was stunned at what he saw in the park.
They were all silent for a minute while the same thoughts ran through all of their minds.
"Soooo . . ." Mikey said slowly. "I guess they weren't prank reports then, huh?" He fixed a weak smile on his face, while Donny reflected it, chewing his lower lip in deep concentration.
//
"Splinter I don't know what happened," Leo said, sitting up in bed. His Sensei was sat on the edge, watching his son with an expression Leo couldn't read. The other three brothers had told him what they had been doing in the park when something triangular flew over them, and then they described Leo's 'fit'. Leo himself had just told his father the feelings that had overcome him.
"I felt like I was, I dunno, a kid, and I was really scared," Leo continued. "But . . . even though it was – totally strange and amazing – I feel I shouldn't have been scared . . ." he looked up from staring at his bed sheets to his Sensei. "What happened? Why was it only me who – who did that? It felt like I'd seen or done the same thing before, yet I haven't, it's like, Déjà vu." He broke off and shook his head, confused. Then his expression changed. "Mikey thinks we really did see a UFO . . . has Donny pointed out the faults of the prank it was supposed to be?"
Splinter displayed a half grim smile on his face and looked warmly into Leo's eyes.
"Donatello was . . . shocked also, for he could not think of anything he remembered being wrong, or what might have given away your 'UFO' as a prank." Splinter said in a softer voice than usual. "I believe the skeptical Raphael, is also just as shocked . . ."
Leo frowned. "Then . . . it must have been . . . but, it just seems so unreal . . ." He paused for a few seconds, which felt like minutes, before he spoke again. "So, if it was a – a, well a . . . it must have been the cause of what happened to me. I mean, it felt like I had seen something just as strange before, when I was younger . . . but nothing happened when I was younger . . ."
Splinter stared at his son's face, and as Leo watched him, stronger confusion creased his brow as he tried to read the strange expression on the rat's features.
"Leonardo," Splinter said, in a stronger tone than a minute ago. But he broke off for a few long seconds, locking eye contact with his son, who did not interrupt his silence. "There was . . . a point in your young life when something . . . strange happened." He watched his son frown even more, for Splinter knew that Leo did not remember. "I always dismissed it as a dream my mind would not forget, until now . . . ten years ago, when you were five, I thought years later I had a dream that . . . that you were taken by a strange light force," he paused, but Leo was listening carefully to every word. "The only thing I saw, or I dreamed, was a bright blue light; it awoke me in the middle of the night, shining through the gap underneath my door. For some reason I seemed to know why that light was in the room beyond, I knew what it wanted, and I knew what it was . . . I jumped out of bed, and reached my door, but by the time I had opened it, the source of the light was at the top of the ladder, and fading fast. I ran to the bottom of it, and looked up – and I saw something . . . very, very bizarre. I saw, through the blinding light . . . a five year old Leonardo, above the exit hole, floating next to a silhouette shape I could not properly see . . . Before I could move again, you and the light vanished without a trace . . ." He paused again, to find Leo's eyes had broken their locked gaze on Splinter's, and had drifted to the bed sheets. Splinter continued. "I do not remember much after that, but I can remember your brothers had not awoken at all after I had loudly uttered your name, and so I came to the conclusion, that whatever took you, had controlled them to remain asleep. They awoke fine the next morning, and were as confused as I to find, after I had exhausted myself back to sleep, that you were not with us . . . it was a full week after, at the same time of night when I was beginning to believe I had lost you, that I saw the strip of identical blue light shining under my door again, and without hesitation I leapt from my bed and into the lair, where the light became so blinding I was forced to turn away, and when I looked back, you, my son, were laying on your side, on the floor, and the light had faded completely . . . after that experience, you could not remember anything of it, and after two weeks, the light, and my worried actions and questions had gone from your memory, as the week without you had gone from your brothers'. I was highly confused, but long after that it began to fade in my own memory, and I pushed the supposed dream to the back of my mind . . . I do not know what happened to you during that week you were gone, but the day after it happened, there were reports of UFO sightings . . . and so, I did not believe that to be real, until now . . ."
Leo did not say anything. His expression was partly blank, partly something else that Splinter could not read. A few more seconds passed before Leo appeared to be trying to form words, but they seemed caught in his throat, and he had a disbelieving, almost delirious, smile flickering every time he tried to open his mouth.
Finally he said in a quiet, chocked voice, "I – I don't . . . have any memory of that, of – of being taken by anything."
"No, Leonardo . . . it seems the incident has been erased from your memory . . . but it seems, at the sight of the object you and your brothers saw, it triggered feelings that you experienced when you were five, when it happened.
Leo swallowed. "And – and I said nothing about what happened to me in after that week I went missing, when I was five?"
Splinter shook his head slightly. "No," he said softly. He realized this must be very difficult to take in. He himself was having a hard time trying to make his brain realize that it was true.
Leo appeared too lost in thought to talk anymore, so Splinter got to his feet and looked down at his son.
"I will leave you in peace," He said softly, turned, opened the car door and walked out, closing it behind him, getting a last glance at his son, who had not moved. Splinter turned around to see his other three sons asleep. Donatello and Michelangelo had collapsed on the couch, and Raphael was slumped in the armchair. Perhaps this close encounter had had an effect on them as well, maybe it brought back familiar feelings from the night they had all been so very sad when their brother had not turned up the day after the strange incident had happened. Splinter was stood next to couch, without realizing he had moved. He laid a hand on Donatello's forehead, who was snoozing with his mouth closed, while Michelangelo had his open. Splinter could hear his breathing from there. The rat turned and walked back into his own room, hoping Leonardo would get some sleep, as he needed it. He had many questions that begged to be answered, but he could not consider them tonight. He closed his car door, and was asleep within fifteen minutes, ludicrously hoping he would not wake up in a few hours to a bright blue strip of light shining under his door.
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Thank you for your reviews, I'm gonna try and write the next chapter before I go away for a holiday, yeah at last, * is going to Sommerset!* Lol, I gotta write like mad in the next few days.