April spotted a parking space right in front of Roosevelt Moving and Storage, and let out her breath. She wasn't expecting to get so close, and was obsessing about Rocky having to walk a block or so up to the building. She maneuvered the van into the space, then threw the van into "park". She looked over at Rocky, who was lightly pounding his fists together. "Are you ready?"she asked, and Rocky only nodded in response, not even glancing over. He's terrified, she thought.

"You've got to relax," she said quietly.

Rocky sighed. "I'm tryin'."

"Look, it isn't the end of the world. You go in, you might get a job, or you might not."

"It's just...well, nobody wants a freak like me."

April frowned. "You're still upset about what happened at the recycling center, aren't you? They had a good reason for turning you down - they hire union guys."

Rocky growled and fidgeted in his seat. "Well, they didn't have to be such jerks..."

Reaching over, April put her hand on his shoulder, and Rocky spun to face her with a look somewhere between surprise and alarm. "Look," she said. "Splinter's right. You've got to put that behind you. Forget it. Move on."

Rocky closed his eyes, sighed, then nodded. "OK." Picking up the folder in his lap, he opened the door to the van. "Uh, you'll be here when I get back out, right?"

April smiled. "You bet."

Rocky grinned, got out of the van, and slammed the door shut. Turning to face the entrance of Roosevelt Moving and Storage, he snorted. I ain't afraid of you, he thought, and walked through the door.

The man behind the counter looked up, and his jaw dropped. "Holy..." he muttered.

Mentally, Rocky went through his list. Slight smile, open hands, down by side, look friendly. "Hi," he said. "Is, uh..." Quickly Rocky looked down at his folder, then back up. "...Felipe here?"

Blinking, the man gaped at Rocky. "Uh...yeah. I mean, I think so. I gotta check. Who should I say is...?"

"My name's Rocky. I hear he's lookin' for some new movers?"

"Oh. OK." The man paused a second, then got to his feet. "Let me just...see if he's here." He quickly shuffled off to a back room, where Rocky heard him talking excitedly to somebody, presumably Felipe. Stay calm, Rocky thought to himself. You knew they were going to get excited, so stay calm. The man leaned back into the main room and looked uncertainly at Rocky. "Um, yeah, you on back?" Rocky smiled a bit wider. He made his way around the counter and into the back room.

The back room wasn't that big - maybe fifteen feet square, which of course made Rocky look even bigger than he was. Felipe was shoved behind a desk, with loads of paperwork and folders on top. Glancing up, he quietly said, "Oh, my God."

"Hi, Felipe?" Felipe nodded once, and Rocky went on. "My name's Rocky. Rocky Rodriguez." He decided against offering his hand - it was kind of a reach across the desk, and Felipe still looked a bit shell-shocked. "I hear you're lookin' for movers?"

"Uh, yeah. Yeah, we're kinda short now..." Felipe looked around helplessly. "You...wanna sit down?" he asked, pointing to the chair opposite his desk.

Rocky looked at the chair and decided against it. "Nah, better not. Might not be strong enough to hold me." Instead, as he'd practiced, he went down on one knee. "I think I'd make a good mover," he went on, eagerly. "I ain't never been a mover before, but I'm a hard worker, an' I'm reliable, an'...well, I'm pretty strong."

"Yeah, yeah, no doubt." Felipe finally gave in to temptation and stared straight at Rocky. "So...what's your deal?"

Stay calm, thought Rocky. You knew this was coming. "Oh, you mean how I look? Well, I got mutated not long ago..."

"Mutated?"

"Yeah. My human..." It took a second, but Rocky did manage to retrieve the right abbreviation. "...DNA got mixed up with some other animal's. A rhino's, obviously. And, well, it's kinda taken me some time to to grips with it."

"Yeah, I can imagine..."

Rocky handed him a piece of paper. "Just so you know why there ain't no job history recently." Flipping through his folder, he found another sheet of paper, which he handed over to Felipe. "And here's a list of references. I only put on folks who know me, y'know, afterwards, since, well...I ain't quite the same."

"Afterwards?" repeated Felipe. "Oh, you mean after you..."

Grinning slightly, Rocky said, "...mutated, yeah." He sighed a bit. "A lot o' stuff changes when you get fr...when you mutate."

"Yeah, no doubt," Felipe said again. Looking over at Rocky critically, he said, "You get along with people?"

Rocky wasn't ready for that question. "Uh...sorta. Sometimes people get freaked out when they see me, and, y'know, I don't like that much. But it's OK, us'ally."

Felipe suddenly looked very curious. "And how strong are you, exactly?"

Shrugging, Rocky said. "Dunno. Never lifted weights or nothin'."

Felipe suddenly grinned. "Let's find out. C'mon." He stood up, and led Rocky out to the back. There were a few movers getting ready to head out on a job, but they stopped and gaped as Felipe and Rocky came out the back door. Felipe walked around, scanning the wooden crates and hand trucks scattered around the back. "There's gotta be something heavy here you can pick up. Hm."

"How 'bout this?"

Felipe turned at the sound of Rocky's voice, and stopped short. Rocky had grabbed the front of a small moving van, and had lifted it almost two feet off the ground. He grinned toothily as Felipe whistled. "I'll be damned."

(-----)

The mutants were sitting watching Michelangelo finish mixing the coleslaw for lunch when Rocky walked in, smiling. Michelangelo returned the smile. "Good news?"

"Uh, I think so. Guy seemed real nice an' all. Says he's gonna call me next week."

Splinter bowed slightly. "Indeed, the best news we have yet heard."

Raphael grinned and added, "Now all they have to worry about now is getting a shirt in your size."

Rocky frowned a bit, then saw Splinter smile. Raphael was just joking around - no reason to get mad. He smiled back, briefly, then took a seat on his barrel. In doing so, he bumped the counter somewhat, causing the plates to jump. The turtles hardly noticed - they were getting used to that - but Splinter seemed somewhat concerned by it. He listened in silence as his sons and Rocky chatted over lunch, deep in thought. As the meal reached its close, he announced, "If you will prepare to begin your studies, I wish to have a word with Rocksteady." The turtles filed out, as Rocky wondered what he might have done wrong.

Once they were alone, Splinter said, "I would like to invite you to join our morning tai chi exercises."

Confused, Rocky said, "Tai...oh, that's that slow karate stuff you do early in the morning, right?" Seeing Splinter bow slightly in agreement, he waved it away. "Nah, that's OK. Thanks, though."

Splinter pressed on. "I...believe it would be most beneficial for you."

"Wha-? How come?"

"Well, it would appear that that you might be employed by a moving company soon." Rocky nodded, and Splinter went on. "So think. What are the qualities of a good mover?"

"A good mover?" Rocky thought. "Well, if they're strong like me, they can move more stuff."

"Correct. And what else?" Splinter prompted.

"Hm." Rocky stuck out his tongue in concentration. "Uh, you gotta work cheap?"

Splinter smiled and shook his head. "I will give you a counter-example. April works with a woman named Irma, who recently moved to a new apartment. April said the move went fairly well, except it was somewhat slower than Irma had expected, and that they had broken a few of her bowls."

"Uh-huh. So?"

"So consider. People will be entrusting you with their possessions. Do you feel you enough to move these things safely?"

Rocky's brow furrowed, and he growled. "So now you're sayin' I'm too klutzy to be a mover."

"Do not move my words beyond their meaning, Rocksteady," Splinter said, in what was, for him, almost a warning voice. Rocky sighed, and Splinter went on. "Consider. How many times have you bumped your head on the doorway? Struck your side against the counter? Stubbed your toe on the entryway?"

"Yeah, yeah..."

"And yet, hopefully, you will soon be moving people's most prized possessions. If you prove as...uncoordinated in your job as you are down here, I fear that you may not be employed by them for long."

Rocky sighed. "OK. So maybe I am a klutz. So what do I do? Call Felipe an' tell him never mind?"

"That would be a bit extreme, I think. First off, simply by making you aware of a potential problem, I believe we may have averted it somewhat. Hopefully, if you get the job, you'll be more aware of what you're doing, and more careful when you do it."

Rocky considered. Yeah, he could be careful if he wanted to. "Yeah, I guess."

"Which brings me again to tai chi. It is a martial art with a heavy emphasis on body awareness. I believe you might benefit immeasurably from it."

Sighing again, Rocky said, "Yeah, well, if ya think it'll help any. I guess I can get up that early."

The spirit may have been willing - or at least easily swayed - but the flesh was weak. It took three tries (and a light bop on his snout) to get him up early the next morning. But eventually, he stood in the dojo behind the turtles, bleary-eyed and yawning.

"You are prepared, Rocksteady?" Rocky just nodded dumbly, and Splinter sighed. He had hoped he could teach Rocky as the same time he observed his students, but it was becoming apparent that teaching Rocky was going to take all his attention. "Leonardo?" he asked, and Leonardo stepped forward and bowed. "Would you lead your brothers in tai chi?"

"I would be honored, sensei," said Leonardo. Raphael quietly rolled his eyes, but all three of Leonardo's brothers bowed to him as he took Splinter's position at the front of the dojo. Leonardo returned the bow, then put his back to them and began the tai chi routine, with the others falling into step behind him.

Splinter walked around them to meet Rocky. "We will work back here," he said in a friendly but quiet voice. "Let us begin, and see if we can improve your body awareness."

What followed was the biggest test of Splinter's patience that he had yet faced. Rocky proved himself to be an even worse student at tai chi than he was at his "real life" lessons. Once Splinter finally got him to figure out what to do with his hands, he forgot what to do with his feet. Several times, Rocky walked to the back of the dojo and pounded his fists against the wall in frustration. The turtles, who had finished their tai chi and had moved on to sparring, would look up in alarm, then look back at their sparring partners. After one particularly hard pounding, Splinter began to worry about the structual integrity of the dojo, and pleaded with Rocky to have patience.

To their credit, neither Rocky nor Splinter ever gave up, but come lunchtime, Rocky had only somewhat learned the opening sequence. The turtles, finished with their sparring for the morning, watched as he went through it yet again, in a very stilted fashion. Raphael smirked and whispered to Donatello, who was closest, "It's just like Footloose." Donatello smiled, but Raphael's mean comment gave him an idea.

He walked up and said, "Hey, uh, Rocky?"

Rocky set his teeth. "You come to laugh at how klutzy I am?"

"No. You ever, y'know, go out dancing?"

"Wha-?"

"You know - ever go dancing?"

Snorting, Rocky said, "Where the hell would I go dancing?"

"Not even before?"

"So I didn't go out much..."

Michelangelo, seeing where this was headed, added, "Not even up in your room?" Michelangelo put his hands in front of him and shifted from side to side, in a simple two-step dance. "When no one else was lookin'?"

Rocky said, "Look, maybe I did, but why the hell do you care, anyhow?"

Donatello smiled a bit. "Well, tai chi's like dancing. But slow. Look." He put himself in the opening position, and moved stiffly into each of the next positions in turn, much like Rocky had done earlier. As he did so, he said, "See, you're getting the positions right, but the positions...well, they aren't really as important as how you get there."

"Right," agreed Michelangelo. He began dancing again, but this time, much more stiffly. "See, it ain't the steps, it's the motion."

Rocky snorted again, but took the opening position again, and began working his way through the sequence, much smoother than before.

"Yes! That's it, Rocksteady," said Splinter.

Rocky paused at the end of the sequence. "It is?"

"Yeah, ya got it!" Michelangelo began applauding, and the other turtles joined in. Rocky looked both embarassed and pleased.

"Excellent work. However, it is time for lunch. Rocksteady, if you wish to take a shower beforehand...?"

"Yeah, shower sounds good. Almost as good as lunch." He walked out of the dojo, grinning.

Splinter turned to Donatello and Michelangelo. "And you, my sons, thank you for my lesson." He bowed low to them.

Donatello and Michelangelo looked at each other, somewhat surprised and embarassed. Donatello said, "Um, it was just an idea, sensei."

"All solutions begin with ideas, my sons. And yours was an excellent one."