A/N: If anybody is wondering about how I picture my friends and I in our character forms, you can chack out my homepage on my profile and I just uploaded some great pics of my characters, along with a few pics of the guys. So if you are interested, just click and veiw I hope you enjoy them. I also wanted to thank as always my reviewers and friends that have reviewed thus far. I hope you keep reading.

Chapter Six: Everybody's Talking About Something

Disclaimer: The song "My Immortal" belongs to Evanescence. I take no ownership of the song or its lyrics. I just like the music.

Delaney knew an opportunity when she saw one. The boys-excluding Raphael- were going over to April's building and she defiantly needed to get out of the lair. A little fresh air could do everybody some real good. Eros and Amity joined her, but Callista chose to stay behind, something about wanting to go over some of the photos in the files. Delaney knew that the murders were just as hard as Callista as it was on her. They had been friends for fifteen years and both of their families eventually just melted into one along the way. When Callista's parents and little sister decided to move back to their roots in California it was hard on Delaney and Callista had to adapt to living alone. At least she could have seen them every once in a while. Delaney's parents were not coming for a visit from where they went. She was expecting Callista to be up until the early morning hours pouring over the photos and write ups on the cases.

The boys and her two friends were down stairs in April's apartment. It sounded like they just found some pizza and were celebrating over the find. Even though the offer of pizza did sound tempting, Delaney knew that she just needed to think. The people responsible for the victims of her father's case were the same perpetrators for his death. They knew he was coming to his conclusion, and from the look of it he was right. He got too close and they had to dispose of him. The general bad guy code of conduct. They know too much, so they need to be destroyed. They probably killed her mother just for insurance, although they really should have killed Delaney first. She will figure it out, just like her father. He was close enough that they got scared. She could take it from there.

Delaney leaned back on her hands as she looked over the city from the rooftop. Everything was so peaceful at night. No one would ever suspect that there was a band of ninjas skewering the city for her. At least not from this angle. She dug into her back pocket and pulled out her wallet that she grabbed from her bag before she left with the boys. She found a couple of dance pictures from past formals and proms that she went to with friends. Eventually the dance pictures passed and pictures of her friends and family members began to flip by until she reached the back of her wallet. There in the back two places were reserved for her parents.

Her father was pictured in his uniform in front of the American flag. She knew it was a very overused pose, but it didn't make her dislike the picture any more. Her mother's picture was done at a professional photo studio. She had a light blue boa around her shoulders and a fancy looking necklace and matching earrings. Her dark brown hair was done up elaborately and her makeup was perfect, as always. She looked so beautiful. People always said she looked like a twenty-some year old, when in fact she was forty-some. She ran her finger over the two photos and took a huge sigh.

"I miss you guys," she murmured and looked up at the moon. She put the wallet to her side and swung her legs back and forth over the edge of the building, "Man, do I miss you two. I need the constant nagging. I need the over protective hugs. I wish they never took you from me."

She felt a cold wind pass over her face and made her shiver. She should have brought her black jacket with her. If it wasn't still drying from the washing process than she would have, but loll and behold, life doesn't want to give her a break. She rubbed the side of her arms and started to sing one of the songs that flowed into her head.

"I'm so tired of being here,

Suppressed by all my childish fears,

If you have to leave,

I wish you would just leave,

'Cause your presence still lingers here,

And it won't leave me alone…"

Her voice started to fade off as she settled her sights over the city, but found that while singing she began to get warmer so she decided to start again, but tried to keep it low.

"These wounds won't seem to heal,

The pain is just too real,

There's just too much that time can not erase,

You cried, I'd wipe away all your tears,

You'd scream, I'd fight away all of your fears,

I held your hand through all of these years,

And you still have… all of me…"

Again her voice trailed off, but she didn't find the motivation to begin to sing again. The song began to sound too much like she was talking to her parents. Her father would always tell her that some things that he saw in a crime scene could be the most horrific thing in his life, but she always made it better. When he first started as a detective he would come home crying and she would go up to him and wipe his tears away and try to reassure him. She was only about five at the time, but she remembered the late nights trying to reassure her daddy. The memory of them both kept pinching in the back of her mind and all that's keeping her from breaking down is the constant mantras of 'I am old enough to take care of myself' and 'I will get though this' that repeat in her head. The last thing that she needed was a song that only brought out every feeling about her parents into the open.

"Why'd you stop?"

Delaney turned her head toward the fire escape at the side of the building where the turtles gained access to the reporter's apartment. Michelangelo was stepping over the side of the building with a piece of pizza in each hand. Delaney let her mind ask how he ever managed to get up the fire escape with two pieces, but left it verbally unasked. He walked over to her and sat down right next to her handing her one of the pizzas.

"Stop what?" she asked taking the slice, "Thanks"

He slung his feet over the side of the building and smelled in the wonderful pizza flavor, "Your singing. It was good. What group was that? Evanescence?"

"Yeah, My Immortal," she smiled and looked up at Mikey, "I wouldn't think that a mutant turtle would know about bands."

"Shows how much you know about mutant turtles," he nodded his head and took a bite out of his slice, "So why'd you stop? You were doing pretty good."

"Yeah, well some things are better left unsung. The song brings back too many memories."

"Sorry I brought them up."

"No, it's not your fault," she took a deep breath, "It's just hard to actually think of them as gone. You know? It's like they're on a vacation some where far away, and I was left behind in an uncaring world chased by psychotic ninjas."

"Good analogy," Mikey snickered with a mouthful of pizza. Delaney nudged him with her elbow and made him lean to one side. He made a funky face and pulled out her wallet from beneath him. She forgot to put it back in her back pocket, and even worse it was still open to her parent's pictures. Mikey looked at both pictures and handed the wallet back to Delaney, not wanting to be rude.

"Those two your parents?" he asked as she closed her wallet.

"Yup, that was them," she stuck the wallet back in her pocket and bit her lower lip.

Mikey felt the awkward silence start to fill the rooftop as Delaney started to eat her slice. He watched her as she picked off the toppings first, ate them and the moved to the cheese. After she only had the sauce and bread left she looked up at him and smiled with the piece partially in her mouth. He gave her a questioning look.

"I know it's a weird way to eat pizza…" she said after she took the first bite and swallowed, "But to me it seems completely normal. I've done it ever since I can remember."

He cleared his throat and looked out on the cityscape before them. He rubbed the back of his head as he scarfed down the rest of his pizza slice, "So you're original. Nothing's wrong with that… But I have to say it is pretty different. Coming from a ninja turtle, that's saying something."

"Yeah, but I've heard worse comments on my eating style," she smiled and licked the pizza sauce off her fingers. She watched him chuckle a little and then look out over the city.

"Nice night."

"Yeah, I wish I had my sketch pad with me right now. It would make a good pic."

"You sketch?"

"Yep. All the time that I might have extra, I'm either drawing or writing some fiction. Why? You sketch?"

"Oh, heck no!" he waved his hands in a 'don't look at me' fashion, "I'm more of a poetry guy."

"Poetry?" she cocked an eyebrow, "Some how I wouldn't think that a ninja turtle would be much of a poet."

"Then I'll make you a deal," he smirked, "When morning comes and the day gets going, I'll show you some of my poems if you show me some of your sketches."

"All right… deal," she smiled and they shook on it. After a few more moments she took a breath and watched him as he tried to contemplate something, "What's on your mind?"

"If you don't mind me asking… what were they like? Your parents. They look nice."

Delaney looked at him and then at her feet swinging back and forth, "Strict, as every parent is, I guess. My father even more so because he was a detective and knew what was out there in the big, bad world. My mom just wanted me to look good no matter where I went. Make sure I had my makeup on and good clothes on. Looks may not be everything, but they might as well be. But even through his overprotection and her strive to make me the best I can be, I knew that they loved me. I just wish that I showed them more often that I returned the feeling."

"Master Splinter has told us many times that every parent knows that their kids love them, even if they don't show it all the time," Mikey gave her a sympathetic look and looked at his own two feet and decided to change the discussion a little, "Where were you running to after the hospital?"

"Where ever I could go where they couldn't find me."

"And then?"

"That's all I had planned thus far," Delaney smiled and laughed at her own naivety, "Kind of idiotic huh? Just wait for a rescue or for them to just give up."

"What else were you suppose to do? If there is a mole in the department you weren't safe in police care."

"I don't know," Delaney looked at Mikey and gave a small smile, "Why did you come to the rescue, great defender?"

"All right, so I'm not the best for the job," he rolled his eyes at the nickname, "but it's like I have a sense for when people are in trouble. Or hurt. I can't just leave them behind if they need help. I guess I got the biggest humanitarian slice of the gene pool. I personally think I got Raph's piece."

Delaney laughed at the joke made at his brother's expense, "I get the feeling if Raphael was here he would kick your ass."

"If he could catch me," Mikey put up his finger as he made his point, "Why do you talk to me so much? I mean, we've only known each other… two days, if even that. What would compel you to make friends with a ninja turtle?"

"I don't know. I guess it's because I see a lot of myself in you and you in me. I can relate to you. You make me laugh and don't always try to make me feel better about my situation."

"You're friends do that much?"

"Sometimes I think they worry a little too much about me. I'll be fine. It's not like I'm going to go into a corner of the room and cry about every little thing just because my parents are gone. Or do something drastic, like suicide. I miss them, sure. Who wouldn't miss their parents? But I don't need people giving me hugs every which way telling me everything is going to be all right when nothing is going to be the same ever again. Things change in life, and you got to roll with the punches. Even if you never wanted the changes in the first place."

"Now what fun is a world that doesn't change?" Mikey stood up with his fists on his hips, "I personally welcome change. If it wasn't for change I would have never stumbled upon you and never would have found someone who would actually laughs at my jokes."

"Come on, your brothers laugh at your jokes, don't they?" he gave her a skeptical look and she dropped it, "Never mind."

"Look, it's starting to get cold out, why don't you come inside with the rest of us?" he offered his hand down to her and she hesitated for a moment or two.

"It depends on what you guys are doing down there," she took his hand for some help up.

"Oh you know, normal party stuff…" she brushed off the dirt from her pants and hands and looked at him for him to continue.

"Like?"

"Truth or Dare, spin the bottle…" she gave him a look bordering on scared and confused, "I'm kidding. We're just taking advantage of April's new TV system and raiding her refrigerator for pizza."

"Now that I could go for," she started to walk toward the fire escape.

"Don't tell me you wouldn't want to kiss me. You know you want to," Mikey smiled teasing her the whole way by making kissing noises.

"Oh yeah. I want you, I need you. Oh baby, oh baby," Delaney said sarcastically and the both began to laugh as they descended the ladder to April's window.

Callista looked over the write-ups and began summarizing them in a paragraph apiece. She tried to pick out the main points and find out what injures were consistent within each one of the victims. She also tried to find other evidence or lack there of so Delaney wouldn't have to do it later. The girl has been through enough; she doesn't need to look forward to looking at photos of her dead parents when she gets back to the lair. One more run through the last write up from Delaney's father and she would be on to the messy part. The first Chasin scene.

"Screw it!" she punched her fist into the hard wood of a desk that she borrowed from Donatello's little lab set up and grimaced from her self-inflicted pain, "I can't do this without Delaney. She's the mastermind behind the whole detective thing. I can't figure out the whole picture without her."

"Take heart, child. Clear your mind and answers will come."

Callista picked her head up from the write-ups and turned to see Splinter emerging from his room and walking toward her. She had respect for the older memeber of the household and understood what he must have to go through considering he has four 'almost twenty year olds' runnign around him. She slowly realised that she wasn't as skeptical about the five of them all that much. She was starting to take Delaney's view of things. They may be mutants, but they did help all of them... and strange enough did not ask for anything in return. Not many people, especially in New York, would do that for another person.

"I'm sorry for this morning, Splinter."

"Do not dwell on it. We all know Raphael likes to get away with himself at times. What is troubling you?"

"April O'Neal was here earlier and… um, gave Delaney some case files that she had in her bag. April's been working on her case for quite a while. I decided that I should look over some main points before Delaney came back. She doesn't need to look at this stuff."

"But you do not think you can do it without her?" he knelt down next to her. Since it was a very small table they both could look over the photos and write ups without any chairs.

"She's really good at this kind of stuff. She could find out the motive after only a few write-ups and photos. She's going to be a great detective when she gets there. Just like her dad. The only thing I can do it figure out the cause of the bruising and cuts. We already figured that stuff out. Now it's the evidence that is or isn't there. And I can't do it without her, but… I also want to keep it from her."

"Sometimes you must let them do what they think they must," Splinter said, "You cannot shield her from the harsh world forever. No one can. She must decide when it is time to step out on her own and when to come out from the shelter of her friends and loved ones."

Callista lowered her eyes again, "It's just… we are all connected, you know? We all know when there is something wrong, even if we are confused about what's wrong with who. We hate that one of us is unreachable when we know that they are hurting. We can't do anything about it."

"Do the others shield you when you are hurt?"

Callista popped her head up, "I don't get hurt."

"Everyone is able to be injured. It's up to them whether or not they permit others to help them."

"I'm not allowed to get hurt. I'm the strong pillar; I can't let an injury make me crumble. The others count on me."

"But they also understand you," Splinter began to push himself up and leaned on his small staff, "Anger is a strong emotion. It is an even stronger mask to hide behind. Open up and clear you mind. Let others help you as you think that you need to help them."

Callista stayed silent and kept her eyes focused on the papers in front of her. She heard Splinter start to walk away and she let out the breath of air she was holding. She hated to admit it, but he was right. She did hide behind a tough girl facade, but there was no way that she was going to let anyone else know. No one had to deal with her problems but her. Even though Delaney broke that rule quite often by shoving her nose into Callista's business. She heard Splinter walk toward where the dojo was and decided that it was about time to put things away.

She took a deep breath and gathered up the photos and write-ups covering the table. She would have to ask Delaney to help her when she got back with the others. Besides it was her choice to take the files from April to examine them in the first place. As Callista put the files back together she heard another manhole open and close. It sounded like only one person came into the lair. There were three possibilities that she had to choose from and none of them sounded any too appealing.

One, it could be April coming back to see if she could grab the files before she went 'on location'. Two, it could be Raphael coming back from wherever he went all day after spending the morning sulking in his room about the egg incident. Or three, it could be a ninja assassin that finally found them and was going to kill her and possibly Splinter.

As she put the files under her arm she looked up to find Raphael taking off a trench coat and hat, placing them over his right arm. She would have settled for the ninja assassin. She dropped her eyes from the turtle and headed over toward the couch where Delaney left her backpack.

"I didn't think that you would be here," he spoke up putting the trench coat on a coat rack at the side of the main tunnel, "Isn't everybody else over at April's?"

"How did you know? You were out all day."

"I heard Leo through my door before I left to go topside," he walked over to her and leaned on the back of the couch, "So… you goin' to apologize?"

"Apologize? For what?" she put the files next to Delaney's bag and put her hands on her hips showing her defiant behavior.

"This morning ring a bell?" he waved his arm nonchalantly.

"I already have apologized," she walked back over to the table to move it back in place over by Donatello's lab station.

"Have you?"

"Yeah," she pushed the table back and hopped up to sit on one of the higher tables, "Splinter said he forgave me for disrupting breakfast."

Raphael squinted his eyes at her, "You aren't any regular chick are you?"

"No," Callista said crossing her arms over her chest, "Some say that my behavior is resulted from a mutation that happened when I was a child."

"I would believe it," Raphael grumbled and jumped over the back of the couch and flicked on the television, "So why aren't you with the others?"

"I felt that I had other things to do."

"For instance?"

"None of your business, how's that?" she walked around the side of the couch and sat in the bean bag, hoping that maybe television would distract her from the files laying neatly by Delaney's bag. Dozens of channels went by as Raphael would not let up on the remote control and finally after ten minutes of channel surfing he finally stopped on one of the many police car chases. Callista made a mildly approved face.

'He may not know how to act human, but at least he knows what to watch on TV,' she pushed herself down into the bean bag and watched as a guy jumped out of the way of a car doing a one-eighty straight for his car.

"No objections to the channel choice?" Raphael inquired thinking that she would want to watch Xena warrior princess or something on the woman's channel.

"No, some of the crashes and chases are pure genius," she said as she smiled brighter when a police car did the pit maneuver to stop a fleeing suspect.

"You watch this?"

"Every so often with Delaney. Why?"

"I would think that you were more of the Xena type."

"Shows how much you know."

"There you go with the intelligence thing again. Why are you such a thorn in the shell?" he looked at her over the side of the couch.

"Why are you such a big mouth?" she shot back looking at him.

Okay, that does it. It's war now. He totally diverted his attention from the car scenes and turned to her.

"Smart ass."

"Ass hole."

"Vain of anyone's existence."

"Hose brain."

"Kid," he leaned toward her were they were almost touching nose to beak. He saw her eyes open wide in rage and she leaned closer to him.

"Freak," she whispered and stared back into his eyes. Neither admitted it, but it turned into a game for them both. It was starting to become a little more apparent by their poker faces. Then Raphael finally realized that he didn't know anything else to call her at the next turn. He was fighting a losing battle. He knew that she was waiting for a comeback. She looked at him with a smug smile on her face and her eyebrows lifted waiting for a response.

"Well?"

"I got a crazy idea."

"What's that, Dome head?" Callista added.

He let a small smile play at his mouth, "You want to go see a movie?"

"Absolutely," she said without hesitation and they got up from their seats, turned off the TV, Raph grabbed his trench coat and hat and both were heading for topside without another thought.