A/N: Hey all, thanks for your reviews, I appreciate it.
Thanks immensly to: aliveinthedarkness, pacphys, boogalaga, Bubblyshell22, Readerrr Grrrl, saiyan-girl-cheetah, Reluctantdragon, Mickis, Reinbeauchaser, JeFfYzGaL2, TheAngryPrincess13, and Rainysunshine.
I just wanted to say something about a few reviews that I have been getting both privately and openily. Please look at the bottom of this chapter to see my opinion on the reviews. Other than that, please enjoy the chapter.
Chapter Eight: Make Room For the Girls
The next morning Delaney woke up to find the same dark lair and her friends surrounding her. Eros found a pillow in Amity's midsection and laid comfortably on her back. Callista had her feet propped up on the other end of the couch and leaning back into one of the old pillows. Delaney rubbed her eyes and walked toward the bathroom just a few feet away from the television sets. She stretched as she reached the bathroom, did her business and put her hair up in some kind of ponytail, still trying to decide on whether she should put her hair in two braids like she had done before. She got her toothbrush from her bag and began to brush her teeth.
"Hey Donnie? Do you think they're going to like this?"
Delaney poked her head out from the bathroom with her brush poking out of her mouth and saw a glimpse of two turtles carrying a few boxes down a tunnel she hadn't explored the day before.
"I hope so, Mikey," Donatello groaned as he shifted the box in his hands, "Otherwise I would have broke my back for nothing."
She looked from side to side, spit out the rest of the toothpaste and then began to follow the two turtles. It was still early in the morning, despite everybody's late night last night, and she thought that they would be in training or doing drills as Leonardo had mentioned last night. She knew better than to sneak up on them since they were ninjas and probably already knew that she was following them. She shrugged at the thought, she could always try anyway. As she passed the middle of the lair she noticed that the old mattresses and blankets left over from the first night were gone. She titled her head in thought and started to pick up pace after the turtles.
After rounding the corner she could see two rooms emitting light into the tunnel. Both seemed like they could be pretty nice sized rooms, and by the amount of items out in the tunnel they were used as storage. She looked into the first room and saw Mikey and Donatello positioning a mattress into one of the corners of the room. There was another mattress on the other side of the room and a dresser in the middle of the two with a small lamp. The walls were bare and still had the look of a dungeon or cell, but Delaney always liked the look. In a way it was still her child-like side pretending that she was a princess stuck in a castle waiting for her prince to come a rescue her. With no decoration or items to fill the room it wasn't much, but it was more than Delaney could have asked for.
"This is amazing, you guys," she spoke up causing the two turtles handling the bed to jump a little in surprise.
"Delaney!" Donatello dropped the edge of the mattress he was holding and let it fall straight on top of Michelangelo.
"A little help here," he yelled from beneath the mattress. Delaney ran over to the bed and helped to lift the mattress off of Mikey's head.
"Sorry about that," she laughed a little when removing the mattress.
"You weren't the one holding the mattress above my head," Mikey glared at Donatello who only shrugged his shoulders with a grin on his face.
"Sorry, she surprised me," he looked at her, "I thought that you girls would sleep until mid morning counting on how late we were up last night."
"Blame it on my internal alarm clock," Delaney pretended to knock on her head to make her point and looked around the room.
"So what'd you think?" Michelangelo put a hand on her shoulder as she looked around. She gave a big smile and hugged him around the neck.
"Thank you guys so much!" she let go on Mikey and ran over to Donatello to give him a swift hug as well, "You guys didn't have to do this. You could have left us on the street."
"And let four bodacious dudettes such as yourselves fend for themselves? No way," Mikey smiled and got another hug from Delaney.
"Does this mean you're staying?" Donatello jumped down from the bed happy with her reaction.
"You mean we can?" she looked at him and back at Michelangelo.
"We talked it over with Master Splinter," Donatello said, "We managed to convince him to let you girls stay until we can find out what's happening up there. Or until you guys find a better spot."
"We were more like begging, actually," Mikey whispered to Delaney who was by his side. She covered her mouth as she laughed quietly.
"Then, I would love to stay with you guys down here," she looked back to the tunnel, "I'm just wondering if my friends would like to spend the next how ever long sleeping in the sewer with me."
"Let's go ask," Michelangelo grabbed her hand and began to lead her toward her friends.
Once they got out into the tunnel they found Leonardo and Raphael fighting over Raphael's little movie trip last night with Callista. They kept it low when Michelangelo and Delaney passed them, but the two could still hear them as they continued their way to the far room with more boxes. Michelangelo rolled his eyes and kept dragging Delaney toward her sleeping friends.
Delaney went straight to Callista and started to poke her in the temple as she has done every morning that she spent the night with her. It was a secret joke that she doubted would ever go away. Callista scrunched her face and tried to swat away Delaney's hand. She laughed at her friend's attempts.
"Come on Callista, time to get up," Delaney said in a singsong voice, "Come on sleepyhead."
Callista opened her eyes and then looked at the little light in the lair, "It's still dark, wake me when the clock gets into double digits. More like, you know… tweleveish?"
"I'm guessing she doesn't have an internal clock," Mikey joked pointing at Callista.
"Not a very good one," Delaney put her arms under her friend's armpits and started to pulled her out of bed,
"D… what are you doing?" she complained and sat up.
"Finally, you're up," Delaney smiled and moved on to Amity, "Come on, rise and shine you guys. The boys have a present for us."
As soon as Amity moved to get up Eros's head hit the concrete and she grumbled from the pain to the back of her head, "Well, it better be made of gold and have some kind of precious stone."
"I don't think so, Eros," Delaney rolled her eyes and got her friends out from their makeshift beds, "Now I want all of you to close your eyes-"
"But we just had them closed," Callista grumbled, wiping some of the dirt from her shirt, "It's called sleep."
"Just do it and hold hands," Delaney led them down the hall with Michelangelo at her side. As soon as she got the okay from the other turtles the girls opened their eyes and looked at the two rooms.
"Oh my gosh!" Eros ran into the second room and fell onto one of the beds, "Actual mattresses! Yes!"
Callista followed her with her arms crossed, "What? No wall paper?"
"You want mints on your pillows too?" Raphael commented from the side of the room leaning on the wall.
"Ignoramus," she threw at him.
"Jack ass," he concluded before his brother hit him in the side, "What? She started it."
"Callista, you're boarding with me," Delaney stuck her head into the room to catch her attention, "They put a desk in our room so we could work on the case together. And I think you'll like the extra piece of furniture…"
"We're not invited?" Eros pouted and looked at Amity.
"I thought you didn't want to look at the photos," Callista looked at them with a smug look on her face as she walked next door.
"Good point," Eros shrugged her shoulders and looked at Amity, "Looks like we're roomies."
"Goodie," Amity said and started to follow Callista.
Callista walked into her room with the other two following just behind her. At one side of the room there was a large rack to hang clothing on, and Callista only had to guess, "For Faut Wear?"
"For Faut Wear," Delaney nodded.
"Well, now all I'm missing is the extra clothing and sewing materials."
"Can't really do anything about that right now," Leonardo said from outside the door.
"Don't worry about it," Callista said.
"Since you guys did this, I think it is only fair that we girls should clean up the TV room," Amity said from outside the room.
"Right," Delaney smiled and walked back out to the other room gathering blankets, the pillow she used, her bag and the files of the cases, "Got it!"
The other girls began to gather up their things and made room for the turtles as they began to get breakfast made. Eros caught up with Delaney in the tunnel leading back toward their new rooms.
"Delaney? Does this mean we're staying here?"
"Yup, until we figure out what's going on with the bad ninjas anyway," she looked to her side at her friend, "Why?"
"It might sound strange coming from me, but I was hoping that we could stay down here. I feel… well, I feel kind of safe. At least a heck of a lot safer than being in a motel or something, you know? I feel totally safe around them."
"I know exactly what you mean," Delaney looked back at the turtles in the kitchen arguing over what to make for breakfast until Splinter came in to make something of his own, "That makes two of us."
The day went pretty smoothly after the bedroom excitement. The turtles had more help moving boxes and equipment from the tunnels from the girls and they got to get out of training that morning. After unloading the objects into another unused, but now overstocked room, Leonardo went into the dojo to go over some moves that he wanted to practice and master before the week was out. Delaney and Eros got together for a while and watched a few of Eros's favorite movies that were playing on TV since it had been a while and she didn't get to finish the ones at Callista's. Amity had to change out her contacts and use her glasses instead when she had to read, which surprised the turtles since they thought that she didn't even wear glasses. She took a walk around the lair to look at the different sights and to get a better look into the turtle's lives. Although, she didn't want to go in too deep, that would be too close to prying, and Delaney was right. Everyone had their right to their own privacy.
Callista was busy setting up her side of the room and put up the pin board that she found in some of the objects that the turtles had put in storage. She wanted to surprise Delaney with it when she was done watching movies of the women's channel with Eros. Raphael went up to the surface yet again, doing who knows what and Donatello kept himself busy on the Internet searching the news site to see what has developed. Michelangelo eventually took his skateboard and went into the tunnels around the lair to skate for a bit. He asked if Delaney wanted to go along, but she did promise Eros that she would watch with her.
After the last movie Michelangelo finally came back from his skating and Delaney was with Amity looking over some of Donatello's new inventions. She looked up when he came in and gave him a friendly smile. She tapped Amity on the shoulder and walked over to him.
"So, how was the skating?" she asked looking at the board.
"It was all right, not much good turf thanks to the rain from a week ago."
"Yeah, it was raining pretty hard," Delaney thought back to that day. If she remembered right she was stuck outside the warehouse that night because she couldn't find her way back in through the dark, "Um, I was wondering if you still wanted to share our talents."
"Our talents?" he gave her a weird look.
"Your poems, my sketches. I thought we were going to do some show and tell."
"Oh yeah," he smiled, "Let me get my note book and put my board away and I'll see you in your room."
"All right," she walked toward her room in search of her sketchbook, which unfortunately was kicked under the bed when Callista was putting up the pin board that fit perfectly in the room. She leaned over the side of her bed and began to feel around for it, finally catching a spiral at its side as soon as Michelangelo walked through the door.
"All right, I also brought some of my comic books, but I have to warn you that they aren't that good."
She took one of his comic books and opened it up to see a crude sketch of the four brothers in what looked like super hero costumes, "And you say that you can't draw. I think it's cute."
"It's suppose to be action packed," he mumbled, "I just hope that my poems are better then just cute."
"It's possible," she smiled and handed him her sketch book, "It isn't much and I only have a couple of dozen pages left."
He opened it up and looked over a few of the sketches of some New York skylines and a couple of realistic drawings of her friends. He quickly looked over the one that she did of Callista sleeping the night that they met. As she turned to the last page that was used he found a picture of himself, although it was very lightly sketched and not completely done.
"Oh," Delaney nervously rubbed the back of her head when she saw the picture, "I forgot I did that one."
"Make me look a lot better than what I actually do," he chuckled and found that his poetry book was open in her lap, "So what do you think?"
"You have talent. You could be as god as Poe, except that it's not so morbid."
"I could say the same. You have a great potential to be an artist. Why do you want to become a detective?"
"Because I want to do what I can," she gave a small smile and handed his book back to him, "Tell me when you write some more."
"As long as you to the same with your sketches."
"Deal," they shook hands and smiled in agreement.
That night the boys finally did have a practice session thanks to Leonardo's suggestion and trudged off to the dojo after dinner. The girls had a good idea on who was going to have the most injures after sparring that night. That left the rest of the night open for the girls to talk and gossip, even though there wasn't much to gossip on since they landed in the sewers. They all gathered in Eros's and Amity's new room since Callista and Delaney's room was covered with the photos. Every girl was back in her baggy sweat pants, tank tops or long shirts that went to their knees. They sat in a circle with the light off and a lantern in the center of their circle. The room wasn't that big and the lantern barely reached the edges of the room.
"Okay, now that smallest gossip session ever is done," Eros smiled and looked at every girl, "I say it's time for a game of truth to miss any empty spots that we may have missed."
Callista and Delaney moaned at the mention of the game. The last time they played this game Callista was named the most likely to die alone without ever experiencing love and Delaney was just plain sad. They promised never the mention why. As far as the game was concerned Amity and Eros was totally normal. Eros was boy crazed and Amity liked to read incessantly, but they were normal compared to the lonely one and the sad one.
"Why do we even play this dumb game?" Callista looked at Eros, "You are the only one who likes to name off each one of us pertaining to the answers we give. And I hate it that I'm always going to die lonely."
"It's one of the few perks that I have left in my life, do not ruin it for me," Eros pouted and smiled again after she heard the resigning sigh from Delaney and Callista.
"So who's the first to take the plunge?" Delaney asked tracing her finger on the ground not really looking forward to what name she would be granted.
"How about you Delaney?" Amity asked, "You ask the first question. I think it is only fair since you have the saddest life the last time."
"That's saying a lot since Callista was going to die alone," Delaney grumbled and looked at Callista, "Speaking of which…"
"I don't like that look, Delaney," Callista eyed her suspiciously with a hint of fear.
"Just what did you and Raphael do last night while we were all at April's?"
The other two girls leaned forward to hear her answer. They were all wondering about that since they didn't stay up to wait for her like Delaney did. They were also very anxious to hear the details of why she was out so late with someone she barely knew. Callista rolled her eyes and saw where they were trying to take this.
"We watched 'The wildest Police Chases', called each other some names and went to the movies. Wow, what a great confession," she added on sarcastically waving her hands limply in the air.
"Why in the world would you want to go to the movies with a person who was just insulting you?" Eros asked from across the circle.
"Well, to tell the truth-"
"Which you have to."
Callista again rolled her eyes, "He is better at flicking insults than any of you."
"That's just 'cause we're nice," Delaney smiled.
"I would say he was almost an equal talent in insults. I was surprised, so we decided to go see the new action flick. Big freakin' deal."
"It sounds like some one has a crush," Eros said and titled her head to the side in an innocent manner.
"I wouldn't go there, Bull's-eye," Callista shook her fist at her friend and used her nickname, "You are going down a path that is not going to end well if you push it."
"Put down your fist, Callista," Amity motioned her with her hand, "It's your turn to ask away."
"All right," Callista glared at Eros, "If you had to pick any of those guys out there, which one would you be the most attracted to."
"Who said I would be attracted to any of them?" she crossed her arms over her chest and put up her nose.
"We all know because you are attracted to anything male that walks on two feet… and a reasonable brain size."
"Hey! I take that as an insult!" Eros yelled in a playful manner at her friend, "I have my standards. Which I have you know is very strict."
"I don't want to hear them," Callista put out her hands, "Now answer the question."
"I would choose…." She thought for a moment and then looked at her friends, "You know, I have a better idea. I'll make you guys a great deal. If I answer this then we all have to. The same question. No lies."
"What kind of rule of truth is that?" Amity asked a little flustered by the option, "You just made it up."
"Well, we could do it that way or I could ask each one of you when my turn comes," she nodded, "Which means either way we will all have to answer it."
"All right, Eros, we agree," Delaney said for the group, "We don't need a big UN meeting in here with fireworks going off because of a stupid game. Let's just get this over with."
"All right," Eros took a deep breath, "If I had to chose… probably Donatello."
"Figures," Delaney sighed.
"Okay all mighty leader, how about you? Who would be your choice?"
"Michelangelo, definitely," Delaney nodded at her choice.
"That came out quick," Callista teased her.
"I was prepared to answer. And truthfully, if I was going to be attracted to any of the guys out there it would be Mikey. We understand each other. What about you, Callista? - Oh wait! We all ready know that it would be Raphael…"
The other girls began to 'ooo' and 'aww' at the suggestion and Callista put on a disgruntled look. She took a pillow from beside her and threw it at Delaney who started it. Both girls wrestled on the ground for a few minutes and then Delaney finally got herself far enough away from her friend. Callista glared at Delaney at the other side of the circle and turned her attention toward Amity who was still in her thinking stages about the question.
"Well, brain… how about you?"
"Thinking it over the possibilities and attitudes I would have to say Leonardo."
"Leonardo?" the other three asked at the same time with a questioning look on each of their faces.
"Yeah, he is very kind and responsible. He takes care of his brothers and looks like he is very dedicated. I see nothing wrong with his personality. He is a nice guy."
"Figures times two. You're the same way," Delaney said and put a hand on her shoulder, "Pretty much the same person in two different bodies."
"We could say the same about you and Michelangelo."
"Alright, alright," Callista began to quiet down the others and moved to the door. She opened it a little bit and then looked out to see the turtles and Splinter filing out of the dojo.
"It looks like the party's over. The boys are going to bed," Callista reported and stood up, "I think we should too."
"You're just a little embarrassed that we pulled out your little secret," Eros said as Delaney began to get ready to leave with Callista.
"It would take a million years before I even think about getting together with that scum bag. He is immature and self inflated," she opened the door and went to her room.
Delaney turned to the other two girls and they exchanged glances. All at once they all said the same word, "Denial."
A/N: Please don't take this as like tearing at your comments or discouraging for you to review. I just want to clearify something about my character Delaney. Delaney and the other girls are pretty much another embodiment of me and my friends. I try to take eveything that either I or my friends have done and put it into our characters. I have been sketching since I can remember, and I have always been interestied in the paranormal and 'monsters', I guess you can call them. True, Delaney is a different embodiment, but I am trying to keep to my own personality and follow what I would do in her situation. Same with all my other friends, I try to keep as close to their own personalties as I can. I even have some of them double check it, just to make sure that is how they would react. The character's personalities are ours... as scarey as that may be.
As far as Michelangleo... well, I am trying the best I can with him and his brothers. In all respect, thank you for your reviews and I am happy that you are looking out for that pitfall that unfortuanately many authors do in their writing. Again, this is a challenge fic from my friend which she asked to be an author insert. I am glad to hear you are enjoying my fic and I hope you continue to read it. Thank you.