Disclaimer: The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles belong to Mirage Studios, Peter A. Laird, and Kevin B. Eastman. I use them without permission, and without monetary profit.

Chapter Three:

Chassidy spotted the red and black plaid blanket and gave it a wide berth, though she couldn't help holding her breath to catch any noise that came from the room behind it. She didn't hear anything though and cursed her curiosity. Really, she was being too nosy.

She heard voices and followed them, hoping they were in the room that was going to be her bedroom because she didn't want to intrude into their rooms.

She guessed that they were still working on setting the room up because there were a lot of raggedy boxes out in the hallway and more than a few weapons littered on the floor. There was an adjustable metal rod with rubber ends in the entryway, and a shower curtain with a beach scene on it hanging from the rod, pushed to one side. Inside Leonardo was dragging a thin twin mattress into a corner and Michelangelo shuffled after him, a large clump of blankets and sheets rolled up in his arms. There were candles stationed on the floor and on a couple of boxes, lighting up enough of the room for the boys to work in.

"My room?" She asked. Mikey turned around, flashed a big grin and nodded.

"It's a little small, and there's a lot of stuff in here 'cause we mainly use it for storage." He chattered happily, dropping his bundle on the mattress when Leonardo stepped away from it. "We got the big stuff out of the way. If you want we can clear everything out of here."

Chassidy waved both of her hands in a negative gesture. "Oh, no, don't do that. I won't be here for very long, I can put up with the clutter."

"We don't know how long you really will be here, so perhaps it's better that we do clear everything out of here." Leo told her, helping Mikey make up the bed.

"You don't have to, I don't want to me any more of a nuisance than I am."

"It's no hassle. We don't want you running into things and hurting yourself when the lights are all out."

"Please don't worry about it. It'll be okay." Chassidy pleaded, bringing a few of the boxes from the hallway back into the room and organized them against the wall. "I just need enough space to move around, and I'll be fine."

"If you say so." Mikey shrugged and then patted the finished bed. Leonardo scoured the area for any remaining weapons and then bowed out of the room.

Once Leo was gone, Mikey turned to Chassidy and rubbed his hands together. "So, about your likes and dislikes - if you're going to be staying with us, it's better that we know so we don't get on each other's nerves. Though you're going to have to like pizza. It's not a debatable issue. Pizza. The end."

Chassidy stared at him for a while. "Good thing I like pizza then."

Mikey shook his head. "No. You have to like pizza."

Leonardo poked his head in the door. "Mikey, lay off. We don't eat pizza all of the time."

"Just most of the time." Michelangelo amended.

Chassidy felt her eyebrows raise, even though it made the pain worse. "You're being serious."

The two turtles looked at her. They were being serious.

"Um, maybe I'll eat dinner somewhere else every now and then."

Donatello came into the room with some pills and a bright pink plastic cup filled with water. "I come bearing relief. Sort of." He handed her both the pills and the cup and pointed to the three pills that were lying in her hand. "Two Tylenol for the pain and to help the swelling go down and that one is vitamin C to help heal the bruises."

"Thank you."

"I think we should leave so she can rest and perhaps get some sleep." Leonardo suggested, turning to pointedly stare at Mikey who was pretending to not catch the hint. Chassidy watched with some amusement as Donatello rolled his eyes at his brother and bodily pulled him out of the room.

"Wah, hey! I was in the middle of a conversation!"

"Not anymore you're not."

"That's not fair, you guys are boring, she's interesting."

"She's not a toy and she's been through a great deal tonight so she needs time to wind down and be alone." Leo sounded exasperated, like he was talking to a small, stubborn child.

"But alone is boring!" Mikey protested. Donny groaned at his brother's actions.

Chassidy smiled to herself and took the pills, placing the empty cup of water on the stack of boxes that reached up to her waist. She pulled the shower curtain so that it acted as a barrier between her and the rest of the sewers and provided her some privacy. She could still hear the others bickering, but she ignored them, it helped to make her feel like she was alone.

First she took a crate from the jumble that was at the foot of her bed and placed it beside the mattress so it acted as a pseudo-nightstand. Then she stacked the boxes all together, and unrolled a rug to place on the floor beside the mattress, and looked through the posters that were rolled up and propped up against the wall. All of them were geared towards boys so she decided to put up with gray, curved concrete walls. She shifted the candles around so there was light in the part of the room that she'd spend the most amount of time in.

She felt accomplished; she had more walking space, and there wasn't clutter perched here and there, likely to fall while she was sleeping and wake everyone up. The fact that she hadn't slept since yesterday and it was in the early hours of morning was catching up with her. Making sure there wasn't something else she should do, she blew out all of the candles and went to sleep

Leonardo made an extra effort to be silent the following night because his room was the closest to Chassidy's. He was normally the first one up, beginning his practices for the night before any of the others so his sessions were longer. He was very dedicated to the art of ninjitsu, and Splinter encouraged this most of the time.

He was only slightly surprised to find Raphael in the area of the sewers, a place similar to the den just on the other side of the bedroom area, that served as their dojo. He hadn't expected to see Raphael out of his room for a week after Splinter cautioned him to steer clear of his temperamental brother. The two of them had a habit of getting into fights.

It wasn't that they hated each other, were jealous of each other, or even felt one was better than the other - the opposite in fact. Leonardo wanted what as best for his brother because he knew his brother didn't care. Raphael had something of a death wish and Leo wanted to see his brother die of old age. However, Raphael didn't take too kindly to Leo's well-meant intervention and so they fought. A lot.

I aggravated Leonardo that Raphael was so stubborn, and cared so little about everything. Sure, there were things Raph cared about, but lately he'd been neglecting his responsibilities, and even though Leo accepted none of his brothers took responsibility as seriously as he did, it irritated him.

Leonardo, full aware that his brother was hurting from something and therefore would be easy to be offended, said nothing as he walked fully into the room and over to the wall where his swords were stored.

Raphael stopped his kata, stared a hole in the back of Leonardo's head challenging him to say something so he could start a fight between them, and when Leo pointedly ignored him, he made a disgusted noise and continued his kata. Leo wasn't worth the effort anyway.

Raphael put himself through all of the katas he could think off, starting with the simple ones and ending with the more complicated ones where he fought numerous invisible opponents. Leonardo did some warming up before joining his brother in katas. They worked in silence, their movements oddly in tandem with one another though they were concentrating on their own bodies.

Leonardo pretended he didn't notice Raphael sneaking off five minutes before he could hear the sounds of their two remaining brothers waking up and making their way to the dojo. If Raphael wanted to lick his wounds in private, that was find with him.

Mikey greeted Leo with a wide, noisy yawn. Donny patted Leo on the shoulder and began partner stretches with Mikey while Leo worked with his swords, the sound of metal slicing the air setting up a rhythm for the other two to stretch to.

Splinter appeared in the room as silently as always and his boys made no noises of surprise. They were used to by now how the old rat got around so silently. When they were younger they were in awe of that ability. When they themselves had honed their sneaking skills, the awe turned into amazement because no matter how hard they tried, they could still sense each other sneaking, but never Splinter.

Master Splinter made no comment about Raphael's absence so they didn't ask any questions.

Chassidy woke for the final time to the sound of kiyas.

She had had a restless night of sleep, waking to every little sound, real or imagined. She knew in the back of her mind that she wasn't sleeping in her own bed. There wasn't enough natural light in the room and so she kept waking up to glance at a clock that wasn't there. The fact that she didn't have a clock - or a watch - left her feeling helpless. How was she supposed to know when to get up to go to work?

Could she go to work? Stone knew where she worked and she didn't want to chance running into him. Not to mention the bruises she was sporting. Her work didn't like it when she looked like a truck had hit her; it made the customers nervous.

The pain from multiple, throbbing bruises wasn't helping her either. In her sleep she flopped over onto a bruise and the pain built until she woke up. She would shift until she found a comfortable position only flop over onto another bruise.

In the end she felt more exhausted than if she had stayed awake the entire time. At least then she would have only suffered from boredom.

Giving up she decided to try to find something to eat more out of something to do since hiding in the room she'd been given wouldn't make her feel any safer. She was curious about the noise coming from the other end, but knew that she would only be in the way, so she went in the opposite direction.

Chassidy realized exactly what "no electricity" meant when she looked for a refrigerator. Instead she found three nearly empty bags of chips and a box of pizza on a raggedy looking fold-up table, and in the box only one slice of pizza. She decided to leave the pizza and chips for the turtles and skip breakfast.

There weren't very many candles lit in the room since the den's inhabitants weren't in this area, so she lit all the ones she could find with the candle she had brought out from her room.

Once that was done she placed her candle amongst those burning and inspected the room. The furniture was obviously second hand, though well tended. There were large patches on everything, and more than a few cushions were mismatched. The effect was humble, but for some odd reason it made it feel like a home.

There were trinkets placed all about the living room, stuff that reflected the fact that five people lived down here, all of them with different tastes. She found perhaps the most intact, immaculate piece in the entire room hanging on a wall; a calligraphy drawing with flowing Japanese characters from top to bottom was in a glass frame.

Other things were very obviously sentimental - a small collection of smooth rocks in a chipped ceramic pot, a ball of orange yarn, a poster of a wheel of cheese, four old skateboards, a bamboo flute, and a large collection of weapons piled into a corner. She avoided the weapons, not trusting herself around them. It was just her style to accidentally amputate something.

Despite the fact that she knew she had three blankets in her room that Leonardo had plucked from this room, there were still five more, splayed here and there on furniture and on the floor. She picked one off of a sofa to wrap around her shoulders. Being underground meant there wasn't as much heat. It was great for the summer time, but this was late fall, and despite the fact that she had on pants, a long sleeved shirt, and a jean jacket, the cool air bit her cheeks, nose, and fingertips.

"Chassidy!" A voice chirped and she flinched violently, giving an involuntary scream, and whirled around to face Michelangelo.

Michelangelo flinched as well, but more from her expression of abject fear than being startled.

"Woah." His voice was soft and mellow. He slowly moved his hands to show her he had an oil lamp in one hand and nothing in the other. "It's okay, I'm sorry. I just wanted to give you an oil lamp for your room - everyone else has one."

Chassidy forced herself to straighten up and calm down. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and slowly let it out. "Please don't do that. I'm..." She glared at the wall off to her left. "I don't like being surprised."

"Kay, no problemo. I'll make lots of noise from now on." He grinned, offering her the lamp. She took it and they stood there for a while, him staring at her face, her staring at the oil lamp.

Chassidy pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders like a shield. "I'm going to go put this in my room." She waggled the lamp slightly and edged around Michelangelo.

"I really am sorry about scaring you." He insisted, following her. She shook her head and placed the oil lamp on her makeshift nightstand.

"Wanna play Monopoly?"

She was starting to get annoyed by him. He was too close, too insistent, too much like a shadow or a puppy.

"I guess."

Michelangelo stared at her back for a while, not missing the hint in her voice that said go away. He shrugged it off and went into the living room where Donny was putting together a heater that didn't need electricity. As a result it was gas powered and stinky, but down here the stink wouldn't have been noticed.

"Hey, if you were a girl, what kind of board game would you want to play?" Mikey asked Donny as he looked through their selection of entertainment.

"I dunno. I'd like to think I'd like the same stuff no matter my gender." Donatello answered, distracted.

"That's not helping." His brother complained. "I asked Chassidy if she wanted to play Monopoly and her words said 'yes yes' but her tone said 'no no'."

"Her boyfriend beat her till her face swelled up like a purple balloon, and she's in a stinky, wet place with no windows or natural light. Most likely she didn't sleep well, and some stranger she just met is jumping down her throat so that he's not bored, what do you expect her to feel?"

Michelangelo shoved the board games he'd been sifting through back onto the shelves and turned to Donatello. "I'm not jumping down her throat, I'm trying to distract her so she doesn't sit and mope around like Raph does!"

"Some people need to mope." Donny reasoned. Mikey pouted.

"Stupid people mope."

"I don't know what insulted me more... the moping comment or the stupid comment."

The two brothers jerked upright then looked ashamed.

"Do you want to play Monopoly or not?" She asked, trying to diffuse the awkward tension that filled the room.

"You didn't sound like you wanted to."

"I want to."

"Okay." Mikey went to take out the Monopoly game, but his body language was subdued.

Leonardo came into the room from the dojo, blotting a towel on his head. He inclined his head in greeting, and Chassidy was pleasantly surprised to realize he didn't smell bad though it was obvious that he was sweaty. She was used to Stone coming home smelling like stale body odor after a training session at whatever Foot meeting he had been at. Maybe he didn't stink because he was a turtle.

Maybe he didn't stink because her nose had been killed by the strong scents of smoke and damp fabric.

"Oooh, Monopoly!" His face lit up, "Count me in."