1A/N: Sincerest apologies! Life's been CRAZY! Like final exams, tech stuff, blah, blah, blah...
ET: And... Alix got her driver's license! The excitement is too much for her to bear.
Mikey: Good. Don's driving scares me.
Alix: Hee hee hee... By the way Mikey, did I tell you I found Turtles IV: Turtles in Time for the Super Nintendo? ET and I have played constantly!
Mikey: Sweeeet...
ET: -rolls eyes at typical californian language in a new yorker-
Don: I wonder how such an old piece of rubbish could work under the horrors of ET and Alix...
ET&A: -viscous stare-
Don: Eep!
Chapter 7: Stalling
Leo sat on the floor of the Battle Shell, staring hard into the floor. The circuitry and wires crawled across it, but failed to entrance the turtle. He sighed deeply.
The other turtles were collecting their things while he sat there wandering in thoughts. Well, to be more precise, Don was while Mikey merely watched or unwittingly helped pass the pigeon puppet into Don's bag of tricks.
To be honest, Leo did not want to assist with tools let alone stand around waiting. He was too impatient for that. He wanted to leave now, and thus sat quietly in the van. Pulling his legs closer to him, he exhaled a long deep breath. His thoughts were racing too quickly to organize. All of this seemed so unreal. The lack of sleep and the strain from the mental link made it all hard to grasp. Raphael... Angy... it was like a dream that he failed to awake from.
Suddenly the turtle could hear footsteps from outside. Closing his eyes, he listened to its rhythm, matching it to whom it belonged. Being a ninja, Leo taught himself to recognize his brother's footsteps as a means of strengthening his senses. After the personal training, he discovered how different each of his brothers walked. Listening carefully, Leo realized it was Donatello, alone.
Nervous of how his brother might react to find him moping about, Leo instantly struck a pose of meditation. His legs carefully folded neatly in front of him while his two, three-fingered hands lay upward. Leo could only pray that Don wouldn't figure it out. The fact was Leo wasn't in the mood to help, assist, or be the leader he was supposed to be. He just wanted some time to be just like his brothers, not in charge, not the responsible one, just a turtle brother who was as lost and confused as everyone else. Master Splinter always seemed to compliment him on his success and training, and he did appreciate it, but it always seemed to separate him from his brothers in times like these. And the worst part was that he hated that flaw in his thinking, that momentary collapse under the strain. And the last thing he wanted was for his brother to see such weakness.
"Leo?" inquired the unsuspecting turtle. However, the blue sash turtle remained hideously silent. Don crouched down, eye level to Leo, and stared long and hard. His brother must be meditating, he thought. At first he was going to exit the van and finish packing his tools for the grand escape but stopped himself. Deep within him was lingering sadness and hypocritical hope that desperately needed to be unleashed. Despite knowing the importance of Leo's meditation, Don asked, "Hey, Leo, can I talk to you for a second?"
The blue turtle was suddenly torn. Why did he fake his trance in the first place? Because he thought, Raph is gone... and I can't be the one turtle here who always has to be mature and serious... I just can't do this anymore. I can't be there when you or Mikey need me because someone has to be there for me too... He forced the feelings of guilt back into his stomach so they wouldn't force a sound out of his throat and startle his brother.
Don sighed, returning to his senses, "Forget it." His theories and revelations probably weren't important anyway. "I'm just going to get the rest of what we need... and we'll be off." Of course, Don doubted his brother was listening let alone aware of his presence. He was used to it by now.
As Don left the van, Leo could not help but feel remorse. There was a hint of surrender in his brother's voice, and maybe he should have listened... after all, Leo wanted someone to listen to him, why didn't he do the same for Don?
Opening his eyes to see himself alone, the turtle sighed. Maybe he should contact Angy again to see how she was doing. Maybe... she'd listen to him. After contacting her twice now, it must be a walk in the park for him. He closed his eyes, entering the same state of mind...
Angy was sitting on the floor of her cell anxiously. Selfishly she could not wait until her friends arrived for a heroic rescue... but deep within her she wished they would not show and let her rot. She did not want them captured, tortured, or to grant her any favors after what she had done and what they had to deal with for the rest of their lives. Poor Raph...
Hopelessly, she gazed through the steel bars. Her eyes followed every crack crawling across the bricks in front of her. Water seeped through the pipes and stenciled out the cracked walls. Though, there was an awful lot of water dripping. Too much water actually. An image of gallons of water falling through the ceiling suddenly came to her, a continuous stream, gushing, flowing, sweeping her away. She wasn't sure whether it was her imagination or her horrid visions. Closing her eyes tightly she prayed to herself that the latter wasn't the case.
She felt her sides softly. They still had not managed a full recovery from the motorcycle accident. The dull ache from the injury throbbed more then it should along with the beating of her heart. It entranced her, her exhaustion from the lack of sleep and the constant testing causing her to lose focus on her surroundings. Maybe a little bit of sleep would do her good...
"Angy?"
Immediately her eyes flung open, but not in surprise. She did it to see whether or not any of the guards were nearby, hoping they were too busy elsewhere to notice her go rigid. The last thing she wanted to risk was for this mental... telepathy...well whatever the thing was... to go away. Holding her breath, she quietly thought, "Leo?"
"Yeah, glad to hear you're ok, Angy." His voice really did sound relieved.
"So..." She nonchalantly 'said' in order to suppress her happiness that there was someone to talk to other then the prison walls (which, at the current time, she was very close to doing)
"So..." He echoed in return. Suddenly he questioned his intentions for contacting her. He didn't have anything to say really. "How's incarceration?"
Obviously failing miserably to hide her excitement at someone to converse with, "Once you fung shuei the cell, it's not.. that...bad."
However, Leo could sense something wrong in her voice. Maybe it was just that the joke wasn't funny, but still... "You ok? We'll get you out ASAP."
"Yeah, fine," she lied. "So, there really isn't any sign of Raph?" Might as well get what was obviously on their minds out of the way.
There was a slight delay, "No. But.. Can you tell me what happened?" His voice sounded almost pleading, gleaning for some kind of hope from every detail.
"He was trying to help me when I was ambushed and-I..." Closing her eyes, she clutched the side of her ribs, "I don't really want to talk about it."
"Then, could you tell me who was responsible?" A tinge of anger ran through her head, and hate for the one who did this to his kin.
She hesitated. "But......... if I tell you, then... you'll only seek revenge."
"Why would you protect him over Raph?" Another twinge of anger, this time coupled with frustration, the frustration of a regular 15 year old who wanted to know who hurt him so much. Silence.
"I'm not, I...just don't want to screw this up even more." She was pleading with him now, begging him not to make her feel even more guilty.
"Who was it? Shredder? The elite ninja? Foot-tech ninja? Stockman? Hun? Who?!" The anger was growing in his thoughts, scaring Angy.
"...Hun."
The pure hatred filled his heart as he imagined the different methods of tearing the murderer to pieces. The images flooded into Angy's mind, and although she pretended to be blocking them out, secretly she enjoyed the thought of spilling Hun's brain over his dead body for what he did to Raphael.
"Leeeeeeeeeo? We're here already," came a nagging voice. Snapping his eyes open with a painful jerk, Leo saw Mikey, Don, and Master Splinter eyeing him carefully. "Let's break her out of that jail cell!"
A/N: Yeah, this chapter is kind of short...but oh well, ET'll update in a couple days so be happy...
