Title: Moth and Flame – The sequel to the 'Cat and Mouse' series
Author: Jayde
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Seven years have passed since the events of 'Rest in Peace'.
Credits: Thanks to Sassy, once again, for the excellent and timely beta.
Disclaimer: I do NOT own the turtles. I borrow them only for entertainment purposes. No profit or harm intended.
Author's Notes: Wow! That's immediate feedback, folks.
To Reinbeauchaser: I'm sorry I'm confusing. If you have a suggestion on how to make the 'time switches' a little clearer, I'd love to hear it. The standard, though, is that the first section of each chapter is a flashback. Why do I do that? Because I'm weird. No, it actually serves the purpose (in my mind) of bringing the reader up to date on things that came before without making the story boring.
To Reluctant Dragon: Conflict, definitely. Just wait …
To pacphys and Fallen Hikari: More Uncle Raph in this chapter
For everyone with a comment on the 'new comics' universe … I've read volumes 1, 2, and now I'm into 4. (I refuse to acknowledge volume 3). It is up to issue 20 of the new series with Laird taking the guys in new and unusual directions. As mentioned in the prologue, the new series has the Utroms landing on Earth, and now aliens visit at will. The guys are about 30 years old at the beginning of the new series – not exactly teenage mutants anymore.
I liked the idea of the turtles being part of society, but I also liked the idea that it wasn't a bed of roses. Some of the story direction in the new series is fantastic, as far as I'm concerned. But other stuff has upset some of the fans. For me, this is still Laird's playground. I'm only here to try the slide and take a turn on the swings. I'll put it all back the way I found it when I'm done. I'll also be biting my nails for issue 21 (two months is torture!). Everyone has their 'first experience' with TMNT. Mine was in a dim and dusty comic book store, but I digress.
Chapter 2:
Five years earlier …
He woke up, as usual, to the sound of screams.
"It's my hairbrush! Don't touch it!" Rachel shrieked from the other side of the wall. Mike rolled over, and shifted the pillow so that it covered his head. He startled when someone poked him rudely in the right thigh.
"What?" he groused, peering out from under his hiding place. He met a pair of dark eyes that observed him with humor.
"That doesn't work," she commiserated, snuggling closer. Mike let go of a corner of the pillow to wrap an arm around her waist. He wrapped his right leg around her too, while he was at it.
"It's worth a try," he replied, leaning forward to kiss her nose. She wrinkled up her face and frowned at him before wiping her nose in an exaggerated manner. Mike shifted a little, drawing her still nearer, and kissed her mouth this time. Her hands moved over his plastron, feather light, and drifted to his more sensitive sides to glide over the skin there.
"Mom! Noelle threw my hairbrush into Raphael's room!" Rachel shouted from just outside the door. Mike groaned, and rolled back onto his shell.
"That sounds like a job for you," Juliet commented, drawing the covers up and hiding her head.
It was like the old days. Sitting on the top of the table, wearing a comfortable pair of jeans and an old sweater in place of her usual business suit, Sam studied the grisly display.
A board had been set up in her office, and it was covered with crime scene photos, maps, and detailed accounts of three murders. The last one had been the body recovered from the University physics lab … Don's lab. Sam massaged her temples, and stared at the pictures. Three young men, with nothing more in common than that they were in their early twenties and in the city, had been beaten to death. Blunt force trauma, the coroner's report said.
But the violence of the beating was unusual. Each of the victims had resembled hamburger afterwards. It would take an incredible amount of strength and perseverance to do this to a human being.
Each of the bodies had been found somewhere that they didn't belong. This young man, Tyler Johnson, was not even a student at the University. Don had never seen him before, and no one on campus had admitted to recognizing him. He had turned out to be a waiter at a fancy hotel – just waiting for his call to Broadway.
The previous victim – Sean Peters – had been an art student. His body turned up by the fountain in a shopping mall.
And that was the worst part of it. No witnesses, even though each body had been left in a very public place. Nothing on surveillance cameras at any of the locations, and if they had been tampered with her experts couldn't detect it.
Three victims made it necessary to take the next step. It was time to start thinking of this in terms of a serial killer.
"You okay, Elle?"
She glanced up from staring out the passenger window to look at her father.
"I'm okay," she sighed. Seeing Mike's doubting expression, she tried a little harder. "Really, everything is good."
"I know you wanted your mom to take you today …" Mike began. He watched her shoulders slump a little, and he felt the tiniest flicker of anger with Juliet.
"It's just a lesson," Noelle said, brushing it off with a shrug, but it did hurt. She was getting ready to perform at a recital in less than two weeks. She wanted her mother to come and hear her play.
"You don't have to pretend with me, Elle," Mike noted gently. He watched Noelle's face crumple, and he pulled into a parking spot in front of a pleasant brownstone on a street that was lined with such quaint buildings. He put it in park, and keyed off the engine. "Elle, come here sweetie," he offered, holding out his arms. The girl undid her seatbelt, and pressed herself close to the only father she had ever known. "Your mom loves you. She loves all of us," he reassured. "She'll be at your recital, Elle."
Noelle nodded, but inside she thought it unlikely. Her mother had been missing a lot of stuff lately.
A light knock on the passenger window startled both of them. Mike looked up to see a blonde woman looking in, her eyes dark with concern. Noelle moved back and opened her door.
"Noelle? What's wrong?" the woman asked. Noelle hung her head, and remained silent. Mike got out of the car, and walked around to them.
"Hey Amber," Mike greeted in an abnormally subdued manner. Amber frowned, and put an arm around Noelle's shoulders.
"Mike? Is something going on?" Amber questioned. Mike shook his head. It was nothing he intended to share with Noelle's piano teacher. Glancing between the two of them with a small frown marring her forehead, Amber gave up – for now. "Are you ready, Noelle?"
The girl nodded, and tried to smile. It came out a little crooked. Mike followed them up to the building, a now familiar melancholy shrouding his spirit.
It looked a bit like a dance studio, and according to Leo that was exactly what it had been before he and Raphael bought the old place, and converted it for their use. Two large rooms with simple wood flooring each had a wall of floor to ceiling mirrors. The ballet bars had been removed, of course, and there were no dancers present anywhere.
Instead, the occupied room rang with grunts and the occasional yell – all relatively tame in comparison to Raphael's shouted instructions to his class.
It had been Don's idea – start a martial arts school in the old neighborhood. What else were Leo and Raph qualified to do? They could have stayed in the lair, of course. The option of continuing to hide from the world was still available – but they didn't want to. Mike, too, would drop by to teach a class, practice, and bring his daughters here for their lessons.
Don looked around at the clean white walls, the parents sitting behind the glass and watching Raph's class, and the shelves displaying a growing number of trophies. It had been a good idea – one of his better ones in fact. Leo, on the phone and making notes on a pad of paper, finally completed his call.
"So what brings you here, Donnie?" Leo queried, his left eye ridge cocked.
"I ran into someone," Don confessed slowly. Leo waved Don into the small office, and Don took a chair gratefully. Leo leaned back in his chair on the other side of the desk, and considered his brother.
"Someone?" Leo asked.
"Sam," Don said. It was only three letters, but there was a lot of emotion in that simple name.
Leo frowned deeply, and Don couldn't really blame him. It had been more than seven years, but some things you just couldn't forget.
"Don …," Leo started hesitantly.
"I know," Don interrupted, raising a hand to stop the lecture before it started.
"No, I don't think you do," Leo said harshly. "She …" Leo struggled for the right words to say. "She didn't just step on your heart, she ripped it out and tore it to pieces." Don looked down at the desk, and Leo leaned forward to lay a hand on his brother's arm. "You do what you feel is right, but be careful." Leo let go and sat back again. "I don't trust her," he muttered darkly.
"You don't trust anyone," Don rejoined, his voice a little tight.
"True, that," Raph said from the open doorway. Don turned to see his other brother leaning against the frame, and holding a bottle of water. He waved the bottle in the direction of the front door. "Mike's here." He took a long drink, draining the bottle, and then tossed it into the office garbage can. "It's like a family reunion."
"Hey," Mike said, sticking his head in the door. "Don!" Don replied with a wide smile. "Rachel's here, and I gotta go back and pick up Noelle from piano." He seemed a little down.
"You want to talk later, Mikey?" Leo asked. Mike shook his head, and threw a punch at Raph's shoulder.
"Rach is in the classroom."
Rachel had started out her martial arts training with Mike as her teacher. That had lasted up until the past couple of years, when the brothers felt Rachel needed to start working with someone who wasn't so close to the situation. Mike just didn't have the detachment necessary to be hard on her.
Raphael, of course, was another matter entirely.
"Come on, Rachel," Raphael groused. "At least make the bag move a little when you kick it!"
Since the tender age of 13, Raphael had been her sensei. Each week he pushed her through more complex katas, sparred with her, and tried to get her to be more aggressive in her attacks.
"The bag is moving! Maybe your eyesight is going," Rach retorted breathlessly.
There was no problem with her verbal attacks. She had only grown more flippant spending time with Raphael every week.
"Alright, alright," he said, calling a halt to her work with the heavy bag. "Come on over here, and see if you can stay on yer feet." Raph rolled his shoulders and stretched his neck. Rachel joined him on the mats, and bowed perfunctorily. "Yer gonna pay for that," he threatened, and Rachel replied with a cheeky smile. She moved into a defensive position, and Raphael started to circle left. "So what's up with Mike?"
Rachel's expression transformed to a frown. "Mom," she replied shortly. She turned her body, keeping Raph from coming in on a blind side. Raph straightened up, and tilted his head a little.
"What? Trouble in paradise?"
Rachel relaxed a little. "You know her. She's all about the cause." Rachel shrugged. She loved her mother, but since they had moved to live on the surface everything had changed. Juliet didn't work – she didn't need to with the insurance money left behind by Rachel's father. Mike worked part-time at this school, but he wasn't teaching much these days – he spent most of his time being a single parent. It was tough – realizing that your parents were capable of making mistakes. Rachel glanced down at the mat uncomfortably. "I dunno," she mumbled.
It happened so fast; she barely had time to register the leg sweep before she was on the mat. Rachel looked up to find Raphael standing over her with a disgusted look on his face.
"Never drop your eyes in the trainin' room, kid," he corrected sternly. He offered her a hand up, which she took without hesitation.
"I'm not a kid," she argued. Raph gave her a friendly shove, rocking her back on her heels.
"Yeah you are," Raph rejoined. "Now get it together, or yer gonna be on that mat all hour."
