Chapter 4: The Morning After

An odd yet sensational smell awoke Raph from the couch the next morning. He had opted to just sleep there instead of in Mikey's room last night. He'd strike a deal with Mike today and then he'll consider bunking with the goof ball but not before then. At first, Raph rolled over, refusing to move from his spot until Leo or Master Splinter dragged him off of it for practice but the smell was making his stomach growl so he pushed himself off the couch and stumbled towards the kitchen. Stealing a glance at the clock he groaned. 6 am. Whatever was cooking had better be good.

He was expecting to see Mikey bent over the stove; cooking was his thing. It took the red banded turtle a few seconds of rubbing his eyes to realize that the figure bending over the stove was not Mikey but rather the slender form of Madison. It slightly confused him as to why she was up at this time. It looked like she had been up for awhile too. Judging from that fact that the kitchen was now clean and there was an elaborate set up on the table, not to mention she looked like she was cooking a breakfast feast she must have gotten up around 4:30 or 5 am to do all this. That seemed strange to him because she had finally gone back to bed around 3:30 last night. Jeez did this girl ever sleep? She didn't seem tired.

Her brown hair was pulled back into a long braid and her shorts were barely visible underneath her extra large sleeping shirt. His eyes trailed up her badly bruised but pale legs and on up her body. He saw her wince a little when she rubbed the back of her calf with her other foot, obviously upsetting one of the bruises. Raphael gritted his teeth at the sight of all the scars and cuts that covered her other wise slender legs. The thought of how she got them really made him mad. She pushed a pair of glasses that he hadn't seen her wear yet back up on to the bridge of her nose and was humming some sort of song. Not realizing that he was there, the hum broke into actual words and she began to sway and move as she pushed something around in a frying pan on the stove.

"Whoa."

Raph jumped (he had to stop doin' that!) and whirled around to see Mikey and Donny staring at Madison too. He watched their eyes sweep up and down her body just as his did.

"Knock it off, you guys," he growled, giving Mike a shove causing him to bump into Donny. "You wanna stare at somethin' go watch TV."

Madison's ear perked up and she turned around with the frying pan in hand. Smiling she said in a chipper voice, "Good Morning. Want some breakfast?"

"Sure," Mikey and Donny practically sprinted for the table. Raph took his time getting there and sat in the chair facing her and the stove.

"I'm usually the one stuck cookin' for everyone," Mikey chirped.

"Well while I'm here I thought I might as well try and help you guys out some how," Madison said, spooning some scrambled eggs and bacon on to three plates. "Anyone want a pancake?" The turtles nodded and watched as she dished a pancake on to each plate before setting them down in front of each turtle, "Enjoy."

"Chocolate chips!" Mikey exclaimed, grabbing his fork. "No way! Sweet!"

"Better than the slop Mikey usually forces us to eat," Raph smirked.

"Hey!"

"Kidd'in, Mikey, kidd'in!"

"Yeah, right."

"What is that intoxicating scent?" Master Splinter asked in a humored voice as he entered the kitchen fallowed by Leonardo.

"Good morning, Leo, Master Splinter," Madison smiled. "Would you like some breakfast?"

"Sure," Leo said, taking a seat between Donny and Raph.

"You are very kind to do this for us, Miss Miller," Splinter said, also taking a seat. "Though, you may have just permanently bonded yourself to this task. Except for Michelangelo, to get my sons to cook is difficult."

"I highly doubt I've bonded myself to anything," Madison said setting a plate in front in each new comer. "It's just been awhile since I have been able to really cook something. I usually just put a can of soup on because that was all we could afford but I figured that since you already had the stuff that I'd just fry it up so you didn't have to. We owe you guys our lives, the least I can do is make you breakfast. And you can call me Madison if you like. Good Morning Molly."

All five heads turned to see the small child walk through the door rubbing her eyes sleepily. They smiled at her standing there in her little yellow pajamas and bare feet. It puzzled them that Madison had not even seen her walk in yet knew that she was there. It puzzled them even more that an 8 year old was up at 6:30 in the morning!

Madison put her spatula down and went over and knelt down to the child, "Good morning, Sleepy head," she smiled. Molly looked at her with her bright green eyes and sleepily wrapped her arms around Madison's neck so that Madison could hoist her up in to her arms and walk over to the table. "Are you hungry, sweetie?" Molly nodded. "Well we'll just sit you down next to…oh…" Madison noticed that all the chairs were taken up. "Uhhh……Honey, I think you might need to…" Molly blinked a few times before squirming her way out of Madison's arms. Her little feet pattered lightly on the cement floor as she walked over and crawled up into Raphael's lap, shocking the heck out of everyone. Molly, of course said nothing, but just looked at Madison who questioningly set a plate next to Raph's. "Um Raph…could you cut her pancake for her please."

"Er…sure…" Raph quickly cut the pancake, shooting his brothers dirty looks for their snickering.

"Is Uncle Raphie-poo gonna cut little Molly's pannycake for her?" Mikey cooed, receiving a furious glare from Raphael.

"Shut up, Mikey," he snarled.

"Uncle Raph-poo shouldn't get mad or he might be a bad influence on little Molly-Wolly…"

"One more words, Mikey, and I swear…!"

"Michelangelo! Raphael! That is enough. My sons, please properly thank Miss Miller for your meal," Splinter said sternly, stopping the argument before it got out of hand. "Or would you rather dishonor her with your childish bickering at the table?"

"Sorry, Master Splinter," Mikey muttered. "Thanks, Maddy, this really is great."

"Yeah, thanks," Raph said.

"My pleasure," she smiled. "And don't sweat the bickering. I have four siblings, two of them pre-teens, I am used to bickering."

"Just because you are use to a certain action does not mean that you must continuously endure it," Splinter said with a knowing look.

Madison threw him a half smile over her shoulder. She knew he wasn't just talking about enduring the bickering of children, and she was suddenly regretting not getting properly dressed before coming to make breakfast. She was sure that the very visible wounds on her legs probably sparked the double meaning comment. She shook her head and concentrated on the bacon so that she didn't catch it on fire. She had missed cooking. She and her Mother had always cooked and baked together. Her mother had been an amazing chef. She could make just about anything and Madison did her best to learn everything she could from her mom. Madison secretly wanted to go to a culinary school, maybe open a small restaurant of her own where she could cook whatever she wanted all the time. Food brought people together and Madison liked that. She liked the thought of a real family setting.

Smiling over at her baby sister, who looked very content sitting in the mutant's lap, Madison almost wondered for a fleeting second what being a part of this family, would be like. She dismissed the thought as quickly as it had come to her. No, she thought. Not happening. She could not live in the sewers. A million and one things could happen to the kids down here if they went wondering around and knowing them like she did, she knew that they were not going to be satisfied staying in the Lair for the rest of their lives. No, she was going to make a life for herself and the children and she was going to open that restaurant. Shaking her head, she quickly turned her attention to a frying egg. She was snapped back out of her thoughts by Kaylin and Peter entering the kitchen bickering loudly. 6:50. Geez! Maybe they were just early risers by nature.

"You used the last of the toothpaste and your breath still smells!"

"It smells better than you do."

"And this coming from 'Mr. I think I'll go three weeks with out a shower.'"

"Shut up, Kaylin, or I'll…!"

"You'll what?"

Madison whirled around and pointed her spatula at them threateningly, "I'll do somethin' ta you both if you wake up Brian…" A sudden shrill crying was heard from Raphael's room. Madison frowned and the twins gulped, "Too late. Be right back…"

"I'll get 'im!" Mikey offered, quickly jumping out of his seat and practically bouncing out of the room. He returned moments later with the wide eyed infant. Brian's eyes darted around the room taking in the familiar scene. He smiled and gurgled a bit when Madison held her arms out for him. He leaned to her and she caught him in a loving embrace.

"Good morning, Mr. Brian," she cooed to him, picking up a bottle that she had prepared while Mikey was gone. "Someone was a very good boy last night and let Miss Madison get some sleep, oh yes he was."

The turtles had to chuckle at Madison's baby talk. She looked very comfortable with the baby in her arms as she rocked him to and fro as though he were her own child. She accepted the chair that Master Splinter held out for her so that she wouldn't have to feed Brian standing up while Kaylin and Peter, plates full, took the chairs that Mikey and Leo had abandoned. Master Splinter excused himself and left the room for his morning meditation.

"I'll help you clear, Madison," Donny said, starting to collect the used plates when everyone had finished.

"Oh no, Don, don't worry about that," Madison shot her brother and sister an annoyed look. "Peter and Kaylin will be happy to clean the kitchen, won't you, Guys?"

"Maddy!"

"Of course they could always start their studies early and I could clean the kitchen…"

"I call drying!" Peter leaped out of his chair and grabbed the dish towel, his twin sister looked rather angry.

"HEY! No fair, Peter!"

"Ya snooze ya loose, Sis."

"Why you little…!"

"Gee this sounds familiar," Leo chucked. "Ok guys, come on. Time for practice."

"Awww! Geez! Leeeoooo!" Mikey whined. "I'm full."

"Then maybe you shouldn't of stuffed your face with that fifth pancake, ya ding bat!"

"What do you guys practice?" Kaylin asked, looking up from having her brother in a head lock, ignoring Madison fierce demands that she let him go.

"Ninjitsu," Leo explained.

"Huh…?"

"They're ninjas, Kay," Madison said, setting Brian's bottle on the table. "And will you let Peter go already!"

"Oh," she replied. "Why didn't they just say that?"

"Wait a second!" Peter said, finally breaking out of Kaylin's hold. "You mean you guys know karate and stuff like that?"

"Well, yeah," Raph said, grinned. "Why? You interested in learning, kid?"

Madison saw that gleam in Peter's eyes. If these guys knew martial arts than he was probably going to take them up on that offer to teach him so that he could go back and… "No."

All eyes turned to Madison, Peter's eyes furrowed slightly, "Why not? You know martial arts."

"Well, yeah, but not as much as they do and I use mine for different purposes."

"You don't use them at all," Peter snapped. "Maybe if you had you wouldn't of gotten beaten up so much."

"Peter…!" Kaylin smacked her brother in the shoulder. Madison looked down for a moment. He was right; though fighting back would of cost her way to much. Not that he knew that. She ignored her brother's naive approach for as long as she could.

"… You know he would of left her alone if she had done something back!"

"And what would that of proved, Peter?" Madison nearly shouted, standing up in her chair. "That I could beat him up too? You know I am not as strong as he is by a long shot. And you know damn well what could have happened had I fought back. He has a gun, Peter! A 9 mm semi-automatic hand gun. Did you know that? Do you wanna know why I know that? Do you know how many god damn times he waved that thing in my face threatening to kill you all! Do you have any idea how much I would have hated myself if you, or Kaylin, or Molly, or Brian died because I wanted to try and beat the hell out of him purely because I thought I could!"

The whole room went silent. The turtles' eyes were wide with shock at Madison's out burst. It was completely out of character from what they knew of her so far. Peter and Kaylin looked even more shocked, Molly was hiding behind Raphael.

"You…you just swore at me," Peter said, numbly.

Madison, put her non-used hand over her mouth, suddenly realizing where she was again, what she had just said and sat back down, "Peter…I…oh god…" Peter didn't say anything; he just quietly walked over, handed Brain to Leo and embraced his trembling sister who was fighting back the tears forming in her eyes, "Peter, I…"

"Shhhh, s'okay," he said, stroking her hair. "I'm sorry, Maddy. I didn't mean to make you so upset."

"Peter," Madison held him at arms length, staring him straight in the eye. "If you want to learn, fine, but please, I am begging you. I do not want to lose you. I don't want to lose any of you."

"You won't lose any of us, Maddy," he said, kissing his sister on the forehead. "Yer stuck with us whether you want us or not."

Madison gave a small smile and hugged her brother once more, "You two never mind the dishes, I'll take care of it. Go and change if you plan on working out with the guys," the twins gave Madison a bone crushing hug and ran from the room. Madison got up and took Brian back from Leo, "I'm sorry, you really didn't need to see that."

"Don't sweat it," Leo said, putting a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "If you really don't want us teaching them..."

"No, it's not that," she said. "It's just that, well, as you can tell Peter has a lot of anger toward our dad about what happened to us. We all do but Peter is the most likely to take action because of it. He told me once that he wanted to learn karate so that he could go back and show our father..."

"That doesn't really sound good…"

"He needs an outlet for his anger," Madison said. "So I guess this is as good as any but please, if nothing else, teach him some restraint on that temper of his."

"We will," Donny said. "Don't worry about it. You can talk to Master Splinter about showing Peter how to calm his anger down a bit."

"Yeah, I mean he's been able to keep Raph on almost normal levels for almost 20 years now! And Peter is waaay smarter than Raph so he should have no problem…" Mikey laughed and ducked from Raph's fist.

"Watch it, Mikey!"

Madison laughed as Raph chased Mikey out of the room; Molly fallowed them with Donny right behind her. She stopped Leo though, "Um, Leo, one more thing…"

"Yeah?"

"You do know that we're leaving as soon as I'm better right?"

"Yeah."

"It's obvious that Peter already looks up to you guys and I don't want him getting hurt when we have to leave and so I just…"

"You know you don't have to leave right?"

"Leo, come on, think about it," Madison said. "Ten people living in this place? We have completely kicked you guys out of your rooms. You don't even have enough chairs for us all to sit down for breakfast. And Brian can't sleep on the floor on a mat."

"We have storage rooms that we don't really use anymore," Leo said. "Several of them. Big enough to be bed rooms."

Madison sighed in temporary defeat, "You'd better go practice. I don't want Master Splinter getting angry with you on my account."

Leo sighed but left with out saying anything further. Madison laid a blanket out on the floor with several baby toys on it for Brian to occupy himself with while she cleaned the dishes, all the while unsuccessfully forbidding her self to think about staying. They couldn't. They just couldn't.