Disclaimer: Take a good look at the last six chapters and you might just realize that I do not and never have owned the TMNT.

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Casey meandered into the Lair. Drawn to the exciting sounds of a fight scene. blaring from ten or so television screens.

"You guys started it without me?" he whined, plunking himself down on the couch and grabbed a fist-full of popcorn which he shoved into his mouth

"Had to, dude." Mike said not taking his eyes from the screen as man after man fell from Dirk Pitt's wrath. "Movie won't be over till 11:30 as it is."

"Hey," Casey said, looking around, "Where's Leo?"

"Huh?" Three voices chorused.

"I said, 'where's Leo?' "

The three turtles wrenched their eyes from the television and joined Casey in glancing around the room. Their brother was no where to be seen.

Mike turned back to Raph and Don sitting on the couch just as confused as him. "Where'd he go?"

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Leo crept through the shadows to the front door of the house. The entire front of the house was dark. He began to wondered if anyone was even home.

Ducking underneath the window on the top half of the door, he tried the handle. It was open. He slipped inside without a sound.

He crept down the hallway, listening intently for signs of other occupants. He noted that there appeared to be only one light on in the entire house. Before checking it out, he made his rounds upstairs; peeking into every darkened rooms for signs of life.

Finally satisfied that the only life form in the house was downstairs, he snuck back to the source of the light and peered into the room. It was the family room/kitchen. No one appeared to be there. He took another step forward; still no one. He took one final step into the room and spotted Aaron around the corner, with her back to him, taking something out of the fridge. She turned around bottle in hand.

Her entire body jumped as she gasped, completely startled. Her hand lost its grip on the bottle she was holding. It fell like lead to the ground. Upon contact it shattered to pieces with a loud crash.

Shards of glass and flooding liquid flew everywhere. Aaron continued to stare at Leo, the stunned effect not receding like it should when one recognizes a friend. He took a step forward to help with the newly made mess. All of a sudden she sprang to life.

"No, Stop! Don't come any closer!" She shouted at him.

He looked at her quizzically.

"Uh, um...," She groped around for words of explanation, "Your...your feet. You don't want to cut them on the glass."

"Don't worry, it's fine," Leo explained, "my feet are hard as rock after fifteen years going barefoot."

He set her bag down on the counter, "Here, I'll help you clean this up." He took another step towards the mess and stooped down to pick up a large piece of glass, overturned, with most of the drink's label printed on the other side.

"No! Leo, stop!" She lunged forward to keep him out of the area. Her foot slipped on a forming puddle of liquid, sending her off-balance. She fell forward onto the floor, instinctively spreading her hands out in front of her when she hit the ground.

She cried out as a sharp, searing pain spasmed through her left palm and jolted up into her arm, causing her muscles there to give out and she collapsed further down onto the floor. Before she was able to register what had happened, she felt two strong arms swoop down and pulled her up from the cold tile floor.

She managed to look down at her palm and gagged. Blood was flowing everywhere. Protruding from her skin was a sickeningly sharp, jagged piece of clear glass. The sight sent a wave of panic sweeping over her.

"Rags?" Leo asked, scooping her up, baby-style, and setting her in a chair at the kitchen table.

Aaron didn't hear him. She continued to stare at the grotesque wound on her palm.

"Rags!" Leo demanded.

"What?" Aaron asked weakly, snapping out of her thoughts and looking into his eyes.

"Where do you keep your rags?"

"Laundry room; below the sink."

"And tweezers?"

Aaron's eyes magnetically drew themselves back to her hand that lay motionless and throbbing on the kitchen table. The bit of panic began to arouse itself again.

Leo saw her eyes grow wider and panic beginning to take over.

"Aaron," Leo said, gently laying his large green hand over her wounded one. Her eyes snapped back to him. "I need tweezers."

"In my bathroom," she said, her voice unable to go above a whisper. He nodded,

"Stay here. You'll be ok, just...hang on a second."

He dashed out of the room to collect the supplies. Aaron was left to stare at the bleeding. The pain intensified; she gritted her teeth, shut her eyes tight and groaned. Before long she heard Leo reenter the room. He tossed a few rags and the pair of tweezers onto the counter and carefully tread into the kitchen. Watching carefully where he placed his feet. She heard the sound of glass tinkling as it slid across the floor in his wake.

Aaron froze. Her body stiffened and her heart pounded, hoping he wouldn't realize what the bottle had contained. She forgot about the stinging in her hand as she nervously watched his every move.

He flipped the faucet on the sink on. Water shot forth as he began to dig around in the lower cabinets for something. She noticed his beak twitch slightly as if smelling a strange but vague smell. His eyes squinted themselves thoughtfully. She held her breathe subconsciously and only let it out when he eventually stood up to his full height with a large, clear tub-a-ware container in hand. Testing the water he filled the container and set it on the table, then walked back to wash his hands and retrieve the items from the counter. Aaron turned her attention to the swirls of steam rise from the clear tub.

Leonardo returned to the table. Easing himself into the chair beside her. Wordlessly he gently took her hand into his own rough calloused one and began to dislodge the large piece of glass.

Aaron hissed as the stinging pain returned in a flash.

"Sorry," he muttered under his breath, placing the shard of glass on the table, flashing his eyes up at hers and then quickly back down at her hand. The silence reigned over them again.

a few minutes passed slowly ticking by as if each second took a day to pass.

The lack of sound felt awkward, especially having nothing to do besides stare either at him or her gory hand.

The bleeding had slowed and some of it had began to dry around the edges of her hand, but for the life of her, she could not figure out how he could see into the wound. poking around with tweezers, looking for extra bits of whatever that might have gotten themselves into her cut.

Another thousand years slunk by incognito in the form of five minutes.

The silence weighed down on her. Making her chest feel heavy with each breath and wanting to say something but finding her mind completely blank except for her worries, and that was the last thing she wanted to talk about.

Aaron shifted in her chair uncomfortably. How come he was so silent? Why wasn't he saying anything? Had he figured her out? Did he know what she had been planning to do? Had she given herself away somehow? What was he thinking about?

"Am I going to need stitches?" she finally mumbled breaking the accursed silence. This time it was Leo's turn to jump.

"Nah," he said, after regaining his composure, "It's not as bad as it looks. Watch..." He laid the tweezers down on the table, picked up a rag, dipped it in the steaming water and began to wash the blood, that now covered nearly her entire palm, away.

She watched closely as he gently yet firmly dabbed here and there. The red pool began to fade out and turn a sickly yellow color, which eventually faded away as well. Soon she could make out the two inch long cut on her palm.

"It's really not that deep either," He said, trying to keep up the sad excuse for a conversation, "you're pretty lucky."

"Cool." She answered lamely, knowing that was the absolute last thing it was.

"Um," Leo cleared his throat, "Do you have any hydrogen peroxide around here? Even if it's not too bad, it still needs to be disinfected."

"Upstairs; parent's bathroom; under the sink on the far side."

He nodded, "I'll be right back, and then I'll clean up the kitchen for you. Stay put."

Aaron nodded and watched the back of his shell as it disappeared through the doorway. She cocked her head to the side and half smiled. He was sweet, a little serious and stiff sometimes, but definitely sweet.

Her smile got a little bigger as she thought about the nonexistent number of guys she knew who could and would handle this past situation like Leo had. It was almost- she stopped, afraid of using the r word. romantic. Quickly shrugging off the giddy, happy feeling she was getting as well.

Must be from severe blood loss.

But then again, how many guys would do all that and even offer to clean up the glass in the kitchen?

She sucked in a sharp breath. The Glass!

She scrambled up from her seat and back to the mess of glass fragments. Quickly locating the one with the tattle-tailing label printed on the front. She slammed her foot down on the pedal to the trash compacter and tossed it in, hiding it under a stack of old magazines so that it couldn't let on to the crime she'd almost committed.

No sooner had she shut the trash, did Leo walk in with a brown, plastic medicine bottle in hand.

"What're you doing?" He asked raising an eye-ridge.

"Well, -er- I was wondering if you wanted some..." She glanced around at the cupboards, finally settling on one and naming one of its contents, "tea." She snapped her gaze back to his.

"Uh...sure...hey, uh... are you gonna be ok?" He asked.

Aaron's eyes widened and a deer in the headlights look came over her.

"Course I'm ok; why wouldn't I be ok? I'm absolutely ok." she said quickly.

"I meant, making tea one-handed."

"Oh," Aaron mentally kicked herself, "yeah, I'll be fine."

"Come on, let me finish your hand and then you can attempt to make tea."

He led her back to the table.

"I hope you don't mind that I swiped some cotton balls from upstairs, too." He said, "They're easier than rags."

"Oh, no problem, my cotton balls are your cotton balls."

He chuckled a bit. Aaron tilted her head again as she watched him splash a little bit of the hydrogen peroxide onto a cotton ball.

"This's going to sting a little," he warned.

Aaron shrugged nonchalantly. He dabbed the little white puff onto her skin.

"Holy Flipping Hamburgers, Leo!" She shouted as a fire burned throughout her hand, "You said it was going to sting a little, not like a whole swarm of killer bees!"

Leo chuckled again.

"Oh! so you think my suffering is funny, do you?" Aaron said, trying not to smile, as the mood lightened and the sting settled down a bit.

Leo smiled and shook his head. Aaron grinned broadly back at him as he tied a considerably smaller rag around her hand.

"Just for tonight," he told her. "To give it time and protection to heal."

"Thanks," she said softly.

"No problem."

The mood had settled down again. They sat there at the kitchen table, left staring at each others eyes. Neither of them breaking the gaze. A more accepted silence fell upon them. Making it the perfect moment for something to happen, something having to do with that dreadful r word, but Aaron wouldn't have it.

"So! You want some tea now?" She asked hurriedly. And without waiting for an answer, scampered back over to the kitchen.

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Author's note:

Once Again this was originally going to be longer but for the sake of keeping updated I figured I'd just split this chapter into two, post this and make the second half shorter.

It's not my best work, but its slowly moving the story along. Don't know where this is going in the long run, but I've got the next chapter or two lined out.

I know, I know, Leo walking in at exactly the right moment was a little tacky and obvious, but it's the direction I decided to go with. The other way would have been far more dark and dramatic. I figured I'd try to get a little more light hearted, after all my pen name is Aaron Smiley . So Lemme know what you think. Oh, and if you spot even so much as a speck of Mary Sueism lemme have it! Being a Humongous, Ginormous and just generally huge fan of Leo, I find it hard to write for Aaron without running into some potholes.

ps. For anyone wondering, I did change the can of beer to a bottle, just because a can would not break if dropped, (unless, maybe, thrown at a thousand miles per hour and I don't think Aaron iscapable of that and would look really weird doing it)