Chapter Six
Early the next morning, somewhere around six o'clock, Marcus woke up with numb arms and a sore chest. He looked around him and thought, 'Darn. I was hoping it was all a dream.' But it wasn't, there were three children sleeping on him and two of them were turtles. 'This is going to be fun.' Marcus reflected as he realized that it was going to be quite a trick extracting himself out from under the children while trying not to wake them in the process. 'I hear you laughing up there mom and dad. This is pay back for every time my siblings and I have done this, isn't? I know you can see this so keep laughing it up.'
After an attempted deep sigh, Marcus slowly slid Michelangelo off his right arm. Then he pulled his arm free from under Donatello. Now all that was left was getting Cherise off him and himself off the bed. It took a little creative maneuvering, but he miraculously mange to succeed with both goals.
Now that he was free, the young man suddenly felt excruciating pain in both his arms. The numb feeling had worn off and he could feel the blood pumping its way through them. In a rush to get something for the pain from his bathroom down the hall, Marcus failed to see the note on his dresser. So he wasn't prepared for the surprise in his living room. He didn't see a large lump and a couple of little ones under blankets on his couch. The young man didn't even see a long tail that could have been attached to the large lump. It wasn't until he was coming out of the bathroom, heading for the kitchen, that he noticed there was someone, or something, there.
Carefully Marcus inched his way over to the couch and cautiously picked up an edge of the blanket. Of course he wasn't prepared for what was under there. "Oh geez!" The young man gasped as he fell onto his rear. For a brief moment his mind race as to why there was a giant rat in his house, asleep on his couch. But then he remembered Michelangelo telling him that his father was a giant rat. "Oh yeah." Now the young man wondered how the large rat managed to get into the building and when?
Seeing that the rat did not look wet, it had to been before the storm hit last night. 'Speaking of the storm, was it still raining?' Marcus looked towards his balcony. It wasn't thundering, but it wasn't exactly a great day to be out of the house either. While looking out, it was there that he saw the catch to the sliding door unlocked and a playing card on the floor. 'So that's how he did it, pretty smart.' Figuring that the large rat had a hard time last night worrying about his sons, the young man decided to let him sleep for a long he needed to or wanted.
Now today was still a workday, but because he had guests in the house and outside didn't look fit for anyone, Marcus decided to phone in sick. He took a cordless phone out of its cradle and went into the playroom so as not to disturbed anyone while he made his call.
"You have reached 'Animal Hospital and Sitters'." A computerized female voice said. "We pamper you pets and kept them healthy too. Sorry, but we are close for the day. If your pet is having an emergency medical problem please call our Animal ER clinic."
Marcus turned off the phone. "Looks like I'm not the only one who didn't want to go out in this weather." He was about to go out back where it belong when he found two turtles, each one holding a piece of colored cloth, looking up at him from the doorway. "Oh, hello there."
"'Ello." The two little turtles answered timidly.
Marcus bent down onto one knee. "Let me guess, you guys' names are Leonardo and Raphael."
Both little turtles looked at him with wonderment. "How did you know our names? Did our brothers tell you?"
"Nope." Marcus shook his head. "I just knew."
"Like magic?" The turtle with the blue cloth asked.
"If you like to think it that way." Marcus answered. "Now which one are you?"
"Leonardo." The little turtle answered with a laugh. "And this is Raphael." He pointed to his brother.
"My name is Marcus." The young man told them. "Now aren't you two up kind of early?"
Leonardo pointed at the young man. "You're up."
"You have a point there." Marcus said with a bit of a chuckle. "But I have to be."
"Why?" Raphael asked.
"Well usually I have a job to get ready for." Marcus explained. "Plus I have a daughter who has to go to school. So I have to get her ready, her stuff put together, and have some breakfast for her to eat." He looked down at the phone. "Speaking of school, I'm going to call in sick for her too. Don't want her out in this weather."
Briefly forgetting the two turtles, the young man used the phone again. "Due to the weather, we are closed for the day." A computerized voice said.
Marcus gave a small laugh. "Should have known." Then he felt a tugging on his shirtsleeve and turned to see it was one of the turtles. "Yes?"
"Are those…really toys?" Leonardo pointed to the electronic toys that were on the floor. "Can…we…um…play with them?"
Marcus mused over the question for a moment before answering. "I suppose so. So long as you are quiet."
With soft childish giggles, the two turtles dropped the cloths they carried while running over to the toys. Happily they turned them on and pushed random buttons to make the devices talk. As they play Marcus went out into the living room to put the phone away, only to find his furry guest awake. He was wearing a magenta kimono and was folding the blankets before placing them neatly at one end of the couch.
When the giant rat saw his host he gave a slight bow while saying, "Good morning Mr…"
"Marcus, just Marcus." The young man answered. "And morning to you too. I hope you slept well."
"I did." The giant rat answered. "My children call me Splinter."
"Really." Marcus said with a cocked eyebrow. "An interesting name I'd have to say. I chalk it up there with naming kids after Renaissance artists."
"Yes, well, it was the first names I saw in an old art book I found in the sewers after our transformation." Splinter explained.
"Transformation?" Marcus questioned. "So you weren't really born this way?"
"No." Splinter shook his head. "I was once a rat and my sons were once turtles. Somehow we change into what we are now."
"Are there anymore like you below the sewers?" Marcus inquired with great interest.
"If there are, I have yet to meet them." Splinter answered. "I find it most strange that you are not scared of our appearance or that you would so welcome your home to my lost sons."
"Call it a parental understanding." Marcus replied kindly. "At first I didn't know what to make of things when Cherish called up, telling me about two little turtle boys being in trouble. But when I saw them it was like something inside me want to just take care of them." He gave a small chuckle. "Course I didn't expect them to crawl into my bed and stay there. But they were so scared that I couldn't make them go back out here during the storm."
"I know that feeling." Splinter also gave a laugh. "If you think three is tough, you should try four. Waking up with numb arms is fine, I can still get around, but numb legs are another thing."
"And I use to think that my little Cherish was a handful." Marcus gave a slight sigh. "It was so hard…not having a mother around for her. I didn't think I could raise a child on my own. I mean when she came out she no bigger than my hands." The young man cupped both his together, showing them to the elder rat. "No bigger than this. And the doctors said there might be complications, because she was born early." He looked down at his hand, still cupped. "But when I held her for the first time and she looked up at me with this…this…need. The need for caring, for shelter…for love, I just couldn't accept impossible as an answer. I was going to do whatever it took to raise her."
Splinter felt touched by how the man explained his accepted role. It made him reflect back to when he first got his sons. At first it looked like it was going to be easy to care for them when he was just a rat and they were just turtles. But when they mutated into something more…advanced, the rat started to have serious doubts on if he could live up to the task of being a father. But he had to admit that when he saw four pairs of eyes looking up at him with that need that Marcus described, he too found it hard to think impossible. That he could not, would not, let doubt set in.
A little voice asked. "What happen to Cherish's mom?" Both fathers turned around to see little Michelangelo standing in the entryway from the hall to the living room. He rubbed his sleep eyes while wandering over to Splinter. "I missed you."
Splinter picked up the little turtle and gave him a peck on the top of his head. "I missed you too." He sat down with him in his lap. "But that is not a very nice thing to ask."
"Why not?" Michelangelo questioned. "If he were to ask what happen to our mom, we'd tell him."
"You don't know what happen to her." Splinter reminded.
"Oh yeah." Michelangelo answered.
"Is your brother still asleep?" Splinter inquired.
"No, he raced Cherish to the bathroom." Michelangelo replied before looking up at the young man. "If I can't ask about the mom, how about why you call your daughter Cherish? She says that it's not really her name, that it's a nickname."
"Because she is the most cherished thing I have now." Marcus explained. "You can take anything away from me by my daughter." He took a seat next to the rat and turtle. "When Kerry, my wife, was pregnant I would put my hand on her stomach and say, 'Carry (Kerry) Cherish moments'. She'd ask me what I mean by saying that one day. I told her that she and our daughter to be were the best moments in my life. That it would never matter if I don't accomplish anything else in life, because I feel completed having known them."
There was little cough and the three on the couch turned to see three at the entryway. The cough had come from Cherise. "What did happen to mommy?" She asked quietly.
Marcus bit his lip, he wasn't sure if now was the time to tell or not. But he couldn't ignore the question and she did have a right to know. "Come here." He finally said while patting his lap.
Cherise raced over to her father with the other three turtles following her. The young man picked up his daughter and put her in his lap while the turtles clamber around Splinter on the couch. Donatello stood behind the rat so he could put his little arms around his father's neck. Splinter put a hand on the back of his son's head and gave a quick kiss on the turtle's cheek. This was all that both needed to do to express their feelings towards the brief separation.
"Ok." Marcus let out a slight sigh. "While you were in mommy's stomach, she had really bad headaches that hurt her very much. One day she had to go into the hospital, because her head hurt too much for her to stay at home. At the hospital a line that carried blood burst in her head." The young man touched a part of Cherise's head. "Right about there, I think." He then brushed some hair from his daughter's face. "Well her head filled up with blood and she died." Marcus undid the messy braid the little girl had and smoothed out the hair while he continued to talk. "The doctors had to take you of mommy's stomach. But because you were born a little early, they had to put you in a special place to make sure you would be alright and after a couple months you were fine."
For a while nobody said anything. Marcus just kept stroking his daughter's hair while the turtles snuggled up with Splinter a bit. Really nobody knew what to say at this point. Splinter understood what it was like to feel loss, being that he had lost his master. However death to children as young as Cherise and the turtles was not much of an understood concept. They understood it to be something a person had, like a disease. But this disease would make the person go way for a very long time, never to come back again. They also understood that this was disease they would never want their fathers to have, because they wouldn't want them to go away forever.
Not being able to take the sorrowful silence any longer, Marcus suddenly blew a raspberry into Cherise's cheek. She let out a squeal of delight for as long as the blow went on. When he was done Marcus put her down. "Alright enough of that. Let's have some breakfast now, shall we?"
"What are we having?" Cherise asked eagerly. "Waffles?"
"With fruit toppings and whip cream." Marcus added. "Now go get dress." He gave her a loving swat on the bottom.
"Yay!" The little girl cried as she ran over to two of the turtles. She didn't know who she grabbed, not that she cared, and pulled them off the couch. "Come on. We have to wash our faces before we can eat." The ones she grabbed were Leonardo and Raphael. Not liking to be pulled by the young girl, they yanked their hands from her. "Huh?" Cherise cocked her head to one side. "What's the matter?"
"We don't know you." Leonardo snapped.
"Yeah, we don't know you." Raphael copied.
The little girl was not discouraged. "Ok. I understand." She grabbed the hands of the other turtles. "Come on." Donatello and Michelangelo put up no resistance as she pulled them with her to the bathroom. They looked forward to having waffles with fruit and whip cream. They've fruit on stuff, but never had whip cream. In fact they didn't even know what it was. Was it cream that was bad and got spanked?
Leonardo and Raphael watched with shocked expression as their brothers went off with the little girl. Did they like her better than them for a sibling? Worried they chased after their brothers to the bathroom.
Splinter observed with mild amusement. To see two of his sons get along so well with a human made him doubt if all humans were bad. "Makes you wish that kids ruled the world, doesn't it?" Marcus asked.
Splinter looked at the man curiously. "What makes you say something like that?"
"Race, color, species. It makes no different to them so long as they make friends and can play." Marcus answered. "If they have an argument, they just go their separate ways. There would be no fight, no wars. Just kids playing with kids."
"I don't know. Passed experience has shown that there are some adults who are able to ignore such things." Splinter gave the young man a bit of a smile. "Besides, can you image a world run by children? It would be a messy place."
"I suppose so." Marcus laughed while going into the kitchen so he could prepare breakfast.
Splinter got up from the couch so he could collect all the bandannas and leather belt that belong to his sons. He was glad that he had the state of mind to bring in Donatello and Michelangelo's stuff from outside before they got too wet from the rain. Once his sons had washed their faces they were back out in the living room, putting on what identified them and separated each from the other. Cherise was out dressed in her usual clothing by the time the first batch of waffles was put on the table.
Each child got there own animal plate and little fork placed in front of them. This time the plates had no dividers to separate any food. Then when they got a waffle a piece put on their plate, syrupy fruit was placed on top of the golden squares. After that a cylinder can was shaken and out came white foamy looking stuff that went all over the fruit. Splinter had to scold Michelangelo to keep him from continuingly say that the can was passing gas with ever squirt.
Quickly the children ate what they were given and begged for more before the fathers had a chance to get halfway through their own. Splinter was a little set off by the way his sons acted. He worried that their hunger might put Marcus and his daughter out, but the young human father was more than happy to supply more. However he did keep an eye on his rat guest to make sure that he would not overstepping his bounds.
Once the meal was done, Cherise started to pull Donatello and Michelangelo towards the playroom. But Splinter's stern voice said, "It is time for us to go."
"What?" The little girl said with shock. "But…but can't they stay for a little while longer." She was so busy thinking of things for them to do that day that she forgot they eventually had to go home. "Please stay longer. Please?"
"Yes, please." Michelangelo and Donatello begged. "Let us stay."
Hearing their brothers beg to stay scared Leonardo and Raphael. If their brothers wanted to stay it meant they didn't want to go home. And if their brothers didn't want to go home then that would mean that they didn't want live with them and their father anymore. So they figure the only remedy to the situation was for them to protest to staying and go home right away.
"No. Let's go now." Leonardo said while tugging on his father's kimono.
"Yeah, I miss home a lot." Raphael added while joining his brother in pulling on the rat's kimono.
Splinter looked down at his two worried sons. His gaze moved over to his pleading ones and then he looked over at the little girl, whose face was busying trying to think of way to get her new friends to stay longer. Before the father rat could say anything, she pointed out the balcony window.
"Look. Look." Cherise cried. "It's raining really badly. You can't go out in the rain or you all with get sick. Right daddy?" She looked at Marcus for back up.
The young man put up his hands. "Don't bring me into this." He said. "It is up to Splinter on if he wants his family to stay or to go. Whatever he decides, we respect. Understand?"
Cherise's lower lip stuck out. "Ok." She said sadly.
Splinter let out a sigh while he took a look outside. It was raining, but it wasn't too hard. If he hurried his sons now, they could get home before it got worse. Or so he thought, because a large flash of light happened outside and it was followed by a loud thunder. Cherise grasped her father's pant leg while the four turtles grasped their father's kimono.
"Guess that answers that." Splinter said with a sigh.
"Thank you father." Donatello and Michelangelo said gleefully while releasing the rat's clothing. This time it was they who grabbed the little girl and pulled her long with them.
Both Leonardo and Raphael stood by their father, stunned. Did he know what he just done? Now Donatello and Michelangelo would never want to go home again…unless the two older turtles tried to convince them that their home was better than here. In order to do that, they would have to show that they were going to be better brothers than Cherise's 'sister' act. Wasting no time, Leonardo and Raphael rushed to the playroom.
A/N: Well we all know what happened to mom. Plus it now looks like Leo and Raph have something to worry about. They don't know what we know, do they? I wonder how they'll act towards their brothers now.
