A day earlier…
"Are you all right back there?" April asked, as she had been doing approximately every ten minutes since they had left her apartment.
"This does not bother me," Splinter replied, yet again. He was sitting on the floor in the rear of April's vehicle, while she drove and Dr. Lamb sat beside her.
"You know," April said, "I bought this old thing a couple years ago, thinking that someday I would open an antiques shop and need something to haul merchandise in. I never planned to have unsecured passengers in the back."
"Can you pay attention to the road?" said Dr. Lamb, who had spent the entire journey clinging to a small handle in the roof. "This is why nobody drives on 95."
"Patently untrue," said April, taking a hand off the wheel yet again to gesture to the traffic that surrounded them, even in the middle of the night.
"Might we talk about something else?" Splinter interrupted, before the women could begin arguing again. "Okaasan, I would be most honored if you would share with me something about my son when he was small."
"David?" Dr. Lamb asked, and her grip on the handle eased just a little. "He was a good kid. Always very well-behaved. He loved to learn."
"He was very smart," April put in. "I've never seen an eight-year-old pick up command line syntax that quickly."
"Pick up what?" said Dr. Lamb.
"Never mind," said April. "Anyway, he had a great attention span, and he was very polite."
"He was," Dr. Lamb said. "Then he became a teenager." She watched the darkened side of the road go by for a moment. "It's not really his fault. His health got a lot worse when he was about twelve. Who can blame him for being crabby?"
"But when he was small?" Splinter prompted.
"He loved animals," Dr. Lamb said. "And machines. He wasn't interested in cartoons and he's never cared much about sports. He's a very cerebral person. Introverted, but socially astute. He's always been…" She trailed off, and twisted around in her seat to pose a question of her own. "Splinter, tell me the truth. Is my son a turtle?"
Splinter held her gaze under the rhythmic strobe of the street lights. "I saw him when he was so."
"But how is that possible?" Dr. Lamb asked.
"Where I am from," Splinter replied, "we do not question such things, but merely accept them."
"With an attitude like that," Dr. Lamb said, "I never would have gotten out of undergrad," and April hummed in agreement. She faced front again, thumping her head back against the deep, tall chair. "My son can't be a reptile," she said. "I hate reptiles."
"Okay, now that is not scientific reasoning," said April.
"Why do you not like reptiles?" asked Splinter, in some surprise.
"You know how you have to look at a reptile for a long time," Dr. Lamb said, "to figure out if it's a living animal or just plastic?"
"No," said Splinter.
"… Oh," said Dr. Lamb, who seemed to have had a witty remark ready to springboard off of Splinter's yes. "Well, that. Anyway," she added, at Splinter's silence, "the point is, I don't think I can accept my son being reptilian."
"Is he not the same son you have known all these years?" Splinter asked.
"Well, yes, but…" Dr. Lamb paused as April turned smoothly off the highway. "Maybe I should let him get the surgery. To cure him."
"You would risk his life for this?" Splinter asked, in increasing alarm.
"You heard him," Dr. Lamb said. "He would risk his own life for this." She turned again, struggling to pick him out in the dark. "I want my son to be happy, Splinter. I want him to be normal. What's wrong with that?"
Splinter didn't know that he could have answered differently, if his other sons had felt the way their brother did.
April eased the van up a road covered in stones, and Dr. Lamb was unbuckling her seatbelt before the vehicle even came to a complete stop. "He is grounded for life," she muttered, as she reached for the door handle.
"How do you ground a kid who never leaves the house anyway?" April wondered.
"You don't want to know," Dr. Lamb replied darkly.
What sort of punishment the boys deserved for their exploit was very much on Splinter's mind, but it was not the most urgent issue at the moment. "Be cautious," he said. "If we are at the wrong house…"
"Then I'll tell whoever lives here I'm lost," Dr. Lamb said, as she opened the door and climbed out of the van. "I'm a normal human, remember? People don't threaten to shoot me just for showing my face."
In a moment she was back, slamming the door and jamming the seatbelt into the buckle. "Some redneck just threatened to shoot me. Let's get out of here."
April started the van and began backing up. Splinter rose from his crouch just enough to get a look at the man who was standing in the driveway, watching them leave, and as he slid back past Dr. Lamb's shoulder, he drew in a long, subtle breath.
"I do not think we are at the wrong house," he said.
April slowed the van. "Do you want me to pull back in?"
"Keep moving," Splinter said, and April obeyed. "I think that is Mr. Jones. He is hiding our sons."
"Then why are we leaving?" Dr. Lamb demanded. She reached for her seatbelt again, as though she planned to jump out of the moving vehicle.
"Continue to the main road," Splinter ordered, and over Dr. Lamb's protests, April obeyed.
She pulled over at the side of a dark and quiet road. "What's the plan?" she asked.
"Yes, Splinter," said Dr. Lamb acidly. "Please tell us what the plan is."
"It is clear our sons do not want to be found," Splinter said. "Their behavior has been so drastic already, I… worry what they will do if we do not give them this time." He thought for a moment, glancing at the sky. "The sun will be rising in a few hours. Let us find a safe place to spend the day. When it is dark again, I will visit the area and make sure they are all right. They will not see me. If all is well… perhaps it is best to let this go on a little longer."
"That is absolutely ridiculous," Dr. Lamb snapped. "April, turn this thing around right now."
"No one else knows where they are," Splinter pointed out calmly. "We could not find them for three days. Their ally threatened your life in order to guard them. And do not forget, our son asked us not to come for him."
"Too bad," Dr. Lamb said. "He doesn't make the rules."
"Emma," said April, "I have zero authority to tell you how to be a mom. But your boy is growing up. You can't keep him in the house forever. You want him to be happy and normal? Let him do this."
Dr. Lamb didn't answer.
"Come on." April started the car again, looked over her shoulder, and pulled back into the deserted lane. "Let's find a diner. I'm starving."
They were having a sort of picnic in the back of the van, when a phone rang. Dr. Lamb launched herself over the seat to scramble in her bag for the little device. "Hello?" she said as soon as she got it open, and then she gave her son an earful.
"Do not tell him we know where they are," Splinter cautioned, though he was not sure she could hear him, or would listen.
"David, this is the most irresponsible thing you have ever done," she was saying. "Have you tested your glucose today? Do you have enough insulin? No, don't 'Mom' me. Do you have any idea how much trouble you're in?"
She seemed to be getting nowhere with this diatribe, and in a moment she thrust the phone at Splinter. "It's Leonardo."
"Good morning, my eldest," he began, as if they were spending a pleasant morning at home, and from there he subjected his chunin to a slow and subtle kind of torture.
"I am so sorry," Leonardo kept saying. "I have dishonored you." Then he made a heartfelt and self-abasing plea to be allowed to stay in his - unbeknownst to him - compromised hiding place, while Splinter pretended that he would never consider any such thing. When Leonardo had punished himself enough, Splinter allowed the ashamed child to talk him into speaking to David.
"Are you well?" he asked, when the phone had been handed over. "Are you happy? Do you wish to remain there with your brothers?"
David replied to each with a confident yes. Then Splinter laid out his conditions, glancing at Dr. Lamb after each one and getting her reluctant nod.
"I accept your terms," David said.
"Very well," Splinter replied. "Until the change of seasons, my long-lost."
"I'll see you then," David said.
Dr. Lamb reached for the phone, but Splinter handed it to April. "Please turn it off."
"I can't believe I'm doing this," Dr. Lamb said, after the electronic tone that signaled that the call was no longer connected.
"How often have you said that, since becoming a parent?" Splinter asked.
"Approximately every day," Dr. Lamb replied.
"As have I." Splinter laid a hand over Dr. Lamb's, cautiously, but she didn't seem to mind his fur or his claws. "Almost always followed by, 'How fortunate I am, to be having another surprising experience with my sons!'"
Dr. Lamb looked at him as if he had gone crazy. "But we're not having an experience with our sons. They left us. This is the problem we have been dealing with for three days."
Splinter shook his head. "This is the inevitable end of parenthood. How fortunate we are, to have an opportunity to practice it now."
Dr. Lamb and April found a place, not far from the farmhouse where the Turtles were hiding, to spend the daylight hours.
("Are you sure you'll be all right?" April asked, as they left him in the van.
"It is no trouble," he replied. "Please, enjoy yourselves.")
At sundown, the women had rejoined him, and he instructed April to stop half a mile from the end of the gravel driveway. "I can travel from here," he explained. "Wait for me. I will not be long."
He crossed the terrain quickly, gently rolling hills under early fall stars. The land was covered with clumps of forest, the trees not yet ready to release their leaves.
The house was dark as he approached, the surroundings quiet. Where were his sons? He bent low to the ground, sniffing and listening.
The scent of Mr. Jones was here, though it was hours old. The distinct scent trails of his sons were here too - Michelangelo the freshest, the others from no more recently than a day ago.
He circled the old house, alert for anything out of the ordinary. Did his sons know they had been found? Had they moved? They could hardly be unaware that someone had visited their hideout early that morning, but on the phone call they'd said nothing about the incident.
He had not thought to check whether the phone call came from the same location as the others.
As he came around the back corner of the house, he saw a warm glow spilling from a lower window. He crept closer, and could hear muffled voices coming from inside the rundown but still snug home.
Slowly, he peered over the windowsill. In the kitchen - sized for an extended family - were his four sons, comfortably filling the space with talk and laughter. Just to the side of the window he could see a pile of drying dishes, evidence of a good meal. The boys looked healthy and in good spirits, and David's cat was stretched out on the table between them, at ease in their company.
It would have been easy to burst in, march them all to the waiting van, and take them home. But, with a clarity he had never quite experienced before in his role as a father, Splinter could see the long chain of consequences that such a choice would lead to.
He had trained them for this. He had raised them for this. They were more prepared to be on their own than he had been when he had lost his master, and it was time for them to find their place in the world.
He watched a little while longer, just for the painful pleasure of seeing his children not need him anymore, and then he made his way back to the van.
"Let us go home," he said, after latching the door behind him, and he would not say any more until they were well on the road back to Manhattan.