Disclaimer: I don't own the Ninja Turtles... Please don't sue me ^^


Already sick of everyone's worrying, Karai calmly approached the couch with an ice-pack in hand. Mikey, leaping up from his seat on the floor, cautiously took hold of her shoulders and helped her sit, while Leo – who had tailed her to and from the kitchen – arranged a plush pillow for her to rest her head on.

Frustrated with them both, she frowned. "Why are you guys doing this?"

Leo lowered her head to the pillow with both hands as Mikey propped her feet up on the table to let her recline. "Because you got hurt," the blue-clad turtle answered simply.

"So?" She hadn't meant to be snappy with them, but they really were getting on her nerves now. Raph had injured her nose three days ago, and still her brothers wouldn't stop fussing. "You must get hurt in battle all the time; are you this attentive to each-other over something as little as a broken nose?"

The two terrapin brothers exchanged an awkward glance, before turning to Karai with a blush. She gave them a pointed stare as she placed her feet on the floor, sitting up. "See? Why are you over-doing things so much with me, then?"

"Well…" Mikey knelt in front of her, blue eyes honest as always. "It's because you're our sister, and you're so… uh… breakable."

"Fragile," corrected Leo habitually.

"Yeah, you're so fragile," continued Mikey.

Karai glared. "I can't be that fragile; I survived life with the Shredder."

Both turtles winced. Leo joined her on the couch, taking one of her hands in his. "Yeah, but how often did you part with your armour and weapons to just relax when you were with the Shredder?"

She blinked in surprise; she hadn't even realised she was unarmed until Leo pointed it out. "I-I…"

He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, keeping the pillow between his muscles and her head. "You see? We want to look after you, Karai, that's all. We have shells and plastrons all the time, but you only wear armour sometimes."

"Well, I could wear it constantly-"

"No, because then you'd be constantly on-edge," Leo smoothed her bangs down absent-mindedly, "and that would certainly break my heart. Mikey?"

The usually excitable turtle nodded seriously. "Me too, dude."

Karai bit her lip, not wanting to admit that Leo had a point. He squeezed her tighter. "Sorry if we're being too overprotective, Karai, but it's just because we love you."

Mikey hugged her around the waist. "Mm-hmm. We love you so much, sis."

"You... You love me?" She glanced between the two turtles in front of her, but the answer came from behind as Raph swatted her shoulder.

"Of course we do, ya numbskull," he replied, rolling his eyes as he slumped on the couch beside her lazily, a bowl of popcorn under one arm.

"Yeah, you're our sister, Karai," added Donnie, entering with another two bowls of popcorn. He passed one to Leo, and held the other out of Mikey's reach.

Karai pulled her legs up onto the couch and folded them underneath her. She held her head up, but Leo made sure it was supported by the pillow anyway. She smiled slightly. "Thank you, guys. I... I, uh-"

"It's cool, sis," Mikey assured her, "we know what you mean. You don't have to say it out loud."

Her eyes softened, and she breathed out another, "Thank you."

Donnie prodded her arm teasingly. "Hey, I thought you weren't good at saying 'thank you'."

The fact that he had remembered such a small detail stretched the smile across her face. "I guess all the practice has helped."


Patrols had resumed in the days following Karai's injury (which, as terrible as it sounded, had been a rather convenient excuse for Leo to keep her off them), but the turtles had been given the night off to watch a movie with their sister. Mikey even managed to convince their Sensei to watch with them, with the use of pleading and puppy-dog eyes. Splinter deemed it worth watching the silly movie, if only for the quality time with his children and the smile on his lost daughter's face.

Karai found herself dozing off slightly, and she felt Leo draw her closer in her half-awake state. Her kunoichi instincts wouldn't let her fall asleep completely with all the background noise, but she eventually stopped fighting the urge to close her eyes.

Evidently, they all assumed she had actually fallen asleep, because when the movie ended, they all spoke in hushed tones.

"Hey, is she sleeping?" whispered Donnie.

She felt Leo nod against her.

"Aww, she looks so cute," Mikey cooed. Karai assumed the hand that began stroking her leg belonged to the orange-clad turtle.

The hand was quickly removed. "Mikey, stop it," Raph hissed.

"But-"

"Raphael is right, Michelangelo," said Splinter quietly. "Miwa seems peaceful; let us not disturb her."

"She sleeps quite well, actually; I'm not sure what Casey meant," Leo whispered. "Sometimes she'll wake up in the night, but as far as I'm aware, she pretty much goes straight back to sleep."

"Maybe she got over the nightmares, then," suggested Raph.

"Probably," Donnie agreed. "Either that, or Leo's just a comforting presence to her."

"Will she be okay when her room's ready, then? If she needs Leo to sleep?" Mikey inquired innocently.

She felt Leo's sigh. "I hope so. I'm not sure I will, though; I've gotten quite used to her being around."

"You'll survive, Fearless." Karai could just imagine Raph rolling his eyes.

Leo nuzzled closer to her. "Yeah..."

Master Splinter's robe rustled as he moved towards them, and his sleeve brushed her cheek as he placed a hand on Leo's shoulder. "Leonardo, I am sure Miwa will require her own space, as much as I think you two enjoy each-other's company."

"I know, Sensei," he said with another sigh. "It's just gonna be weird without her again."

"She will only be down the hall, my son."

There was a long pause, before Raph asked, "We're gonna have to wake her up, right? Unless you're plannin' to leave her on the couch all night."

Leo's arms - or, at least, she presumed they were Leo's - wrapped around her, curving behind her shoulders and under her knees. "It's okay, I'll just carry her to bed," he murmured softly, lifting her up.

"...Can I still kiss her goodnight?" Mikey questioned hesitantly.

"Sure, just don't wake her up."

Two pairs of lips - Mikey's, then Donnie's - brushed her cheek, and a long second passed before a third pair followed. Her father leaned over to kiss her forehead, and she mentally smiled as his beard tickled her face. Apparently, goodnight-kissing had been a concept Mikey used to initiate in the turtles' younger years, and it had recently been re-instated with Karai's arrival.

After bidding everyone goodnight, Leo carried her through to their bedroom. She felt an extra hand curl around the back of her head, raising it slightly. "Keep her head up, Leo."

"I know, Don, I'm just trying to carry her."

"Sorry, I just don't want her to get hurt." A moment of silence, then, "Leo, you know what I said the other day about-"

"Donnie, I already told you: I don't know why she freaked out so much when Raph hit her."

"I know, but it was scary. When Raph brought her in she was shaking and crying, and he said she was hyperventilating before that, like she was having a panic attack, and-"

"You told me, remember? If she says anything to me about it, I'll tell you, unless she asks me to keep it a secret."

"Okay. Thanks, Leo."

Donnie's footsteps thudded away softly, and Leo began walking again. Karai felt herself stirring as Leo lay her down on the bed, but he gently hushed her and kissed her cheek. She returned to her not-quite-sleeping state for a short moment, until Leo began removing her jeans.

Her eyes shot open, and she glared accusingly at him. He blushed, smiling sheepishly. "Sorry. I didn't want to wake you, but I thought you wouldn't want to sleep in jeans, and..."

Grinning in understanding, Karai kicked her jeans off the remainder of the way and pulling off her black top. Leo's blush darkened, and he averted his eyes as she removed her bra and put on her hockey jersey, only daring to peek after she had assured him three times that she was decent.

He disarmed himself and untied his mask, then slipped into the bed beside her. The turtle cuddled closer and pecked her on the cheek again. She stifled an unwanted giggle, but Leo being Leo seemed to hear it anyway and gave her an adorable smile. "Why are you always paying attention?"

Leo shrugged half-heartedly. "Because I'm tuned in to you?"

The turtle rose to turn off the lights, then immediately returned to her side. Karai waited until his breathing had evened out, before whispering, "And when I get my room, I'll miss you, too."

Part of her had known he was still awake, but part of her still gasped in surprise as he clutched her tighter.


A week or so later, and Karai's new bedroom was finally finished.

The walls were painted a light green colour, and there was a scroll decorated with a cherry blossom pattern hanging on one wall. Against the opposite wall was an old mirror, positioned over a small, slightly lopsided dresser that Donnie had found at the junkyard, which happened to be where most of the lair's furniture actually came from. The purple-clad brother had also enlisted Raph's help in repairing a damaged wooden bedframe he'd discovered, and it could now support the mattress Leo had helped Karai carry down to the lair. April and Angel had chosen her bedding with her, but she managed to talk them into letting her have relatively plain bedding with a Japanese-inspired floral pattern.

Karai couldn't help smiling as she set her duffel bag of belongings down on her new bed.

"Wow," she heard Leo breathe behind her, "this place looks really cool."

"Thank you, but I had a lot of help." She sat down on the bed and grinned up at Leo. "Though, it is a lot better than my old room at the Foot."

An uncomfortable silence fell over them, until Karai stood and placed a hand on his arm. "Leo?"

"Yeah?"

She swallowed nervously. "I… I think I'll be okay, but-"

"If you have any nightmares, you know where I am," he interrupted kindly.

The kunoichi narrowed her eyes at him. "How would you know if that's what I was going to ask? I could have just been asking whether or not you'd seen my T-phone."

Donatello had given her the gadget a few days after she moved in, and she had yet to tell anyone how much she loved it. Leo, of course, had figured it out, but that was beside the point. The blue-clad turtle sighed and shook his head. "Okay, okay, sorry for assuming. By the way," Leo produced a T-phone with a black shell, "I have actually seen your phone."

She blinked in surprise momentarily, before smirking and holding out another T-phone. "And I've seen yours."

Chuckling, they exchanged phones, and slipped into a more familiar kind of silence. Karai drew her legs up onto the bed and kicked off her boots, before reconsidering and standing up. Duffel bag in hand, she made her way over to the dresser, pausing to glance over her shoulder at Leo to say, "Wanna help me unpack?"

Leo blushed again. "Uh, I don't think that's a good idea. I mean, won't you have, like, all your clothes and stuff in there, and, uh…"

She didn't even try to subdue her laugh. "Alright, you don't have to help, but I really do need to unpack. Can you handle being in the same room as all my clothes?"

The turtle hesitated awkwardly, eyes glazed over. Judging by the embarrassed expression on his face when Karai's voice brought him back to reality and the nervous excuse he stammered out as he left, Karai presumed he had been imagining watching her unpack her things and had decided that no, he could not handle it.

Laughing to herself, she unzipped the bag and began unpacking.

"Miwa?"

"Hello, Father," she greeted happily. There was a time when saying those words would make her shudder and cringe inside, but now, they were warm and welcoming.

Much like the smile on Master Splinter's face as he kindly asked, "Do you like your new room?"

She beamed at him. "I love it," she answered honestly, putting down the bag and crossing the room to hug him.

"Good." He hugged her back gladly, savouring the contact with his daughter. "And are you happy here?"

"Definitely," Karai promised. "You and the guys have been so welcoming, and this lair is way nicer than you'd expect a sewer-home to be. I'm glad I've actually had enough to time to appreciate that this time."

Splinter's breathing paused momentarily with the memory, but he regained control very quickly and rubbed the back of her head. "Thank goodness you have stayed, my child. I had adapted to life with my sons, but your presence is a gift I could have never anticipated."

"I never thought I'd end up with a rat for a father and four turtle brothers, either," she quipped teasingly.

He rolled his eyes at her, but it was a fond gesture. "I will leave you in peace for now, Miwa. Will you be joining us for lunch?"

"Of course," Karai replied without thinking. "See you then."

Her father gave her shoulder one last squeeze, then left her alone in her room once more. Karai turned back to the dresser to begin packing again, before she caught sight of her reflection in the mirror. The girl staring back at her still had the same make-up, but she also had an overgrown bob of black hair hanging freely around her face, a pleased smile that reached right up to her eyes, and a newly formed bruise on her shoulder.

"Ow! Leo, did you just bite me?!"

"Sorry! I didn't mean to; I was just kissing! Are you hurt?"

"Very. In fact, I'm so hurt, that I think I'll need your help with something."

"… What are you going to make me do?"

"Hmm… I don't know, just remember that you owe me one."

She smirked fondly at the memory, then blushed when she realised how painfully obvious it must have been to Splinter. Oh well, she thought. Nothing I can do about it now. Her smile faltered, though, as she struggled to work out why the image seemed so weird.

However, Karai realised quickly why the image seemed so strange. She was searching the glass for Oroku Karai, but the girl looking back was Hamato Karai.


OMG THE FEELS FROM TALE OF THE YOKAI! Thank goodness I had this written up, because I've literally spent this week alternating between fangirling over baby Miwa and just crying from the feelings (even though I knew what was going to happen).

Quick note, my update next week might be late, because I've hardly got anything written, and I'm going out for dinner with my family next Thursday (at a place called Leonardo's, ironically xD). So if it's late, sorry.

Anyway, thank you for reading/reviewing/following/favourite-ing, and I'll see you next week... hopefully on time xD