Disclaimer: I still don't own the TMNT. The originals, however, are mine and I tend to be very possessive.
Donatello knelt down and tentatively reached out to touch the gargoyle. The stone was cooling fast and it seemed pretty solid. The clothes the female was wearing was also stone. Her face was set in a worried half smile and her wings caped loosely around herself. "Whoa," he breathed.
"Wow, talk about sleeping like a rock," Michelangelo ribbed from the doorway. "Is this normal?"
"Have you ever seen a gargoyle before?"
The orange-clad turtle shook his head. "Not any like this one, but there are dozens on our patrol route."
"Yeah, but those are still stone at night and during the day, Mikey." The stone beneath his fingers was completely cool now, so the turtle pulled his hand away. "I guess we leave her alone; check on her later or something." For once, the brainy turtle was at a loss for words. He wanted to say something intelligent about this, but nothing came to mind. "Let's go, Mikey."
Mikey's shoulders bounced in a shrug as he turned and headed for the kitchen… doing an impromptu rendition of Godsmack's "I Stand Alone". "Yes, I! I turn to stone! Inside, I! I turn to stone. Outside, I!"
Raphael swatted his brother as he passed him. "Nut."
Karen sat talking in hushed tones to her friend. "Jessica, I don't like being here." The were-turtle was in her human form again, but still held her friend's hand. "I can't seem to shake the feeling…"
Jessica turned to her friend, smothering a yawn with her free hand. "Beany, we can't go anywhere. Them blokes up there tore me up something fierce. I'm tired, sore, and hungry. We haven't been living there all that long… and this place is a lot warmer." The felinoid's eyes were slowly drifting shut. "Besides, the purple one promised no harm."
Karen shivered a bit. "I know, but…"
Jess' free hand clasped her friend's shoulder weakly. "I'll be up in a flash should anything go amiss. You know that. Right now, though, I need a catnap."
Nodding, Karen moved her friend's hands until they rested beside her body. "Rest well, Kitkat."
"You don't trust us," Leonardo said a few moments later as Karen sat in the kitchen with a cup of tea.
Karen shook her head. "You don't trust us," she shot back at him.
"What were you doing out that got your friend hurt?"
Green eyes flashed at him. "For your information, Leonardo, we were trying to get the rest of her stuff from her former apartment. We had gotten the furniture and the other stuff out, but some of the foodstuffs couldn't be moved until we got the refrigerator working our new place." She took a drink while he pondered his next question.
"Where do you now live that accepts your furry friend?"
Karen slammed her tea cup back on the table. "Her name is Jessica, blue boy. If you can't remember that, I'll personally beat it into you."
A heavily accented voice cut into the conversation. "I'm the only one allowed to beat on Leo," Raphael said. "Where do you stay that accepts Jessica?"
Capping her fury, Karen sighed. "An old abandoned lair from the looks of it. It looks like it was once a home for something or someone." She missed the looks on the turtles' faces as she continued talking to her mug. "There was this really destroyed looking chair in the center of the room. We cleaned it up, blocked off some of the most direct routes to it and made it home. I moved in with Jess because it's my fault she's that way."
"I'm goin' out," Raph said suddenly.
Karen jerked her eyes up at that and glared at him. "Good, one less person staring at me all day."
"What is your problem with us," Leonardo asked at length. "We haven't done anything to you."
"You didn't exactly welcome us or our winged friend with a smile now, did you?"
"Would you have?"
Karen scowled as she answered him. "We did, yes."
Leonardo looked surprised. "What?"
"Oh come off it, Leonardo," she scoffed. "You guys think you are the only unique creatures around you. No way! There are things that you all have missed because you only come above ground when the shadows are long or the crowds are busy. You fear the general populace so much that you don't bother to stop and observe it with unclouded eyes. You know the red head and that male vigilante, but have you tried to see the world beyond that?" Her tea lay cold and forgotten on the table in front of her as she took a deep breath and continued. "Yes, the world is a violent and scary place with crooked cops, pimps, whores, thieves, murderers, rapists, abusers, users, homeless, and other sorts of people, but how can you be saying you're making a better impact on it if you hide down here and only go topside to be vigilantes yourselves?"
"We're not vigilantes," he corrected her.
"No," she chuckled humorlessly. "Then what are you?"
"Protectors."
Karen scoffed again. "Vigilantes, just like our friend. No one asked for your help. No one can recognize you for it because you do your stuff and run."
"We make the streets safer for people like you," he seethed.
"Who asked you," she growled. "Jessica is ostracized because of her fur and fangs, but not a single person tried to kill her because of it."
"She was born human though." Leonardo was losing his struggle to remain calm. "We are turtles humanized."
"So what?! Turtles humanized or humanoid turtles, what is the damn difference? Can you think? Rationalize? Communicate?"
SLAM!
Leonardo's tea cup hit the table with enough force to topple Karen's mug. "What right do you have to come to our home and tell us that what we're doing is oh so wrong? We've lived eighteen years down here without your 'enlightenment'," he spat, "and I wager we'll keep going on without it after you and your friends are gone!"
Karen stood up and sneered at him. "Fine words," she replied, "for a coward."
Leonardo scowled at the female across from him. "I. Am. No. Coward."
Karen opened her mouth to reply, but was cut off by a sharp voice. "Karen," Jessica said sharply. "What right do you have to insult our hosts?"
Her mouth floundering for a second, the were-turtle frowned. "He started it," she finished somewhat lamely.
Shaking her head, the feline frowned at the two verbal sparring partners. "I heard all of what was said, Beany. Why?"
Karen's frown deepened. "Because… I'm scared," she confessed. Extending her arms in a helpless gesture, she walked over and embraced her friend. "You got hurt, Kevin's out there still, Pine showing up, them," she rambled. "Everything's happening too fast."
Jessica chuckled. "Time is nature's way of making sure everything doesn't happen at once, not that it doesn't happen too fast, Karen. We'll be fine, as long as you quit badgering our hosts."
Karen nodded and turned towards Leonardo. Giving him a low bow, she said sincerely, "My apologies, Leonardo."
As he had stood and watched the entire exchange, Leo had calmed down and did see some of Karen's point. Returning her bow stiffly, he nodded. "Accepted." He turned and walked away from the females… they were certainly an added distraction, but perhaps meditation would clear them from his mind.
TMNT
Donatello sat in his room watching the gargoyle with interest. After having talked to Karen and Jessica, he was aware that this being would awake at sunset. The computer estimated sunset to be within the next ten minutes, so here he was, waiting. Jessica had alternated between wakefulness and cat napping, while Karen had wandered the sewers after collecting more of their things. At the present everyone was seated in the living area conversing and eating.
Tiny hairline cracks began to weave a tell tale web of miniature ravines across the surface of the stone. Twin beacons of crimson light glowed through the eyes and suddenly the statue was on its feet roaring to life. The gargoyle shook the remnants of the shards out of her hair and looked around. Instantly the walls seemed to suffocate her.
"How could you have stayed so quiet when hiding in a hole underneath a bunch of humans if that's how loud you roar when you wake up," he asked before his mind caught up with his mouth.
The gargress frowned. "Necessity," she replied curtly.
"I'm sorry," Donatello said sincerely. "Sometimes my mouth gets carried away with me."
"It is fine, Donatello." She looked at the roof above her. "Is there any way I could be taken back to the surface? I don't wish to be a bother here."
"You want to leave?"
"The sewers are not a habitable home for me. I need the open air and the night winds."
Donatello looked shocked. "But…"
"Don, let her alone," Leonardo interrupted. "We would not want to cage her in a place she can not live in."
The gargress bowed low to Donatello and then Leonardo. "Thank you, honored leader. Your understanding is far beyond your years."
Leo nodded politely back at her. "Karen and Jessica have to stay here for another night. They'll be back at their home by the time you wake tomorrow night, I suspect."
"Thank you." She looked again at the ceiling. "Can we go now?"
The blue banned turtle nodded. "I'll take you to the surface."
With his shell cell tucked safely into his belt, Leonardo led the winged female towards the park exit of the sewers. "Here," he said as he handed her a cell of her own. "If you get into trouble or you just need someone to talk to, give any one of us a call. Master Splinter insisted you have someplace to come back to if you fall short of safe roosts."
Eying the open skies that twinkled with stars, the she-goyle looked back at Leonardo. "Perhaps you can stay and talk for a little while?"
Leonardo nodded. "I'm sure I can spare to miss one of Mikey's Monday Midnight Movie Marathons which usually last til three anyway." He perched himself comfortably at the end of the tunnel. "So, where do you come from?"
Smiling, she launched into her story.
Donatello found the pair of them talking still at two in the morning. He had been sent by Splinter after locating both shell cell signals in the same spot. Worried for his eldest son, the old rat had sent him to find the missing leader. "You missed Mikey's movie," he said as a way of greeting.
The gargress' stomach growled. "Oh my, I am sorry, Leonardo. I have kept you from your clan far too long. Forgive me."
"And I've kept you from getting food. My apologies to you, friend." Leonardo stood up and offered the gargoyle a hand up. "Perhaps you'd like to have something back at the lair before you go?"
Looking towards Donatello and then back at Leo, the she-goyle nodded. "Perhaps I could stay for an early morning meal."
Donatello shook his head and headed back the way he came. Leonardo and Friend followed suit.
The she-goyle stifled a yawn as she curled her wings about her and perched in an undecorated area of the lair. Her early morning meal had wound up picking up where the sewer conversation had been abruptly interrupted and had lasted until the familiar stiffness of dawn started. Moving quickly, she and Leonardo had found a less fragile place than Donnie's room – which hadn't escaped unscathed. "Good night, Leonardo. Thank you for hearing a lonely gargoyle out."
Leonardo bowed. "Even those who choose their loneliness need to feel useful. I am glad my ear was enough this evening."
She smiled and solidified before him.
He made short work of finding his pillow and falling into it.
Michelangelo smiled softly in his sleep. There were girls in the lair now. How cool was that?
TMNT TMNT
Author's Note: I know, long time FINALLY an update. This chapter feels a bit rushed to me, but I see an instant respect between Leo and my gargoyle. I also see an instant dislike between Leo and ANYONE who even hints at him being wrong, so sorry Karen. :P Anyway, just a short update. Muse demanded to write something about these characters, so here it is. Tootles.
