Got a very long, very nice review by Reijiro and so I think I have to go on. If there are any logical mistakes in this chapter, I´m sorry, but it´s long after midnight and I´ve learned biochemistry until now. What can be a better relaxing break than writing a fic? (is meant ironically, )
Just for the record: This chapter will describe the same day as the previous one, but from Splinters or Tally's point of view. The night, in which Splinter was captured by Rob is the night in which the Turtles search for him.
For all Splinter-Fans out there: I know that a few of the thoughts and expressions are absolutely untypical for our wise Sensei, but he´s pretty ill and hopping mad, and so it´s understandingly when his thoughts are a little bit more, let´s say, Raphael-like, okay?
Criticism and other opinions are always welcome!
Thanks again for beta reading and correcting, Cynlee, and for the advertise at Stealthy Stories!
And thanks to everyone who sent me reviews…or leastwise read this.. without reviews…growl!
Chapter 6: Splinter Lost
Tally didn´t know how long she sat there crying, but it felt like hours.
Robert! Oh, Rob.
She still couldn´t believe it. She remembered when she'd first got to know him. She was taking a walk in the Central Park, and had seen a boy who was crying his eyes out- apparently his dog had stumbled over some wire some idiot had disposed of there. And kneeling right before the dog was this well-looking man in expensive white trousers- knees in the sludge, the trousers would never be clean again- ripping his shirt in stripes for a makeshift dressing.
She hadn´t been able to move on. She had stood there and watched, smiling mildly, as this obviously medically skilled man acted as vet to the dog, not caring for the mud or the blood on his precious clothing. From the distance, she wasn´t able to hear what he had said to the boy, but after a while, the child had stopped crying, and later on, the boy had gone away with a limping dog.
There had been this strong, intuitive feeling of "this-is-Mr.-Right", so that she hadn´t been really surprised, when he had stood up, turned around, noticed her, smiled abashed and invited her to a cup of coffee.
It had been the way things should go, and now…
Tears fell again on her lap. Her jeans had a lot of similar dark spots. Looks like a new fashion trend, she thought absently. She felt so tired, exhausted and- empty.
She wanted to drive back to the City, now, wanted to be in her practice and work, even do the tax computation. But she had this iron rule never to bring her work along at her holiday apartment. Luckily, this time the work has come to her in form of a mutated rat- which was responsible for her break with Robert.
But maybe it was better this way. She had been able to take a look on his real character, and she has definitely not liked what she has seen there.
Slowly she went through the floor and hesitated before her sleeping room.
Geez! After all, it was her room! She opened the door a little bit more fiercely than she had planned it. Luckily her patient didn´t notice. He laid near the edge of the bed, shivering, his tail dangling to the floor and moving restlessly. Tally moved him gently in the midst of the bed and covered his body with the blanket. Splinter's eyes moved rapidly under his closed lids, he was shivering and muttering something incomprehensible.
"Shh", Tally said quietly and chuckled. It was obvious that he wasn´t young any more, but as he laid there sleeping, he looked so helpless- like a little child. She stretched out her hand and softly fondled his cheek. His fur was moist with sweat, but that didn´t disturb her. At his throat and behind his ears was it soft and silky. Around his snout he had a few silvery hairs.
She perched comfortably on the bed, leaned her back against the wall and placed Splinter's head in her lap. Placing her other arm across his breast, she continued stroking his face. Absently she looked at the opposite wall, speaking mildly to this fascinating being which has just being washed into her life.
"Don´t worry, I´ll not let him harm you. I won´t let anyone harm you. You´ll be fine, just wait, everything will become good, you´ll see."
She was half aware that she was speaking to him as if to a little child, but the sleeping rat seemed not to care. Splinter cuddled automatically deeper into her lap, seeking the warmth of her body, still shivering. Tally smiled, still stroking him. His breathing appeared to be a little bit steadier, his pulse was solid. This one was much tougher than he looked. His fever was still very high, but after a few days of bed rest and an antibiotic he should be okay. She pressed an ear on his breast. She could hear him breathing, but didn't notice the crackle that would indicate a punctured lung. Hopefully the blood was only from hurt mucosae.
He had stopped shivering. Now he laid really in her arms like a little child, but there was a gentle smile on his lips and his eyes weren´t moving that anxiously any more. She thought she could dare to leave him alone for an hour to buy the groceries she needed. It was already late, she would have to search for an all-night-shop, but she couldn´t bring herself to stand up.
Here and now was peace and in the outside world it was still raining like her heart was still arching. She smiled down at the furry heap in her lap and without thinking about it she bent down and pressed a light kiss on his forehead. For a moment she feared she had awakened him –how to explain?- but he only sighed and huddled against her. Carefully she stood up, whispering "I´ll be back soon, just have to buy a few things" and left the room.
She came back late in the night. It was a long ride to the next 24 hour supermarket, but she managed even to get a few rice noodles, miso and green tea. From what he has told her, he was Japanese, and she wanted to surprise him with a tastier meal than instant soup. The moon light was illuminating the gateway- so that she could see the deep skid marks at once. The groceries fell to the ground.
"Rob, you haven´t…"
She sprinted to the door- locked!
For a moment she breathed a sigh of relief, but then she remembered that Rob had a key as well. She barely managed to shift the key in the hole, tore the door open and dashed into her sleeping room--
Which was empty!
One minute she thought, he could have gone to the toilet or anywhere… then she noticed the dirty boot tracks at her carpet. Her legs weakened. Rob had made it. And Splinter was gone.
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After a while, Splinter couldn´t tell anymore if the rumbling and the wiggled vision came from his fever or from the van. When it finally stopped or at least weakened a bit, he relaxed and enjoyed the silence. In a far distant of his mind he knew that he was in really big trouble, but he couldn´t care less at the very moment. All he want was something, anything to drink and then to sleep.
The doors of the van were opened and two men lifted him and carried him to a big cage, like the one a circus uses to hold lions.
"Wonder what kind of creature this is. Looks like a giant rat. Maybe it´s an escapee from a animal experiment lab?"
"Who cares. Just think of the money it´ll put in our pockets. It´s even better than the horse with the fifth leg we used to have. Heck, we could even pitch it as an alien!"
They laid him down in the cage. One of the men bend down and put a leather collar connected with a heavy chain around his neck. Then they untied him and left the cage.
Splinter laid motionless for a long time before he finally decided that he could move without collapsing.
Shakily he rose to his hands and feet and looked around the cage. It stank. Even with his illness it was an insult for his sensitive nose. He lifted a hand to his heck and then eyed the chain. Normally he would have handled this within a few minutes-- but then normally the men wouldn´t have been able to catch him at all.
He collapsed on the ground. It was covered with old, partly rotten straw. He curled up and rested his aching head at his forearm. At least they had untied him.
Suddenly the door was jolted and opened. He winced, frightened. Despite his usual sharp senses he hadn´t noticed that one of the men had come back. He carried two metal bowls and placed them in front of Splinter's snout. Splinter could smell the contents without looking: some kind of really terrible smelling animal food in the one and in the other- cold water!
The man remained in the cage and observed Splinter, so he didn´t dare to grab the bowl and lift it to his mouth. Instead, he bent over it and tried to drink like a dog- with the result, that he collapsed right into the bowl.
The man roared with laughter. Splinter wasn´t that amused; he was wet through and the night was cold, but the water had refreshed his animal spirits and he could think a little bit clearer. For sure it was safer in the moment to pretend to be a dumb animal- they wouldn´t be that watchful, and that would increase his chances to take flight.
Right now, a new bowl of water would be enough and luckily it was soon brought. This time he waited until the man vanished, then he raised it up, leaning against the cage bars, and emptied the bowl with shivery hands.
He analyzed the strength of the chain and decided that he should be able to bite it through- next night. All he wanted to do right now was to sleep.
But he couldn´t. Sleep wouldn´t come to him, he was too angry with himself and too worried about his family. What did this man say? Tally first wanted to keep it, but finally she agreed that it would be better this way.
And he old, brainless idiot had trusted her! And brought his sons into great danger in the process! He sighed and glided down to the ground. And then, with an absolutely uncharacteristic outburst of fury and blinded with rage he jerked with his full weight at the chain, scratching and biting, fuming in the cage that he couldn´t break free from.
I… must… leave, he thought frantically, I must get out of here!
After a time he laid still, semiconscious. His bluster had entertained a few viewers, which laughed about this absolutely witless animal trying to break free.
One of the men grabbed the chain and hauled on it until Splinter's body laid beside the bars.
"Give it up, freak" he smiled and patted Splinter's head.
Angrily hissing, Splinter snatched at his hand.
"Whoa!" The man hastily twitched his hand back and yanked again on the chain, so that Splinter could hardly breath. "Easy, freak. Don´t bite the hand that feeds you!" To emphasize his words, he wrenched again at the chain and Splinter had no choice except to surrender if he didn´t want to suffocate.
The man one again stretched his hand to stroke his fur and this time Splinter abided the humiliation. But if looks could kill…
Finally they left and Splinter crept into the darkest corner of the cage. If he could manage to get out of this stinking prison, there would be a few names on a payback list, and he didn´t know which name was the first: this arrogant man or the perfidious witch responsible for his present situation.
Shivering, freezing, with a terrible headache and aching muscles, he crouched totally exhausted on the ground and fell asleep the very next moment.
Once again he fell and fell in the black water, but this time the rope around his neck was still choking him. In agony he kicked and struggled, but the pressure at his throat remained and grew stronger and stronger. This insane Foot had followed him into the water, had risked his own life to make sure that Splinter would die! He felt the weight at his body, and then a knife was lanced into his side…
The Foot was laughing, but his voice was so strangely bright and high- no, not one Foot, more of them, and they were laughing together with this clarion voices and once again there was a sharp pain at his side…
With an effort he opened his eyes. It was already noon. A bunch of children between eight and fourteen stood before the cage. One of them- the oldest boy, he assumed- had stuck a large stick between the bars and prodded it into his side. Splinter receded as far as the chain allowed him to, but unfortunately the stick was longer. The children answered his attempt to avoid the pain with sneering laughter.
Probably because he had slept with wet fur in the outside he felt much worse than the evening before. His vision blurred, he couldn´t see the stick or the children probably. Nevertheless he tried to grab the stick to break it.
"Look what it does now! See? See?"
The children were hooked now that they had made him react, and tried it once more, this time poking at his head. Splinter covered his face with his unharmed arm.
"I´m dead set against corporal punishment of children if not absolutely necessary", he thought, but this time he was sure that it was absolutely necessary.
If this was the way this circus treated their animals, he wasn´t surprised that it looked shabby and run-down.
Fortunately a man saw those little brats and yelled angrily in their direction. Immediately the boy dropped the stick and the children ran away.
The man from the previous night came -"my owner", thought Splinter sarcastically and wished to be animal enough to bite in his backside even by the risk of poisoning himself- and carried once again two bowls- and a pair of thick gloves. He entered the cage and placed the bowl with water in front of Splinter's head. Splinter refused to take notice of him, he had closed his eyes and hoped that this corpse-to-be would finally disappear.
But obviously the man had another view of their relationship which seemed not to include being ripped apart by a totally pissed off giant rat, otherwise he wouldn´t have dared to do what he did next, or would at least had been more cautious.
"Good freak, shhh, everything okay, look, here!" The man had pulled on the gloves- and offered him a handful of this stinking animal food!
Splinter looked straight into the man´s face, to make sure that this bakayaro was serious.
He seemed not only to be serious, but interpreted Splinter's reaction wrong and crammed that junk into his semi-opened snout (Splinter wasn´t able to breathe through his nose because of his illness).
"Bwuah!"
At once Splinter spat that ugly so called foot out (it tasted even more atrocious than it smelled, if this was possible)- directly at the man's lap.
Splinter saw it coming, but his body didn´t react properly. The punch hit him at his check and dashed him against the bars.
"Rob said, you´re ill, freak, but I do not care if you´re hungry or not, I´ll not let you starve, my furry money-spinner, you´re much too valuable!"
And he grabbed the chain and forced Splinter to crawl to him if he didn´t want to be pulled by the collar around his neck. The man snatched at his neck fur and this time Splinter tried to bite, but only pinched the gloves, which he let immediately go. There was something even more manky than the food. His efforts yielded him a second blow, more fierce than the first one. For a moment, his vision darkened. When he was aware of his surrounding again, the man had pinned him to the floor and fixed his head.
"Already learned, freak? It would be better for you. At least less painful!"
Then he stuffed once against the food in Splinter's mouth, and he had no other choice than to swallow it if he didn´t want to suffocate.
After an eternity the bowl was finally empty, but the man kept his knee in Splinter's back and started to pet him.
"So, was this so bad, freak? Everything's fine, yes? I think you´re clever enough to understand who the boss is, aren't you?"
Splinter would love to show this jerk a few ninjitsu moves, and was so angry that he couldn´t care less about the consequences, but the man held with his other hand the collar so that he could barely breath and only grit his teeth.
At long last he stood up and went out of the cage- backwards, keeping an eye at the rat on the floor. It wouldn´t need an animal specialist to interpret Splinter's burning eyes and his twitching tail right.
Now Splinter had not only a big headache, but felt ill to the stomach as well. Absently he noticed that "his boss" talked with an other man about what they should call him.
"What´s about Razor Rat? I think it´s intelligent enough to learn a few stunts", was the last thing Splinter heard; then he surrendered again to unconsciousness.
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Wow! This is my longest chapter for now, and first I wanted to free him in this chapter! I think our poor Sensei has to be patient… Review! Review! Review!