Frankie sat in the corner of the garage, the scratchy wool blanket draped loosely around her shoulders. She shivered once and cursed quietly when the motion made her head throb. Gettin' knocked out always hurts more once you got time to think about it, she thought. Then again, lotsa stuff's like that.

Frankie supposed she should have been more surprised by the turtles – really, giant freakin' turtles, for cryin' out loud! – but she'd seen enough growing up in the streets that stuff like that just didn't get to her any more. Turtles, though. Not much scary about a turtle, even if they were ninjas. Now, them sewer crocs, they'd make scary ninjas. Or, like, an alleycat or somethin'.

She wasn't sure if she believed in sewer crocs. I mean, you'd have to be pretty stupid to think that keeping a croc as a pet was a good idea. Frankie'd never seen a croc. She imagined them to be huge, scaly killing machines. You never heard anything good about a sewer croc, after all. Or a gator. She wondered briefly what the difference was between a croc and a gator, then dismissed the thought, deciding they were probably the same anyway.

Shaking her head a little, forgetting about the headache, Frankie told herself to stop bein' stupid. Doesn't matter 'bout crocs, there's definitely sewer turtles. She liked them. But she wondered what would happen tomorrow. She hadn't had friends in a long time and thought that maybe they could be friends. She liked the purple one, and the orange one was okay too. The blue one, Leo, she wasn't so sure about. She was still pissed at him for thinking she was a kid. And the red one was kinda scary. Though she had liked his weapons, some kind of pronged knife… yeah, she really wanted to get her hands on those. The fingers on her right hand twitched in anticipation.

Laying the blanket out carefully, almost reverently, she curled up on her side, pillowing her head on her right arm and holding her left hand close to her chest. She closed her eyes.

Leo awoke to the smell of coffee. He yawned and stretched before heading sleepily into the kitchen where Don was already sitting at the table tinkering with something.

"Hey Donnie."

A nod.

Leo paused, pouring a cup of coffee, then: "Do you really think it was a good idea to let that girl stay in the garage last night?"

Don gave him a look. "Leo, give it a rest. Would you have preferred forcing her to stay here? Or maybe turning her out on the street? We're not monsters, Leo, you said it yourself. Besides, chances are she's long gone anyway."

Leo raised an eye ridge. "What makes you say that?"

Don shook his head. "People like that rarely stay in one place too long. We'd be nomadic, too, in that sense, if we didn't have the sewers. She doesn't fit in." He stared into his coffee mug.

Leo didn't respond, but he looked closely at his pacifist brother. Clearly Don had seen something in Frankie that the rest of them had missed. He smiled slightly. Don could get caught up in his blueprints, but he was good at reading people, when he tried. And he always believed the best in everyone, a trait he shared with Mikey.

He'd just opened his mouth to say something when he heard a crash and a muffled "M'okay!"

Mikey stumbled into the kitchen, rubbing one eye blearily. Leo eyed him critically.

"What did you break?"

Mikey stuck his tongue out. "Nothing. I tripped." He took in Don and Leo's sceptical expressions. "What?"

Leo shook his head and Don smiled. "World's clumsiest ninja."

Mikey pouted for another minute or so. Then, "I'm hungry."

"You're always hungry."

Mikey was busy rummaging in the fridge. "Where's my pizza?"

"Raph finished it last night."

"WHAT?" Mikey screeched. "Why would he do that to me!"

Don rolled his eyes. "Geeze, Mikey, calm down, it's just pizza."

"Just pizza! That was not just a pizza! That was a Hawaiian pizza with a perfect ham-to-pineapple ratio, a crust of ideal thickness, and just exactly the right amount of tomato sauce!" Mikey bemoaned his horrible misfortune. "Why do bad things always happen to me?" he cried.

"Give it a rest, Mikey," Leo sighed tiredly.

"Mikey," Don started, trying to get his brother's mind off the pizza, "why don't you go check if Frankie's still in the garage? We should offer her breakfast."

Mikey brightened up immediately. "Awesome, I totally forgot about her. Be right back," he called, sprinting towards the elevator.

Frankie was poking around at a motorcycle she'd found in the garage last night. She remembered Purple working on it and decided that she may as well take a look. She'd run with some kids with bikes for a while, and thought she had a pretty good handle on how the things worked. She was just about to check the engine when-

"AACK!"

She jumped back, hissing in surprise at the girly scream. The orange turtle had appeared from the wall with a look of horror on his face. Frankie tensed, searching for the cause. The Foot?

She was a little confused when the turtle leaped over to the bike. "What did you do to it? What did you do?"

She frowned. "Nothin', I was just checkin' it out…"

"Aw, man, Raph's gonna think I was messing with it, why'd you go and do that?"

"I didn't do nothin'," Frankie insisted, a little annoyed. "There's somethin' wrong with it, I was just lookin'."

Mikey finally seemed to hear her. "So… you didn't break it?"

Frankie scowled. "No."

"Oh."

There was an awkward pause.

"Do you want breakfast?"

Frankie blinked. "Huh?"

Mikey stared at her like she was an idiot. "Breakfast. Y'know, food. D'you want some?"

"Uh…"

"Of course you do!" Mikey grabbed her by the wrist and started towing her to the elevator. "I make a mean omelette, you know. Leo only likes cheese in his, though, which is sooo boring. I like mine with all kinds of stuff, bacon and onions and pepperoni, yum! I want to try marshmallows but Leo won't let me. Boring, like I said." Mikey chattered away while Frankie just stared. Damn, she thought, he don't ever shut up!

Mikey was still talking as he dragged Frankie into the kitchen, deposited her at the table, and went to rummage through cupboards.

Raph, who had materialized in the kitchen at some point, grumbled, "Shut up, Mike, s'too early to talk that much."

"Actually, we're usually up much earlier for training," Leo pointed out. Raph just glared at him.

"Training?" Frankie piped up. "Trainin' what?"

"Ourselves. Practising the art of ninjitsu."

"The what-now?"

"Ninjitsu," Leo said again, frowning a little.

"Oh." Frankie thought about that. "That a fancy way of sayin' ninja?"

Raph smirked. "Pretty much."

Leo glared at him. "Actually, it's-"

"Whatever." Frankie said dismissively. "Why ain't you trainin',if that's what you usually do?"

Leo looked guilty. Raph replied, "Master Splinter's not here right now, so we, uh, decided to take a little break."

Leo sighed. "We really should be practising; Master Splinter said to keep training while he was away."

"No one's stopping you, Leo," Don pointed out.

"Yeah," Mikey agreed, handing out plates of scrambled eggs. "Unlike you, though, the rest of us actually have lives." He snickered at his own joke, pausing to high-three Raph.

Frankie stared at the plate she was handed, hardly able to believe her eyes. When was the last time she had eggs? Or any kind of hot food, for that matter? It'd definitely been a while.

Don caught her hesitation. "Frankie." She looked up. "Go ahead and eat."

She didn't need more prompting than that, and started shovelling the eggs into her mouth.

Mikey's mouth had dropped open, Raph was frozen with a forkful hovering between his plate and his mouth, and Leo was watching in disbelief. In seven seconds flat the plate was empty.

"Damn!" Frankie licked her lips. "That was friggin' good! My complements to the chef," she added with a nod to Mikey.

Mikey's jaw was still hanging dangerously close to the floor. Raph had recovered enough to reach over and shut it – rather forcefully.

"Ow!"

Frankie seemed unperturbed by the stares she was getting, and sighed contentedly, rocking her chair onto its two back legs. "Y'know, you guys got a sick place here," she observed. "I'm diggin' the epic TV setup over there." She jutted her chin towards the stack of TVs.

"Oh. Em. Gee." Mikey looked like he'd suddenly had the best idea in the history of all ideas – which it was, of course. He jumped up. "You are so playing Mario Kart with me!"

"Excuse me?"

"Mario Kart! C'monc'mon'cmonc'mon! You have to play Mario Kart with me!" Mikey hauled Frankie over to the couch. Frankie resisted slightly; she was getting sick of being dragged around by a giant turtle.

Mikey flitted around, turning on his Wii, and throwing controllers in Frankie's direction.

"Ouch!" she complained.

"Shush!"

Finally, he plopped down beside her. "And now… we play!" he said dramatically.

Frankie looked at the white bar in her hand. "The hell do I do with this?" She held it up awkwardly.

Mikey rolled his eyes. "You use it to steer. Duh."

"Steer?"

By this point Don and Raph had appeared to watch - Leo was in the kitchen cleaning the dishes. Raph crossed his arms, leaning in the doorway. "I'm pretty sure this is cheatin' or something. I doubt she's ever played Mario Kart before."

"Aw, don't ruin my fun, Raph! S'not like you ever play with me!"

"Mikey, that's 'cause you're a huge pain in the shell when you win."

"Or lose," Don added.

"Hate to interrupt," Frankie broke in, "But I still don't have a clue what to do with this friggin' thing."

Don couldn't help laughing at the completely bemused expression on the girl's face.

"Oh shut up."

A/N: Ugh, sorrysorrysorry! Took me way longer to get this up than I was expecting… hey, I've got twenty minutes to spare… plus it's a crappy chapter. It just wasn't working for me. Next one will be better, I promise! In any case, thank you so much to everyone who has reviewed; Laughter's Tears, Zero thew Noob, Shell (BubblyShell22), TMNT Redneck, and especially Mary (Mikell); you all made my day, so thanks!