Author's comments: I've just noticed that my little line of --------- dividing my finishing comments and the ends of chapters isn't showing up on the last two I submitted and I'm at a loss as to why… However, I will continue to endeavour in fixing this little glitch and as always I do look back on my previous installments regularly. I am always correcting any tiny faults I may have missed or wording sentences better to make sure any future readers are viewing my best work. So while I do scrutinize my chapters quite strictly before I upload them, I think in future it might be safer to regard this as a work in progress.
Disclaimer: I don't own Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or any names, characters, places or events therein covered by the copyright. My only claim to this is my OC 'Madeline'. (See comment above Disclaimer in chapter 1 for why not to sue me)
CHAPTER 11 --
The walk through the sewers had been a solemn one. Madeline kept her hold on Leonardo's hand as he led her left, right, left again, following a path of tunnels so diverse she had no hope of predicting it. And all the while his grip had been limp, impersonal, as one might hold a piece of soap for fear it slipping out of their grasp if they clutched too tightly. She wanted to feel his fingers squeeze hers and offer some measure of comfort, but the young woman didn't have the faintest notion how to ask him for it.
Finally he had brought her to a ladder and after going up first to open the manhole cover, returned to climb the rungs close behind her. The first words the turtle had spoken to her since leaving the lair were directing her hands on the bars.
She emerged into a world which was surprising quiet. The white noise of traffic passing close by, distant sirens, and the patter of rain on the pavement. As Leonardo replaced the manhole cover, Madeline took a moment to lift her face to the raindrops, her lashes fluttering as the gentle pinpricks landed on her eyelids and cheeks. It seemed New York's wet weather was still lingering. How long had it been raining? She had lost her sense of time or days underground…
"Hey, stop that. You're gonna get soaked…" she heard the mutant ninja's voice say and was surprised by the penitent tone lurking under the words of concern. As she felt the weight of his coat being draped around her shoulders, she caught his hands and turned to face him, not letting go.
"Maddy? What're you doing? We need to get going or someone's gonna see m--" he began but she shushed him by pulling his arms around her and stepping in against his chest. Without explanation, the girl laid her head against his shoulder, feeling the cool, dampening nylon of the parka he wore over his body against her cheek.
"You shouldn't have hit him, Leonardo…." she murmured against the collar of the jacket.
He was silent for a long moment, she heard nothing but his shallow, slow breaths against her hair. Finally, his arms came up and settled around her, his hands rubbing her back with slow strokes. His exhale became a quiet sigh in her ear.
"He was bein' a jerk…" his masculine voice said softly. "Those posters weren't your fault and he had no right to…" He hesitated for a heartbeat. "…. to make you cry."
"But what if he is right?" she murmured, pulling her head away from his body to face him fully. Her body shuddered as a sudden bloom of chill crept up her spine beneath her clothes and made her shiver.
"Enough with the 'what if's'…" Leon put the subject aside as his hands slipped down to wrap around her shoulders, rubbing the exposed gooseflesh beneath the coat draped around her. "It's, like, minus 13 out here… Which way's your place from the 15th Avenue Station?"
It took Madeline a moment to regain her concentration, the feel of his textured fingertips smoothing over her cold skin transporting her for a moment. She felt other places in her body tingle and the urge to know what it felt like to be touched by those hands beneath her clothes made her cheeks burn.
Hoping she wasn't blushing too darkly, the blind woman murmured, keeping her voice soft for fear it may not have been too steady. "….I… erm…. East, I think… I live on 22nd Park Street…"
Leonardo, apparently oblivious to the reactions he had incited in her, said: "I know where that is… C'mon, let's go."
Once Leonardo asked her about a few landmarks, like Willie's Grocery Store on the corner and read a few street signs, Madeline seemed to get her bearings and he followed her as she navigated her path in the way only a blind person could. He wondered what it was like, not being able to see where you were going, but knowing exactly where you were. If Madeline lost her sense of direction at any time in the last five blocks, it couldn't be proved by him...
The closer they came, the more mixed the turtle's emotions became. One half of him wanted desperately to see her house, know where she lived, discover a tiny sliver of her life. But the other half knew that it would probably be the last time he saw the girl too. Once she shut her door behind her, would she want to just forget the mutant freak and get on with her life?
The gentle tug on his hand as Maddy came to a stop at his side made Leonardo halt and glance at her questioningly. "This is it," she said, smiling for him. The ninja turned to regard the building they had stopped infront of;
It was a block of apartments, no different to the dozen others lining this stretch of street, iron fences shielding a basement access, no front nature strip, no greenery. It was old red brick and about five stories tall, narrow, white-painted window sills dotting the front of it on each floor. There were lights on in four of them except the very bottom one and bars striping all of them. It was a bleak place to live, no character to speak of, just a big, ugly, old building.
Leonardo wanted more for her then to live in a place like that.
"Come inside…" he heard her voice whisper, so close to his ear that the rush of her warm breath over his skin shot a shiver through him. He startled and turned to look at her, wide eyed and agape. "Just for a little while, please, Leonardo…"
She couldn't see how much she had shocked him with the request, his more masculine impulses instantly sparking his imagination and treating him to a variety of scenarios she wouldn't dare entertain at the thought of being alone with the girl in her home.
Despite every good manner and sense of propriety he had, Leo still found himself saying: "Sure…"
Madeline led him by the hand, nearly dumbstruck (what had possessed him to say yes!) up the stoop and through the unlocked, black door into the little lobby area. Inside the narrow hallway which was tiled with black and white linoleum and lit by a bare bulb, he saw a set of stairs at the other end and two doors. One was directly to their right in a small alcove, painted white with a neat little sign saying BASEMENT across it. The other was a few yards further down, painted a dark brown which was bland in contrast to the faded burgundy paint on the walls. They passed a bank of mail boxes set into the wall and as the girl stopped outside the second doorway, Leonardo whispered quietly: "Did you loose your keys I the park? How are we gonna get in?"
"It's alright…" she assured him, speaking in the same hushed voice as if afraid to alert anyone to their presence downstairs. "I keep a spare…. up here…" As she said it, the blind woman stretched up onto her tip toes and brushed her fingertips, straining to just hook them over the edge of the upper doorframe. Something metal scraped and then a tarnished, chrome key fell off the narrow ledge onto the floor. Leonardo winced at the sound of it clattering on the lino and quickly bent to pick it up and hand it to the girl. She smiled sheepishly and fitted the key into the brass deadlock with practiced ease. Unlocking it and then the latch of the door handle, Madeline ducked inside, reaching out to gather a fistful of his parka and pull him across the threshold after her.
The turtle stumbled and he heard Madeline suppress giggles, her warm body caught up against his as the door banged frightfully loud behind him, the light from the hall disappearing to leave the apartment in darkness and the tangled pair ended up pressed against what he thought was the back of her door. His mind spun with the sudden realization she was pinned against his front, her hand locked onto the edges of the parka's hood either side of his face and her breath so close to his mouth he could practically taste her.
He was breathing heavier then he thought, his heart thundering with the adrenaline and excitement of maybe getting caught, but most of all, the way he could feel her smaller frame molded against his. He reached up and touched her damp hair in the darkness. Felt her quiver and whisper his name.
And Leonardo decided right then and there, reality be damned, he was going to kiss her…
-THUD THUD!-
Madeline jerked against him and gasped with fright. Leonardo felt the door vibrate with the knocking on the other side and groaned.
"Hello? Madeline? Is that you in there, dear?" a thin voice came from out in the hall.
"Mrs Tomkins…" Madeline murmured and squirmed beneath him. It was about then Leonardo broke out of his daze enough to realize he was still pinning her against the door.
Quickly he stepped off and cleared his throat, mortified and utterly embarrassed when he thought about what he had been about to do…
"Yes, yes, it's me, Irene!" Madeline called out in the dark. In a more urgent murmur she said to him: "Move over there and keep quiet, Leo, please…"
Obediently, the mutant turtle shuffled to her right, bumping his hip on a cupboard or table of some sort behind the door and mouthed an exclamation of 'ouch!' silently as Madeline opened it to deal with the person on the other side…
I'm sure you're all thinking it! Darn Mrs Tomkins!
