Author's Note: I own nothing but Marie and Jaclyn.

Chapter Seven: Where the Lines Overlap

"Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep."

"No."

"Beep beep beep beep."

"Oh, you dicks!"

"BeepbeepbeepbeepbeepCRASH."

"WHO DID IT? WHO HAD THE BLUE SHELL?!"

"EAT EXHAUST, PRINCESS PEACH!"

Marie tossed her controller into the air as she lost the race to Michelangelo, Jaclyn and April's cars coming in second and third. Marie, losing all interest in life, slumped to the floor, laying down on the rug.

"You're the worst," she moaned into the shag. "None of us are friends anymore."

"Okay, that's fine," April said. "But you're player one, so you need to hit A and start the next race."

Marie recovered enough to feebly reach over to her abandoned controller and press A, and Jaclyn stretched a stood up. "Grabbing a drink, anyone need anything?"

"Orange Crush."

"Surprise," April said.

Jaclyn smirked and made her way to the kitchen. As she bent down to grab sodas from the mini-fridge, she heard someone follow her in, stop in their tracks for a split-second, and then continue walking in, slightly slower. She grabbed the cans and straightened back up, seeing Leonardo setting a stack of boxes on the table.

"Hey," she said with a smile. He offered her a slight smile back and a polite nod.

"How are you girls holding up?" he asked, reaching around her for a bottle of water. She could have moved to give him more room. But didn't.

"We're…okay, all things considered," she said. "We're gonna have to all go back to work though. Three days of calling in sick is going to cost our jobs."

He paused in opening the boxes for a moment, then began pulling out pots and pans to put away. The last of the turtles' and Splinter's belongings had been moved, and Michelangelo stayed behind with the women while his brothers brought over the last few boxes.

"I don't know if that's such a good idea," he said. "The Foot's out there looking for us, and April, and if they've seen you and Marie, you're on their list, too."

Jaclyn put down the sodas to help him, holding her hands out to take a stack of plates from him. His huge hands practically enveloped the plates, and her fingers brushed over the scaly skin and he swallowed, moving quickly to grab the next item from the box. She smirked a little to herself and she placed the plates on the shelves Raphael had constructed.

"Fair point," she said. "But I didn't spend thousands of dollars on a Master's Degree to lose my job just because one little criminal organization is after me."

He glanced over at her, seeming to size her up, and she busied herself with opening another box and beginning to pull out the groceries they'd brought over from the old lair. He finished emptying the first box and turned to face her.

"Fine," he said. "But, you don't go out alone. If you leave the lair, at least one of us trails you to make sure you get to and from work."

She paused, dark eyes narrowed slightly.

"Or you stay in the lair," he finished, sensing an argument. Her jaw set, causing her lips to pout out a little, and his gaze flickered to her mouth for a second before moving back to her eyes. "It's one or the other, Jaclyn, take your pick."

There was a brief moment of silence, eyes locked and hardened with stubbornness, even as she took notice that he was the only turtle that called her Jaclyn instead of Jac, and that she found herself liking it.

"Fine," she said. His face relaxed slightly, clearly at peace with once again being in charge, in control of the situation. Well, she certainly couldn't let him get too comfortable, now, could she?

"I like when you get all demand-y," she said, reaching around him to grab the six-pack of sodas she'd fished out of the fridge.

She left him blinking in the kitchen, grinning as she tossed the sodas to her fellow players.

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

April had stored some things in the lair, a few changes of clothes, in case she stayed the night below after a late training session (or, more often, movie marathon with the boys). Her roommates were not so lucky, and after spending the third day holing up in the bathroom and washing their clothes, sitting wrapped in towels while the clothing dried under the turtles' basking lamps, womanly complaints won out, and Raphael agreed to escort the girls back to the loft to salvage what they could.

April was pulling her hair back into a ponytail in the tunnel when Raphael approached.

"You ready?" he asked.

"Yeah, girls will be here in a second," she replied. She glanced at him. "How are you doing? You know…with the estrogen invasion."

He shrugged his broad shoulders. "'S'different," he said. She raised a brow at him. "Tink's okay. Keeps Mikey out of trouble. Jac keeps telling me to color and I might lock her in a cupboard."

April snorted. Jaclyn, with her experience with mental health facilities, had taken to trying to redirect Raph's short temper into healthier coping techniques, coloring being her favorite because it seemed to pique his irritation.

Jaclyn may have been a bit of an instigator when she got bored.

She looked to Raphael, who was re-wrapping his wrist. She'd found herself having a strong bond with him; a feat, considering he was certainly the most gruff and withdrawn of the four brothers. Immediately after the attack on New York, she'd spent a lot of time with Raphael, almost a survivor's bond, having been there with him through all of it. But in the last month or so, he'd gotten a bit distant again, managing to be out patrolling when she would come over, even less talkative than usual.

And, while she tried to take it in stride, tried to listen to his brothers' insistence that he was just in one of his moods, she couldn't help but feel not only hurt, but…disappointed.

She licked her lips nervously, and moved forward, placing a hand gently on his bicep to get his attention.

"Hey," she said quietly, in case anyone was approaching. "You and I…we're good, right?"

His vivid green eyes flickered to her hand where it touched his scaly skin, then back to her face, looking very much like he was at war with himself.

"Yeah," he said finally. "'Course we are."

She gave him a narrowed look, one that made him let out a little growl of frustration that would probably have been followed by an argument, but his eyes glanced over her head and he stopped short, taking a step away from her. "Ready?"

"Yeah," said Jaclyn from behind April, she and Marie both carrying backpacks that Donatello had scrounged up for them to salvage things from their apartment. Jaclyn glanced at April, and at Raphael, who was avoiding the gaze of pretty much everyone, and flashed a look at Marie, who drew a little heart with her index fingers and snickered. Jaclyn couldn't tell if she was kidding or not.

They stayed below ground, following the same pipes and tunnels that had taken them to the original lair back to the manhole in the basement of the antique shop. It wasn't a long trek, but for Raphael it seemed to go on for eternity. Mostly due to Marie trying to play roadtrip games.

"I spy with my little eye, something…barely visible to the human eye."

"Is it everything?"

"Damn."

April smirked, and Raphael groaned, then suddenly stopped upon reaching the manhole. Marie, who was closely trailing him, was distracting, and ended up with a face full of graffiti'd shell.

"I spy with my little eyeJESUS CHRIST, JOLLY GREEN, BRAKE LIGHTS FOR FUCK'S SAKE."

Raphael gave a little jerk of his head upwards. "We're here."

Marie took a deep breath, looking at the manhole cover and nodding. Raphael raised his massive arms over his head and pushed the cover out of the way. April held her breath, waiting for a ton of soot to rain down on his head, but it never came.

"Looks like the fire didn't get to the basement," Jaclyn said, peering up. Marie let out an audible sigh of relief. If the basement was intact, perhaps the damage wasn't as bad as they feared?

Raphael gave them a boost, and April dusted off her hands, looking around. Sunlight poured in from some of the ceiling-level, dingy windows, enough to illuminate the basement. There were boxes everywhere, filled with antiques that didn't fit onto the shelves of the store above. Marie had explained that her uncle had been a bit of a hoarder, collecting more than he would ever sell, and it showed.

Marie moved to the stairwell and her youthful face fell, shoulders slumping. April followed suit, face reflecting Marie's crestfallen expression.

"Shit…"

The door at the top of the stairs was open, and she could see sky when she should not have seen sky. The top of the stairs was black, burned and damaged, so they couldn't move upwards to detect the damage even if they wanted to.

The loft and store were gone.

"Marie, I'm sorry," April said.

Marie sniffed a bit, straightening up and playing calm in the face of the obvious emotions she was feeling. "It was your place, too."

"Yeah, but…sorry."

Raphael glanced up the stairs, then at the boxes. "What are all these?" he asked, nodding toward them.

"Extra stuff," Marie said. "That's as detailed as I can get, never had a chance to really go through them, I'd just barely catalogued what was upstairs…"

"Well," Jaclyn said, rolling up her sleeves. "No time like the present."

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

"Well," Jaclyn said. "This was more or less…um…eye-opening."

They'd organized the contents into piles. Garbage. Donate. Keep for the girls. Keep for the boys. Never speak of again.

The last one came from a box of vintage personal massagers that Raphael had had the misfortune of discovering. His green eyes had bulged, and he silently thrust them into April's arms and moved to the next box, leaving April giggling with an armful of sex toys that may have been older than her.

There were some clothes, mostly vintage, that worked well enough for now. Marie had found a leather jacket that was a relic of the 80s punk era, riddled with studs and safety pins, that she'd claimed immediately, Jaclyn had a new arsenal of dresses that would make a hippie jealous, and April…well, April didn't have as much luck; the best she'd found was an entire case of God-awful yellow jumpsuits that must have been some kind of clearance from a store in the early nineties or something.

While Marie moved to open the last mystery box, the other three were busy bagging up the items they were taking back to the lair. Some vintage video games for Michelangel, a ton of vintage computer equipment for Donatello to tinker with, some books for Splinter. Jaclyn had found an old turntable and some classic rock vinyls that she insisted Leonardo would like.

"He doesn't listen to that stuff," Raphael said. She shrugged, and packed it up anyhow.

Meanwhile, Marie opened the last box, and a smile crossed her face.

"So," she said, raising a brow. "I found us some entertainment for the night."