Disclaimer: I do not own TMNT.

A/N: I took some creative liberties with some of the little things in this chapter because I sort of felt like I had to play a game of "Fill In the Blank" because of the some of the smaller details and things that were left out of the actual show.
I also tried to add some some references to the previous Turtleverses such as the 2003 series and the movies and stuff.
Enjoy!

3

"I still don't understand why we had to bring her here."

"She had no ID and we never got her last name. What else were we supposed to do?"

"I don't know – maybe bring her to hospital. You know, where doctors do that thing where they help injured people get better."

"So we could end up on hospital surveillance cameras – great idea, Raph."

Voices. The sound of muffled voices. I recognized them vaguely, even though I had no idea who they belonged to. Why were they arguing – and who was "her"?

Was it possible they meant me?

How long had I been out for – when I did pass out, for that matter?

My head felt funny, aside from the pounding pain I could feel coursing through it. It felt like it was too heavy or something. I reached out to touch it with my hand and I realized that I had not only stopped bleeding, but someone had taken the time to bandage my wound. Who, though – those people who were arguing?

It must have been. I hadn't seen Dad since the fight. How long ago was that?

The voices I had heard earlier were quieter now. I could just barely hear them whispering, but I couldn't make out what was being said. I wanted to know what was being said and to find out who they were.

Except, I realized, I already knew that. They were the ones who had saved me. They must have been.

Or, at least, they were the ones who had beaten the snot out of Luke and his friends. I wanted to thank them.

Slowly, I forced myself to open my eyes and sit up. My vision was no longer blurry, but it was still hard to see due to the semi-darkness of the room I was in. I was in what seemed to be a deserted underground subway station that had been converted into an apartment of some sort. From where I was on a beat up, red sofa I could see a kitchen and a room with paper sliding doors that had been decorated with Asian ink paintings. Directly in front of me was a small television that looked like it had been rescued from the mid-90s and a tire swing hung nearby over a shallow, murky brown river that carved its way through the place.

Where the hell was I?

As I stood up slowly, the sounds of a metallic crash echoed throughout the place and then I could hear more people arguing. Two of the voices sounded vaguely familiar, but I'd never heard the last one before in my life.

Moving slowly, so I wouldn't agitate my injury, I walked over to the room with the sliding doors. That was where the whispering was coming from, but it was still too quiet for me to hear. As I opened the doors, the whispering stopped and I froze when I saw what was inside.

In the middle of the room on a raised platform with a tree growing out of it surrounded by weapons and armor were two, gigantic weapon-wielding turtles. One was slightly taller than the other and wore a blue mask. He had hazel eyes and a set of twin swords strapped to the back of his shell. The other was shorter and stockier and appeared to be the stronger of two. This one had bright green eyes and a set of something that looked like miniature pitchforks strapped to his belt.

For a split second, we stood gaping at each other in stunned silence. Then a scream escaped my throat as the two giant turtles rushed towards me. I moved backwards, half-running, half-walking before I turned and ran. But I had no idea where I was running to and less than two seconds later I ran into something and fell on the ground.

I looked up. I wanted to scream again, but instead all that came out was unintelligible whimper as I stared up at the nearly seven-foot tall brown and white rat that stood in front of me. He was dressed in a red robe and carrying a wooden walking stick with a jade topper. Standing several feet away behind the rat, I could see two more turtles. One was taller and a bit gangly with some sort of staff strapped his shell. He had brown eyes and wore a purple mask. The last turtle was arguably the smallest of the four with an orange mask, blue eyes, and a set of nunchucks hanging off his belt.

"Please," the rat said, stunning me with its ability to actually speak. "I must ask you to calm yourself –"

"C-calm?" I said, vaguely aware of the fact that I was now hyperventilating. He wanted me to be calm – a seven-foot tall talking rat was telling me to calm down!

Looking around through teary eyes, I saw the two turtles from before standing behind me, looking confused. In fact, they all looked confused, but probably not as much as I felt. I was surrounded by giant talking animals. What the hell was going on?

The rat ignored my outburst and continued to speak. "You have no reason to be afraid, I can assure you that much. My sons saved you last night from your attackers and brought you back here."

"Yeah," the blue-clad turtle said, taking a step towards me. "We heard your whistle and stopped those guys in that alley were beating you with a two-by-four. Don't you remember that?"

They had saved me. Four five-foot tall talking turtles had saved me? These were the people who had saved me!?

Looking around at all of them as I retreated away from them, fighting to keep myself from crying, I said the one word that kept popping up in my pounding head. "How?"

They all exchanged a look before the rat sighed and stepped forward. "My name is Hamato Yoshi, but you may call me Splinter," he began. "Fifteen years ago, I was bringing home some baby turtles when I ran into a strange man. I decided that something was off about him and decided to follow him. I witnessed him attempting to obtain a canister of what appeared to be a strange chemical ooze of some sort, but I was seen and the man and his associates tried to attack me. The canister was broken during the fight and the turtles were accidentally released from their tank. After the man fled from me, I attempted to save the turtles from the ooze which had engulfed them only to be bitten by a rat in the process. The ooze caused us to mutate into what you see today." He sighed again and went on, "I decided to raise the turtles as my own. I took them underground and taught them the ancient art of Ninjutsu, and using an old Renaissance art book I fished from the drain gave them all names – Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo, and Raphael." He pointed out each of the turtles as he named them.

I sat in stunned silence, listening to his story while the turtles stood in the background, nodding along, looking somewhat hopeful. A large part of me wanted to deny that any of it was true. My breathing had evened out by now, but my head was still pounding and despite my best efforts, I was silently sobbing. I didn't know if it was from the pain in my head or because I felt as though I had just been thrown into some kind of unbelievable sideshow that should not exist and yet, there they were in front of me. What choice did I have but to accept it?

"So do you have a last name or is it just Dani?" Donatello said, breaking my train of thought.

"Um, my name is Daniella," I told him. "Daniella Giorgianno."

"Italian, nice!" Michelangelo said, holding his hand up for a high-five.

Which I declined.

"So what's your story?" Raphael asked after a long moment of awkward silence.

I stared at him for a moment, uncertain of what to say before I sighed and shook my head. "Which part?" I said, wiping the tears out of my eyes.

"Let's start with what you did to piss off those Purple Dragon thugs from last night," Raphael said.

"I will go prepare some tea for us to enjoy," Splinter said, excusing himself from the conversation.

All of the turtles were considerably more relaxed now that, well, I was relaxed. Except that I wasn't. I still felt confused and I really wanted to get home and home was where Camille was, so that was saying something. I wondered if Dad was worried about me and if those guys from last night still had my phone.

"Yeah," Michelangelo said, twirling his nunchucks above his head. "You're not, like, one of them or something, are you?"

I frowned at him. "No, why – are the Purple Dragons, like, a gang or something?"

The turtles exchanged a look that questioned my intelligence.

Okay, so maybe they were a gang. Good to know.

Raphael leaned towards me, his eyes narrowed and said, "She's playing dumb. They must have something bad on her."

"They haven't got anything on me," I said, glaring at him. "I got into a fight with my dad and his girlfriend last night. Then I left, but it was raining, so I decided to get on a bus and then I fell asleep. When I woke up, some tattooed guy named Luke Skywalker said he would help me and that he'd buy me water that I really didn't want, but I said yes, anyway, because I thought it'd be rude if I said no. Then he just took me to this bar, though, which I thought was weird, but went along with it anyway because I'm an idiot!" I looked away from them. "And then afterwards he said that I owed him, but he wouldn't take my money, so I-I –!" My voice fell apart as I broke out into hysterical sobs.

God, I was so stupid!

"Nice going, Raph," Leonardo said, glaring at his brother.

"Yeah, you made her cry again!" Michelangelo chimed in angrily.

I looked up at them surprised. Were they actually defending me?

"Hey, it's not my fault," Raphael said defensively. "She's the one who – OW!" He cried out loudly as Splinter reappeared, carrying a tray of tea and rapped him sharply upside the head with his walking stick.

Splinter pointed to the room with the sliding doors. "Ten flips now!" he ordered the turtle.

Raphael glared at me and I felt myself recoil under his gaze as he left.

"Your tea, Daniella," Splinter said, offering me a cup of murky green tea. "I apologize for my son. He can be careless with his words sometimes, but he is a good boy, overall."

"Right," I said, sniffing quietly. "Thank you." I wiped the rest of the tears from my eyes and looked up at the turtles as I accepted the tea. "And thank you for saving me."

"Don't worry about it," Michelangelo said, grinning at me. "We're heroes – it's our thing."

I frowned and looked down into the depths of my tea. "You should probably thank me then. You wouldn't get much heroing done if there weren't so many idiots like me here."

"Look," Leonardo said, putting his three-fingered hand on my shoulder. I resisted the urge to flinch. "You made some bad mistakes last night, but that guy tried to take advantage of you and that's not cool, no matter what."

"Leonardo is right," Splinter said, smiling at me as he sipped his tea. "You should never blame yourself for the actions others take against you."

I almost smiled when I heard this. It was easier said than done, but still good advice.

"Yeah," Donatello said, frowning, "but you don't seem like you know a whole lot about the city. Are you here on a school trip or something as a tourist?"

I frowned at him over my teacup. Intrusive, much? But, then, they had saved my life – answering a few intrusive questions was the least I could do. "My parents were divorced, so I used to come visit my dad in the summer, but I only just moved with him to New York a month ago."

"That explains why you didn't know you were dead-center in the middle of gang territory," Leonardo said. "Some of the others it was because you might have been smashed or something." He glared in Raphael's direction.

Had I been smashed – I'd never been drunk before, so I really had no idea. Maybe that was why my head hurt so much. Aside from the fact that it had been hit repeatedly with a two-by-four. I opened my mouth to speak, but fell silent as a large attack dummy dressed in a helmet and battle gauntlet came flying across the room and landed directly in front of Leonardo.

"Sorry about that, Leo." I looked up at Raphael as he walked over to us. "Got a little carried away there." He grabbed the attack dummy off the floor and carried it back to what I could now only assume was sort of ninjutsu training room.

"Well," I said, getting to my feet. "Thank you, guys, for everything, but I should probably be getting back home."

Where I can forget about giant talking rats and turtles.

"Well, wait a minute," Donatello said, getting to his feet. "You said the guy who attacked you found on a bus, right?"

I frowned at him. "Right."

Where was he going with this?

"So he got on at about the same time as you did?" Donatello asked with raised eyebrows.

"He got on a stop or two after me, yeah," I said, nodding.

"Then there's a chance that you wouldn't be very safe back at your home," Leonardo said. "The guy who attacked you might live nearby and come back to finish what he started. Or the Purple Dragons could have control of your neighborhood."

"Hmm," Michelangelo said thoughtfully, touching his finger to his chin. "That would make finishing what he had started exceptionally easy." He smiled and nodded silently.

I tried to ignore him. "I'll just make a formal complaint to the police." I continued quickly when I saw the looks they were all giving me. "And I won't tell them about you. If they ask how I got away, I'll just say that I ran away. They'll have to, at least, put a restraining order against the guy." I frowned as a thought occurred to me. "Won't they?"

"You really think that'll be enough?"

I looked up to see Raphael standing nearby. "Why wouldn't it be?"

Sure, you could violate a restraining order, but then you'd go to jail for it, so it was a win-win. Sort of.

"Well, since you seem too ditzy to figure this for yourself, I'll just spell it out for you," Raphael said, crossing his arms. "The reason the police have so much trouble controlling gang violence is because the gangs don't care about what they say and the reason for that is because they don't need to care. They've got strong allies who can back them out of just about any situation, and scared citizens who are more than willing to help 'em out, so they get to keep their kneecaps."

I glared at him. Did he really just call me ditzy – at least now I knew he was an ass like normal boys. "Well, I have to go to home. My dad is probably going to be worried about me and I have school and stuff – you know, a life."

"Hey, guys – I'm back!"

I turned to see a red-haired girl in a yellow shirt and blue jean shorts running down the steps. She was only slightly taller than me with blue eyes and was carrying a book bag and a pizza. She paused when she saw me. "And you're already awake."

"We told her everything," Michelangelo informed her, spinning his nunchucks as he walked over to her. "Oh, and Raph made her cry twice." He wagged two of his fingers at her.

"It was once," Raphael said quickly.

The girl frowned at him as she handed the pizza over to Michelangelo, who carried it off into the kitchen. Then she walked over to me and offered me her hand. "My name is April O'Neil. I'm sort of staying with these guys for a while, and I was kind of thinking the whole Intro to Mutants thing would go better if there was another human around. I ran out to get you some clean clothes from my old apartment for when you woke up. "

"Better hope she likes yellow," I heard Raphael mutter in an undertone.

Guess I wasn't the only human who knew about the turtles then.

I frowned as I shook April's hand. "I'm Dani and thanks but I was actually just about to leave. My dad is probably really worried by now."

If he was a good father, that is.

"Daniella," Splinter said, putting his hand on my shoulder. "I'm afraid I must insist that you remain here for the night. My boys will escort you home tomorrow night."

"Yeah, you kind of seem like you could use some rest, at least," April said, nodding.

"Oh, yeah, April's right," Donatello agreed quickly. "Your head injury was pretty bad, Dani. You should wait before you try to move around a lot."

"Plus, we just got pizza!" Michelangelo said as he reappeared carrying several plates of pizza.

"And you don't seem like you know your way around the city very well," Leonardo said, ignoring his brother's outburst. "There's a chance you could get lost if you try to go on your own."

Raphael opened his mouth to speak, but before he could, I said, "I have my father's address programmed into my cell phone, which has GPS."

"Except you didn't have a phone on you when we found you," Donatello pointed out.

Because a bunch of drunken gang members lifted it. Right. Now, I remember.

I knew they were only trying to be helpful, but a part of me was angry. I was angry that my head still hurt and that they were all ganging up on me. And the idea of spending of another five minutes with Raphael made me want to have my head bashed in all over again.

But it was just one night. Only one night. That wouldn't be so bad. Hopefully.

"So then you're staying," Michelangelo said, thrusting a piece of pepperoni pizza at me. "Awesome – welcome, to the sewer lair!"

Sewer lair, seriously? At least now I knew not to play in that river.

"Thanks," I muttered defeated, accepting the pizza from him.

"Come on," April said, grabbing me by the hand and dragging me away from the others. "I'll show you where you can change into some pajamas."

I allowed her to drag me along as I clumsily attempted to walk and eat at the same time. "Are you really okay with sharing your clothes with me?"

April smiled at me as she dragged me into a large four-stall family bathroom with a tiny shower in the corner. "Yeah, it'll be cool – kind of like a sleep over, and honestly, after being cooped around here for so long, I'm just glad to have another girl to talk to."

I threw the rest of my pizza in the garbage can by the door. I frowned as she pushed me into one of stalls. I closed and locked the door as she threw her bag over the top of the stall. "Don't you see other girls at school and stuff?"

"I don't really go to school." She sounded apprehensive as she said this. "I just Email my homework to my teachers and Donnie's been homeschooling me, but that's just about it. My cover story is leukemia."

I dug through the bag until I found something that looked like night clothes. I settled on a pair of yellow shorts with a red waist-tie and a pink tank-top. Thank god I shaved this week. "Why do you need a cover story?"

April laughed. "Aside from the fact I'm totally skipping school, you mean?"

"Yeah," I said, starting to getting changed.

I watched her feet go into the stall beside mine. "Throw me the bag?" she said after she had closed and locked the door.

I threw the bag over the top of the stall to her.

"Thanks. Anyway, I'm kind of hiding out from some bad people."

Hiding out from bad guys. Hmm. Why did that sound familiar?

I finished getting dressed and went over to the mirror over the sink to see how bad I looked. Beneath the bandages, there was dried blood plastered to my forehead and matted in my hair. When I turned, I could see the start of a dark bruise at my shoulder blades and there were dark finger prints on my arms from where Luke's friends had held me. My head hurt the most, but the worst part was that I couldn't deny it even if I had wanted to: I looked like hell.

And I felt worse.

"If you brush your hair out, the bandages won't look so bad."

I jumped when I realized April was standing beside me, rummaging through her bag. She was dressed in black-and-yellow splatter patterned shorts and a black T-shirt. She pulled her brush and handed it to me.

Smiling, I took it from her and began brushing my hair, which was harder than normal because of the blood and bandages. "Thanks."

"No problem," April said, adjusting her ponytail. "So what did Raph say?"

I looked at her with raised eyebrows. How did we get on this topic, all of a sudden? "Uh, he was just being a jerk."

"Yeah." She sat down on the sink counter. "He can be like that sometimes, but he doesn't really mean it." She frowned. "Was what he said really that bad, though?"

Was it – was it really?

"Not really," I admitted. "He was just being brutally honest." I finished brushing my hair, so that the bandages were just barely visible and handed her the brush. "Probably could have been nicer about it, though."

April hopped down off the counter and threw her brush back in her bag, laughing. "Doesn't that kind of contradict the point of being brutally honest?"

I frowned at her. I hadn't thought of it that way.

"Raph's a nice guy," she assured me. "You'll see."

Later that night, we all sat around the living room watching a late-night episode of Space Heroes. April and I sat on the couch, huddled under a thin blanket, with Splinter sitting in an old, red armchair nearby. Michelangelo and Donatello sat on the floor next to Leonardo, who was staring in awe at the screen as he mouthed all of the lines of the show. Raphael was sitting in the tire swing, away from the rest of us, muttering quietly to his pet turtle Spike.

My head felt better, but not by much. I had forgotten most of the weirdness that arisen earlier, except for the fact that the turtles were – well, turtles. I wasn't sure if I could say they were my friends or not. Yeah, they had saved my life, but we barely knew each other and who was to say that I would ever see them or April again after tomorrow night?

The show ended and was replaced by a news report on the new Pennington Expo Center that was going up in Midtown. Leonardo switched it off quickly and turned to us all. "That such a great episode – don't you guys think?"

"Yeah," Michelangelo said, yawning. "I especially like the parts where you kept imitating Captain Ryan." He smirked at his older brother.

"That was pretty much the whole show, Mikey," Donatello said, smiling as he nudged him with his shoulder.

"Whatever," Leonardo said, getting to his feet. "I'm going to bed." He waved to us as he walked off to his room. "Night, guys."

I waved back to him as Michelangelo and Donatello both got to their feet.

"I'm going to bed, too," Donatello said. Then he seemed to reconsider as his eyes fell on April. "Unless you need help with homework?"

"Nah, I'm good," April told him, smiling.

"Alright," Donatello said. Then he turned and started off to his room. "Night, April."

"Night, Donnie," April called back to him. She looked down at me as she stood up. "Just try to relax and everything will be fine, okay?" With that she turned and went off to her own room.

Michelangelo was already gone, so Splinter, Raphael, and I were the only ones left in the darkness of the living room.

Splinter got to his feet slowly. Then he crossed the living room and put his hand on my shoulder. "I hope that your stay here has been an enjoyable one, child. We have enjoyed having you with us these past few nights."

I watched him shuffle off to his bedroom silently.

"Hey."

I looked up to see a small, green turtle inches from my face, chewing on a tiny green leaf.

"This is Spike," Raphael told me simply. "I figured since you got to meet the rest of the family, you may as well meet him, too."

"Oh, cool," I said, trying my best to smile. "Your brothers told me about how you keep him as a pet."

"Yeah, well, you never got to meet him formally," Raphael said, sitting down on the arm of the couch, "so here I am."

We sat in silence for a few minutes before I looked up at him and asked, "Was there something else you wanted?"

Raphael tightened his hands into fists and sighed, shaking his head. "Look, Leo was right about earlier –"

"About which part?" I asked him.

It was obvious that he was uncomfortable speaking about it, but I didn't care. If he was going to apologize, I wanted him to do it properly.

"The part where I said it was your fault," Raphael clarified, a growl audible in his voice. He sighed again. "I mean, you were a real idiot - and I mean, like, a huge idiot last night, but that was a bad thing that Luke guy did to you and it shouldn't have happened."

Okay, so it wasn't a traditional apology, but something told me it was the best I was going to get out of him. "Thanks. I appreciate it."

He shrugged as he got to his feet. "Yeah, don't mention it."

I watched him walk away silently as I lay down on the couch under the blanket. Maybe he wasn't such an ass.

"Hey, Dani, what were you talking to Raph about?"

I jumped as Michelangelo stood over me, eating the rest of the pizza April had brought earlier. I sighed and rolled over, so that I was facing the wall. "Nothing, Mikey. Don't worry about it."

Michelangelo nodded and started to leave. "Yeah, alright. Night, Dani."