Disclaimer: I do not own TMNT.

6

I lay under a thin blanket with April beside me on the cool concrete floor of the lair. Splinter was in his chair, watching the beyond ancient black-and-white Japanese movie that had just come on, The Seven Ninja. The turtles were off doing their own thing. Leo was meditating, Donnie was in his lab, Mikey was...Doing whatever it was that Mikey did. And Raph was in the kitchen, talking to Spike, pretending none of us knew.

Which we did. Although for some reason, I couldn't help but the get feeling that I specifically wasn't supposed to know. Probably because I was an outsider and wasn't supposed to know.

"Booyakasha!"

I sat up and looked around to see what was happening only to be hit in the face with a bright orange water balloon. It exploded upon contact and water flooded my mouth and nose, soaking my hair and covering the floor.

"Wha –?" April said, sitting up only to be silenced as a second water balloon hit her in the face.

"Michel –" I said only to be cut off by the raucous laughter that erupted from Raphael.

Michelangelo flipped through the air and landed in front of April and I, blocking the television with his victory dance. "Oh, yeah!" he sang as he danced. "Dr. Prankenstein has officially pranked everyone in the lair!"

"Nice one!" Raphael called from the kitchen in between bouts of laughter.

Leonardo had paused his meditation to see what was going on and Donatello had come out of his lab to check things out. He rushed over to April quickly with a towel when he saw her on the floor, soaked.

April snatched the towel from him angrily. "Mikey –" she said.

"Aww, come on, April," Michelangelo said, flashing his puppy-dog eyes at her. "Don't be mad. It was just a little prank."

"A little prank?" I spat at him in disbelief. "We're both soaked!"

Don't kill him, don't kill him, don't kill him. Do not kill him. He helped save your life.

"Yeah, Mikey," Donatello said, glaring at his brother. "If you keep this up, you're going to make someone sick."

I rang my hair out with my hands. "Seriously, and if I get sick, I'm blaming you." I pointed at Michelangelo.

Mikey scoffed playfully. "Come on, Dani, after everything you've been through – your mom's suicide, getting bludgeoned by a two-by-four, and almost getting your head cut off by a deadly ninja weapon – I'm pretty sure you could live through a little cold."

Silence fell over the lair as we all stared at him. Even Raph had stopped laughing. I wasn't sure what had stunned me more – the fact that there was actually someone down here who was more insensitive than Raphael or the fact that the word bludgeon was even in Mikey's vocabulary.

"Michelangelo!" Splinter said finally, rapping his staff on the floor. "Ten flips now!"

Michelangelo frowned at him. "But why, sensei?" he said, all the amusement was gone from his voice. "What did I do?"

Donatello looked at him with raised eyebrows. "Really, Mikey, really?"

"I'm going to changed," I said, pushing myself to my feet. I grabbed my bag off the floor.

I had to get out of those clothes – it would give me something to do while I contemplated murdering Mikey.

I was half-way across the living room when I heard April say, "Hey, wait a sec, what's with all these...Band-Aids?"

Without thinking, I spun around and turned to see April, picking up a bloody Band-Aid out of a sopping wet pile on the floor with a look of disgust on her face.

Crap. They must have come off when –

"April," Leonardo said, walking over to us. "Where did you get those?"

Donatello turned to her hurriedly. "Yeah, you aren't hurt, are you?"

"I'm fine," April assured him. "I just found them on the floor."

I retreated away from the situation slowly as I began to edge my way over to the bathroom, bag in hand, until eventually I backed right into something.

Raphael's voice rang in my ears. "I think I know where she got 'em."

Before I could respond, he snatched my bag out of my hands, turned it upside, and emptied it out all over the floor. Dirty clothes, text books, my laptop, and – finally – a box of fifty count Band-Aids fell onto the floor lair. The Band-Aids fell out of the box and spilled out onto the floor along with a small roll of bandages and some peroxide wipes.

Raphael glared at me with narrowed eyes. "You got anything else in there you don't want us to know about?" he said. "Some razor blades, maybe?"

I could feel everyone staring at me, waiting for an answer, but I wasn't going to give them one. Not if I could help it. I knelt down and began hurriedly gathering up all of my belongings. I didn't care that they had already seen everything. If I could hide it all away at the bottom of my bag where I didn't need to look at it, it wouldn't matter.

I reached for the box of Band-Aids, but before I could reach it, Raph grabbed it off the floor and threw it across the room. "I'm getting real tired of you not answering me!" he snapped angrily.

I stared down at the floor where the box had been as my belongings spilled out of my arms, which were now shaking. I wasn't sure if it was from sadness or frustration or anger. Maybe it was from none of it because that was nothing compared to how disappointed I felt. How defeated.

They weren't supposed to know about this. It was my secret. My dirty little secret. They weren't supposed to know.

Raphael wasn't supposed to know it. Just like I wasn't supposed to know he talked to Spike.

"Dani?" Michelangelo said. He sounded a little bit afraid. "What's with all this stuff?"

I glared at him. "It's none of your business!" I snapped at him. "It's mine – it's personal!" I looked around at all of them, hoping that would be enough to get them to just drop it.

As if it'd be that easy.

Leonardo pushed past the others to stand in front of me and I felt trapped suddenly with him there and Raph behind me. I wanted to run, but I couldn't. They had me cornered. What would they ask?

What would I tell them?

Leo knelt down in front of me, his expression a mixture of sympathy, anger, and frustration. "What's going on, Dani?" he asked me, and I knew from his voice that he wanted answers. "Do you hurt yourself – do you cut?"

I looked away from him silently.

"That ain't what happened," Raphael said before I could even about answering.

I looked up at him. "How would you know?"

"Tch," Raphael scoffed. "Didn't you know who called you that night?"

Wait, what night? The night with Camille and the glass?

That's right. Someone had called. I never checked to see who it was.

I stared at him, half-angrily, half-confused. I couldn't tell which emotion was stronger. "Why were you calling me?"

Raphael glared down at me or at least I thought it was at me. It took me a second to realize he staring at something else just over my shoulder, something I couldn't see. "You wouldn't tell me what was going on," he said and a tiny smirk crept across his lips. "So I decided to figure it out for myself. I waited out on the balcony outside your bedroom. The window was wide open, but the door to your room was closed. I could hear fine, though. I was there for about an hour after someone came home and started smashing shit. Sounded like someone breaking dishes or something." He locked his eyes on mine. "Was that you?"

He didn't know. Or did he?

I couldn't tell. I didn't know how much he had heard that day. He said he'd been able to hear fine, but what did that mean? With the way he was acting now, I just couldn't tell.

I decided to lie again – he would either catch me in it or he wouldn't, but what would happen if he did?

I turned my gaze to my fingernails. "I-I was mad because my family's being evicted and it was my fault. It was too much. I had just moved from Connecticut because my mom died and now, my dad and his girlfriend were going to be pissed me over something I had no control over. I went nuts and broke some dishes. Then I fell and got all cut up."

Would they believe me?

"Is that really what happened, Daniella?" Splinter said from his spot in his armchair.

I looked up at him and I could see hurt disappoint in his eyes. Splinter wasn't like his sons, somehow. He held this family together and he was willing to help me, an outsider, not because he felt obligated to, but because he wanted to. He had helped April, too, and the turtles when he had taken them in fifteen years ago. Would they even be alive without him?

Splinter was a good person. Not a good rat, but a good person.

I couldn't lie to him. "I –"

"You don't have a choice anymore," Raphael said, cutting me off. "We have to train you – you're not safe from anyone. Not even yourself."

I stared up at him. Was he saving me?

I opened my mouth to speak, but before I could get the words out, Raph turned and walked away. I sat silently, staring after him. I knew the others were speaking to me, but my mind drowned out everything they were saying. My own thoughts were too loud: Why would he save me?

I stepped out of the bathroom silently. I was wearing an over-sized T-shirt as a nightgown and the Band-Aids I'd replaced were fully visible now.
There was no point in hiding it now, was there?

"Why is it so hard for you to tell us anything?"

I looked up to see April standing in front of me, looking angry. "Wha–?" I started to say, but she cut off me quickly.

"You know, the guys care about you." She glared at me. "We all do, and we're all really sorry that your mom died and that you're stuck in such a shitty situation with your dad, but that's still no excuse for how you treat everyone."

Everyone – everyone who?

They were the only ones I was lying to. Except for the kids at school. And the people at the ER that time. What was there to tell, though?

Nothing would change if I told. Nothing.

"April, I –" I said at last.

"Dani, we all want to be friends with you," April said. "Raph already thinks of you as his friend – do you think he'd have been sitting outside your window that night if he didn't?"

I looked down at my feet where the floor had turned black because of the water dripping from my hair. She had every right to be angry. They all did. I didn't understand why I was surprised by this. And yet I was."I want to be their friend – your friend, too, April."

"Then what is it, Dani?" April asked me. "Is it because we're different – is it because they're mutants?" She gestured to the living room where the turtles were.

I shook my head. "No."

I wasn't that horrible.

"Then what is it!?" April demanded angrily, her voice just below a shout.

Could the others hear us – were they watching us now, listening?

I looked up at April. I wanted to tell her that it was that I didn't have a choice. That nothing would change and things would probably only get worse, but I couldn't. I couldn't. I wanted to, but I couldn't. So instead I said simply, "I don't know."

April glared at me, her expression a mixture of anger and disgust. There was no sympathy in her face. "Well, figure it out then," she spat at me. "Before you really hurt someone." She turned and stomped off silently.

The next morning, I lay on the couch silently. The lair was quiet and cold. Unlike the night before, the turtles and April had decided to sleep in their own rooms, so I was alone. I didn't know if this meant they were still mad at me. Not that they didn't deserve to be. April probably was and if she was, that would be fine.

Bzz! Bzz!

I reached out grabbed and my phone off the floor. I tapped the screen silently until I found the source of the noise. I had a text message. From Camille.

Oh, joy.

The message was short. There was only one sentence to read:

We found a place! -C.

"Place – as in an apartment? Well, that was fast."

I looked up to see Donatello and Raphael standing over me, craning their heads to read the message on my phone.

Didn't turtles need sleep?

Raphael scoffed. "And she didn't leave you an address or anything. What, are you just magically supposed to know where this place is?"

"Well, to be fair," Donatello said, "they probably aren't moving today."

I stared at them. I hadn't spoken to any of them ever since my little chat with April and they were weirdly cheerful, despite everything that had happened last night. Why weren't they mad?

"It's no big deal," I said, setting the phone back on the floor. "They'll just give me the address themselves when I get home."

Even though Camille would probably rather just leave me in the loft to fend for myself.

Raphael smirked. "You seem angry today," he said. "Good. You'll need it."

Correction. I wasn't angry. I was miserable.

And furious. With myself.

I raised my eyebrows at him. "For what?" I asked him.

"Trust me," Donatello said, laughing. "You don't want to know."

I looked at him and opened my mouth to respond, but before I could Raphael ripped the blanket off of me and threw it on floor. He grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me to my feet. "You're coming with me," he said, dragging me along with him to the training room.

The first step to learning ninjutsu was to learn the basic forms of it, which were known as kata. The first kata was called taikyoku – whatever that meant. It was made up of twenty-two steps and I had to learn all of them. With Raphael as my teacher.

Sounds easy, right?

So, so, so wrong.

Raphael performed taikyoku for what must have been the hundredth time, counting out the steps as he went. Then he turned to me. "Your turn," he said simply.

I stared at him. I was panting heavily, covered in sweat, and, worst of all, wearing nothing but my night shirt from last night and my underwear. Part of me wanted to object, but I wasn't stupid. I had figured out what was going on hours ago after the others had marched in the training to come watch me being tortured. I was being punished.

One.

I counted in my head as I pushed myself into the first step of the kata.

Two.

"This is insane," I heard April say quietly to one of the others. "How has she not gotten it by now?"

Three.

"Bad posture," I heard Splinter tell her. "Poor breathing. Look at the way she moves. She's not focusing properly."

Four.

"Wrong!" Raphael grabbed me by the arm and pulled me out of the fifth step position of the kata roughly. "How the heck did you ever manage to make it through tai chi?" He pushed me in a way that should have been gentle, but I was so exhausted I fell on the floor.

I glared at him."It was a class at the Y!" I reminded him angrily. "And the instructors there are actually helpful. They aren't allowed to push people or yell in their faces like complete maniacs."

Not that I had any right to complain. I deserved to be punished.

"Actually, Dani," Donatello said from his spot beside Splinter, "compared to how he treats the rest of us, Raph has been going easy on you."

"Frightening, isn't it?" Michelangelo asked me.

"And, you know, I figured that after three hours, you would have actually figured out what you were doing wrong, but I guess you're too dumb to figure it out," Raphael said nonchalantly as I got to my feet.

I glared at him, trying to resist the urge to hit him.

"That is enough," Splinter said, walking over to us. He stood between Raph and me. "Daniella, you need to learn to focus on your movements. If you had been concentrating, you would have learned this kata by now – you're making it more difficult than it should be." He narrowed his eyes at me. "What is it that has you distracted?"

What had me distracted – what had me distracted?

Everything had me distracted. Life had me distracted, but mostly it was the fact that all of the people who had been there for me – who had saved me and promised to protect me were mad at me and there was nothing I could do about it because I couldn't be honest with them!?

Even Mom probably hated me right now. And I deserved it.

I looked away from Splinter. "It's nothing," I sighed. "I just didn't sleep well."

Splinter sighed. "Very well," he said. "You and Raphael may rest, but the rest of you must practice." He gestured to the other three turtles.

Finally.

Raphael turned on his heel and left silently. "Thank you, Splinter," I said as I watched him leave.

I turned and walked out of the room silently. As I was a leaving, April began to follow after me silently.

Great. Maybe she was here to yell at me again.

April smiled at me uneasily as we walked to the living room. "So," she said, "are you happy you get to go home today?"

I frowned at her.

Yes, because who doesn't enjoy living with an abusive psychopath?

"Right," April said, her smile faltering. "Stupid question."

I nodded as we sat down on the couch. "So what's up?"

And, please, do not say the ceiling.

April sighed and frowned at me. "It's nothing," she said. "I just wanted to say that I'm sorry for exploding on you last night and that even though I was mad at you, I forgive you and I hope you accept my apology."

Weren't you supposed to ask for forgiveness?

"It's cool," I said, smiling. "I shouldn't have kept things from you guys. I deserved to get yelled at. Anyway, why did you decide to apologize?"

I probably deserved to be exiled from the sewer lair for lying so much.

April shook her head. "I've been under a lot of stress lately," she said. "I've been through a lot, you know. My dad was kidnapped and now, I'm living here, on the run from inter-dimensional aliens and a clan of ninja and their allies, but I still manage to keep calm. Mostly." She looked up at me sheepishly. "You've been through just as much – if not more – and you look like you're falling to pieces." She shrugged. "I guess that just made me feel bad that I yelled at you like that. Plus, after what Raph put you through today, I figured you'd been punished more than enough."

Did I hear her right?

I stared at her, my eyes wide and my anger forgotten. "I-I'm sorry," I said after a moment of silence. "Did you just say there are inter-dimensional aliens and an evil ninja clan after you?"

April nodded. "The aliens are called The Kraang. They're the ones who took my dad."

So that's what the Kraang were – why did I even bother being surprised? I was in a sewer with four talking turtles.

"And these things are in New York?" I asked April.

"Yeah," April said. "The Kraang have been kidnapping scientists like my dad from all over the city."

And to think, I had been worried about street gangs.

"See why learning to defend yourself is important?" I looked up to see Raphael come in the living room, carrying a plate of cold pizza. He sat down on the bean bag chair on the floor and took a bite out of his pizza as he looked at me. "The ninja clan is called The Foot and we're sort of at war with them. They're allied with the Purple Dragons and the Kraang. Plus, they've got mutants of their own on their side." Any sort of anger or hostility that he might have felt before was gone now. He wore a grim smile and his voice was filled with bitter amusement.

Oh, the Purple Dragons were allied with the evil ninja clan. Nice to know. Maybe I should just ask Camille to kill me herself when I get home. She probably wanted to already, so problem solved.

I stared at Raph silently for a moment, taking in everything he had said. Then I grabbed my phone off the floor and opened up the internet browser.

"I really don't think you're going to find anything about the Foot or anything on Google," April said, smiling at me.

I frowned as I typed away at the touch-screen. "That's not what I'm looking up." I actually hadn't even thought of looking that stuff up.

And why would I – it sounded weird enough already without whatever crazy stuff the internet might pull up.

Raphael finished the slice pizza he had eating. Then he pulled a sai off his belt and used it spear the last two slices. "What are you looking up then?" he asked me.

I looked at him in disgust.

He did realize he used those to stab people, right?

Raphael ignored me and continued eating in silence.

"If you don't mind us asking, that is," April added quickly as I went back to my phone.

I finished typing and hit the search button on my phone. "I'm looking up self-defense classes," I said as I waited for the results to load.

Raphael scoffed. "Now you're interested in self-defense classes?" he said. He looked at April. "We should have told her about this stuff a week ago."

I bookmarked a website with a list of the top ten best martial arts schools in NYC and sighed, rolling my eyes. "I'm not going to go enroll right away. I'm just looking it up for later." I grabbed my bag off the floor and shoved my phone in the side pocket. "It's not like it's a big deal or anything."

"Well, no, it isn't," April said, frowning, "but what do you mean by later?"

"Yeah," Raphael said, nodding. "What's the point of looking up the classes if you're not going to sign up for them?"

I thought the point was pretty obvious. To keep getting better at martial arts.

I opened my bag and dug through it. "You know, just after..." My voice trailed off as I pulled my last clean outfit out of the bag without looking at it.

"After what?" April prompted as I got to my feet.

I looked at the two of the them and tried to shrug like it was no big deal. Which it wasn't. "Just after I'm done here. I mean, once Splinter teaches me how to defend myself properly, I can go join a new school because then there won't really be a reason for me to come around here anymore." I locked eyes with Raphael as he stared at me. "Will there, Raph?"

I turned and walked away silently.

A/N: I just wanted to take this time to say thank you to all the people who have reviewed this fanfiction. Your reviews mean a lot to me and I really appreciate the support.
Also, I just wanted to apologize for taking so long to post this chapter. A lot has happened in my life these past couple weeks. There's been a death in my family and a lot of things have changed for me, so I'm really just trying to cope and figure everything out.
Sorry it took me so long to write and post. I hope you will forgive me.
Thank you for waiting patiently 3