Authors Note: I just want to thank everyone who has been reading this story, I am really amazed how many of you there are and I hope you will keep following the adventures of Artemis and Tracey in our next Foot Falls Story: Foot Falls, Midwinter Nights Dream, this one will be over in the Hobbit section of the FanFiction World.

When Tracey woke the next morning it was to the somber sight of Leonardo sitting beside the bed reading Manga again in his original form. He looked up and smiled. "Sorry, I couldn't sleep but I didn't want to wake you."

Smiling sleepily at him, Tracey rubbed sleep from her eyes and slowly sat up, stifling a yawn behind her hand and pushing strands of her hair out of her face. "You didn't wake me... Even if you had come to bed with me I doubt I would have woken up, I'm a heavy sleeper and with everything we went through last night I could probably sleep all day." She replied, fluffing up her pillow and pulling it beneath her as she rolled over onto her side and studied Leo's face. "Did you sleep at all?"

"I did. I don't need as much sleep now as I did as a human." He replied marking his page and setting the book aside, he looked a little uncomfortable as he leaned forward his elbows resting on his knees and she realized in his original form he was much bigger.

Tracey saw something was up and she refused to let a good friend hurt without trying to help. "Come here and tell me what's bothering you Leonardo, I can see it in your eyes and on your face that something is bothering you." She moved over a little and sat up to give him some more space.

Leo sat on the edge of the bed and the dip was so significant Tracey all but fell into his lap. He lifted her up and tucked her in next to him. "This." He replied and motioned to them sitting on the bed with him being significantly larger than her. "I know I am who I am and I don't really want to change it but I do miss being human sized, and I am going to miss some of the perks."

Tracey slowly rested a hand on his arm and he looked at her. "It's like you said before, 'True acceptance comes from within,' but I can understand where you're coming from. It's going to take a little while to get used to the way things were... but we can at least enjoy the time that we still have now."

He smiled slightly and cupped her cheek, his whole hand was bigger than her face but he touched her like she was made of the finest crystal while he leaned down to kiss her. Leaning in closer, Tracey tenderly wrapped her arms around Leo's neck and kissed him in return, it didn't feel weird at all. Tracey didn't care about appearance, she always found that it was what the person or creature was like on the inside that counted, nothing else mattered. She was just getting into the kiss when her phone started ringing in her satchel. It rang with shrill persistence and after an annoyed growl Leo reached over to the chair and grabbed her satchel handing it to her so she could dig her phone out.

She touched Leo's cheek before answering the phone. "Hello this is Tracey, how can I help you?" She asked, opening the phone and putting it to her ear.

"You have done well, but your job is not yet done." The voice from the antiseptic room filled her head and she saw the room around her fading into a field of white. The phone crackled and static filled her ears as vertigo dragged at her senses. "You have done well but your job is not yet done." The voice intoned again and she felt reality slipping away. She didn't know who the voice belonged to, a voice that sounded like all the voices that ever were and ever would be but it seemed familiar. Images of four giant turtles, a huge bipedal rat, a woman with dark hair and eyes, a Large blond man and a smaller blond man then more images of people who seemed so familiar but the names were always just out of reach.

"You have done well but your job is not yet done." The voice again as the whiteness overtook her and she slid from consciousness.

Artemis woke wrapped in a firm embrace that left her feeling a little claustrophobic until she saw the heavily muscled green arm of Raphael holding her close to his body.

She let her gaze travel up the arm to the armor plated chest of his original turtle form to his face which was watching her face closely. His hazel eyes held a faint wariness that was at odds with his physique and she had to smile a little. "Oh chill Raph, I'm not gonna have a fit of the vapors." She said the last in a down home southern drawl and he grinned.

"Hey I've seen what you can do when you're startled." He retorted and loosened his grip so she could lean up.

"Fair enough." She ran a hand through her bed tangled hair.

He rested a hand casually on her hip and stared at the way it engulfed her ample hip the dark green skin a stark contrast to her very pale skin. "It's kinda pretty." Artemis remarked looking down at the contrast too.

"Now that's a word I'm not used to being called." He said and shook his head moving his hand away from her hip.

Artemis sat up and all but crawled up his body which did interesting things to him but he kept his eyes on her face. She ran a hand over his head the bandana absent for once and he felt a shiver thrill down his spin when she used those long nails of hers to scrape gently at the back of his skull. "No… not pretty, handsome, devilish, maybe even sinister but not pretty." She said softly leaning in.

He growled low in his throat and pulled her in tight so he could kiss her and the thought floated through his head that he didn't care that she was thirteen years older than him, experience was a hell of a good thing in this regard. He kissed her like he was trying to breath all of her in and she matched him. When he slowly let her go she was flushed and breathing a little fast. "Holy hell…" He breathed trying not to act on all the things he wanted to do in that moment.

He reminded himself that she wasn't going to be there long, that she was thirteen years older than him, that she was in love with someone else, he'd heard her talking to Tracey about the guy from Greece, Iolaus. He told himself that she was human and he was so much bigger than her, he'd break her, she was human and he was a damned turtle so it was basically beasiality and therefore wrong. He felt a pang of loss for the human form he'd only had for a few days but he ruthlessly ignored it, he'd made his choice, to save his brothers, to go back to who he knew he really was. He tried to apply cold logic to the arousal, the need he felt but it didn't change anything. He gripped her hips and pulled her in flush against him and was rewarded with the gasp he'd been craving as he bent to kiss her again only to hear her phone go off in her satchel.

He tried to ignore it and knew she was doing the same but the persistent ringing did what logic couldn't and with a growl he reached down and dragged the satchel up off the floor. She took it with a scowl and he smirked knowing whoever was dumb enough to interrupt like this was going to get an earful. She answered the phone...and vanished the phone dropping into his lap. He grabbed it up and put it to his ear. "You have done well, but your job is not yet done." A voice that sounded like a crowd of voices speaking in unison intoned before the phone went dead.

He dropped the phone and realized her satchel had vanished with her. He felt like he'd lost something more half sitting in his empty bed the scent of her still sweet on the sheets. He ground his hands into his eyes then got up when he heard a knock on the door. Answering it he saw Leo holding Tracey's cellphone and knew she was gone too, the look on Leo's face must match his he knew. The loss of something indefinable and precious but when Mikey and Donnie poked their heads out of their rooms Leo and Raph knew the loss they felt now was minor compared to what it could have been. What Artemis and Tracey had kept it from being. Raph looked at Leo and held up his hand, Leo grasped it and they nodded once, they were bonded together by the love they had shared for two women from another world and they would honor that bond. For now it was time to explain to Mikey and Donnie what had happened to the girls, memories could come later.