The Perfect Son

Disclaimer: I deny any ownership of any adolescent transformed shadow warrior chelonians.

Author's Note: Originally, I used both 1st and 3rd person style of writing for this story. I considered changing it, but decided that it served it's purpose so I continued.

Also, while Leo has amnesia expect him to be out of character in spots.

Chapter Two- Wondering?

It had been early, very early when she stepped out of her apartment building to throw the garbage into the bin. However, when she tossed the bag of refuse in, she could have sworn that she heard a low groan.

'Great some drunk passed out in there. He'll be in for a heck of a surprise when he wakes up being crushed by the garbage truck.' She mused to herself, but out of curiosity- and perhaps a sense of morals- caused her to climb up and look into the large metal container.

She gasped in shock, drawing back almost falling off the garbage bin. Her mind mentally telling her that what she had seen wasn't real, it couldn't possibly be real. It was unnatural!

Her heart was pounding and she shook her head. But some part of her was drawn to go back and look again. She had seen blood, lots of blood whatever it was, was alive and badly hurt - at least from the amount of blood she had seen.

Once again she climbed up and peeked over the top of the bin, the garbage was close to the top and in the over head light coming from the apartment building she could see the blood, on the garbage and creature.

It wasn't human, of that much she was sure.

"Hey, there. Your kind of hurt and need some help." She crooned, using her soft soothing voice that she often used on the animals in the vet clinic where she worked. "I can help you, but we need to get you safe first."

She climbed in and placed an arm around the creature, being. Now that she was closer she could see it was almost a turtle human shape.

The turtle being open it's eyes, eyes of dark blue and filled with harsh pain, his head was bleeding badly.

Why do I think of it as a Male? She wondered to herself. Perhaps it was due to the well defined muscles she could see on the beasts arms and legs.

"Come on can you help me? I don't think I could carry you on my own." She urged softly.

It wasn't easy getting him out of the garbage bin, he was very weak and didn't seem to have much strength. He was heavy, and leaned against her, staggering with each step he took.

She held her breath as she struggled to assist the being to move forward. Getting him to the apartment was a task in itself. Not to mention the fact that at any time someone might notice that she was leading this badly injured being back to her apartment, and what would she say if she was caught.

While her apartment wasn't that far away it seemed to be further then it had ever been, taking twice or three times as long to get there. She breathed a weary sigh of relief when she was finally able to deposit his heavy weight onto the bed in the spare room of her home.

Under the better lighting she could tell the turtle was seriously injured, and her vet instincts warned her to care for him first. But she also was torn, for she wanted to care for some of the blood that might have marked a trail to her home.

'Anathesia is not good for reptiles, and with his injuries, he'd most likely die from it."

She scowled knowing that she would have to tend to him. If I got him this far it would be foolish to try and harm him now, so no anaesthetic. But he needs something while I treat his injuries.

She wiped a hand over her forehead, and blew out a large air of exasperation. Before deciding to do a quick clean outside, perhaps giving her injured guest a chance to rest a bit before she began to treat him.

She went out and did a very quick clean up of the hallway and elevator. Before, she returned to her apartment and gathered the necessary items from her medicine cabinet - bandages, gauze, surgical thread and needle.

Entering the bedroom she saw that he was in a deep sleep, there was all ready signs of bruising on arms and legs but she focused instead on the major injuries. His head had lots of bruises, and a deep gouge as well as a smaller head wound.

It was this area that she worked on first, cleaning the wounds. The deeper head wound looked like it had been made by a large knife of some kind. Luckily, it hadn't seemed to pierce the brain in any way, but it had come close.

'I ought to take you to a hospital, but I doubt any hospital would be willing to treat you properly. I didn't get you out of a garbage bin to throw your life away, so I guess I'm stuck trying to get you better on my own.'

She gave a rueful shake of her head, she had always liked reptiles as a child and when she decided to become a vet she had taken the extra schooling to care for exotic animals as well as the regular, cats and dogs.

XXX

She looked in on her guest, it was the third day since she had found him and just returned from work. He had been unconscious these few days, and she had managed to set up an IV for him.

Part of her worried about the fact he was unconscious, but the other part knowing that he needed to rest. The more he rested the better chance of recovery, but with the head wound it was just as likely that he was in a coma.

"I do what I can for you my chelonian friend but the rest is really up to you." She had said that more then once over the last three days.

Now she noticed that his eyelids flickered slightly, as if he was gripped in some dark nightmare. She smiled a little taking it as a good sign. She walked into the room and pulled up a small chair, sitting down on it to watch her guest.

His head jerked and he mumbles some incoherent words, then a few minutes later he said "no. No!"

Her eyes, widened at those words. 'It has the ability to speak? But is it only mimicry.'

His eyes snapped open, and he took a deep breath as he quickly scanned the room he was in.

He was in a bed that was pushed up against a wall, there was a dresser opposite the bed, and a small night stand by the bed that held a lamp. Sunlight came in the windows that was up over the bed. There was a closet in the corner of the room not far from the foot of the bed, and along the short wall was a book case.

He also noted the woman who sat in a wooden chair, a mass of dark curly hair framed her round face, hazel eyes watching him with keen interest. She wore a dark blue sweat top and a pair of jeans.

She gave a slow smile and spoke keeping her voice low and calm. "It's good to see you awake. You are safe now, it must have been some fight you were in…"

'Fight? Did she say fight?' He scowled his brow furrowing, he didn't recall any fight. He glanced down at himself. Green skin, a shell. He was a turtle, he knew that much and some part of him knew it wasn't a good idea to let people see him. He wasn't exactly sure of the whys, of it all. He only knew it was true.

He looked at his three thick fingers on one hand and wiggled them experimentally, as if he wasn't quite sure that they were even a part of him. He felt his head pounding it hurt…a lot.

She was still talking to him in that soft way, and he tried to focus on her words. He understood what she was saying, it was just with his head thumping as it was it was hard to concentrate on the words.

"…my name is Christine Adare. Do you call yourself anything?"

"I… I'm," He paused and bit his lip. He was going tell her but for some reason what ever he was going say eluded him. His brow furrowed and tried to think the name Raph came to him, but he knew that it wasn't his name. It sounded familiar but… he shook his head uncertainly and that caused a wave of nausea, "uh, all I can think of is Raph but I don't really know if that is me or not." He replied.

Christine nodded, "Could be from a little trauma from what you went through."

"I don't even remember that either," he groaned.

Christine grinned a little, "Well you did suffer head injuries and you've been out for three days, it might take a bit for your mind to remember certain things. I have heard that injuries and trauma to the head can cause people to forget once in a while, but the memories usually return fairly quickly." She sighed and shifted in the chair.

It seemed strange, somehow odd, to be carrying on a conversation with a large turtle, but she had the last few days to get used to the idea that such a being existed and now, the fact that it could talk seemed to be easy enough to accept.

"Don't worry, I'm sure your memories will come on their own, until you do remember though I might as well call you Raph, that is if you don't mind. I need to call you something after all and it is much better than hey, you!"

He snorted a little at her comment and arched an eye ridge slightly, "No, you can call me Raph I don't mind." His head was really starting to sound like a set of drums and his stomach flipped a bit uneasily.

'Concussion,' the word popped into his mind, ' You have a concussion and even though you have been out for three days - if what Christine says is true- then you might have been worse off. For now know it is normal to feel dizzy, nausea and the headache will be here for awhile. Best thing you can do is rest.'

All this information came to him on the heels of the one word, concussion, but where had he learned what a concussion was? Or for that matter how did he know that it wasn't a good idea to be out during the daylight hours and that the sun, was an unfamiliar sight for him?

Why was it that these things came to the front and not the important things, like who he was, where he had come from, what had happened to him?

These thoughts caused his all ready aching head to rebel against him further. Realizing he was doing himself no good, he stopped his wandering thoughts and sank back further into the pillows of the bed.

Christine noted his sudden look of exhaustion, "Do you feel up to eating anything Raph?"

Even the thought of food caused his churning stomach to roll a little more, "I don't think it will go down well." He warned her.

"Hmmm, how about some mint tea then, try a little of it and later a slice of toast or boiled egg?" Christine offered.

Tea the word was connected to feeling calm, peaceful, relaxed. He'd like to say that some memory was stirred by the word. But once again the word alone only conjured certain memories.

"I'd like some tea," He agreed, maybe when he held the cup and smelled the aroma of the tea it might bring back something.

He watched as she rose and left the room, and he sank back further into the blankets, his hand resting in a patch of late sunlight felt warm. He felt safe, but was bothered by the absence of knowledge, of things he should know but didn't know.

'Who am I really? Where do I come from? Do I have family?'

Then on the thought of family there was a sense a feeling, that yes there were others like him - somewhere- there was someone he called his family. But he had no memory of who his family were or how many people were in his family.

Try as he could to dredge up a single image, name or number that he could connect to as family only brought more of that empty hollow void and an increase of pain from his head.

'Alright, all ready, I give up for now' He vowed to himself.

Luckily by that point Christine had returned, she set the cup of tea down on the bedside stand and assisted Raph to a sitting position. She made sure her guest was fully able to manage drinking the tea.

For a moment he held the cup in his hands inhaling the aroma, and while it brought no memories that were of any use to him he knew without a doubt that tea was one of his favourite drinks.

While he slowly savoured his tea Christine talked about herself.

She told him that her mother was in a nursing home after quite a bad stroke, her brother and sister who lived closer to the nursing home visited their mom often and she would visit when she could. "I also pay for the extended care and things as my brother and sister have families and work of their own to tend to. I'm the only single one in the family."

Christine told him her father had died in a car accident ten years before, and then she went on to tell him about her job as a vet and how dealing with the clients who brought in their pets was often more difficult then dealing with the pet themselves.

"Of course the real fun ones are the late night emergency cases."

"Like me you mean?" He wondered.

"Oh, you were real trouble Raph. I thought for sure you were going to die on me from blood loss alone, and I couldn't exactly do a transfusion because your blood is so unique. Not to mention that I wouldn't have any idea of what to do with the body, if you had died."

"Lucky you didn't have to find out." He teased lightly.

"Lucky for you or me Raph?" Christine shot out.

"Uh, both?"

Christine smiled, as she relaxed in her chair for the first time she felt relaxed with her guest, she felt she could accept him for his own uniqueness. Raph seemed to be quite human in his manners, words and actions.

'I can't say that I am sorry for helping him. He sounds fairly young late teens, early twenties maybe. At least it looks like he'll be here for a while longer.' Christine thought, and that thought didn't worry her in the least, because Raph had intrigued her enough by this point that she wanted to know him better.

TBC