The Perfect Son

Disclaimer: I own Christine and maybe Quan and that is about it.

Author's Note: This is a longer chapter so make yourself comy for reading. For this chapter I did borrow heavily from the Mirage comics for Leo's first two memories- Leo one shot -What goes around, comes around and "The Return to New York" series. Ramica

Chapter Eighteen- Memories

Christine:

I sat on the edge of the small cot chewing on my fingernails, some of the nails were worn quite low and ragged by this point in time. I had paced restlessly for awhile, after they had taken Leo and then waiting for them to return him.

Some part of me silently whispered, what if they don't bring him back? I shoved that thought away not wanting to consider it. The idea that they might kill or destroy him was not one that would go away however.

I jumped a little startled when the door finally did open and Leo was unceremoniously forced back into the room. Leo landed on the floor and I could see the numerous open wounds - a couple of which, looked like they required stitching but there was nothing in the prison I could use to stitch Leo up with.

I grabbed one of the thin blankets and began to rip it apart to form crude but effective bandages for him, it would have to do until the wounds could be properly cared for.

I could see huge bruises coming up on his skin as well, as I knelt near him to start bandaging him up. He didn't move or respond to me as I treated the worst injuries as best I could with, what little I had.

Concerned, I checked his pulse, it was faster then normal and I pried open one eyelid, fearing he was unconscious, only to see that he was conscious but there was a hollow vacant stare to his eyes.

I gulped, realizing that Leo must have retreated even deeper with inside of himself.

"Leo snap out of it," I chided him using gentle but firm tone, "Come back to me where ever you are please? Leo can you hear me?"

I shook my head as my attempts gained no response from him. Great! I knew my interrogation had bothered him but he might have been all right, if the Foot hadn't bothered to show up and beat the crap out of him.

I scowled darkly and began to check him over for more serious injuries, but I didn't feel any broken bones. Leo flinched a little under my hands, as I gave him a closer more thorough inspection.

He then began to whimper, and that became long drawn out wail of torment and anguish that wrenched at me.

"I've failed." He said his voice so low and full of hurt.

"No Leo, you can never fail. As long as you try and do your best you will never fail. I've told you that before and it is true." I assure him.

"Not…spose to fail." he spat out ignoring my words.

"Failing is a part of all of us Leo. It is what makes us human, even those of us who strive for perfection fail along the way," I informed him gently.

"Not..a…lowed" he gasped.

My mind raced with those words and a recalled an earlier talk with him, when I had still called him Raph.

"You try too hard. Your not perfect and no one expects you to be."

His simple but shocked reply of "Don't they?"

Something else sprang to my mind, when I had first gone down to the lair alone to talk with the others about Leo and what to do for him. Don had compared Leo to be like a lion bold, confident when the more abrasive of the bunch had remarked. "He takes responsibility and perfection too far. He didn't want to fail in Splinter's eyes or ours, for that matter after all if he made a mistake it would mean he was no better then the rest of us."

Taking perfection too far, unwilling to fail or feeling that failing was totally unacceptable. I pursed my lips tightly and wondered briefly if his family demanded perfection from him, or if Leo demanded it from himself? Or was it, that both he and his family expected it from him?

No, matter the end result was still the same. Leo feared failure- and if that was the case, if he felt he had failed, how would that effect him?

I looked at Leo, and I was pretty sure the effects of it was what was now before me. He had been beaten, and almost killed, but the beating had given him the lasting damage of amnesia. Leo's fear of failing, especially where he felt he had failed before was enough for him to maintain the wall, between his new life and old one. He was willing to turn his back on everything he'd been raised for, and leave it to the past.

I rose and got the last blanket and wrapped it around him for he was shaking uncontrollably. "You haven't failed Leo."

"I have. I failed. Failed often." He insisted as he huddled shivering under the blanket.

I shook my head, "When have you failed Leo?"

Finally he raised his head and hissed the words, "Christmas Eve."

I recalled what his brothers had told me about the training run. I had to try and help Leo, I had to figure out why it was he felt he had failed. So, I prodded, "What happened Christmas Eve, if you were overcome by sheer number then you can't be to blame for that."

"My fault Christmas Eve," Leo whimpered as he moved slowly to a sitting position, the strange hollow, distant look in his eyes.

I reached out and took his hand in mine, letting him know I was here "Can you tell me, please, what happened?" I asked softly. I knew that if he didn't respond that it would be best not to push him.

"Snowing outside, would cover any tracks. So peaceful, Mike cooking in the kitchen. I promised to be back to help. Just a quick run." Leo began, his words coming quickly. "I was jumping rooftops when I became aware of a presence. Two Foot soldiers coming in for an attack, I draw my swords and stood ready to face them down. We battle but they are the ones to fall. I see movement out of the corner of my eye, and dive backward narrowly missing the daggers that were thrown at me."

I noticed that Leo' voice and facial expression didn't seem to change it was as if he was trapped in the memory of that Christmas Eve night and relaying each move and strike.

"A Foot soldier appears bearing the kyotetsu shogei. He uses the chain to entangle my feet pulling me hard to the ground but chain weapons can work both ways. I pull him towards me and use my feet to kick him sending him in a flip over me. It gives me a chance to regain my own feet but by the time I do, the Foot soldier is gone. He hasn't gone far though and I am determined to go after him." Leo intones.

I have no idea what the weapon is that he mentions, but I'm not about to interrupt this revelation with something so trivial as that.

"I follow his trail in the snow down to the alley. Hiding in the alley, waiting for me, are three Foot Soldiers one with a modified bo staff - a long metal point like a spear point on one end, on the other, a metal three pronged trident. Another Soldier has the kusari gama, a chain weapon attached to a sickle. The third Soldier has long raking claws over the wrist."

I listened attentively, to his description the empty way he has of telling it, assures me the look on his face. It feels strange and wrong. Yet I know this is a memory of his past. Of when he was truly, Leo.

"We battle in the alley. One of the claw weapons breaks a part of one of my katana but I can still use it, it is still deadly enough. By the time I finish two of the Foot soldier the other makes a break for it and runs, he stops long enough to throw shuriken my way. I dive for cover behind some garbage cans and when I look out again, he's gone."

Leo paused and shook his head, "Why don't I leave it like that? I have confidence. I can face them. I can deal with them. I have too much pride, and I'm too sure of myself. I continue to follow as they lead me on." He gave a strange laugh. "That is what they were doing, run into a couple here fight and one runs off, run into a few more there, fight and one runs off. Why didn't I see what they were doing? I should have known."

It was the most emotional response I had heard from him since he had been returned to our cell. It was clear that he was berating himself. I didn't quite understand and was a little confused.

"Known what Leo, what was it that they did?"

For a while the only answer I got from him was more low moans and whimpers, he once again huddled onto the floor under the blanket as if he was trying to hide.

"I wasn't hurt badly, but so many Foot fell to me as I continued to follow them. I was lead to a construction site, a high wooden fence blocks off trespassers from interfering with the equipment or getting hurt. A couple Foot Soldiers pop up from behind the fence they use the kusari fundo to ensnare my arms and pull me up against the fence," Leo continued, " A Foot soldier does a flying kick right into me and I can't defend myself, not with the chains holding my arms. The boards behind me break and we all go tumbling down the hill to the bottom of the construction site."

I shivered lightly myself, as Leo continued his tale.

"I gain my feet but I'm surrounded by six Foot Soldiers, that is all right I can handle that number. But one of them signals and more Foot appear from places around the construction site." Leo gave a sudden sharp tortured cry of pain. "Oh gods! What have I done? I've been lead into a trap, my confidence in myself - is my downfall they've used it against me."

His breath was growing sharp and ragged, " I make a stand but then I see him. We killed him, we restored honour, so how can he be alive now?"

His face twists a little as if he actually sees the image before him in reality. "My world vanishes in pain as Shredder and his Foot take their toll on me, but they leave me alive, as a sign to my family of my failure to them."

I felt that my own mouth was dry, and I licked my lips. "Leo, your brothers killed Shredder again, so that set everything right, doesn't it?"

"No, I failed them." Leo insisted miserably.

"Failed? How could you, when you did kill Shredder." I pointed out.

"I didn't want to come back. Raph was right. My confidence was shaken. I was scared of loosing, I was scared of failing again. I didn't want to return.

Raph knew it too, Raph can be very perceptive about such things."

He was still shivering and his eyes still seemed distant. Then he spoke in a voice that sounded more like his brother Raph.

"We've failed dammit how can you live with that? I can't. Leo's lost it, he's scared. He can no longer lead us. We're dying here rotting from the inside out, and it's your fault. We wait and wait and you do nothing."

The strange mimicry stopped and Leo returned to that empty hollow tone. "He was right so right. I had failed. I let them fail and I couldn't face coming back. I told him it wasn't time yet and when we were ready to go, we'd go together. It wasn't time because I wasn't ready, I don't think that I'd ever be ready."

Again the mimicry of Raph's voice harsher and rougher. "Look at yourself you're a coward."

Then Leo's empty tone again, as if Raph was here carrying on the conversation with Leo.

"He was right. I was, but I kicked him down and he just tells me that I was always one of the best which made our life there more of a crime, and he was right about that too." Leo insists, "We fight and he throws me and leaves. I know where he is going. I can't let him go alone. If Raph hadn't force it would I have come back?"

"You would have Leo," I assured him.

"No, I don't think so. Maybe. I'll never know."

His voice was so hollow and empty, as if by the very instance of not knowing - he was and would forever stay a failure in his mind, heart and soul.

"When we infiltrated the Foot headquarters Raph took off by himself, he wanted to take Shredder on alone. But we were trained to stay together and work as a team. I followed after him knowing Raph often gets in over his head, and I better then anyone, knows what can happen when we are alone surrounded by Foot."

Leo took some deep heavy breaths, "Sure enough Raph is in trouble, when I've killed his four attackers I call him a fool."

Once again he switches to the Raph voice, "I know almost a dead one. Can't help it I don't think. Have no control Splinter always said so."

Back to his own dead tone voice, "So, he admits it. You know what this means to us."

Again the Raph voice, "Life or death."

"We will not fail. Even as I say that to him, I fear that we will."

Once again he speaks in his brother's voice "You my brother, must not fail. Together we will come to you. Get him."

Leo switches back to his own voice, if the strange tone to his voice could be considered his own. "Does he know, does he realize how much I have to face him, how much I need to defeat him? I think he does, I think he knows as well as I."

I moved to cradle his head on my lap, one hand stroked his face tenderly with the other I reached to touch his carapace. "You didn't fail them Leo?"

Leo shook his head gasping as if he was fighting for air. "I did…I failed, failed my family, failed my training."

"No Leo, not at all. How can you think that?"

"I have. I'm a failure. If Raph hadn't forced me to come back where would I be?"

"Leo, you are only human, you can't expect too much of yourself. It worked out, you regained your honour and you found a way to defeat the Shredder alone." I reminded him of those accomplishments.

"I failed them again, though," he sobbed as his arms wrapped out around my waist clinging to me tightly. "I thought I'd learned. I should have learned but I didn't."

"Why did you think you didn't learn?" I asked confused.

"Raph, he'd been missing too long. I was looking for him and then I saw a shape following me, shadowing my every movement. I planned to find a place where I could get my back against a wall. I didn't want to be out numbered and surrounded. I wasn't going make the same mistake twice. I wasn't going to fail my training, this battle would be different."

I tried to figure out what he was talking about, then realized he had jumped from the one battle to the attack that must have brought up his amnesia.

"It wasn't different. I still failed." Leo moaned. "I wanted to get some distance between me and the Foot, that were following me for two reasons. I knew they would be after me in full force and I was hoping to lose them. But they closed the gap around me and I knew my best bet was to get my back against the wall."

"Sounds logical." I agreed.

"I scanned the closest alley. Dark as usual, I knew there could be Foot hiding in the shadows, especially if they had spies out watching where I was going. But I had to take the chance. To face an army of Foot Soldiers alone in the open could be far too dangerous."

Leo swallowed hard, "I used the fire escape. Stopping once to scan the darkness beyond I sensed their presence waiting there for me. I jumped from the fire escape, in the direction of the street itself landing on my feet and pulling my katana. There was no movement, no sign."

His voice almost cracked. "I know I wasn't wrong. I moved forward cautiously keeping close to the wall of the one building. I stop a few feet from the fire escape knowing there was someone hiding under it in the shadows. Suddenly they emerge, three behind me, from the street itself and three more from the alley I was in from the fire escape."

Leo trembled and shook his hands clenching at my shirt. "They aren't playing games they want my blood, they want me dead. They know as well as I do that the only way to do it is to attack me in force. I don't like to kill but this time I will make no exception, they die or I do."

I felt his arms tight around me as if he was afraid to let me go, and yet I knew he wasn't really here. He was lost somehow in the tidal wave of his memories of the past. All I could do was try to reassure him it was alright. But the more spoke the less sure I was of that fact.

"The three from the street reach me first, one of them throws a kusari fundo and I deflect the chain on the weapon, hooking the tip of my sword on it and breaking the chain. The weapon is still usable just much shorter now. I sense something and instinctively swing my swords back blocking the katana strike from behind and to one side of me." Leo states. "For awhile it's a matter of block and parry. Then one Foot soldier makes a fatal error and I take advantage of his mistake knowing there are plenty more to take his place."

I shuddered in the coolness of the cell, and I knew that it wasn't just the coldness of the room getting to me. It was the strange way Leo was talking, how immersed in the past he seemed to be at the moment. But I didn't know how to bring him out of it. I was starting to feel almost as lost and confused as Leo, himself, must have been feeling about now.

"There are too many Foot soldiers and no way I can protect myself fully. I just concentrate on deflecting their worst blows, allowing the Foot Soldiers to get a lot more hits on me then they normally would under more manageable numbers. Still, I'm not too badly hurt yet." Leo paused for a moment and then continued, " They are forcing me to the stairs of the fire escape. I sense they are herding me, like before. Wanting me to walk into a trap. It's the last thing I want to do. I know more Foot will be on the roof top waiting for me and these ones can follow after."

"It was hard for you Leo, yes, but you survived. You are alive." I tried to assure him.

"If I try to go down the alley I'm still lost. Either way I probably won't get out of this alive. They let me live last time. Not this time though. I hate this!" Leo's cold voice turned hard for the briefest of moments.

"I'm going have to decide and I opt for the fire escape. I'd probably be dead before I could make it through the Foot who have emerged street level, and the Foot above can launch an attack from above. This alley isn't safe." He whimpered, "Nowhere is safe for me now."

I shook my head, feeling sorry for Leo how he had to have stood alone facing an army of his enemy, knowing that he was probably going to die and could do little to stop it. The only thing he could do was take as many of them with him as he could.

"Shuriken! Aaaah, that hurt. I pluck one out from my shoulder and fling it back at the Foot soldier, a katana deflects it hitting it off into the alley. I head up to the roof top knowing what to expect when I get there. I leap and flip landing in a clear spot when fifteen Foot soldiers charge me, and about that many more of them are coming up the fire escape to join their brothers."

Leo shook violently under the blanket. His glassy strange unseeing eyes fixed on no particular spot, his breathing and pulse were rapid and his limbs twitched and moved.

"Now I have nothing to protect my back. A Foot soldier with nunchucku trap my katana blade in the chain of the weapon, as I strike down one of his companions. He's hoping to disarm me but I break the chain making his chucks useless."

I wish I could hear some feeling, some inflection in his tone, anything then that void recount of the horrors he had lived through. I told myself though that he needed to get this out, to purge it from his system and yet part of me wondered if it was such a good idea.

"I dive then roll as daggers are tossed at me. Then I noticed a bisento coming down towards me. I roll to the left grabbing a couple of daggers, tossing them back at the Foot. One of them finds it's mark in a stomach. At least we turtles have shells to protect our internal organs. The other soldiers deflect the daggers."

Some more sharp ragged breaths from Leo before he continues his narration. "There is one Foot soldier who wields a katana with plenty of skill. He's relentless and I find more and more that I have to focus away from the rest of the battle and concentrate on him." Leo gulps. "More of their weapons are finding their mark, though my katana is still getting it's share of blood too."

"Leo it is amazing you were able to hold your own as long as you did against such numbers." I tell him. True, I had never known Leo the ninja, but if what I was hearing was true then it was a mark of what a warrior he was.

"I deflect and damage a few more weapons cutting a bo staff down to kindling the pressure and strain on my katana isn't good. I can only hope the blades can hold up. I dive back again hitting the ground, rolling to my feet. The Foot with the bisento axe comes for me before I can rise and he manages to cut off a bit of my carapace. Luckily, it was only an edge bit, but it hurts."

As a vet I knew that if the blade had struck full on it could have caused greater damage.

"I got to get out of here. I leap to another roof top knowing my enemies will follow and hoping I can reach a safe alley. I'm just enough ahead of the Foot that I almost make it to the alley. But the relentless Foot with a katana is after me again, he slows me down."

Leo's eyes narrow slightly but his voice remains as cold and empty as ever. "The other soldiers catch up as I struggle against him. I wouldn't mind matching him one on one. I'm sure I could beat him but, he'd be a challenge for me. With so many of his clan near by helping him I don't stand a chance." Leo took a deep shaky breath.

He paused for a slight moment, "I get to the edge of the roof and I jump grabbing the eaves trough to slow me down. I make my stand up against a dumpster between two narrow buildings. I'm badly hurt from a couple deep gouges from swords and other such weapons."

I blinked, I was caught up in the story but I realized that pretty soon this memory would end. I knew where he had to be in his memory. The dumpster outside of my apartment building.

"The Foot Soldier with the katana comes at me again, and both blades on my sword break, they are useless to me now. I only have the smaller weapons on my belt, and they won't be effective against the number of enemy I am facing." Leo sobs, tears falling from his eyes.

His hands clench and hold me tighter to him and I know by now that there is nothing I can do to comfort him. He doesn't seem to hear me or even know that I am here.

"They overwhelm me easily, as I struggle to gain another weapon. Any weapon will do, that will give me better odds. Ah, owww!" Leo winced and cried out, "my katana carrying friend just sliced a chunk in my head. Getting hard to focus. I'm aware but weak, can't fight and I'm bleeding badly. I feel them beating me."

He shakes wildly, "They don't want to kill me quickly, they want me to suffer. I think that is why I'm tossed into the garbage to let me die a slow death in the refuse."

"Leo you didn't fail," I stressed strongly. "You can't fail not as long as you tried. You tried so hard, the odds were against you. They made sure you couldn't win. So, how could you feel that you failed?" I asked him, not really expecting an answer from him.

"I did fail. I failed! I was trapped just as before. I learned nothing! I can't fail." He insisted in the hollow tone of his.

I was shocked to even hear a reply, "Who says you aren't allowed to fail Leo?"

" It's expected" Leo chocked out.

"Who expects it of you, you or your brothers?" I wondered. I hope if I could keep him answering me that he might come back.

"I'm responsible. I'm the leader. I can't make mistakes, any mistakes means I am responsible for the outcome. I can't fail the consequences of failing are too much." Leo's voice grew lower and softer with each word, forcing me to strain to even hear what he was saying. "That is why I'm the perfect son, it's expected of me."

"Leo, no one can expect you to be perfect," I refuted quickly.

"They do!"

"They expect too much of you. No one is perfect, you know that don't you?"

"My family needs me to be."

"No Leo, families often have ways of pushing us into doing too much, into things we don't want to do or aren't even capable of. Sometimes we try to live up to these expectations. Maybe we do, and maybe we don't" I knew I was just babbling trying to pull Leo back to some form of being here. "Leo you must understand that failing is natural, and no one is perfect. Please, Leo understand you are not a failure. You haven't failed your family. Your brothers love you and want you back no matter what."

"I'm not perfect, I failed."

Suddenly Leo's whimpers turned into wild hysterical laughter, which quickly turned to deep sobs that seemed to rack his very body growing louder in pitch until he was screaming, anguished, tortured, maniacal screams from the pit of his soul.

I held him close and felt tears in my own eyes knowing in my heart that Leo had lost the battle within himself. I tried to comfort and soothe him but I knew without a doubt, that Leo was well beyond that now.

And Leo's screams grew louder and more frantic in pitch.

TBC

A/N: Oh my god, I just turned Leo into a candidate for the looney bin. Now the question is do I leave you fans hanging for awhile? After all, I know how it ends.