Chapter 15 - Recalibrations

"I know bait doesn't talk back"
Donatello, "The Gauntlet"

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Sometimes, suddenly, you realize that a golden age has ended. Only after the fact, you understand that you're on the other side of a proverbial line.

Probably it's a series of subtle, incremental happenings that shuffled you into the abyss. But maybe, you were pitched over the precipice by a single large event, a monumental sky-written "F/CK YOU!" as large as your sense of security once was.

Either way, life is different, and there's no going forward until you go back and figure out what the hell happened.

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Raph found a recently-showered, PJ-clad April wrapped in a blanket and perched on the sill of her bedroom window. The teen was white knuckling a steaming cup of tea despite the sweltering summer night. Her gaze was hollow and distant. To Raph, she looked in shock.

The ornery Turtle wasn't a talker on his best days. But, especially to a touchy-feely-ascetic like Raphael, it was clear that the situation called for company, not convos. He didn't have a clue what had happened, but Raph recognized the turmoil thinly veiled by April's 1000 yard stare.

Silently, Raph seated himself on the floor of the fire escape, near but not touching April's bare feet. She shifted millimeters closer to his shoulder, her single recognition of his arrival.

Both friends sat in an ersatz meditation: April deliberately absorbed with the ragged noise of gridlocked traffic and gnarled humanity; Raphael systematically identifying constellations in the evening dusk. Even with the city's light pollution, the sewer-dweller reveled in the open night sky.

Raph had just begun to invent new constellations when April finally spoke.

"Casey. That was her name. Casey Jones."

Studying the stars, Raph raised an eyeridge.

Voice hoarse, April continued.

"She'd been beaten. And…worse. So much worse. She played varsity hockey. The police think it might have been gay-bashing…" Then, more bitterly, "Maybe it was just that she was a woman on 'men's turf'. They wanted to teach her a lesson, put her in her place. Oh my God, I don't even know who 'they' is."

Raph's cantering heart rate was the only sign that he grasped the magnitude and horror of what April was sharing with him.

She resumed, her voice carefully deadened. "They used her skates, Raph. They used her gear, her hockey stick, to… to… I just, oh my God, I can't imagine. How much did she feel? Did they kill her before they…"

Turning to Raph to make eye contact for the first time, April continued with urgency.

"She looked like meat, Raph. She looked like a terrible sculpture carved to dehumanize a woman. I keep running through the sight of her, the smell, the stick of her blood on my hands and arms. I couldn't find where to do first aid on her before I recognized that I was way too late to save her. There was nothing I could do but phone it in."

Body tensed stock-still, Raphael continued to listen carefully.

"And she looked tough, Raph. Real tough. I mean, she was a hockey player for God's sake. She was taller than me, three times as solid than I could ever hope for. Brick shithouse. Built like. But it didn't matter. She probably broke her own hockey stick trying to fight off her attackers. God, I hope it was more than one attacker, you know? Like, OK, more than one person could take you down, but one-on-one, you should stand a chance if you're that physically fit, right? Isn't that what we train for? To make it out alive? To beat the bad guy?"

Finally, Raph broke his silence. "You think it was a mutant?"

April though for a moment, then shook her head. "No. I wondered about that, too. It would make sense, right? Ten times the strength and all that… But - and this is what makes me the sickest - this grotesque attack is entirely within the remit of human behaviour. Maybe typical of it, even." April gritted her teeth. "Honestly, Raph, be proud to be super-human. Clearly, garden variety humans are a disappointment."

And this was a perfect example of why Raphael held April dear to his grumpy-ass mutant heart.

He cleared his throat: "So how do you know her name?"

"It was on her duffel bag. And in her I.D., the police said. The attackers didn't even steal her wallet. Is it bad that, to me, it seems worse that they didn't even care about checking her for money?"

Fury crept into Raph's voice. "Nah. It just drives home their mission to degrade and destroy someone they decided was too different to merit basic rights of respect and safety."

April became even more agitated as she unpacked her feelings: "Raph, the Foot I can cope with. The Foot makes sense. Even if The Shredder is twisted, his hatred for Master Splinter and your family is consistent and predictable. The Foot's code of conduct pretty much broadcasts to me that I'm at risk. But walking home after a hockey practice on a summer weekend only to have that happen to you…?"

Raphael thought for a moment, searched April's face, and with a bitter edge to his voice spoke hard words to his distraught friend.

"April, at some point, pretty much everyone learns – I mean, really learns, for themselves – that life isn't fair. Maybe today was your lesson. Then again, your lesson was milder than for a lot of people 'cos you're alive and safe. I'm not preaching survivor's guilt, Red. I'm saying that you got the chance to do something about what you learned. It's not my call, but whatever you do, I hope it includes coping in a way that doesn't leave you in pieces. And if coping involves punching, then I hope that you ask me along."

April pieced through Raph's frank advice, and then chose her words carefully.

"Eff you, Raphael. For much of my life, I haven't had a Mom; my Dad's quite literally been abducted by aliens; and I'm in love with someone who – also literally – leads a secret, underground life. In a sewer. I don't need any more evidence that life is not fair. I know, in a very firsthand way, that life is not fair!"

Suddenly feeling about as smart as a crap sandwich, Raph back-peddled.

"OK, totally, I hear you, April. I'm sorry, you're right. I guess…. I mean…" The frustrated Turtle sighed. "OK, it's like this: I wanted you to always feel immune to this awful stuff. That's what my family has been trying to do for years: teach you how to beat the snot outta anybody, and make you feel that you'd never need to. Because we would always look out for you. And now some psycho murderer/rapist ruins it for everyone."

He sighed deeply and sheepishly looked at April.

April didn't know how to respond to Raph's patently, ludicrously naïve understatement of the obvious. At a loss, she conceded the tiniest of smiles.

"I think that it's your cozy little bubble that was burst today, Princess Sobs-A-Lot."

Catching the dry humour, Raph's own expression relaxed as he replied,

"Touché, sister." Shoulders sagging a little, he confided, "You didn't hear it from me, April, but all this tension with The Shredder..." He let his sentence drift off, unwilling to verbalize his own emotional toll. "Let's just say, the stakes are the highest they've ever been for my family, and I know it."

The Turtle huffed. Squaring his torso as if to shake off his anxiety, he asked, "You got any more tea?"

"For you? All the macha in the East Village that ten dollars can buy. By the way, what's with that asshole brother of yours that hasn't phoned me back in almost two days?"

Raph chuckled in the darkness. "Huh. 'Genius' totalled his own phone. Talk about going to extremes to avoid a difficult conversation."

April tensed. "You mean, he broke his T-phone? On purpose?"

Oblivious to April's misread of his words, a still-grinning Raph replied, "Yeah. Splinter gave him heck for it, too. Told him he needed to show respect to others, take responsibility for his mistakes".

April swallowed hard. "His mistakes…", she repeated to herself. How could that be? Master Splinter said he thought she and Don were perfect for each other, didn't he? Then, "So, where is Donnie now?"

"Well – and this is best part – Splinter made D. take Mikey out with him to find repair parts for his cell. I swear, Donnie couldn't wait to get out of the Lair this morning and get back to tech-diving and whatever other geekery soothes his nerdy, loner self."

As though chiding herself for not seeing the signs, April muttered, "Perception is reality."

Raph looked at her quizzically. "I'd call reality, reality. But whatever. I'm just glad to have been there to answer your call, April."

With a short nod, April forced a half-smile. "I'll get us that tea".

Soon after she had slid back through her bedroom window, Raph heard mundane noises of china clinking and water boiling. The familiar sounds were soothing. Raph realized he'd been clenching his fists the whole time. He made himself relax into the metal of the fire escape.

Returning his gaze to the night sky, a thought suddenly swept into his mind.

"Huh. I always thought 'Casey' was a dude's name."

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I got nothing against Casey Jones, but he takes the fall for my dislike of the Casey-April-Donnie love triangle. That plotline consistently reduces April to little other than a love interest tool used to advance male character development. It's about time that April's narrative was much richer than - to paraphrase Whedon The Effulgent - "Choosing Boyfriends: the TV Show". And THIS freedom of expression is why writing one's own fan fiction is the bob-omb. Anyhoo – THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING, LOVELY READERS (even if you have a "CASEY JONES 4 EVA" tattoo someplace with lots of nerve endings).