A/N: Title comes from P!nk's "Fuckin' Perfect". I literally wrote three different versions of this story until I got one that I liked.

The slow burn relationship from Donnie and Casey is starting now. I've planned a good chunk of the series out. We will get to the promise land of the actual relationship. It's just going to take like twelve or thirteen more parts to get there. Fun for all of us. am I right?

I'm going to try to do a once a week update for this series now that classes have started to get in full swing.

As always this is unbeta'd.

Disclaimer: I do not own the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in any way, shape, or form.

Part Twelve:Change The Voices In Your Head

When Casey Jones was eight years old, she and her mother went on a long drive.

"Where are we going, Mommy?" asked Casey with her long braided blonde hair. She was wearing jean shorts and t-shirt. A baseball cap was on her head.

"Just a drive, sweetie," assured Grace Williams-Jones with a sweet smile. Her blue eyes were bright and there was a mischievous smile on her face.

"What about Maddy and Daddy?"

"They're going to have a special Daddy-daughter day," assured Grace gently. "Just like we are having a special Mommy-daughter day."

So Casey was in the car with her Mommy.

She doesn't remember too much of the actual drive. It was more of a snippets kind of thing. She remembers the fractals of light shining from the dangling crystal that hung from the rearview mirror. She remembered the soft voices of Motown singers and British Invasion bands on the radio.

She remembered how the city slowly receded and the trees and green seemed to spring up around them. Her mother's soft voice was in the air.

They stopped somewhere in the mountains. Casey stumbled out of the car, simultaneously tired from the long drive and a bit antsy.

She stopped and stared with her eyes wide.

For a girl who had never been out of the city in her life, the sight of the mountains was like a revelation.

There were just these lush endless hills of green everywhere. It looked like an ocean of grass and trees.

She stood there. Such a sight enthralled her child mind. She had only seen the parks and the botanical gardens, but this was something unfettered and wild and free.

Casey remembers her mother wrapping her arms around her, kissing her hair gently.

"Isn't it beautiful?"

"Yeah!"

"Do you wanna go play with Mommy?"

"YES!"

Casey and her mother played until they had to make the drive back into the city. Both of them were covered in grass stains and dirt. She remembers nothing of her drive back home except the fractal rainbow of the crystal in twilight along with her mother softly singing with the radio.

It was something, one of the many things, which Casey thought about when remembering her mother.

It's one of the things that she focuses on when the guilt eats her up.

"You hate me don't you?"

Even though her mother wasn't in her right mind. Even though the medicine and the chemo and the cancer itself had eaten away at Katharine Jones' brain. It was still something that stayed with Casey.

So she held onto that image of grass stains and fractal rainbows and a soft voice singing along with the radio.

Casey wakes up to darkness.

She feels gross all over (not a surprise she spent a lot of time in a sewer) and her eyes itched.

Remembering, with some embarrassment, that she cried herself to sleep, she sat up a bit more and looked around. Someone had taken off her gear and tucked her in with a blanket on the couch.

Brushing away a piece of hair that fell into her face, Casey blearily looked at the scene in front of her.

Mikey was happily snoring away stretched out over several pillows and dead to the world. In his arms was a teddy bear patched up with duct tape. Leo was against the couch with a leg up and his arms wrapped around his katana scabbards. Someone has tucked a blanket around his shell and shoulders.

April, like Casey, was stretched out on the large wrap around couch. She had a pillow placed under her head and a blanket tucked around her.

Raph was positioned near Casey but had the vantage point of keeping track of the rest of everyone in the room. He was snoring softly with a comic book still held in his slackened grip.

Clearly, the day had taken a lot out of everyone.

Casey looked at the static filled screen and around the room again. She debated on whether or not to turn it off, but looking at Mikey's sprawled and prone form decided against it.

Shifting her legs off the couch, Casey looked around the room again.

Where was Donnie?

The girl frowned and stood up suddenly. She took the blanket that she had been wrapped in and gently traded Raph's comic for the blanket.

Raph responded in the way of a true ninja. He snored louder.

Casey smirked to herself.

Teenage boys were always going to be teenage boys in the end.

Donnie sipped his coffee and considered the specimen under his microscope carefully. He was tired and knew he should sleep.

But he wanted to understand. He needed to understand just what the mushroom did to produce such hallucinations, such targeted fears.

How did emotion make it grow so big? Why was it growing so big? What did the mushroom mutate from? It clearly had to have some contact with something other then the mutagen in order for it to grow an eye. There had to be a kind of logic for how the mutagen worked. There had to be a reason why most went insane while he, his brothers, and his father did not.

Reasons, there had to be a reasons for things. It's what makes science so amazing. It makes the world make sense.

There is nothing that a mind cannot do. Donnie has to believe that.

Even though in the end, it seems like his brilliant mind will not amount to much. He's still…he's still a freak. No matter what pretty words are said. He's still an outcast.

He's still himself.

"Lost in thought?" asked a soft female voice.

Donnie jumped ever so slightly. It was rather rare when someone got the jump on him. But he was lulled into a false sense of security by his own troubled thoughts.

He turned fully to look at Casey, who was standing in the door. She was wearing only jeans and a white tank top, having stripped out of soiled layers of clothing. They were probably added on the pile for washing later in the machines. She was still wearing her jeans though, meaning that she had come to see him first rather than change totally.

Without any regard to an invitation, Casey walked into the lab. Falling into a seat next to Donnie, she looked curiously at the microscope, coffee, and scribbled notes.

"So what are you doing instead of sleeping?"

"I should ask you the same question."

"Hey I did sleep at least," said Casey defensively. She brought her knees up to her chest.

"I'm trying to identify the type of spore that got us," answered Donnie. "See if I can develop something to combat the hallucinations. I wonder why it had us hallucinate our fears over anything else."

"S'a good question," Casey agreed leaning forward. Her hair fell into her brownish-hazel eyes.

"I'd like to think so. With everyone asleep, I may make headway tonight."

"Til I woke up," said Casey with a teasing grin. Donnie swallowed and looked down at his notes.

"N-No of course not, Casey," he rushed to assure the girl. Mentally Donnie was wondering why he was ever allowed to talk to others it always ended badly.

"Aw hell, Doc," the older girl said. "I wasn't taking offense. You'll know when I take offense."

That was a very valid point. Casey Jones had no problem on telling people when they crossed a line with her: street harassers, gang members, thugs, mutants, and even robots. Of course, she used it with her fist.

Casey rested her chin on her arms.

"I really hope we don't run into that thing again," she said suddenly, quietly.

"I think Leo killed it," confided Donnie. "I just feel better making contingency plans. It's part of how I deal with all the madness around here."

"Good way to do it," agreed Casey.

They sat in silence for a few moments. Donnie fixed some things on his notes of the spores and sipping coffee. Casey watched him carefully.

"Thanks," she said suddenly.

He blinked and looked at her in confusion.

"For you know…sitting with me when I was crying and stuff," the girl explained awkwardly. "I know it must have been weird and shit. I'm not really a crier."

"Everyone cries," Donnie assured her gently. "I won't tell anyone you did so. It was bad for all of us."

"Always sucks to be reminded how fucked up we are," agreed Casey quietly. "Do you think I'm a good person, Donnie?"

Donnie leaned back and considered his answer.

He remembered all those weeks ago. Casey was in the Lair after the Foot Bot chase and her pronouncement of not being a good person. She had pointed out all her flaws and failings, her desire of wanting to do good for others.

"I think that you're a better person then you give yourself credit for," Donnie said. "At least from my own observations anyway. You care and try to hide that you do."

He decided to share something personal.

"Part of my fear was you and April rejecting me," he began before hastily adding, "and the others, too. Obviously. You have become important to us, too. I care about our friendship is what I'm saying. I'm scared of losing it. If you weren't a good person then I wouldn't be afraid of that would I?"

Casey looked her him carefully.

"It was myself," she said quietly. "I'm scared of myself. I'm scared of hurting the people around me. I don't want to hurt them anymore. I don't want to be this piece of trash that people see me as. I don't want to be someone to avoid. I just don't want to be scared of myself."

"Bad parts," Donnie said quietly, "are something that we all have. We're not going to leave you, Casey. Or hate you for it. And you will never be a piece of trash. Even if you were, which you are not, you're down here with us. Most trash ends up down here anyway and it finds a good home."

"Was that supposed to make me feel better?"

"Yes? I'm not that good with words."

Casey laughed and smiled. She knocked her shoulder against his.

"I don't know, Doc. I thought you were pretty damn eloquent there," Casey said with a grin. "And for the record, I'm not going anywhere. You guys are my buds, too. It's nice actually having a group, being a part of something."

"Even with all the insanity?"

"Especially with all the insanity, Doc! The good and the bad, especially the bad I think. Maybe knowing our fears better it'll help us face them more you know? Doesn't mean we're going to stop in the end. But we don't gotta. We just have to face them I guess," said Casey in her own awkward way.

"I think your theory holds merit, Casey Jones," agreed Donnie steepling his fingers.

Casey grinned at Donnie.

It was nice talking with him. He was the smartest guy she had ever met in her whole life. But when they talked, he treated her like her ideas had merit. It was nice being treated like she wasn't dumb or didn't understand. Sure sometimes he got caught up in his own brilliance (and he discredited Mikey's ideas). But in these quiet moments, Donnie was pretty cool to talk to.

"So," Casey said leaning forward, "can you call it quits for the night, Doc?"

Donnie considered his notes and microscope. Casey was just about to drag him off against his will when he spoke

"I guess lying on the couch wouldn't hurt."

"Damn right it won't," agreed Casey standing up. "Can you grab some more blankets? I don't know where they are."

"No problem," Donnie said standing and stretching. "I don't thinbk I can sleep quite yet though."

"Ah the dark side of caffeine. Well if your TV does closed captioning we can watch that? Or make our own dialogue. I don't want to wake your brothers up."

"Neither do I," Donnie agreed quietly. He looked at them with a quietly fond expression on his face.

"What was the other part of your fear?" asked Casey suddenly, following Donnie. It was good to know where the towels were anyway.

"Hmm?"

"You said that me and Red only made part of your fear," she said quietly. "What was the other part of it?"

"Oh," Donnie said quietly. He cast a quick glance at Casey. Casey tried to look like she wouldn't tell anyone or whatever he was looking for. Donnie sighed, "I guess it's similar to yours in anyway. Not of myself but letting them down, not knowing enough, being even more of an outcast. Sometimes it can feel lonely being different from everyone else who is different."

"You know that they would never think that, right?" asked Casey resting a hand on his shoulder. Her voice was unexpectedly tender and kind even to her own ears.

What was it about them that made her act this way? She rarely did before. Only to her family, maybe Linda once and awhile before all this started. She did so to Nick, once upon a time.

Something about this group made Casey feel safe enough to expose some of her own more hidden facets. It was terrifying in a different way, this vulnerability.

"Knowing is one thing. Emotions are something totally different, Casey."

Casey laughed quietly, "Isn't that the truth, Doc."

A comfortable moment hung in the air between the two. Neither of them wanted to break it.

Suddenly, Casey realized her hand was still on Donnie's shoulder. Feeling suddenly and unexpectedly awkward, she withdrew it. He glanced over to her, a question on his face.

Casey swallowed thickly. It had been a long day and even with the nap from crying she was still tired. It was time to note dwell on these thoughts.

"Okay so blankets are…"

Donnie took her wrist in his hand and tugged her along gently, "This way. Follow me."

Raph woke slowly.

It wasn't the ninja way to wake up or something. But they weren't in a combat zone or in enemy territory. They were home and home was safety.

So Raph woke up slowly from the deep and dreamless sleep he was in.

He was on the couch and a pain in his neck told him he fell asleep sitting up again. He yawned and moved forward, a blanket falling off of him.

The blanket he had wrapped around Casey earlier.

Alarmed, Raph looked around the room for his best human friend while also counting off to make sure everyone was there.

Mikey was on the pillows. Leo was leaning against the couch in a sitting position. April was sprawled out on the sofas.

And there was Donnie and Casey, who had changed into the spare set of clothes she kept at the Lair, who had fallen asleep together in front of one of Donnie's homemade laptops.

Knowing his brother, he had to be dragged out of the lab in order to get some sleep.

Raph let out a sigh of relief at the sight.

Sensei was asleep in his own rooms at this time. His family was all safe and sound.

Raph stood and walked over to the pair. Carefully pulling away the homemade laptop, he shut it down and tucked their individual blankets around the pair a bit more.

Taking his own blanket, he passed it to Mikey. His youngest brother mumbled out a string of incoherent dream gibberish and cuddled into his teddy bear a bit more.

Reclaiming his place on the couch, Raphael settled down. He had slept enough.

Now he could make sure that his family would sleep well.

A/N: Next one is something I've been dying to write since I started this series: Casey and Karai. This is going to fun to write.

Also if any of you want to like drop some asks about the series or the like, you can always follow me on Tumblr: . I really just like the idea of interacting with all you wonderful people you read my work because you guys rock seriously.