He'd forgotten about the fourth of July.
It wasn't like him to forget holidays, even with as little as most of them had to do with him and his family.
Donnie called it Independence Day—the day that America won its freedom or something like that. It had taken a few years for Mikey to fully understand. The concept of there being hundreds of countries outside of their own was odd to him, especially when they were younger and their world had been confined to the sewers of New York City. Even the idea of being one of fifty states was hard to understand. And then to say that they were considered part of a "free nation" was the cherry on top of all the confusion. Until Splinter had allowed them to venture to the surface for the first time, he'd never felt very free.
But, because July 4th—or Independence Day—was a holiday, Mikey had always insisted they celebrate it.
He insisted on celebrating every holiday. However, this year, its approach had somehow slipped his mind, maybe because he'd been so involved in trying to learn as much as he could about his mother—about Jennifer.
So when he'd started for the turnstiles to leave the lair that afternoon, Leo stopped him with his critical, cut-to-it voice. "Where're you going?"
Mikey pursed his lips. His blue-banded older brother had been a royal pain in his shell lately.
"Up top," he said, turning toward his leader innocently. Innocence was his God-given gift …
Leo scoffed. "Um, not today you're not."
… Not to say that it always worked.
Mikey dropped his hands heavily. "Why?" he whined.
"Because it's the fourth of July, airhead," Raph said from behind his manga as he lounged on his favorite bean chair.
Mikey's brow furrowed. "Nah, can't be today. Really?"
"Yes," said Donnie, who'd just stepped into the doorway of his lab. "It is the fourth day of the month of July. That's why they call it that."
Mikey pursed his lips, turning back to his eldest brother in blue. "So?"
"So," Leo said. "So, there are thousands of people walking around up top, probably three times more than normal."
"Actually, it's most likely more like two point—"
Leo shot up a hand to cut Donnie off and then ignored the fact that the purple-wearing turtle had ever commented to begin with. "Plus, it's the middle of the day and you've got like a gazillion percent higher chance of being seen … It doesn't matter, Donnie!" he said when Donatello opened his mouth—probably to correct their leader's statistics.
"I'm sorry, Mikey," Leo continued, his voice peculiarly flat. "No one's going up top today."
"Your stalking's just gonna havta wait 'til tomorrow," Raph said.
Mikey twisted his lips and balled his fists as a flood of warmth invaded his freckled cheeks. "I'm not stalking her!"
"Oh, I'm sorry," Raph quipped, flipping a page lazily. "What do you call following people around without their consent?"
Mikey paused, pressing his lips together. "I call it …" He tapped his nose and then tilted up his chin and stuffed his arms across his plastron. "Courtesy," he said with a definitive nod. "You want me to tell her I'm following her?"
"Yes, please do. That way you'll just scare her off and we can finally get over this are-you-my-mommy thing."
Mikey bristled. "You're just jealous cuz I got a mom and you don't!"
The room stilled and Raph finally lowered his manga, peeking over the top with an arch to his brow as he joined the other two in staring across the lair at their smallest brother.
Michelangelo's eyes shifted, not quite getting why they'd all stopped to gawk, but he was sure if he just continued staring back something would reveal itself. And it did, when Donnie opened his mouth.
"Oh my god," he mumbled, gazing at Mikey as though he was a Kraang droid standing in the middle of the lair. "It's worse than I thought."
Mikey pinched his lips to the side, not entirely sure what Donnie meant, but that was no big deal. He was the MVP of changing the subject. "Sensei!" he shouted. "Donnie's been stealing the toaster again!"
Donatello jumped and immediately began shrinking backward. "I was going to put it back!" he countered defensively before rushing back into his lab.
Well, that took care of one. Fortunately, Mikey was also the MVP at pretending he didn't notice whenever his brothers exchanged glances and carried silent conversations about him behind his back, which was exactly what Raph and Leo were doing.
"Well, if you'll excuse me," he said loudly, stretching his triceps and heading toward the kitchen, still with his chin in the air. "I feel like taking another crack at the P-Shake. Anybody else want one?"
His two older brothers looked away quickly and shook their heads with a chorused, "I'm good," before turning back to what they'd been doing before.
That's what I thought, Mikey mused to himself before retreating far into the kitchen.
He waited until ten o'clock that night.
Usually by then they were on patrol; however, seeing as this was a special occasion that forced them all to endure an extra four hours' worth of one another underground, they reverted back to the normal habits of their days before visiting the surface. And on those days at around ten o'clock Donnie was usually lost in whatever universe he escaped to whenever he was working on a project. Raph tended to be conked out across the bench in the pit, TV blaring and flashing white-blue light across his face if it wasn't hidden beneath a magazine. Leo often could be found settling himself down to meditate before going to bed, which was thankfully something he did in the dojo. And Splinter was old. He usually turned in pretty early.
So Mikey was completely in the clear to leave the lair without detection and headed straight for the surface.
He had played his part well up until then, shrugging off not being able to see Jennifer that day like it was no big deal, insisting on making something special for dinner, and dragging his family into the common area to watch Macy's Firework Spectacular on TV as they listened to the explosions going off overhead. He'd suffered through Donnie's annual history lesson, joined Raph in flicking popcorn at the genius's head until Splinter whacked them both over the head with his staff, and he'd even indulged in a little in-house baseball before one of Raph's infamous "flaming curve balls" ricocheted off the wall and cracked the screen on Atomic Robo-X.
Now, though the family fun was over, there was still one more family member out there to visit before the night was done.
He'd remembered—only after recalling that it was the 4th of July—the mention of a cookout that Jennifer was supposed to attend. If he was lucky, he'd catch her on her way home.
So that was where he went, hopping up on the same rooftop he usually stood guard on across the street from her apartment.
The block was rather quiet for a holiday, but then, it was a significant distance from Time's Square where most of the action took place during these times.
He contented himself by swinging his feet over the ledge and whistling into the cool summer breeze, playing with his nunchucks, and sticking his tongue out with a squint to one eye as he connected the dots in the nighttime sky with his thumb.
About an hour had gone by before she made an appearance at the end of the block, walking by her lonesome as usual, combing her hair over her shoulder with her fingers—probably singing to herself, though he wasn't close enough to hear.
He perched himself on the ledge readily, prepared to leap back and out of sight if he needed to.
This was going to be a short visit, unfortunately. He'd learn nothing more about her by watching her walk down the block and disappear into her home, but any moment that he got to see her was good enough for him.
Plus, it made him feel like a guardian of sorts, hovering over the block from a distance, not physically with her, but watching over her, protecting her as she traversed the streets alone, keeping an eye out for dark figures that might emerge from the shadows … Figures like the ones creeping up on her now.