Hey everyone hope everyone has had a good week. I didn't expect to update this weekend since the week was going to be so hectic, and I was right it was incredibly long and stressful, but I was pleasantly surprised when I got the idea for this next chapter. So I was able to update this weekend after all. Really appreciate those who take the time to review. And thanks as always for being patient with me. I'll always do my best to update every week or every two weeks. Have a great rest of the weekend and a great week.

Chapter 22

"Ah!" Melinda dusted some spilled flour off her shirt, though no amount of brushing was going to completely get the flour off her black pants. She had no idea how she'd allowed herself to get talked into this.

Donatello had taken her cast off yesterday and Melinda had been thrilled at the freedom of no longer being stuck in a cast, and could completely appreciate Michelangelo's enthusiasm of no longer having a limb trapped in plaster. His cast had come off last week, and Melinda could've sworn that his red banded brother had been less than enthusiastic about Michelangelo's energy increase after having the cast removed. She'd noticed that he tended to spend more time in the dojo or with Elizabeth than any room that Michelangelo was in.

But Melinda found that she'd rather enjoyed Michelangelo's attempts to entertain her while she'd still been confined to her cast and wasn't up for hobbling around the lair for too long because the crutches hurt her arms. But she had watched as Michelangelo had shown her his enormous comic book collection, impressed with some of the issues he had. Some were very rare additions that were very hard to come by. Those he'd carefully packed into bags to help preserve them.

A large orange alley cat had meowed softly and jumped onto the piles, deliberately sitting on the tallest one. Michelangelo's eyes had softened, and he'd picked up the cat as if it were made of glass, scratching it under the chin, making the cat purr, closing his eyes lazily, enjoying the attention while the tip of his tail twitched.

"Klunk, I've told you not to sit on my comics," Michelangelo had said though he didn't sound very irritated. The cat didn't seem to mind the reprimand either, he just continued to purr. It was obvious that Michelangelo cared for the old alley cat a lot. And the cat was crazy about him. Even after Michelangelo had put him down the cat had stayed close. Though not perched right next to Michelangelo, it had climbed onto the back of the couch and stretched out there, his tail brushing against the back of Michelangelo's neck.

After viewing all of Michelangelo's comic book collection, he'd tried to impress her with his action figures collection. But after Raphael had grabbed one and began to tease him about playing with dollies and Akemi had managed to grab a couple and Elizabeth had just barely stopped her from trying to flush them down the toilet, Michelangelo had wisely stowed them away again in the safety of his room.

He'd then challenged her to a video game tournament. Whoever won had to cook dessert for the other whenever Melinda got her cast off. Melinda had blanched. She wasn't a very good cook. She got so distracted with things that she often burned frozen pizzas. If he teased Leonardo about his cooking ability, what was he going to say about hers?

Melinda had accepted the challenge, determined to win. But Michelangelo was much better at the games he was familiar with, and had easily beat her. Melinda had often glanced at him to see if he was playing with his eyes closed. She wouldn't be surprised, he seemed to know how to play this game without looking. But no, the tip of his tongue had been curled to the side of his mouth, his eyes focused and determined as his fingers quickly punched the buttons and moved the small ship around the screen, quickly leaving Melinda in the dust. Quite literally. Although she had to admit that it didn't help that she kept dying every few seconds. Something Michelangelo had found funny, and although stung at first, his laugh was so infectious and his grin so warm and friendly that Melinda hadn't let it bother her for long, and was soon laughing alongside him.

When Michelangelo had declared victory, Melinda had warned him that he would be sorry that he won, as her idea of cooking dessert was letting someone else do it for her and she'd just pick it up from the bakery.

Michelangelo had just grinned. "Don't worry, Melinda. I can teach you. It's easy… "

"Famous last words," Melinda grumbled as she used the back of her hand to rub at her itchy nose. Her hands were covered in gloop… how did people do this anyway?

"Did you mix in the eggs?"

"Yeah… is it supposed to be this sticky?" Melinda complained as she looked at her hands and made a face.

Michelangelo turned and then a wide grin spread across his face. "Only if you're mixing with your hands. You're supposed to use the beater."

"I'm supposed to beat it?" Melinda asked, confused. Christine was the cook not her. She'd never even taken a cooking class in school. She wasn't an expert and she felt as if she'd done something foolish.

Michelangelo pulled out a small hand held beater. "Go wash your hands," He said with a small chuckle. "I'll finish."

"But I lost the bet," Melinda protested, feeling as if she weren't keeping up her end of the deal since she had lost the video game challenge, and now she couldn't even cook a simple batch of brownies.

"They're almost done anyway, 'sides this way I can lick the bowl when we put them in the pan," His grin was infectious. Melinda found herself smiling automatically as she headed to the sink to wash the raw brownie mix off her fingers.

Behind her Michelangelo beat the mix until it was well blended and then poured it into a greased pan and slid it into the oven. When Melinda turned around she was surprised to see him smirking holding the bowl the brownies had been mixed in and two spoons.

"Want to go watch some TV and eat brownie mix while the brownies cook? Eating brownie mix is the best part of making brownies."

"Really? You'll share the spoils of war with the enemy?"

"Only if the enemy is you – now if you were Raph… it'd be a completely different story," Michelangelo teased.

Melinda laughed, making Michelangelo grin even wider.

"Well how am I supposed to say no to that?"

"You don't." He said simply. His bright blue eyes seemed to be sparkling with humor. "Oh… by the way – you have flour all over your face."

Melinda could feel herself blushing. She looked down at herself. She had more than just flour on her clothes, so she wasn't surprised that she'd managed to get flour on her face too. She could see some cocoa powder on her sleeve, and some powdered sugar mixed with the flour all over her shirt and pants. She was a mess.

"I'll go change and meet you in a minute," Melinda said quickly as she tried to brush the powders off her clothes without much success.

Michelangelo chuckled. "That'll give me time to find us something to watch." Taking the spoons and the bowl he headed for the couch while Melinda headed to her room to change.

It didn't take her long to change out her food covered clothes to a fresh t-shirt and jeans. She went to the bathroom and washed the flour off her face and took the clip out of her hair to let her long curls spill down her back. She ran her fingers through it, gently disentangling the snarls there, and then headed out to join Michelangelo.

"Look, they're showing Frankenstein tonight, you want to watch it?"

"Who wouldn't?" Melinda asked as she sat next to him, he handed her a spoon and moved the bowl closer to her. Melinda ran the spoon along the inside of the bowl until she had a good bit on her spoon. "But next time we play – we're playing Mario World. Then at least I have a decent chance to win," she tried to keep her face straight with an effort, but had a hard time keeping it.

Michelangelo laughed. Melinda couldn't help it. She found herself laughing right along with him.

Leonardo sat on his tatami mat, legs crossed in the lotus position, hands relaxed and sitting on his knees, the only light in the room was that of the flickering candles surrounding him. He drew a slow deep breath and then another. Feeling the spiritual plane rise up to meet him quickly.

The lair felt peaceful, normal even. Now that Michelangelo was out of is cast and had his normal energy level he was back to driving Raphael crazy, baiting the older turtle into chasing him around after pulling some harmless prank or another, and Raphael had returned to his normal grumpy self, only keeping himself in check for Elizabeth's sake. Though Leonardo had noticed him spending a lot more time in the dojo over the last week taking his frustrations out on the punching bag and practice dummy in there.

Things felt like they had been before all of this had started, with the small exception of Melinda joining them here in the lair. Leonardo knew that Donatello still had some doubts about her, he'd seen the way his brother looked at Michelangelo anxiously when his brother had gone off to join the petite blonde woman, and at first Leonardo had felt the same, but his own feelings about her had changed. He had felt the same way about Elizabeth, worried that his brother would get hurt if she left him, but had realized it wasn't his decision to make in the end. He couldn't make all the hard decisions for his brothers – they were adults now and had the right to make decisions for themselves. If there were consequences to those decisions, well there were always consequences. No matter what the choice was. But deciding to be in a relationship with someone wasn't something that Leonardo had to make the decision for them on. And from the way Michelangelo's bright blue eyes seemed to light up whenever he saw Melinda, Leonardo knew that this was something Melinda and Mikey had to figure out for themselves. Although he wasn't sure if Melinda saw Michelangelo in the same light he saw her.

Leonardo knew that the more time Michelangelo spent with this woman the harder it would be on his brother if she decided she wanted to leave, but again he knew it wasn't his decision to make. Michelangelo was a big turtle now – he couldn't have his big brother there all the time anymore.

Leonardo drew another soothing deep breath. But his concentration was broken suddenly as the door to his room opened. His dark brown eyes snapped open and narrowed, he hated being interrupted when he was trying to meditate. A growl started in his throat but died when Akemi came into the room.

"Uh oh – scissors!"

Akemi was holding up a pair of scissors by the handles, the sharp ends pointing towards the floor. She paused seeing the flickering candles and her green eyes went wide. She stared at the flickering flames as if mesmerized for a minute.

Leo uncurled his legs and reached out, pinching out the flames, the light from the main area of the lair spilling into his room gave him enough light for him to walk across the small distance to the light switch and turn it on.

Akemi watched him, still holding up the pair of scissors for him to take and reaching for him with her free arm. Automatically he picked her up, shifting her to his side, plucking the scissors out of her hand and putting them on his desk in one fluid movement.

Akemi rested her head against Leonardo's shoulder, snuggling into him.

"Where's your mommy, Akemi?"

"Potty."

"Where's Raph?"

Akemi frowned as if trying to figure out what the answer to that one was. Leonardo had a good idea on where his brother would be. The fact that Akemi had found the scissors and brought them to him meant that Raphael was probably in the dojo again. With her parents busy Akemi usually came to Leonardo with things she wanted or knew she wasn't supposed to have.

As she rubbed her hand over Leo's arm, Leo was surprised to find her hand sticky. Not the kind of sticky residue that was usually left on her hands after she ate, but this was more like the tacky kind of sticky that Leonardo associated when someone used too much glue on something and had the excess rub onto someone's fingers. He frowned, and took her hand, examining it. It sparkled a little with the small pieces of glitter that covered her skin, blue and pink and gold. This couldn't be good. His dark brown eyes snapped up to her face, seeing the glitter on her chin too.

"Akemi – what have you been doing?"

"Pretty."

Leonardo's eye ridges rose. "What's pretty?"

Akemi just covered her mouth and giggled. Leonardo had a feeling that whatever was "pretty" was really going to be a mess. Akemi had really enjoyed coloring in coloring books, but had taken to coloring the walls or anything else she could find. Using that to her advantage, Elizabeth had been helping Akemi learn to count and learn the letters of the alphabet by creating fun little games for Akemi to play. Akemi had learned the ABC's by coloring items that started with each letter. But this week Leonardo knew that Elizabeth had been working on colors with her daughter. He'd seen the craft supplies she'd brought home a few days ago, and suddenly he had a sinking feeling. He set Akemi down.

"Akemi, show me what's pretty."

Pouting a little at the fact that she'd been set down when she wanted to be held Akemi stuck out her bottom lip, her small hands curling into fists and got the look on her face that she usually had right before she threw a tantrum. Leonardo recognized this look all too well. It was the same look Michelangelo had often got on his face growing up when Raphael had taken one of his toys or broken his crayons.

"Akemi, show me what's pretty and you can have a brownie." Even from here he could smell the warm appetizing smell of the treat Michelangelo and Melinda had made.

Grinning at that, Akemi grabbed his hand and led Leo eagerly out of his room and straight to the place he'd been afraid of. The room Raphael and Elizabeth shared.

The door was wide open and the light was still on. Leo stared in disbelief at the mess. Pom poms, paper, glitter, stickers and what even looked like pictures from a bridal magazine that had been left on the bed were now pasted to the walls, to the dresser and a few stickers were even on Raphael's weights. The glue bottle had had the lid taken off, the bottle now laying on it's side, with a large puddle of glue on the ground in the middle of the floor, blue, gold and pink glitter mixed into it. The glitter had been spread across the room from where the bottles had been dumped, scattered no doubt by Akemi obviously running back and forth to decorate the bedroom and stepping in it. Everything had a subtle sparkle to it now.

"Pretty!" Akemi beamed proudly at what she'd done looking up at Leonardo.

"Yeah, Akemi – it's pretty alright." Leo said shaking his head.

Akemi ran across the room to where she'd stuck some stickers on the wall, squatted and began to count.

"One… two… three… four… six… "

Leonardo wasn't listening. Akemi had obviously had a wonderful time decorating Raphael and Elizabeth's room, but Leonardo seriously doubted that either of them would think it was funny or pretty.