While she was washing her hands, she looked into the mirror and examined the face that peered back at her. Who am I, really? she thought.
Her identity had been a perplexing issue to her over the last several weeks. After only knowing the turtles for a short while and insisting that they call her "Atsuko," she had suddenly felt a positive reconnection with her past. Since Michelangelo kept calling her "Aunt Mei" regardless of her wishes, she decided to start using her given name while around Splinter, April, and the turtles.
Just a few minutes ago, a colleague at Advancements had surprised her by saying, "I've been saying your name for five minutes, Atsuko. Would you please pay attention?" The truth of the matter was that, for the moment, she had quite forgotten that Atsuko was the name she now went by.
Now, as she looked at herself in the mirror, Mei decided that she was who she was, regardless of what name she was called. She had once said to Splinter, "Tang Mei is dead." In some respects, it was true. She would never be the same person. But she did not need to bury her past. If she was truly to heal, she would need to embrace all parts of herself.
It would also be the only way she could help April.
April. She still found herself wracked with guilt over what happened. Even though the turtles, Splinter, and April herself had forgiven Mei for her mistake, the truth was that April would never be the same person, either. How could Mei forgive herself for that? Even if Shredder had not physically raped April, the poor girl had certainly been violated psychologically.
Mei would have helped Donnie with his project to restore Kirby O'Neil anyway, but knowing that the man could help April recover doubled her determination. She knew that it wasn't as though she could use this to expunge her guilt—but she longed to offer at least some recompense.
Drawing a deep breath, Mei reminded herself to listen for her alias name and headed back to her office. Once there, she sat down to browse hundreds of lines of code for the new OS that her team was working on. There was a glitch in one of the system spools of their software, and she was trying to find it.
With a chuckle, she found herself thinking that Donatello could find the error rather easily. If he were not forced to stay hidden away from the rest of the world, he could be a millionaire in the computer industry.
Right now, however, she felt more like Raphael than Donatello—ready to pull out her sai and stab it right into the computer. She had been agonizing over this for days—trying to get everything perfected for the big quarterly progress report—and while she had fixed several other errors along the way, she still could not isolate the problem that was causing the spool failure.
With a glance at the clock, she realized that it was already past six o'clock. She started getting everything squared away for the evening, and when she left her office, she felt a wonderful sense of freedom.
Before meeting April, she would have brought her work home with her. She would have been doing anything and everything to keep herself from thinking about the past. Now, she was free to be herself.
She decided not to stop at home before heading to the lair—it would be too much traveling back and forth. She did stop at the grocery store and pick up a few things, as she had said that she was going to make dinner for them tonight.
When she walked in through the old turnstiles, she was pleasantly surprised to see April sitting on the couch in the den instead of keeping to herself. Donatello, predictably, was absent—most likely, he was in the lab.
"Aunt Mei! Right on!" shouted Michelangelo. "What's for dinner?"
"Teriyaki," she replied. "Made the right way. None of your Americanized nonsense."
"Dude, the cuisine of Michelangelo knows no cultural boundaries," he said, spreading his hands out as though he were some kind of philanthropist.
"That's an understatement," Raphael commented sarcastically.
"Granted, I don't think Mikey's teriyaki even remotely resembles either traditional or Americanized versions," Leonardo added.
"You guys just can't handle the fact that I am a culinary visionary," Michelangelo said, his nose in the air.
"Actually, I'm surprised that your vocabulary is even big enough to have the word 'culinary' in it," Raphael quipped.
"Come on, Michelangelo," said Mei. I'll show you how I make it. Maybe you can show me how to make one of your signature dishes sometime."
"All right!" shouted Michelangelo. He got up and hurried into the kitchen.
With a smile, Mei followed after him. But before she walked past the curtain dividing the rooms, she caught a glimpse of Splinter standing in the dojo doorway, looking at her with a smile on his face. She returned it with a feeling of great contentment that she never imagined she would experience again after losing her family.
After dinner, Mei went into the dojo to practice. Splinter, now technically her sensei, assisted her. However, despite what he had said to her about not having much to teach her since her skills were so advanced, it turned out that she still had plenty of shortcomings. She was amazed at some of the things that Splinter knew—she had trained under other grandmasters that didn't have his finesse.
Once her session—disappointingly short, since it was getting late she still had to help Donatello and help April practice her coping skills—was over, she was about to leave the dojo when Splinter asked if he could speak to her for a moment.
"Certainly," Mei said. "What can I do for you?"
Splinter looked for a moment as though he did not know where to begin. "I must thank you, my sister. You have brought much happiness to my sons—and to our home."
Mei laughed. "Is this your way of thanking me for saving you from Michelangelo's cooking tonight?"
With a grin, Splinter shook his head. "While dinner was excellent—and I did enjoy it very much—I have found that being a rat has its advantages. My palate can tolerate nearly anything, which was certainly an advantage during the time we had little access to, shall we say, standard comestibles. Not to mention my son's—peculiar—gustatory preferences."
"Ah. So even if my teriyaki was terrible, you wouldn't have noticed."
"Now you are simply trying to trap me."
"What fun would it be if I didn't?"
"What I am trying to say is that I am very glad that destiny has reunited me with my sister-in-law. It has been a long time since I have experienced the graciousness of the Tang family."
"What is it that you are really trying to say, Splinter?"
Splinter smiled and bowed his head. "I see that not much escapes your perception." He looked back up at her. "It may come across as strange, but I do not wish for you to misunderstand my intent. However, I would like to invite you to come live here with us."
Mei was blindsided – she had not expected this. "I—I am honored, brother. I don't even know what to say."
"We have plenty of space—the boys will gladly excavate one of the spare rooms for you," Splinter said hastily, as though he were still concerned that she would misinterpret his intentions. "They have long missed a maternal figure in their lives, and I have seen positive changes in them since you started coming to spend time with us regularly. It would mean a lot to them to have you here with us—especially Michelangelo. In fact, he was the one who suggested this to me."
A surge of affection for Michelangelo welled up in Mei's heart. He was such a giving, loving spirit—of course he would be the one to suggest such a thing. But the prospect of moving into the sewers was indeed a strange one. Her apartment was very comfortable, not to mention far better smelling. She had just finally finished unpacking all of her boxes. Furthermore, she still had nearly nine months left on the lease.
In response to her silence, Splinter spoke again, his voice tight with suppressed emotion. "It would mean much to me as well, Mei."
Mei. He had hardly called her anything other than 'sister' since the first night she had discovered the lair. Something in his tone tugged at her heartstrings—she realized that her living in the lair would be the closest that either of them had come to a whole family since Japan.
Even so, she was uncertain. "I need time to decide," she said.
Splinter bowed. "Of course. You must consider all the factors and decide whatever is best for you."
"Thank you," she said. "I am very honored by your invitation."
As she walked to the lab, her mind swam. The idea of living with Hamato Yoshi was odd. In light of his childhood infatuation with her, she understood why he was so hasty to ensure that she did not misunderstand his intentions.
"Hi!" said Donatello, as she walked in. "Dinner was awesome, by the way."
"Thank you," she said. "It was my mother's recipe. So I see you've got almost everything assembled."
"Yeah. I could use a little help with this part, though…"
As she worked with her nephew, she found herself thinking that maybe she did belong in the lair after all.