This chapter was a pain and a half to get written. I had it partially done when I decided I didn't like what was going on, so I threw the whole thing out and started from scratch. Note for this chapter: you will find I go back and forth between referring to Leo as Shadow and Leo; this is done on purpose. Depending on which name is used, that's the mindset behind what is taking place. Leo and Shadow are trying to find a balance, so he goes back and forth as to which part of his personality is in the forefront. Second note: Donatello may seem a little Ooc; again, this is done on purpose. We'll get more into reactions next chapter, but remember, Donny has had the hardest time accepting Shadow as Leo from the beginning.
Shadow was a bit bewildered as he looked through the armful of art supplied Donatello had handed over to him during their last writing lesson.
"Don't get me wrong," the genius turtle had told him after giving him the assortment of pencils, erasers, and pads of paper. "You're making great progress. This is just a way to help strengthen your fine motor control. Besides, writing is more than simply communication; it is more importantly a method of self-expression. By sketching, you can express things words aren't enough to describe. Just give it a try. Draw whatever catches your attention, and hopefully you'll be able to start learning a little more about who you are now."
So here he was, idly perusing the items. He wasn't quite sure just what to make of them, until he picked up the charcoal pencil. It seemed to fit his hand the way his swords did. This was something he knew. As he had learned to do when those little seeds of memory began to pop up, Shadow just went with the flow. Grabbing the sketch pad, he began to draw. The lines were a bit clumsy, and the shading was definitely off, but he managed to produce a reasonable likeness of Donatello wearing the same earnest, intent expression on his face he'd had when he handed over the art supplies just a short while before.
Just like that, the sketch pad became Shadow's permanent companion. If he wasn't training or playing with his brothers then the mute turtle was sure to be found drawing. From the start, certain ground rules were established regarding his work. The blue notebook contained the drawings Shadow didn't mind his brothers seeing. These were mostly pictures of his brothers, with a few images drawn from the rare lighter moments during his time as a trainee. One of his personal favorites was a sketch of the exotic, blue-skinned female trainee Blade-song right after the Slugian ambassador snuck a kiss during one of the infrequent state dinners they'd had to attend, serving both as bodyguards and eye-candy. At the same time, the feelings evoked by the image were bittersweet, as Blade-song had been killed by the Traitor immediately preceding Shadow's assignment to deal with him.
On the other hand, Shadow's brothers knew the drawing in the black notebook were totally off limits. This was where he kept the more personal drawings. The darker side of his life as a slave was revealed in some of the images. Others were only partial images, most of which didn't make sense, but had the feel of fractional pieces of memory. It was the final set of images, however, that Shadow wasn't ready for his brother to see; the images of his childhood memories when he was Leonardo rather than Shadow. Since he started sketching, the memories had been coming more often and more intensely, generally in the form of vivid dreams or nightmares.
For the past six weeks, he'd had the same nightmare, which had grown a little clearer each time it occurred. At first, he'd thought they were just remnants of The Accident when he'd pulled Michelangelo from the water, but it quickly became clear he was remembering something quite a bit different. For the first several nights, all he'd seen were images of darkness and churning water. He'd wake up choking and gagging, like he'd been underwater too long.
As the days turned into weeks, Shadow began to see more and more, both in the nightmare and from his early years with his brothers. This was in part, he suspected, due to his brothers being more open about sharing their memories of Leonardo. But there was also the fact that the "Leo" part of his consciousness was increasingly asserting itself. He'd never quite be the person his brothers remembered; there could be no ignoring the damage done to him during his slave years. Shadow was too ingrained in him now, and to a certain extent would always influence his responses and approaches to new situations and people. To Leo's way of thinking, that wasn't such a bad thing, since Shadow brought an increased amount of humility and compassion to his emerging leadership style, taking him from being a good leader, to potentially being a great one.
Fittingly enough, Leo's full re-birth took place on a rather dark and stormy night. While the Lair may have been insulated from the worst of the thunder, there was no avoiding the flickering lights caused by the power fluctuations stemming from the numerous lightning strikes. After a candle-lit evening practice, the turtles decided to call it a night, since the fluctuating power made pretty much everything else impossible. Not only that, but a good bit of their belongings had been moved upstairs on the off-chance the sewers severely over-flooded; according to Donatello, it had happened once or twice before, they would rather be safe than sorry. With little other recourse, the turtles headed off to their separate rooms for the night.
For reasons he couldn't explain, Leo was having a difficult time getting settled. He had the oddest sense of anticipation that he just couldn't shake, like something important was about to happen. Finally, he was able to clear his mind enough to fall into an uneasy sleep. From the start, dream after dream invaded his mind until, right before dawn, the nightmare hit.
He saw Mikey hit the water and go under. It took almost no thought to dump his gear and go in after him. Fortunately, Mikey remembered their water rescue training, and didn't fight him as he towed his younger brother to the edge. The water was moving very fast, and it was a little hard to hold onto his brother and the ladder, but fortunately Raph and Donny were there to help pull Mikey out. He was in the process of climbing out, too, when something grabbed his ankle and yanked him back into the water.
Everything went a bit fuzzy as a piece of debris cracked him soundly on the temple. He was just aware enough to stop himself from drowning, but that was about it. Ultimately, he was able to make his way to the edge of the walkway and pull himself out, but he could make it no further.
He wasn't sure how long he lay there, but the next thing he was aware of was the gray figure that silently, almost callously, scoops him up and started off down the sewer. The dream shifted once more, and eventually he hears the sounds of raised voices arguing in the background.
Usually this is as far as the dream went, and Leo would jerk awake, heart pounding with an unexplainable mix of fear, anger, and hurt. Tonight's dream was a little different, however.
As before, never saw the speakers, only heard their voices. The words were unintelligible, and he couldn't understand what they were saying until one of the voices, a voice Leo was certain he should recognize, said, "Then he's yours."
Horrified and sobbing, Leo sat straight up in bed. He couldn't figure out why his throat felt like it was on fire, until he realized it was himself he could hear screaming in the background. The sound of his door crashing open, had him looking up, and diving at Raphael, ignoring the flutter of paper as the notebook previously on the end of his bed scattered its content all over the room. All he had interest in was gaining the safety and comfort of his twin's embrace. Once there, he held on for all he was worth, sobbing brokenly into Raphael's plastron.
"What's going on," asked Donatello, who had appeared just steps behind his older brother.
"Is he okay," added Michelangelo, who had similarly arrived on Donatello's heels.
"I don't know," the bewildered Raphael said as he continued to hold his sobbing sibling tightly. "I head the screaming and came running. He practically met me at the door, and latched on before I could say anything."
Observing how upset Shadow obviously was, Donatello suggested, "Why don't you take him downstairs and see if you can get him calmed down. Michelangelo and I will put things to rights here and then come join you. Maybe by then he'll be able to explain what happened."
It took a little doing, but Raphael finally to his distraught brother down the stairs and settled on the floor of the dojo. Arranging the pile of blanket to make a comfortable nest was a task made all the more difficult by the fact that he couldn't get more than an arm's length away without Shadow making a shell-raising keening sound that only ceased once he was in physical contact once again. Finally, Raphael got everything settled, with Shadow tucked up under his chin, arms tucked protectively between them.
"He let them have me," Leo suddenly whispered, and Raphael was both too busy trying to figure out who "he" was and too startled by the sudden sound to immediately realize the formerly mute turtle was actually speaking to him.
"Wait, you…he…what," he spluttered, earning a weak chuckle from the turtle tucked up against him.
"Eloquent as ever, Raph," Leo teased hoarsely.
"You're talking," Raphael exclaimed. "And who's this 'he' you're talking about?"
Before Leo had the chance to respond, Donatello and Michelangelo appeared; Michelangelo dropped a stack of papers on the floor in front of the reclining pair. "I think you've got a few more questions than that to answer, don't you Leo," Donatello declared pointedly. "Starting with how long you've known who you are, and were you ever going to tell us?"
"Who, bro, what's this all about," Raphael asked as he Leo sat up.
"Our brother's little head dive out of bed earlier made quite a mess of these papers," Donatello replied. "Imagine our surprise as we're straightening them up when we find drawing after drawing of instances from our childhood. There's only one person who could have known anything about those times, and I think we deserve to know why he's been keeping this from us."
Harsh though it may have been, Donatello was banking on Shadow's reflexive tendency to shy away from confrontations as a means of getting the answers to his questions. What he wasn't expecting was for Leo to meet him head on.
"You deserve," Leo retorted sardonically. "You think you deserve some answers? Well let me put things into perspective for you before you start declaring you 'deserve' things. You spent ten years believing I was dead; I spent ten years often whishing I was. You had a family to support and sustain you; I was owned by a monster that I was never sure from one moment to the next if he was going to hurt me or just ignore me. You saw what I was like when you brought me home. If you had beaten me on a daily basis I would have accepted it as no more than I deserved. I'm not trying to be bitter, but put yourself in my place. Imagine the internal conflict I experienced as the beaten, broken slave side of me suddenly had to try and reconcile with the loved, confident older brother I use to be. I saw who I had been forced to become and who I should have been, and I somehow had to make peace with both of them, and figure out who I was becoming."
"Why didn't you ask for help," Michelangelo asked sincerely.
"Two reasons," Leo explained. "First, I was just plain scared, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. It didn't think you would want me anymore if you found out the pathetic, pitiful slave you'd rescued and accepted into your home was actually your brother. In my mind, it was one thing for you to extend that kind of compassion to a stranger, but I was afraid you'd get disgusted and reject me if you knew it was your brother who had been so badly abased and abused. Secondly, this was something I really needed to work out for myself. I spent too long having my identity defined by someone else. For my own good, I had to decide who I was going to be."
Raphael, who had loosened, but never fully released, his grip on Leo so his older brother could turn to face his younger brothers squeezed him arm encouragingly.
"Hearing you put it that way, I guess I can understand your reasoning," he said. He pulled Leo back in close. "And don't let Donatello's attitude fool you; we don't have any room to point fingers. We've been fairly confident of your identity for a while now, and we didn't say anything either. Partly because we didn't want to scare you off if you weren't ready to know, and partly to protect ourselves from the, admittedly slight, off chance we were wrong."
"Guess we were all afraid of getting hurt, huh," Leo said as he leaned comfortably against his twin. Raph gave him a quick squeeze before releasing him. Leo stood up and faced his younger brothers. Mikey didn't hesitate; he threw himself at his oldest brother and held on like Leo was going to disappear if he let go. Completely unselfconsciously, Leo dropped a chaste kiss on his baby brother's head before disengaging.
Turning to Donatello he said, "A very smart turtle one told me that families apologize when they hurt one another and, unintentional or not, my actions hurt you. So, Donny, I'm sorry."
That was all it took. With tears in his eyes, Donny blindly stepped into his big brother's arms.
"Forgiven, if you'll forgive me," he whispered. "And Leo, as long as you come home to us, you'll always be forgiven."
So, Leo can talk now; we'll find out a possibility for why, and why he was mute before, next chapter. We'll also learn a little more about Leo's nightmare. Any guesses who "he" might be? And why would he be giving Leo up? I've finally figure it all out, so it will be interesting to see if any of you get close. Oh, and we might finally see April and Casey next chapter.