Donnie's electric kettle is old, salvaged on a supply run and painstakingly repaired when he was sixteen. It's one of the few things he found, fixed, and kept, just for himself. He might have felt guilty about it, but April had already given them a new one for the kitchen that first Christmas, beaming when Splinter unwrapped it and hummed his approval.
This one, with the sealed crack in the plastic casing and the handmade heating coils, is all his, an old friend during all the nights he needed to stay awake but wasn't allowed to keep working in the lab. He's made thousands of cups of tea with the water it's boiled, but not once has he made tea for anyone but himself in it.
His bed creaks as April sits down. They haven't said a word since they left the lab, slipping hand-in-hand through the lair to his room, stopping once to check on Casey. April knelt beside the couch, frowning, with her free hand hovering over Casey's shoulder, but didn't touch him. A nod, and then they kept moving, still soundless, and his door shut with only the smallest snick behind them. He lit the candles on his dresser, letting them spread a gentle, mellow glow up the walls while April waited near his bed, her hands fisted at her sides, her weight resting on one hip.
"Tea?" he'd asked, lifting the kettle as an excuse to watch her expression. She nodded, he rummaged for mugs and filled the kettle from the sink hidden in his closet, and that brought them here, to the subdued click of the kettle as it finishes boiling.
Donnie fills the least-chipped mug for April. His hands shake, so slightly no one but his brothers and April would notice, and he hopes the low light will hide the shiver.
When he turns to hand her the mug, the sight of her cuts through him: thin shoulders curved inward, her hair hiding her face, bare feet tucked under her. Idly, like he has all the time in the world to think about it, Donnie wonders what he noticed about her first, when he saw her ten years ago. It'd be a better story if he claimed he felt her before he saw her, a piece of his mind reaching out to hers and meeting halfway between the roof and street, but it's already so improbable that they're here at all that he doesn't want to consider the impossibilities too.
It wasn't her hair or eyes, none of what movies would have you expect. It was the way she walked, her spine like a sword blade, her shoulders unbent, her head high. Unafraid, smiling.
Of course, that had all changed moments later — if Raph and Leo had made him move on a little faster, he'd have missed her shout for help completely. She hadn't cried out, she had shouted. Even scared, she was brave.
Her hands are very small against his when she reaches up for her mug, and she curls around it with a grateful sigh.
"Thank you." She closes her eyes. "How did I not know you had a kettle in here?"
"Because you would have stolen it," he says, smiling as he inhales the fragrant steam.
"I would not!" April snaps, all wounded pride, a jagged streak of lightning cutting through the room. "I would have borrowed it."
"Uh huh. If not that, then Mikey would have seen you use it, and then he'd steal it. Either way, I'd be out one kettle." He sips his tea, carefully, and decides it's not strong enough. Their voices are light, their words easy, but they haven't looked at each other, and Donnie's still standing awkwardly in the middle of his room, unsure if he should sit next to April or at his desk. They were so close to something in the lab, and he'd hoped the quiet would have followed them here, but this is the wrong kind of quiet.
What now? Donnie thinks. One of us has to say something.
April — it had to be April — says, "Do you remember the first thing I said to you?"
"Uh," Donnie says, flummoxed. She hasn't looked up, and all he can see under her hair is the tip of her nose. "Help, I think?" He knows the answer, but he doesn't understand why, of all things, she chose to say this, and hedging might buy him time to figure it out.
"Not in your vicinity, but actual words, spoken to you." She sets her tea aside, untasted, and tucks her hands under her arms.
An honest answer nearly escapes before he can stop it: you didn't really speak, you screamed. He has a glimpse of where April is going with this, and the idea is dangerous, electric. One touch and he'll send off sparks.
April says, "I said, okay, giant lizard thing."
"Turtle, actually," Donnie replies, right on cue. The memory is still so clear: the gunfire, his brothers shouting, the sickly metallic small of the Kraang robots, April's bewilderment as she met his gaze for the second time. She hadn't been afraid then. Not of him, not anymore.
(I'm Donatello.
April.)
"You were there to save me and my dad, and I pretty much called you a monster." She shakes her head. "I was…a jerk."
"You were freaked out," says Donnie, completely sure now of where this is headed, so sure his voice breaks on the last word. "April, this was ten years ago. If I was mad about it, I'd have said something by now."
April tosses her hair out of her face with a short, imperative jerk of her head. "You may not be mad, but I should have apologized. I was awful to you, and —"
"And I was dumb and tried everything except talking to you to get you to notice me," he says. The words spill out of his mouth in a watery rush. Forget electricity; that's the closest he's coming to saying it, and he feels hot enough to set the room on fire. He swallows and sets his mug on his desk. It's too strong now, and soon it'll just be bitter.
There's a metaphor in there, somewhere, that he ignores. "It doesn't matter," he say, when he's sure he's not going to start babbling. Keep babbling. "We made it this far without ruining anything. We're fine, April."
"Okay," she whispers. She stares at him, a thin line notched between her brows, then blows out a long breath.
If Donnie touches her now —
He doesn't think it through. He acts, kneeling in front of her and holding out his hands. "It's fine," he tells her. "April, I promise you, it's all fine. I'm not going anywhere."
"I just want you to know…" She pauses so long that the silence builds a cage around them. "I — whatever happens, Donnie, I'm not leaving you. We…we're…you're not alone in this."
She lifts her hands over his, and turns them palm-up. The dim light makes it hard to see the marks on her palms at first, and then the colors come into focus, and Donnie's first urge is to start laughing.
"You're kidding me," he says, just before the laughter bursts out of him. "You're kidding me. No."
There's a startled silence, completely distinct from the heavy quiet that filled the room moments before, then April blinks and start to laugh too.
"That's what I said," she chokes out between giggles. "I just — it's such a cliché. Who would come up with a story this terrible? Marks on hands and magic and — oh my god, it's everything you hate. Raph must be shitting himself."
Donnie shakes his head, still laughing. He knows they sound borderline hysterical; he expects Splinter to knock any second, or for Casey to yell at them to shut their holes. The thought makes him laugh harder, and some of the knotted, impossible tension in his chest is knocked loose at the sound. He's still as worn out as he was in the lab, but the laughter is melting the frustration away. April's right; the whole idea is ridiculous — but when has it not been? Robot aliens from another dimension, ghosts, tiger assassins, ninja blood feuds. The Boar is just part of the parade.
The shared laughter reduces the threat, makes it into something manageable that can be packed away for the night and forgotten till the morning. April won't forget her promise to make Donnie talk, and he doesn't expect her to. Pleasantly, though, he finds he's not dreading it. Talking means a little more weight off his shell.
"Are we just…" April inhales shakily, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. "Are we just cosmically screwed, Donnie?"
He shifts position so his shell isn't cutting into his ankles any longer. "Sure seems like it."
April places her hands in his, and meets his gaze with huge, earnest eyes — too earnest, and Donnie starts cackling before she opens her mouth. "Then there's no one I'd rather be trapped in a horrible fairy tale with than you," she says, before losing it again herself.
None of this is funny, Donnie thinks, as their laughter wraps around itself, warm and giddy. The enemies are ridiculous, but they've always been real. The marks on April's hands aren't a joke; the courtyard and the cage weren't spat up by his subconscious. They can laugh now, and they should, because once they open the door to his room, the Boar's mad, empty smile will be waiting for them.
It's so sweet to not care about that for a little while. There's always a war; they'll be back to fighting this one soon enough.
"Your tea's cold," she says, when both of them have calmed down.
Donnie give her hands a last gentle squeeze and lets go, reluctantly. "So's yours. Want another cup?"
"No, thanks. I think I'm ready to go to sleep." The look she gives him through her lashes is soft, shy, and there she is, the first April he ever saw. She peers at him from ten years ago, tentative, curious. When he held out his hand to her on the street, she reached back. Donnie doesn't just remember this, he sees the moment as clearly as if it's happening in front of him again. Such a fragile moment, broken before it could begin — but he's carried it with him all these years because she trusted him, even then.
Now he thinks that was when he knew that he was going to love her, if they made it through the night. They did, and so he did, and now they're here.
April is close enough for Donnie to see the faint lines already etched into the skin at her mouth and eyes. They did so much growing up together; almost half his life has been spent watching her, dreaming of her, and still there's so much he hasn't said. In all that time watching her, he's never actually told her the truth. He's come close so many times, but the right moment, or enough bravery, always eluded him.
There's no question this time. It's right, and he's brave. When he reaches up to stroke her hair, April leans her head into the touch and closes her eyes. His hand cups the curve of her skull, the weight of all that is her cradled against his palm, and for the first time in his life, Donnie is terrified of what he feels. It can't be healthy, loving someone this much, but Donnie's baselines for healthy or normal have never been the expected. What gets the rest of the world through the day isn't what sustains him; he and his family have survived for decades on trash and the hope that tomorrow they won't be caught, or killed in battle, and so maybe this terrible love isn't eating him alive. Maybe it's made him better. Maybe, just maybe, it could give him a measure of peace.
Now or never.
"I was…" He pauses to steady his voice, and runs his hand through her hair to distract himself from the tremor in his gut. "I was in love with you for the longest time."
There. It's said.
April makes that tiny, pleased noise again, and tilts her head back to meet his eyes. "You said you were," she says, as if the past tense matters. It's just semantics.
Donnie smiles, peaceful at last, his heart as light as cobwebs. "Some things never change, April."
"And some things do," says April.
Everything crystallizes; he can see every eyelash, the smallest fluctuations in her irises. The room gathers its breath around them, and in the perfect, complete silence, Donnie closes his eyes and kisses April.
She kisses him back.
In all his daydreams about this moment, a white-noise rush filled his head, like rain falling through grass, and light burst behind his eyes. None of that happens. April's mouth is warm under his, but that's the only thing he managed to guess correctly. The moment is so quiet, and so small, almost shy. How could it be anything else, after so long?
Donnie loves new things. He cherishes them, commits them to memory, where he can replay them long after they've become well-worn and familiar, and catch some echo of that sharp, unmistakable newness. But this kiss, and April's arms slipping so carefully around him to rest between his shell and neck, and the hummingbird rhythm of her heart against his plastron — these things are too immediate for him to memorize. They need him here, present and aware.
When they finally break apart, April is smiling.
"Took us long —" she begins to say, but Donnie surges forward, unable to lose one more chance to anything else. He knows he should be sorry for interrupting, and for taking without asking, but he knows it's fine. He's…allowed.
April's mouth opens as she gasps and laughs, and now Donnie feels everything: the sharp edge of her teeth, warm air leaving her mouth, the quick sweep of her tongue. Her arms tighten, pulling him closer, and that's fine, it's all fine, as long as he can keep kissing her she can move him however she wants. April. This is April pressed against him, and she tastes coffee and smells like apples, and there's too much in this moment for Donnie to ever memorize. All his inner voices — even the voice from ten years ago — fade into stunned silence.
The world seems to tilt; somehow he opens his eyes to find himself half-on, half-off his bed, with April underneath him and her fingers scratching at his shell. He tries to spare a thought for how that happened, but April murmurs something he doesn't catch and distracts him with a kiss under his eye. As he bends to kiss her again — again, he's kissing her again, a long slow roll of kisses, he's going to burst or laugh, he doesn't know which and he doesn't care — a quick twist of pain shoots through his thigh. He winces, and glances down to make sure he hasn't wrecked his stitches, but what he sees is himself, and April.
Her loose shirt and sweatpants hide the slender lines of her body, but there's nothing hiding him. Green skin, thick feet and hands, gouged, leathery plastron, and the heavy, heavy weight of his shell. He can't escape it; this is what he is, and a few kisses won't change that. Nothing will. What is he doing? He wasn't made for this, no matter how much he wants it. Every time he's tried to ignore that truth, it's always caught up to him. This won't be any different.
He starts to pull away, an apology ready and waiting at the back of his throat, but April moves quicker than he does. She doesn't let go as she rolls them, so he's flat on his shell and she has his arms pinned over his head.
"I —" he says, then waits for her to cut him off. She has a rebuttal for anything he could say ready, he can tell by the set of her mouth. But she stays quiet, her hands holding his arms in a lock he could break without effort. "April, you don't have to do this." She needs to know that. There's an out if she wants it, and he won't blame her for taking it. He had her, for a few minutes. It's more than he ever thought he would get, and he'd rather end it now, before anything can creep in and dilute the memory.
The flash of hurt on her face, there and gone, is impossible to miss. "I want to," April whispers. "I promise, Donnie."
He turns his head away. How can she? He's this. There's no change he can make that will alter this one, undeniable fact: he is a what, not a who.
April bites the inside of her cheek, hurt shifting into calculation. Donnie swallows, waiting for what she'll say next, and dreading it. He knows she wants to argue with him, but reason won't help. She'll say he's not a freak, that she wants to do this, and he can handle hearing that, but anything more might be comfort, and he won't be able to bear it.
She doesn't say anything; she hesitates, then her calculation gives way to smug satisfaction as she dips her head to kiss the side of his neck. Her mouth is almost hot on his skin, and he gasps, fingers curling around her hands as she kisses her way to the hollow of his throat.
"April —" he says, but loses his words when she starts working her way over his shoulder, her tongue flickering out to draw light patterns on his skin. She doesn't hurry; she lingers, each kiss slow, deliberately placed to best send shivers through his whole body as she moves up his arm.
He could move. It's obvious now that he'll have to be the one to call a stop to this, before it goes any farther and he wakes up humiliated and alone in the morning, but —
Some things never change, he told her.
And some things do.
They could have said it straight out, but this is better than a single sentence. April is writing what she feels on his skin, where it can sink into him and and live in his bones. He doesn't have to worry. He can close his eyes.
She takes his wraps off as she comes to them, leaving him bare under her mouth. Donnie stays as still as he can underneath her, but when she nestles her head under his jaw, she finds a rare ticklish spot — one nobody else has ever managed to exploit. He wriggles and hisses through his teeth, the curve of her smile hot against his skin.
"I'll have to remember that spot," she says, finally letting go of his hands and sitting up. She looks far too pleased with herself, and Donnie laughs, still fragile, but glowing at the promise under her words.
"You're evil, April."
"I'm thinking ninja," she says, primly, then bends down to kiss him.
He's almost ready for the warmth, and how soft she is; now he can focus on individual sensations, like how thin her shirt is, and how strong her legs are as she straddles him.
Oh. Oh.
And there's his second reason to panic, not even polite enough to wait till the first faded away. He wants her, of course he does, there's never been a time he hasn't, but it's too new. He needs time to parse this, he can't have everything right now — but he'd be an idiot to turn it all down, when he might not get it again. April pushed the anxiety away for a little while, but she's fighting a lifetime of being Donnie. He doesn't get to win, and April isn't a prize.
Just keep kissing her till she stops kissing you, he tells himself. Sooner or later, she'll stop, then he can figure out what happens next.
"I know you're worrying, Donnie." April rests her forehead on his. "You think I'll stop, right? Or leave?" Before he nods — yes, I do, why wouldn't you — she sighs. "This is going to take a while," she murmurs, more to herself than him.
"A while?" Donnie asks, unable to help himself.
"Convincing you," she says, simply, with another smug smile. "Good thing I'm patient."
Donnie barks a laugh. If there's anything April is not, it's patient. "Yeah, good thing," he echoes, smiling too.
"So we don't need to rush anything, right?" She slides off him without waiting for a response, and presses into his side. "We can just…keeping doing this."
Just like that, she's cut the legs out from under the anxious grind in his head, and the relief he feels is so far beyond love or gratitude that he can't speak. Donnie turns his head to look at her, and slowly, very slowly, lets his arm curl around her and pull her closer. "This?" he asks, just to be sure, just to be safe.
April comes easily, humming happily as she tucks herself against him. "Mhm. Just this." She kisses his shoulder, her fingers playing with the tails of his mask, and this time — just this one time — Donnie decides not to worry for a little while, and tilts her head up for another kiss.
There's nothing remarkable about the house Mikey leads them to, and the longer Leo stares, the more ordinary the house becomes. It's old, but not decrepit, and while it's definitely out of place, surrounded on all sides by abandoned apartment buildings, there's nothing unusual about it. No light, no smells, no strange flickers in the dark windows.
"That's it, dudes," whispers Mikey. "I was watching it from here, and it just lit up. No lie." There's a defensive echo deep down in his voice, that Leo hasn't heard since they were nineteen, an unspoken you guys never listen to me. "Green light, just like those dogs Donnie and Casey said they saw."
"Nothing else?" Leo asks. "Movement, noises?"
"Nope. Well, not that I saw — as soon as I saw that light, I beat feet back to you guys. Figured you'd wanna know." Mikey rolls his shoulders. "So, are we going in? 'Cause, one two three not it."
Leo hangs his head to hide his reluctant grin. Humor aside, he wishes Mikey had stuck around a little longer, just in case there was something between the light in the house and the burst that knocked them out, but the time for that reprimand is past. It's done, and Leo needs to work with what they have now.
What do we have to work with?
A double-handful of guesses, a half-remembered myth, and the memory of Donnie's haunted face in the kitchen. Leo breathes in, waiting to smell lilies, almost disappointed when he doesn't. Karai, at least, is an enemy he understands.
"What's we waiting for, Leo?" hisses Raph. "We don't have all night."
Leo glances over his shoulder. Raph's leashed belligerence is familiar, but it's not recent; Leo honestly can't remember the last time Raph sounded like this, a short fuse just waiting for fire. He sounds…young, in a way that creeps under Leo's shell and lodges there like a rock he can't shake loose.
He tries to tell himself that he's on edge from too many unanswered questions, too many vague shapes circling his perimeter, but that's not all of it. And it's not the Donnie-shaped hole in their decade-old shared dance, either; they adapt, and they've made room for Usagi. He feels Raph pushing him, and Mikey angling for reassurance, and he wants to scream that they're not sixteen anymore, and they don't have to act like this.
He knows he's hesitating, torn between taking a chance on learning something about their enemy, or trusting his gut and not walking into what is probably a trap. And he knows that even Raph at his most controlled will chafe at the delay, and Mikey will get distracted — but he can't focus on that right now. He's never met this enemy, only seen what it leaves behind.
When they strike, it must be pure.
"You're gonna think us right into sunrise, fearless leader. Are we gonna do this, or just sit here all night?"
Leo grits his teeth; Raph's voice hits the old, exposed nerves, but he keeps his eyes on the house. Spring the trap, or take the risk?
"Rash action is never wise," whispers Usagi. He's spent the last ten minutes crouched at Leo's side, eyes on the street. "Especially now, when our enemy is —"
"Oh my god," snaps Raph, sneering around the words. "Do you have to work to sound like that, or do you seriously have that much of a stick up your ass?"
Leo turns, embarrassment crackling over his skin. He flashes a quick, apologetic look in Usagi's direction — Usagi looks more surprised than offended, small mercy — and levels a glare at Raph. "Enough, Raph. We don't have time for you to act like a kid." He keeps his voice steady, neutral, because any show of anger will just ramp up Raph's temper, but his gut still twists in dismay. When was the last time he had to tell Raph to stop acting like a kid?
Better question: when was the last time he felt this sudden, furious urge to shove Raph up against a wall, and shout him down?
"But we've got time to stand here like a bunch of morons because you can't make up your mind, right, Leo?" Even with almost a foot's difference between them, Raph still plants his feet and stares up at Leo, the unspoken challenge glinting in his gaze.
"Guys —" Mikey tries to wedge himself between them. "Come on, not now." Raph pushes him back, not ungently, but Mikey still stumbles back with a bitten-off yelp. Usagi catches him before he can fall, and they watch Leo and Raph with wide eyes. Relief floods Leo; he won't have to take his eyes off Raph, who'll take advantage of any distraction when he's like this. Leo needs to make his point now, succinct and emphatic, but his own anger is spiraling upwards, responding to Raph's like it hasn't in —
Cut it off.
"We're not having this argument." Leo leans into Raph's space, shamelessly using his height to bear down on his brother. He doesn't yell, he doesn't blink. He measures his words, and speaks them very, very clearly. "You don't want to follow my lead? Then go back to the lair. Keep an eye on Casey. Help Donnie."
"Help Donnie," says Raph, as Leo turns away, and his voice is quiet — too quiet. Leo thinks of the quiet hiss of a snake before it bites. "Like you did?"
If Raph had thrown his words like grenades, they wouldn't have hurt as much as they do in Raph's vicious near-whisper. Leo freezes mid-step, the breath stung out of him, and turns slowly back to Raph, who looks stunned by his own words.
"Oh, god, Leo, I didn't mean —" Raph shakes his head. He looks like he can't believe the barb went so deep, but Leo can. After all, it's true. He didn't help Donnie. Raph did.
"Are you in, Raph?" he asks, as his anger melts away, leaving only a whisper of shame behind it.
"I'm in," Raph says, like he's still bewildered by his anger. "Look, Leo, Usagi, I'm sorry. I don't know why I said that stuff. I just — my head's a mess, and —"
"Then be in," says Leo, and waits until Raph shuts his mouth and nods. He gives them — and himself — to a count of ten to shake it off before they move, and reaches for the peace waiting at the center of his mind. It's harder to touch, spread thin by worry, but if he doesn't put his hands to it, his brothers won't.
When he feels his senses expand, steadied by the sea-deep calm at his heart, Leo opens his eyes and climbs on the roof's ledge. No movement to the south, no movement to the east. The streets are clear; two blocks over, a car passes and he catches a snatch of music and lyrics: …and your friends, baby, they treat you like a guest. A plane passes overhead, an alarm blares a few buildings away. The city is just as ignorant as ever of them and of what spread through its sky, and for that, Leo is profoundly grateful. Let the city stay unaware of the nightmare unspooling in its streets. He and his family work better in the dark.
"Let's move."
Be pure. Shake off the frustration with Raph and Mikey. Lead them. Be your best self, so they can too.
He draws his katana as he leaps through the sweet winter air, and lands soundlessly on the street. The others land behind him, whispers of leather and steel as they draw their own weapons, and as one they turn to face the house. Whatever touched them on the roof, turned back the clock on their hearts, it's gone. There's only the house, and whatever rot lies within its walls.
"So your idiot brother didn't pass on my warning."
Karai.
She appears under a streetlight as her voice fades away, between one blink and the next. Her face is healed, pale and bloodless, her eyes glint amber in the night. And surrounding her like a shroud, the scent of lilies.
Leo says nothing. Be a walled city. Be a mountain of fire. She can't reach you.
"Hello, Leo," she says. Her voice is moonlight reflecting off the blade of a knife. "Where's Donatello? Or did you decide to upgrade to mammals?"
Leo sees Usagi's hand shift on the hilt of his blade, and shakes his head without turning. No moves until he knows she's alone. Karai smiles, no joy, no humor, just a colorless curve of her lips, but her smile doesn't hide a brief flash of confusion clouding her features. She recovers almost instantly, but Leo stores the tell away, to use later.
"So the Bull has a sense of humor," she says. She begins to move as she talks, slow, deliberate steps across the roof. Mikey and Raph draw their weapons and drop into fighting crouches, but she ignores them. Her eyes are fixed on Leo, and he hates himself for not being able to look away from her face. "It chose Donatello? What a joke. Doesn't it know you're the hero?"
The words are Karai's, but her voice is dead, no sneer or edge in it at all. Something happened to her, between the last, desperate moment between them a week ago and now; an essential part of her is gone. Leo forces himself to breathe, even though her scent fills him, chokes him, and smiles back, all teeth. She thought he was the Champion. He can work with that.
"The Boar didn't tell you?" He keeps his voice as cold as the night air around them. "I didn't think that information would be need-to-know, Karai. What happened?"
She flinches. For Karai, any tell is a surprise, but he's cut through to something real, and for an instant true pain shows on her face. Leo feels a savage, unfamiliar satisfaction; he could cut her again, and again, and like it, and never feel a second's guilt.
Be pure, he warns himself, before he can be tempted, and waits for her reply.
"It tells me what I need to know," she says. She stops walking a few feet away from him, her arms loose at her sides. "That's more than the Bull will do for your brother. He's going to have to figure it all out on his own. I almost pity him."
"You don't even know how," spits Raph, edging toward Karai. Leo holds out an arm to keep him back, but Karai just lets out another dry, nasty laugh, unconcerned.
"Pity's a waste of time. I gave you a warning — I guess even that was too much for you to handle, Raphael." She turns her smile back on Leo, Raph forgotten. But Leo knows her face, and even if he's never seen Karai honest, he's seen her caught off guard, and he knows she's not as confident as she seems. She's been broken.
The thought stirs something like grief in him. He hates her, he's seconds away from falling on her and tearing her apart, but she used to be so much more than this. She was almost a queen, years ago.
Leo loved her once, as much as she let him.
"What happened?" he asks.
"Dude, what are you doing?" hisses Mikey. "Why are we still talking to her?"
"An excellent question," says Usagi, quiet but furious. "She deserves nothing, Leonardo. End her and be done."
Karai laughs. "He could try," she says. "But I'm not here to fight any of you. I'm on an errand." She walks through their line, almost close enough to brush her shoulder against Leo's. The smell of lilies tries to stir panic thick as mud from deep in his soul: the gunshot crack as his shell split under Rahzar's foot, the flechettes opening him up, rich and red, the smell of his own blood and oh god he had swallowed a tooth hadn't he —
Be pure. Leo drives the panic down; he didn't survive that terror only to lose to it now. He will defeat it, like any other enemy. For his family, for his pride, and for the child he used to be.
"I asked you a question, Karai."
She turns blank eyes on him. "I told you," she says. "The Boar eats."
The implications shiver in the air between them. His first thought is I could have helped you, but he crushes it, ruthlessly. He can't save someone who's bent on destruction, who wants nothing but burned cities behind them, and he can't save Karai, now or ever. There never was anything worth the effort in her.
It's time to leave. As he gives the nod to the others — scatter, run, regroup at the nearest shelter — Karai turns her back on him, facing the house. But she's not silent; Leo pauses on the point of running to listen.
"Did you ever wonder where so many of the freaks went, after the Shredder died?" Karai asks. "Not all of them died in the fire. Some of them tried to run. Not a wise move. This one, though. He decided to trade up. He's smart." A low rumble shakes the house, something far below the foundation rolling over, breaking free. "But you already knew that, didn't you? He's an old friend." She draws a thin, ragged strip of black fabric from her tunic pocket, and lets the ends flutter in the slight breeze.
"Leo," says Raph. "She's got his mask." The rising, reed-thin note in his voice sends a warning pulse up Leo's spine — but all he can do is take a step closer, and be a wall between his family and harm.
"All sorts of old friends will be waking up soon," says Karai, ignoring Raph completely. "The Boar hid them all over the city. I think it's been saving them for you." She looks at Leo, shrugs one-shouldered. "You should have run a week ago, Leo."
"We don't run. "He tightens his hands on his katana and takes a step back closer to the others. He'll lead them through this, even if it breaks him to do it.
Karai shrugs again. "It probably wouldn't do you much good," she says, facing the house again. The next time she speaks, it's not to Leo, but to what waits inside. "Time to wake up, freak."
The walls of the house give a brief, glass-sharp shriek of protest before the front wall shatters outward, green light flashing far back in the darkness.
Raph swears, and his fury is a thick groundswell behind Leo, filling the street — but this is fury Leo can use, direct and balance.
The dark shape crawls out of the wreckage on all fours, head low to the ground. Leo tastes bile, remembers the heavy arm arcing toward him. They could run, should run — but this is a weapon they handed the Boar themselves, when they didn't finish the job the first time. It's got to end now.
Slash sniffs the air, his head low between his shoulders. Leo knows the exact moment he catches their scent: a lazy smile curls his mouth, and he spreads his arms wide.
"Now!" Leo yells. Karai forgotten, he runs, a savage spark of joy igniting in his chest as the others follow him. This, finally, is an enemy he knows.