"You've got to keep your hands up and keep moving." Raph told Emily as he circled her. The two had been sparring for almost an hour now.
She nodded and blocked a punch that Raph threw at her head. She stepped in towards him and elbowed him in the shoulder.
They went on like that, back and forth, until Emily stumbled and fell onto the bamboo mat. "Alright, Em; that's enough for today." Raph told her as he came over to help her up. He, Leo, and Splinter had been training Emily to fight the Foot with them and to use various weapons for a month. And they still hadn't let her go with them on a mission or patrol.
She got to her feet only with his help. That's when the pain hit her. She clutched her head between her hands and leaned against Raph for support. Unbeknownst to the brothers, her father had gotten a hold of her the night before and most of the blows had been directed to her head.
He grabbed her shoulders to keep her from falling and gently eased her to the floor. "Em? Em, are you okay?" he carefully pried her hands away from her head.
"No." she whined and curled into his side. She was too incoherent to notice how much it startled Raph to have her so close. The only time she had ever been as close was when she had told him the truth about her father.
He quickly looked her over and found mo more bruises on her head than normal. "It's your head, right?" Emily nodded. "But you blocked all of my hits to your…" he glared up at the ceiling and briefly tightened his hold around the woman he had sworn to himself to protect. "Emily, did you get into a fight with your father last night?" he was starting to get angry, but he knew he had to keep his temper in check.
"Raph," she sighed, still nursing one of the worst migraines she had ever had.
He growled low in his throat, scooped up Emily, and carried her squirming and complaining to Don's laboratory down the hallway. "Don, can you take a look her head?" he more or less barked.
Don flipped up the goggles he had on his head and rolled his chair next to the cot where Raph had deposited Emily. "Don't tell me you hit her harder than you meant to again." He sighed. Everyone but Raph still didn't know about Emily's father. When he got no answer, he started to examine Emily. Running his finger over her scalp, he found a bump behind her ear, usually covered by her hair. "Somebody has a concussion." He told them. "Go get some ice from the freezer, and try to stay horizontal for awhile." He told her quickly before wheeling back to his work he had been finishing before Raph had barged in.
Raph moved to pick Emily up again, but she shot him a glare that could have frozen boiling water. She eased herself off the cot and started walking to the kitchen, concentrating on keeping herself vertical and her feet moving in the right direction. But the pain in her head got to be too bad and she had to sit down against the wall. "Come on," Raph urged her, sitting down next to her. "Let's get you upstairs." He carefully picked her up again and carried her to the room that the brothers had designated as hers at the end of the hallway. Over the past month, she had spent at least two nights a week with them, so they just officially made the guest room hers. After climbing the steel steps and entering her room, he set her down gently on her bed and turned to walk out the door to get her some ice.
"Raph, you don't have to do this." She sighed from the bed.
He looked down at her and was once again struck by his need to protect the person who never had the chance to be protected. "Yes I do." He quickly went back down the stairs, retrieved some ice and a towel, and brought it back to Emily.
As he climbed back down the stairs to go back into the training room, Splinter was waiting for him in the living room. "She is a good influence on you. Only once since she has come have I seen you lose your temper, Raphael. And she was able to help you control it." He smiled, his whiskers pulling up. "And you keep her safe. I have seen the way you act with her. You have taken it upon yourself to protect her from everything." He nodded. "But some things are out of your power where you stand, Raphael." Splinter walked up to his second oldest son and reached up to place a paw on his shoulder.
"I don't understand what you mean, Father." He said solemnly. But Raph knew. He just didn't know how Splinter knew.
The old rat chuckled and patted Raph's shoulder. "I am not that deaf, my son. And the bruises on Emily grow worse when she comes back from her home. She never talks about her family. And you always become upset when you see her come more injured than when she left, even though she is in a physical profession."
"Don't tell the others." Raph asked him for Emily's sake. "She'll tell them when she's ready."
"Of course, my son." He promised; amazed at how much one human woman had changed his usually aggressive and defiant son.
Emily slept for most of that day and the next, not waking up until around noon. When she finally trudged down the metal stairs, Don was waiting for her. Trying to avoid him, since she knew he would ask questions about what had happened to her, she walked into the kitchen to try and find a soda in the refrigerator. But he would have none of that.
Following her, he leaned against the counter as she opened the refrigerator door. "I know it wasn't Raph that hit you in the head." He declared, hitting home right of the bat. "And it wasn't kickboxing either, because you wear head-gear in that."
"Then what do you suggest it was, Sherlock?" she snapped, grabbing the soda and turning back to the stairs.
But Don stopped her. Grabbing her arm, he spun her back around. "That's what I want to know." He whispered harshly. "I know Raph knows, and I know Father knows, but no one else does. The rest of us have noticed, but I'm just the one that sees the results the most. What's going on?" he hissed.
"If you're so sure that Raph and your father know, why don't you go and ask them instead of hoping you can get an answer out of me?" she fired back. "You're being ridiculous, Don." She added for good measure.
Leveling his gaze with hers, he met her glare with one of his own. He may not have been as temperamental as Emily or his older brother, but he could throw his weight around if he wanted to. "That concussion wasn't ridiculous. Two more inches up and over and you could have been in a coma." He tried to keep his voice even, if he got Emily too riled up, he would never get anything out of her. "So what is going on?" he asked one more time.
Bit's of Emily's anger were washed away, replaced by sadness. "Don, it's something that you just wouldn't understand." She said softly. "There are something's about life topside that you and your brothers just can't understand."
"Then help us understand!" Don insisted.
Emily opened her mouth to speak, but closed it, shaking her head. "I'm sorry Don, but...."
She stopped abruptly when a small, furry hand was placed over her own. Looking down, she saw Splinter's kind face looking up at her. "They deserve to know, my child." He told her calmly.
Emily looked away, knowing he was right, but wanting to shove that realization so far down in her mind that she would never agree. But she couldn't deny Splinter's reasoning, and she couldn't deny Don's pleading, especially knowing it would be reflected on the faces of the two other brothers. Relenting, she nodded. "I'll wait until Casey and April get here. I don't want to have to say this twice."
Don nodded and Splinter patted her shoulder. "You are wiser that you think, Emily. Good always come when you relinquish your fears into the light. Now you only have to wait."
She nodded, trying to gather up her courage. But what had once been the source of her courage was dead and buried, and the other...the other was probably practicing with his sis in the training room. So that's where she went. Nodding quickly to Splinter, she walked swiftly to the dojo, hearing Raph hitting the heavy bags. "Raph," she called to him when she reached the doorway. He turned to face her, sweat trickling down his brow and into his eyes. "I'm going to tell them tonight." She said softly, looking at the ground.
Raph didn't need to know what she was talking about, he already knew. "You sure about this, Em?" he asked her a bit breathlessly as he walked across the mat to her.
Not looking up, she put on a sad smile. "As sure as I'll ever be." She joked lamely. Finally pulling her gaze up from the ground, she found Raph's amber eyes easily and comfortably. "Can you help me?" she asked quietly.
"That's all you have to say." He whispered, touching her hand lightly. She smiled truly this time. It was small, but it was full of gratitude.
Walking to the corner he had been standing in, she turned on the speakers she had brought from her home. Modern rock played at a moderate volume in an upbeat song. Slipping out of her sweater, she beckoned Raph forward with her hand. "How about we lighten the mood a little?" she joked.
Wiping the back of his hand across his forehead, he gave her a cocky grin and sauntered forward to meet her in the center of the mat. "How about we up the ante." Emily raised an eyebrow slightly. "First person to tap, not to fall."
"I can agree to that." Emily smiled, lunging at Raph.
He reacted with a punch, but Emily had already ducked to grapple his knees. Raph was on the ground with a thud, but had brought his knees in, throwing Emily over his head. Rolling onto her feet, Emily turned in time to see Raph swing himself to the side and stand up as well. Raph cocked his head to the side with a smirk and took a side step towards Emily. She threw a side-kick to his head, which he blocked and mirrored to her stomach. Bringing up her knee, she deflected it before trying to sweep Raph and get him on the ground again where she could use her ground fighting skills.
But he lithely moved out of the way. Back and forth they tried to gain the upper hand. Back and forth for nearly half an hour they would parry and thrust, roll and block, back and forth until a well-known laugh sounded at the doorway. "You two are at it again?" Casey barked in laughter.
Raph turned to look at his friend, only to have Emily seize the situation. Taking a slight running start, she jumped onto his back, wrapping her arms tightly around his neck and her legs around his waist. Smiling at Casey, she held on until Raph had to tap. She jumped down and sashayed over to her sweater, throwing it over her shoulder before strutting out of the room, turning to look back at Raph and smile innocently. He only glared back.
Dinner was eaten in the kitchen with banter between everyone. But every now and then Raph and Emily would throw each other glances. When everyone had finished eating, Emily cleared her throat quietly. The others looked at her quickly. Don looked at her expectantly from the sink, Splinter and Raph nodded minutely, and the others were a bit confused. "Can we all go into the living room? There's something I've needed to tell you all for a while."
The others nodded and moved to take their normal places on the couch, in the chairs, on the floor, or on the table. Taking a deep breath, Emily leaned against the old television and turned to face them. "Guys, there's something that some of you know and some of you don't about me. It's something I've never really wanted to say to anyone, but you all deserve to know." Taking another deep breath to keep in her resolve, she glanced over at Raph, sitting on the arm of the couch. He nodded and gave her an ever-so slight smile. "You've probably all seen me come down here with lots more bruises than when I left. And I bet most of you chalked it up to kickboxing. Sometimes you're right, but most of the time you're wrong. And it's not the Foot either." She reassured quickly. "My dad, he's....he's an abusive drunk." She spit out. Wanting to get it all off her shoulders, she continued. "And my mom, she k....died when I was ten." Feeling her resolve quickly leaving her and the adrenaline distil out of her veins, she turned from her friends, her family almost, and practically ran up the stair to her room.
She didn't hear the footsteps behind her. "You did good, Em." Raph told her from the doorway.
Emily had lain herself out on her stomach on the bed. "I hope you're right, Raph." She sighed. "'Cause if not, I just lost the closest thing to home I've ever had."
Raph laughed and sat himself down at the foot of her bed. "If you haven't noticed, we don't judge very much down here." He laughed.
Emily laughed too, but stopped short. "Thanks Raph." She told him as she rolled over onto her back to face him. "Thanks for everything." She smiled up at him.
All he could do was smile back.
We're sorry this took so long, but school came out to bit us in the you-know-where. Between tests, homework, SOLs, and now finals; added onto karate tournaments, we've only just had time to sit down and write.
We promise more will come in shorter intervals over the summer.
And something major will happen in the next chapter or the one after that, so keep your eyes peeled.
Sincerely,
C M + L W = idkaname