Halfway through November, two weeks into their stay at the farmhouse, Kait was still asleep in Don's arms in their bed. Her blonde hair was tied back in a loose braid and her thin body was covered in an oversized t-shirt. Her head was resting on his bicep as she pressed her back against his side. Don had been awake for almost an hour, just watching her, playing with her hair and gently stroking her fingers. The holes in her hand had healed to bright scars, but the internal injuries were still there. Just the day before she had taken her first few unassisted steps. It was uncomfortable, putting pressure on the internal injuries to her feet, but she could manage it.
After Kait surprised Raph and Emily by giving them her parents' wedding and engagement rings, Don had gotten to thinking about what the future held for himself and the woman in his arms. He would give his life for her, to keep her safe, and he would give anything to keep her in his arms, like she was then. Seeing Raph take the steps to become engaged to Emily, to make the promise to spend the rest of his life with her, Don wished he could do the same. But he knew it was too early to tell Kait that. They had only been together for a few months. But in those few months, they had never talked about the future.
But Don understood that, his family didn't think that far into the future. With their lives constantly changing, with every aspect of it seemingly being blown this way and that by the wind, they lived almost day to day. But Kait was something that he wanted to be sure about, someone he could be with every day and come back to every night.
He would take her into the family there and then if she would let him. But he knew that she feared commitment, he knew that people she loved tended to hurt her.
The buzzing of her cell phone pulled his attention away from the sleeping artist as it simultaneously pulled the woman into the conscious world. She went to reach for the phone only to pause a few inches above it, turning and looking for Don, her eyes bashfully asking him to pick it up for her.
Milo's crooked smile was spread out on her screen as Kait focused on extending her left index finger to unlock the phone and accept the call as well as put it on speaker phone.
"Hey, Milo." Her voice was raw with sleep as she laid back down in Don's arm, closing her eyes again. "What's up?"
There was a pause, a purely silent pause on his end of the phone.
"Milo?" Kait managed to push herself upright, looking at the phone as if she could look at his green eyes and messy brown hair.
A quiet sob wrenched itself through the phone, reaching Kait's and Don's ears, raising their pulses as they feared the worst, that the Foot had gotten ahold of Milo again.
If only it had been that.
"It's Greg." Milo sobbed out, his voice breaking and cracking with every shaky breath.
"What about Greg?" Kait asked, even more concerned than she had been a moment before. The Foot had gone after her brother before as well to send her a message.
Another painful sob came through the phone. "They killed him, Kait! They killed him!"
"What are you talking about, Milo?" Kait was panicked now, her heart thundering in her chest as she looked desperately at Don, as if he could protect her somehow from the news she could feel was coming.
"Those people that took me, the ones that hurt him, they killed him!" Milo was crying again. "The base, they…they called me. Apparently you and I were both his next of kin. They told me that Greg…that Greg had been found dead in the barracks." He paused to try and take a full breath. "They told me he had been murdered!"
Tears were streaming freely down Kait's face as she utterly collapsed into Don's arms, shaking with sobs of her own. Don's heart broke, despite his hatred of his love's brother, as he held her close, trying to rock her back and forth.
"Milo," Don stepped into the conversation. "How do they know he was murdered?" he asked as calmly as he could, hoping that it hadn't actually been the Foot.
Milo couldn't speak for a few moments because of his tears. "They said that he…he had been cut to pieces, like someone had just cut and cut away at him." His voice was stolen again by tears. "But there were guys two feet away from him and they didn't hear a thing!"
"We'll get them, Milo." Don promised before he ended the call, putting the phone down and pulling Kait completely into his lap.
"Shhhh, baby." He whispered, kissing her head and holding her close.
Her sobs, however, would not be quieted. "They killed my brother, Don." Her voice was quiet, broken. "They killed my brother!" she shouted before she fell against his shoulder, throwing a fit as her arms and useless hands flailed against Don's arms, chest, and shell, trying to get away from him, but he would not let her go.
He let her hit against him for a few minutes before she stilled, the fight out of her. She continued to cry as he lifted her off the bed, putting her in the rocking chair in their room and kneeling in front of her, his hands on her waist and his eyes on hers. Her red-rimmed and puffy hazel eyes, still leaking salty tears, looked down at him with pure pain, more pain then when he had seen her nailed to the crucifix.
"We will get them for this, Kaitlynn. We will get them for what they did to Greg. I promise." He reached up to gently wipe the tears off her cheeks. "When do you want to tell the others?" Don asked her quietly, gently taking ahold of her motionless hands.
"Now." She whispered, the conviction in her voice startling Don as he stood, helping her out of the chair and giving her support down the stairs to talk to the rest of the family.
There was more pain and anger on their faces than Kat could have ever imagined. Even Emily was immensely angered that they had taken Kait's brother from her. But then again, she too had had loved ones murdered by the Foot just to send a message. Emily actually crossed to the other woman and rested her hand on her back, giving her a reassuring half hug. Don was grateful to see that at least the hardship had forged ties between the two women.
"What should we do?" Mikey asked, his voice small and nervous as he looked to his older brothers and father.
All eyes turned to Splinter, knowing in their hearts they wanted revenge, pure and simple, but Splinter would show them the best way to do it. "We thwart them." He murmured, even his Zen-like constitution shaken by the news of Greg's death. "We become the thorn in their side that is buried too deep to ever be pulled out. We have the skill and the patience to pull apart their empire strike my strike, shipment by shipment, all the while protecting ourselves and our families. We will not back down into silence like they expect. They underestimate us."
The whole family, Kait and Emily included, nodded at Splinter's deceptively calm words. Though spoken in his usual slow and rhythmic voice, they were clearly a call to arms against the Foot, urging the family to begin their last stand against the tyranny that they gang had held for so long on their city and their lives.
"We go back to our home tomorrow. We return to the sewers in secret, to plan. When we are ready, and only when we are truly ready, we will strike from where they will never expect it, and then vanish before they even realize it was we who attacked." With a slow nod, he lit the fuse of every fighter in the room, he gave them the spark needed to drive their determined engines forward, returning to the life most of them thought they had put behind them.
"Before we start fightin' again." Raph murmured, stealing the silence from the room. He reached out and took Emily gently by the hand. "Emily 'n I want ta make it official. Well, as official as we can. We know we can never be legally married, what wit' me bein' what I am, but it's the vows 'n such that really matter. Casey found the words ta say, so he'll be runnin' the thing."
There was a quiet round of applause within the family, the sad moment brightened slightly by the good news. Even Kait forced a smile through her tears. She was almost numb at that point, the pain of Greg's murder freezing her brain and heart seemingly mid breath.
"Don told me these were your parents'." Emily piped up, giving Kait a small smirk and holding up her left hand, decorated with the small diamond ring. "Thank you."
Kait returned the small smile. "You're welcome. I'm just glad an actually loving couple can enjoy them."
Emily gave her an understanding nod, knowing what it felt like to come from a dysfunctional family.
Within a few minutes, Leo was on the phone with Casey, coordinating a way to sneak the family back into the city. Within the hour, the family was beginning to pack up the belongings that they had brought with them. They were traveling back that weekend, meaning they only had a few days left in the farm house.
The night before the travel back into the city, Kait watched uselessly as Don folded up her clothes and put them back in her suitcase, working quickly and silently through the task. He hadn't said much to her in the days since Milo's call, thinking she wanted time to herself to digest what happened to Greg, what the Foot had done to her family.
"Do you think you'd ever want what's going on with Raph?" Her quiet question caught him off guard.
His head swiveled to her, looking at her small, curled in body for a few moments. "What?" His voice catching in his throat for a moment.
"A wife." A blush began working up Kait's neck and cheeks. "I'm not saying me, but maybe some other girl who is less accident prone and doesn't put you through so much…"
"Kait." Don's calm voice stopped her nervous tirade as he crossed the room to kneel in front of her. When she was calm and quiet he took a slow breath, steeling himself for his confession. "Yes, Kait, I want that someday. I want to have a woman that I can spend my life with, be with in every way possible. Even though I can't have one, I even want a family of my own. But we know that none of us can have children." He looked up at her hazel eyes for a moment before playing with her motionless hands. "But I want that with you, Kaitlynn. I want you here with me forever, where I can love you and protect you and cherish you. But I know that this is too early, and that you probably don't wanna spend the rest of your life with something like me, knowing how little I can really give you. I…"
Kait took her turn to shut Don up with a gentle but emotional kiss on his lips, throwing her arms around his neck. "I love you." She whispered between kisses. "I love you." Peck. "I love you." Peck. "I love you!" She giggled a little as she pulled back to look at his startled chocolate eyes. "The Foot may have crushed my heart by taking Greg away from me, but they made me see that I have so little time, so little chances to live and to love. I threw away my chances with Greg too many times. I'm not letting you slip by either."
Don smiled, his eyes bright. "So what does this mean, Kait?" he asked bashfully, holding her tight around the waist.
"I believe this means we're going steady. A committed relationship to each other with the future in our game plan." She watched his face to gauge his reaction.
When Don seemed to approve of that idea, Kait tucked her head against his shoulder. Slowly, cautiously, she reached her hand up to his cheek and took a deep breath, concentrating on the fingers of her left hand. Slowly, jerkily, her fingers began to partially curl, cupping his cheek. With another moment of concentration, her thumb grazed slowly back and forth across his cheek.
AN: Another chapter closer to the end!
There is honestly only about two more chapters left on this monstrosity. And then I will be passing the torch onto Random Review the 2nd. The torch is very well off, trust me.
In the meantime, this chapter was full of terrible news and good news, much like life itself Good thing and bad things often come together to try and balance each other. But this chapter still didn't wanna come out, so I'm not that happy with it. Oh well, not much I can do.
As always, questions, comments, and concerns are always welcome.
Sincerely,
C M
idkaname