Funny, that the moment I decided I'd update, FFN decided to lock the door on everyone's accounts. *shrug* This is why I carry a distaste for technology and all its imperfections. Also...turtle luck :P But anyhow, we're all back, the world still turns, and you get two chapters this time :) Have fun! And let me know what you think.

It could have been perfect.

It could have been a change that brought true betterment to their family, tied them closer together, encouraged them to open their minds to more possibilities than living their entire lives cooped up in the sewers with only the four of them and their sensei. It could have been fun. It could have been a change that brought Leo real peace and contentment for the first time in months. But no, and why?

Because Raphael could never allow anything to be easy.

They were going on weeks now that Karai had made herself comfortable in their home and Raph still went as stiff as a board when she walked into the room. He still removed himself from the equation when they tried to eat together, or watch a movie together, or play a game together. Anything that wasn't training and might've involved both him and Karai, he bowed out of. Instead of kicking Mikey out of his seat at the table, he took his plate to his room. Rather than nearly decapitating everyone with pillows to force his right to pick the movie, he curled in on himself in the darkest corner of the common room and pretended none of them were there. And forget about him rolling those green eyes of his in that exasperated, yet secretly interested, way he did when one of his brothers suggested a board game. The last time they'd volunteered Mikey to try to persuade him to join in on Scene It! Raph had completely turned a cold shoulder on him.

Leo wanted to enjoy the fact that Karai was with them, that she was a part of the family, that she was safe and happy and could finally enjoy herself—honestly he did. But that stubborn, tantrum-throwing, wall-building, red-banded, antisocial child that he called a brother was ruining everything.

And it wasn't that Raph ever followed up on directly reiterating to Karai that he didn't like her. In fact, as far as Leo knew, he hadn't said another word to her, nor to Leo himself for that matter, and this pissed him off even more. So much so in fact that he found himself spending less and less time bothering with Raph and more time ranting to Donnie every moment that he could—pacing, whining, and kicking things around so often that Donnie had started to leave empty cardboard boxes lying in very convenient spots around the lab.

"It's completely unfair," Leo said after punting a box clear across the room. "He's acting like he's ten years old or something. I mean, what does he expect her to do? Do we have to ask her to pack her stuff and take a hike because he's uncomfortable?"

Donnie said nothing for a moment. He seemed far too enveloped in his repairs on the Patrol Buggy. But, of course, Leo knew better than to assume Donnie wasn't listening. Donnie always listened. It was simply a matter of stealing a greater percentage of his attention away from his current project.

"Can you hand me the torque wrench?" he said from the floor, blindly reaching out a grease-smeared hand as he kept the other under the belly of the buggy and continued to tug at its parts with a concentrated furrow to his brow, tongue poking out.

Leo strolled closer and crouched by the toolbox that had made it about two feet out of Donnie's reach. He plucked out the first instrument that he thought might've been some form of a wrench. "This one?"

Donnie glanced at it. "Exactly, but smaller."

Leo pursed his lips and dug around before pulling out a smaller version of the first tool and slapped it in his brother's open palm. Don muttered a thanks and twisted his face into a grimace as he worked to loosen something beneath the buggy.

"Are you sure this is about Karai?" he grunted after a moment.

Leo blinked and shot a bewildered gaze at his brother who completely missed it. "What do you mean?"

"Well," Donnie said, successfully yanking free a bolt and setting it on the floor next to him. "I think—and I'm speaking mostly from observational knowledge of certain habitual tendencies—you and Raph have a very particular way of reacting to one another."

Leo furrowed a brow, watching his brother's muscles tense again as he attacked another bolt. "You're gonna have to elaborate, Don."

Donnie tugged the second bolt free much quicker this time and sat up to lean his shell back against the buggy. He picked up a grimy rag and one of the bolts and began wiping it down. "What I mean is that you and Raph share a symbiotic bond, of sorts. So, say everything's running smoothly, everything's going great—you're happy. Ninety-seven percent probability says, Raph's going to be happy too. And, quite oppositely, if something is rubbing Raph the wrong way—like in this particular instance—of course, you're going to be struggling to find a sense of peace. I genuinely think, right now, you simply miss his smile."

Leo blinked. "I'm sorry?"

Donnie gave a nonchalant shrug. "You want Raph to like Karai right?"

"Yeah."

"Why?"

Leo's gaze shifted as he mulled this over, but when he remained silent, Donnie filled in the gap.

"Is it because you think she deserves to be liked? Or because you want Raph to be at ease with her around?"

Leo blinked and looked back at his brother with a troubled gaze. Donatello smiled and said nothing as he returned to his work.

It was a puzzle, and an infuriating one at that, so much so that he decided to just forget it. Forget Raph and his attitude and his refusal to be nice for once. Leo didn't have to feel guilty. He didn't have to feel tied down. He had a choice and Raph himself had given him that choice, promising that he wouldn't put up a fight. So why shouldn't Leo do what he wanted? On the forefront, he couldn't see a reason. So he pried his red-banded brother away from his focus the way one might rip a price tag off of a gift. And instead, he resolved to focus on the person he should have been paying attention to.

"There are vending machines everywhere. As long as you've got money on you, you'll never starve or go thirsty. And there are the standard ones that spit out sodas, or waters, or chips, but there are also some you can get alcohol from. And there was one right around the corner from where I lived that had eggs."

"You're kidding."

"I'm not. Oh, and I've still yet to have sushi here that even compares to what they have in Japan. I've had better sushi from a convenience store there than I've had at some of the nicer restaurants like a block away."

He chuckled. "Well, that's a given."

"The bullet train is way faster than subways and feels a lot more convenient, to be honest. There are power lines everywhere, but you kind of get used to them and after a while they're almost unnoticeable. But the temples and castles are amazing. My favorite is the Osu Kannon temple in Nagoya, mostly because of the color. There are festivals for everything. There's at least one every month. And I haven't decided whether or not I like it best in the fall or spring. The colors of the leaves in autumn are beautiful, especially set against the mountains. But when the cherry blossoms bloom in the spring, there's just nothing to compare it to."

He smiled, staring up at the ceiling as he painted a picture of all of this. They were in her room, lying on their backs shoulder to shoulder, Leo with one hand behind his head on the pillow they were sharing. He wasn't sure what time it was, only that he knew it was late and they'd already been talking for a good two hours. He couldn't believe all the places she'd been, but had to admit to himself, so far, Japan sounded like the most compelling place to be. Though, he wasn't sure how much influence his sensei already had on his opinion.

"Do you miss it?" he asked.

"Sometimes," she admitted with a shrug. "There are things about the country and the culture itself that I miss, but I had nothing there to leave behind. And it's interesting here."

He smirked. "Interesting?"

"Well, I didn't exactly run into mutants and aliens on a day-to-day basis when I was in Japan. Though, I won't lie, there were some pretty off-the-wall people. I think you'd love it."

He nodded. "I'm sure I would."

They were silent for a moment before she spoke again. "What else do you want to do?" she asked, turning her face toward him. "Like if you could do anything or go anywhere you wanted to, what would you do and where would you go?"

A smile crept up on the corner of his mouth, but he shook his head against the thought. "It's embarrassing."

She scoffed. "You should wake up embarrassed," she teased. "Come on, tell me."

He sighed and pressed his lips together, then closed his eyes. "Don't laugh, okay?"

"You have my word."

"Okay. I've always wanted …" He stopped, sighed again, and turned to look at her. "It's stupid."

"Leo, come on. If you don't cough it up, I'll beat it out of you."

"Is that a threat or a promise?"

Her grin turned up, but she said nothing.

"Times Square."

She raised a brow.

He pulled in a breath and relaxed his shell into the floor as he exhaled. "I want to go to Times Square, in the middle of the day, and just stand there." He turned his gaze back toward the ceiling, aware of her eyes on the side of his face. "And fly in an airplane. And I do want to go to Japan, to see where Splinter grew up. I want to know what cherry blossoms smell like. And I want to go to a supermarket—"

"A supermarket?" she said. "What the hell for?"

"I've heard there's many ways to entertain yourself at a Walmart."

She snorted. "Yeah, only because people have nothing better to do with their lives."

He continued to smile. "But it'd be nice to have that choice in a moment of boredom, you know? When we get bored here, during the day, there's nothing to do except get on each other's nerves. At least in a Walmart you can walk around and annoy other people."

"I never took you for the type that enjoys pushing buttons."

"Well no." He shrugged. "But Raph and Mikey would enjoy it, I think."

"Yeah. What else?"

He shifted. "I want to live in a house, like with windows and a porch or something. And wear shoes …" He peeked down at his feet and the stained, frayed wrappings encasing them. He waved them back and forth a couple of times as though to greet himself, then looked back at the ceiling. "Just so I can take them off before I walk into a room." He took another breath, but then went quiet again.

"What?"

He could feel the familiar sensation of blood rushing to his cheeks. It burned his skin, whilst somehow simultaneously making the air either too thick or too thin to breathe normally. "Well … It'd be nice if …"

"If what?"

He sighed. "If I met someone that, I dunno …" He shrugged. "Someone that could maybe overlook what I am and possibly … love me." With this he glanced at her, but she was still staring at the ceiling, her expression perfectly composed.

"All of that is so simple."

His stomach dropped, but he nodded, turning his gaze straight again.

"Kind of ironic," she went on, "with all the stuff you get to do -fighting aliens and chasing down mutants and running around New York City every night leaping off of buildings - and you just want to wear shoes and stand in the middle of Times Square."

The corner of his lips pulled downward and he could feel himself trying to shrink into his shell. "I told you it was stupid."

"It's not," she said. "In fact, it's sensible. So much so that, to be honest, it's a little sad."

He nodded. "Freedom is a limited concept."

She was silent while thinking about this. "You know what's funny though?"

"What?"

"All that time I spent with the Foot Clan, basically going wherever I wanted and doing whatever I wanted, so long as it didn't get in my—in the Shredder's way, and/or so long as it benefited his whole vendetta thing, I never had as much fun as I've had here with you and your brothers."

A tiny smile lifted in the very corner of his mouth, one he didn't recognize in his own expression. "One is a lonely number."

However, that very same smile dropped as his own words repeated themselves in his mind. He shifted his gaze sideways, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye. She was still staring at the ceiling. "Can I ask you a personal question?"

Her honeyed eyes turned toward him and she cocked a grin. "Go for it."

He could feel the blush blooming in full across his cheeks and hoped she wouldn't notice through the shadows. "Well, I was wondering—I mean, I was just kind of curious, if you - if you've ever had ... a boyfriend."

She laughed, a very natural, very uncensored laugh that made his throat tighten.

"I'm sorry." She giggled. "I just had a thought. Could you imagine me bringing home a boy and introducing him to the Shredder?" She laughed some more and then wiped joyous tears from her eyes with a sigh. "The answer is no, I haven't."

His brow perked up. "Really?"

She shrugged. "I was never really the type of girl to form relationships. I mean, look at the man who raised me."

"Shredder loved Tang Shen," he said, rather sickened by the fact that, in some twisted context, he was defending his father's sworn enemy.

"He was also a psychopath and the one that killed her."

Leo pressed his lips together to keep from saying anything else potentially stupid.

"I mean, Splinter loved my mother too, but neither of them got what they wanted in the end so what's the point of it?" She turned her head to face him directly, honest indifference shimmering in her eyes.

His insides knotted. "Well," he said. "I mean, Splinter did get you out of it. They both did, in a way."

She stared at him, her expression unreadable but not quite satisfied.

Leo took a shaky breath and continued. "Sensei says that love is the thing that holds us together, gives us something to fight for, and without it we would have no purpose."

At this her eyes finally shifted, as though truly in contemplation of this idea. A tiny flicker of hope began to spark in the center of his chest just beneath his plastron. He decided to reach out into the fog, and hope that he caught something.

"Maybe that's why you were ... unsatisfied when you were with the Shredder."

"Maybe," she said, eyes distant and unseeing.

He watched her as she stared off to the side for a while. Then his eyes traveled across her face to her peach-colored lips, remembering how they used to be red, ogling over the shape of them, her upper lip thinner than her bottom one, and the way they so blatantly stood out on her face just above her chin. They looked soft, inviting, especially whenever they curled up into that taunting smirk of hers. He wondered briefly if she ever spent time practicing that smirk or if it just came to her naturally, or whether or not she was aware of the way it looked on her. He wondered what she tasted like. Was there a taste to humans when they were kissed? He thought back over all the TV shows and romantic comedies he'd ever watched and tried to recall whether or not at least one of them mentioned the taste.

His heart beat a little faster.

"Were you lonely?" he asked suddenly, as though his voice and brain were somehow working out of sync.

She looked back at him with a nexus of complexities behind the very first layer of her hazel gaze, complexities he feared he'd never understand. "No."

"BS."

She cocked an eyebrow and smirked but said nothing.

"You don't have to be anymore, you know," he said, trying not to allow the nerves to escape through his voice. "Lonely, I mean."

She hiccuped a chuckle. "I'm aware. Pretty much everyone here has made that painfully clear."

"Sorry. They can be overwhelming at the best of times."

She shook her head. "I don't mind it as much as you'd think."

He couldn't speak anymore; he had no idea what to say. So he lay there on his side now, staring at her as she stared back at him, both with eyes unblinking. And he was amazed that she couldn't hear his heart beating.

Her nose twitched, just the slightest bit—a motion hardly even noticeable. But it was suddenly intensely endearing for some reason. And he felt his muscles move before he could really stop to consider how many lines he was crossing. He simply wasn't thinking this time when he pushed himself forward and pressed his lips against hers. But he certainly wished he had been.

She pulled away immediately, hardly even giving him a moment to process what a kiss really felt like. And the half-astonished, half-repulsed look on her face made him regret it instantly.

They turned away from each other at the same time, both sitting up and facing the opposite direction, both speaking over one another in a fluster of words.

"Leo …"

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean …"

"I like you. I do, but …"

"… wasn't thinking …"

"I just don't think that …"

"I mean, I kind of like …"

"… because it's just …"

"… since we met and it's …"

"Weird."

He blinked, stopping midsentence, and turned to stare at her.

They had somehow gotten to standing now, a considerable distance away from one another, Karai with her arms loosely wrapped around her torso and her eyes heavy on him, with maybe a hint of remorse. The kind of look people give when they feel bad that their decision has stolen something, yet they're sure they won't change their mind.

His heart, still beating quickly, now felt like an iron ball hitting his plastron from the inside, and a shard of it had managed to get lodged in his throat.

"Weird?" he croaked, shuffling a step back as tingling waves of rejection ripped through his skin with a fine heat. He felt his hand clench in a fist and was hyperaware of it hovering over his stomach—three-fingers, cold sweat and all.

Karai sighed, now gazing at him out of flat pity. His stomach turned.

"Leo, I told you. I'm not that type of girl. And …" She glanced down once and when she looked back she never took her eyes from him again. "I know I've probably led you on a few times in the past. And I'm sorry for that."

He grimaced and looked away, but she continued.

"It's just—I mean, it was really easy, Leo. And at the time there were things I needed from you. I was just doing what I was taught …" She broke off for a brief moment as a wave of sorrow cut through her voice. But she seemed to swallow it back down effortlessly and went on. "Really, Leo, I am sorry. And I don't want you to think I don't care about you, because I do. You're extremely important to me. It's just that … I mean, you're …"

He looked back at her finally, breath shortened, but at this point he wasn't trying to reel it back in either. He furrowed his brow at her. She was gesturing to him … That was all he needed to understand.

An immediate sting came to his eyes and he backed away, his fist unfurling to cover the spot on his plastron were his heart resided just beneath, as though protecting him from any more blows that might befall it.

"A mutant," he whispered, finishing her sentence, though he hadn't meant to think so verbally.

Her head shook. "No, Leo, that's not what I meant. I mean … It's not that—"

He realized very suddenly that he didn't want to hear the rest, that none of it mattered because it wouldn't erase away the look she'd just give him. So he cut her off with a stiff bow, arms anchored by his sides.

"I apologize," he said formally, ripping all emotion from his voice. "I did not mean to take advantage of you in any way. I'll leave now."

"Leo …"

He'd already straightened his spine and turned and was closing the divider behind him before she could call out his name again.

She didn't follow him out, and he was glad. But he walked swiftly across the lair and into the shadows of the archway leading to his and his brothers' rooms before he stopped and looked back, allowing the breath he'd been holding to escape him in a particularly loud and pained kind of gasp. He cupped a hand over his mouth and squinted through his blurred vision, trying not to feel how heavy his pulse still was, now having traveled up to his ears.

He turned away from the direction of Karai's room and skirted back through the common room toward Donnie's lab, wasting no time in closing himself in the room and then turning to find his younger brother slouched over his desk asleep, his cheek pressed against a scatter of marked papers and a pencil lying slack in his half-opened hand.

Leo swallowed, subdued by the scene. He couldn't wake Donnie. Donnie deserved sleep, and it was a rare thing to find him like this.

He crossed the lab, knees trembling beneath him. They always kept extra blankets stashed away in the lab for occasions such as these. Leo dug one out and draped it over his brother's shoulders, tucking the corners around him to make sure it wouldn't slide off his shell if he moved. He brushed a hand across the top of his brother's head and then left before the blur could overwhelm his vision.