Mei rose early.
She had woken from horrific nightmares of Shredder whispering in her ear, telling her that he owned her and that she would never be free. She reached for her sai upon waking, but her casted arm reminded her that she was not supposed to be making sudden movements.
They're just aftershocks, she told herself. They'll pass eventually.
But considering that even after fifteen years, she had occasional nightmares before falling into Shredder's clutches again, she found herself doubting that her sleep would ever be peaceful again.
Despite warnings not to move herself to her wheelchair for another week or so, the thought of staying in bed until April came made her shudder. After the nightmare, bed seemed like the least safe place she could possibly be.
She painfully dressed herself, grabbed her laptop and some of the research that she was working on for Donnie, and set up camp at the dining room table. Well, it wasn't so much a dining room as a dining area, but she had always thought of it as a dining room. She sometimes wished that it was in the kitchen, so that she didn't have to wheel herself back and forth so much.
Thinking of a kitchen table, of course, made her think of the table standing in a kitchen a few miles away, deep underground. It had only been two days since their pizza dinner, but Mei already missed her family dearly. The short amount of time that she had lived there had been so happy. She had finally started to find balance.
She desperately wished that she could walk, so that she could go to her strange, smelly new home. She never thought she would actually miss that peculiar – and sometimes downright repulsive – odor. But she did miss it, because she had come to associate it with love and safety.
She took her new cell phone out of her pocket and went to her contacts list. She scrolled down past her co-workers and other contacts until she reached the 'H' section, where five names looked back at her. She almost tapped on Hamato Yoshi (Splinter) when she hesitated. Did she really want to bother him? Usually, that ridiculous cheese phone – who said Donatello didn't have a sense of humor – was reserved for emergencies. She didn't want to panic him, after all. Besides, he might have been training the boys.
Then again, when he had called her the other day, describing the fiasco with Miwa, he had seemed so downcast. Maybe he needed to talk to someone as much as she did right now.
There was a tap at the window.
Mei jumped. The sudden motion made her gasp at the pain that shot through her still-recovering bones and muscles. She was surprised that somebody would risk coming here in daylight, but since the sun was still peeking over the horizon, it wasn't as risky, perhaps. She wheeled herself over to the window and peeked out through the blinds.
Karai perched on the fire escape.
Mei hesitated. She had trusted Karai before, despite her better judgment. While she didn't blame Karai for what she did, while she had forgiven her for it, in light of recent events, Mei wasn't sure what to think.
She was fairly certain that Miwa – Karai – was actually on their side. What she wasn't sure of is that Karai would act with everyone's best interests in mind.
Mei reached up to unlock the window and struggled to open it for a minute. She could only manage to open it a crack. Fortunately, Karai slipped her fingers through the gap and opened it the rest of the way, then crawled inside.
"Ohayō, Karai," Mei said. "What brings you here today?"
Karai stared at her for a moment. Without so much as a good morning in return, she asked, "What was my mother like?"
The question startled Mei. "Why don't you sit down? I'd offer you tea, but…"
"I can make it," Karai said. "Where's your kettle?" She walked into the kitchen and started opening cabinets like she owned the place.
Mei told her where all of her tea things were, and watched as Karai went about setting the water to boil.
Karai closely examined the variety of teas that Mei had. "What was her favorite tea?"
"She liked oolong best," Mei said. "She always said that green tea was too grassy and black tea was too bitter."
Karai pulled out the canister of oolong tea from Mei's cabinet and started measuring it into tea balls. Mei felt a pang of sadness. Growing up alone with that man it was a wonder that Karai had any soul left at all, yet here she was, trying to connect with her lost mother as much as possible.
Whether it was genuine love and curiosity or a twisted obsession, however, remained to be seen.
Soon, the tea was ready, and the two of them went over to the seating area. Karai looked at the wall of weapons. "They're beautiful."
"Thank you."
"So…were you and Mother disciples of ninjutsu?"
"Not really." Mei took a sip of tea. "We weren't part of any ninja clan. Though our father did hire a man to teach us a little jujutsu, and we were both interested in the tessen. It wasn't until after…after things happened that I studied martial arts in more detail."
Karai stared into her teacup. "April's tessen. That was my mother's, wasn't it?"
"Yes."
Karai nodded.
Mei tried to make sense of the expression on Karai's face. It was stony and cold, the face of a kunoichi in combat, betraying no emotion whatsoever. "Are you jealous?"
"No. Yes. Maybe." Karai took a tiny slurp from her tea. "She deserves it more than I do."
"Are you jealous of the fact that she has the tessen, or the fact that she deserves it?"
"I don't know. How did my mother meet Splinter?"
"Why don't you ask him?"
"He…it's that…I spent my whole life thinking that he was my enemy, that he was the reason she was dead. I want to be able to talk to him, but it's so hard. With you, I didn't even know you existed until recently, so I guess…it's easier."
"I know what you mean. For years, I was convinced that all of this – whole mess – was Splinter's fault. That if it hadn't been for him, Shredder would never had come for me. If it hadn't been for him, Tang Shen wouldn't have been a casualty in their fight. I believed that with all of my heart. Do you know why?"
Karai looked up from her tea.
"It was because the Shredder told me it was. Over and over again, that man lied to me, telling me that it was actually Splinter's fault. And eventually, after it was repeated enough times…I believed it. After I found out that Splinter was alive, and started talking to him again, I learned that he blamed himself, too. And that was when I realized that all of us were blaming the wrong person. It was Oroku Saki all along who deserved the blame."
"I know that," Karai said. "I see that. I believe it. But I don't feel it."
"It was easier for me." Mei set down her teacup. "I knew Splinter before. I had seen how happy he made my sister, and I knew that he was capable of kindness. I had that to fall back on. You don't have anything, though, and that makes it harder."
Karai was silent for a moment. "So, he made Mother happy?"
"Very much so. She liked him from the time we were all in elementary school together. It wasn't until the last year of high school that they actually became involved, though. By that time, I was already married to Kenshin."
"Really? But are you that much older than mother?"
"Only a year and a half, actually. I married at nineteen."
"And Mother and Splinter?"
"They waited a little longer. They were both right around twenty-three."
"So…how did they meet?"
"We actually both met him at the same time. We were new to the school, and one of the students was making fun of us for our heritage. Splinter came over to us" – Mei laughed at the memory – "and he punched that student right in the face. From that moment, I think, Shen was rather taken with him."
As Mei told various stories of their childhood together, she gauged Karai's reactions. Any time that Mei mentioned the Shredder, Karai visibly tensed, but the rest of the time, she was as impassive as ever. They had been there for at least an hour when there was the sound of keys jingling at the door.
Karai jumped at the sound.
"It's April," Mei said softly. "She helps me get up in the morning. Usually."
"I should leave," Karai said. She stood up and started over to the window.
April walked in. She started when she saw that Mei was already up. "Mei! And…Karai?"
"I was just leaving," Karai said curtly.
"You don't have to," April said.
"Have you talked to Leo lately?"
"Yeah, after training yesterday."
"And you don't want me to leave?"
April shut the door behind her and dropped the keys on the table next to the door. "No. I only got his side of the story. I'd kind of like to have your side, too. Mikey seems to think your heart was in the right place."
"Mikey is an idiot. He'd believe anything."
Mei frowned. "That seems like a harsh thing to say about the one advocate you have. If you want us to trust you, maybe you shouldn't say things like that."
"Maybe you shouldn't trust me," Karai said, no longer impassive. Her face reddened.
"Karai, what you did, you did to help us, right?" April said. "But, you see where you went wrong, don't you?"
"I know why none of you trust me now. But I also know I made the right decision. Ronin is convinced of my loyalty, which is all that matters. Now we can set to work on tearing his precious clan apart. I'm sorry that the turtles got hurt, but I don't regret what I did. I will do whatever it takes to make this thing succeed."
"Look, Karai…it's great that you want to help Donnie, but I don't want to lose any of the other guys along the way."
"Oh, please. Leo would die in a second if he knew it would save Donatello."
"Maybe." April pushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear. "But he'd make sure that nobody else got hurt in the process. And it would be his decision. When you let his brothers get hurt, and you took that decision away from him…well…"
"Yeah, I know. He doesn't trust me, never will. Nothing will ever be the same now. I got that. Now, I have to go."
"Karai, wait," Mei said.
But Karai didn't wait. She simply let herself out through the window and vanished up the fire escape.
"Well, this is a big steaming mess," April said. "I haven't seen Leo scowl this much since…well, ever. And Master Splinter is so out of it, Mikey tagged him in training yesterday. Right in the face with his nunchuks. Actually, Mikey tagged everybody yesterday. He even beat Leo in one-on-one sparring. He's the only one who's not totally messed up about this."
"What about you? Are you 'messed up' about this?" Mei said.
"I don't know what to think. I think she's on our side, but, she's…she's dangerous, Mei."
"I agree."
April scowled. "You know what else is dangerous? Risking un-setting your fracture by trying to get into your wheelchair by yourself. Why didn't you call me?"
"Please, April, I'm a grown woman."
"Yeah, well, being a grown woman doesn't mean you won't make stupid mistakes."
"I wanted to look at some of the research from yesterday. I've found something really interesting."
April's whole demeanor changed. "What?"
"I was looking at those printouts of the mutagen and retro-mutagen molecules." Mei wheeled herself over to the table and pointed to the documents. "Look at this. Every chemical in the mutagen appears in the retro-mutagen, just in smaller quantities and bond pairs. Except…here. This cluster here in the mutagen molecule. Not one of these chemicals appears in the retro-mutagen. I'm thinking that they must be directly responsible as agents of change."
"I can't believe we missed that," April said. "How long have we been combing over this?"
"There is just so much to look at. Without the computer…it is just too hard."
There was a moment of silence, during which Mei's empty stomach complained loudly.
"Are you hungry?" April asked. "I'll make you a smoothie. I saw this recipe that has oatmeal in it…it's supposed to be really filling."
"Why not? As long as it's not a sushi smoothie."
April grinned.
As April walked into the kitchen, Mei sighed. This was indeed a big steaming mess, and not just the recent events with Karai. It seemed like every time they took a step in getting it cleaned up, it kept expanding.
Maybe it would never be resolved.
Maybe the aftershocks would go on forever and ever.