Elisa sat on the roof of the library. The wind was cold. The smell of burnt diesel, old garbage, and low tide each by themselves would turn up anyone's nose. But to her, it was almost a breath of fresh air. It was better than the smell of ash and dust.

She let her feet hang over the edge of the roof as she searched the sky. No point in looking up at the stars when the stars on the ground drowned out the heavens themselves. She was looking for something else in that sepia black.

She smiled when she saw it. She stood up, crossing her arms over her head and waving slowly as she backed away from the edge.

They landed, more lightly than they did the first few times they met on this rooftop. Elisa opened up her arms to them. "You're getting a lot better at that."

Brooklyn beamed, clasping her in a hug. "Yeah, well, the wind here's a lot colder than it is in Scotland. Made for some rough landings at first, but we'll learn to deal."

Goliath, Brooklyn, and Lexington stood on top of that roof. Goliath caped his wings, and nodded to her solemnly. "Good evening, Elisa." He hefted a bag that he'd been carrying in his hand, and deposited it in her arms. She slumped under its weight, and she lowered it to the ground.

"You enjoy those books I got you?" She asked.

"I have not yet finished reading Pride and Prejudice." Goliath shook his head.

"Did you get all the way through the first Dragonlance, or are you still working on it?" Elisa asked.

"It was imaginative." Goliath raised his brow ridge. "Although, the depiction of the Draconians made me feel… uncomfortable."

Elisa sucked in a breath. "Right… turn to stone and… yeah, you know what, that may have been a bad pick. I'll grab something a bit more classic, like Frankenstein."

"As long as you're still making library trips," Lexington piped up. "Could we ask for the next season of Star Trek?"

"You're already finished? I gave you the first season two days ago!" Elisa laughed. "You sure you aren't interested in Babylon 5?"

"We are!" Brooklyn said hurriedly. "But there are just so many amazing books and movies and TV shows that we've kind of had to make a list of the ones we want to see first, and we're going to try and go from there."

"Oh boy." Elisa shook her head. "I can't believe it. I've subjected you to the ultimate torture."

"What's that?" Brooklyn tilted his head.

"A never ending list." She smirked. "Trust me guys, there's about a thousand years of pop culture for you to catch up on, and all the good stuff has been in the past century." She set down the duffel bag of old VHS tapes and books, and kicked over a new one with her boot.

Brooklyn picked it up with ease, caping his wings and shouldering it. "Hey, thanks for this. I'm not sure how a library works, but these can't be easy for a human to carry around."

"It's fine. I only had to…" She trailed off, and rubbed the back of her head. "Figure out how to throw a rope up here so I could lift these onto the roof."

"Perhaps we should meet on the ground, instead of on top of the library." Goliath suggested.

"No way. With how fast your claws tear up brick, we wouldn't have a wall to stand on before long. This is fine, we can keep doing this." Elisa said quickly. "Besides, it's free exercise."

Lexington bit his lip. "So… what's new with you?" He asked.

Elisa found that she'd let her guard slip. Lexington saw this and crossed his arms. He gave her a look. She didn't sigh or show any other sign of displeasure. But she did shrink away from his gaze. "Just family stuff." She said impassively. "I'll deal."

"Family stuff?" Brooklyn seemed concerned. "We figured you had a family, but you never mentioned anything about them."

Elisa looked away. "Like I said, I'll deal."

Goliath narrowed his eyes. "What does 'dealing' look like? From your perspective."

What an odd question. "I… I guess it looks like moving on like nothing happened."

"Ignoring reality is not 'dealing' with it." Goliath looked down at her. "It is no different than ignoring a mortal wound or a deadly illness."

Elisa deflated. "No hiding things from you, is there?"

"Unfortunately." Goliath uncaped his wings, sitting on the ground and crossing his legs. "You've been kind enough to help my clan. If we can help yours–"

"That's sweet of you." Elisa held up her hands. Her face fell. "But there are some things you just can't really help." She sat down next to him. "You're not my therapists, you're my friends. Which is exactly why I didn't want to say anything about this. It isn't right of me to dump that on you, especially when you have your own thing going on."

"We asked." Lexington pointed out, stretching out an arm. "The exact same way that you asked when we told you about what happened to us. Fair is fair, and we're here for each other. You're not a burden, Elisa."

Elisa caught a glimpse of Lexington's arm, and a tiny mark in the crook of his elbow. She squinted at it. "Lex, what's that?" She pointed.

"Oh, this?" Lex straightened out his elbow. "Xanatos said that since we're the last of our species, keeping our health is important. At least until we can make sure there are no other gargoyles left. He said that he needed it for a blood test."

"Yeah, he did it to all of us." Brooklyn showed her his arm too, holding up fingers and listing off the tests like they were a grocery list. "He had us do all kinds of funny things, like fly laps around the tower, climbs and stoops, lift really heavy weights, run on a mechanical track…"

Elisa looked thoroughly confused. "Xanatos is making you do what?"

"I do not like it any more than you do." Goliath ruffled his wings. "We are still wary. But? The physiks of this era are wiser and more subtle than they ever were in our own time. If they can cure and prevent grave diseases that threaten my clan, then I will consent to their examinations."

"A physik?" Elisa asked. "You mean a doctor, right? I have an annual physical every year. But that's just a blood draw and a questionnaire, not… whatever hoops he's making you jump through."

"It's to keep us safe." Brooklyn shrugged. "Xanatos wouldn't hurt us. After all, he saved us."

"You sound more like you're trying to convince yourself than convince me." Elisa pointed out.

Brooklyn grumbled. She had a point.

"I gotta go," Elisa shouldered the bag of old tapes and books with some difficulty. "I need to return these by midnight, and I still have paperwork to finish. Same time tomorrow?"

"Of course!" Lex exclaimed. "It's a shame you can't come and watch these movies with us."

Elisa chuckled. "Well, I'll tell you what. I have the night off tomorrow. You can come by my apartment, and we can start watching Xena or Babylon 5 or something together. Maybe I'll introduce you to Casablanca."

"Broadway will love that!" Brooklyn smiled. "He seems to really like the really old movies."

The wind picked up again, and Brooklyn and Goliath perched at the edge of the building. Lexington scaled Goliath like a little monkey, hanging onto his shoulder. He waved to her. "See you later, Elisa! Thanks for the new movies!"

She waved. "See you guys later!"

They opened their wings, tacking into the breeze and letting the air fill their wing membranes. It peeled them off the rooftop like a pair of umbrellas in a stiff wind. Once they were high enough, Lexington dropped off of Goliath's shoulder, arms spread wide to kite off of his wake.

She watched them disappear into tiny black specks in the distance.

Miles away, someone else stared up at the sky. Not from a roof, but from somewhere deep belowground.

Leonardo's face, broken up by the shadows of the sewer grate bars, was upturned towards a sky just out of reach. A lonely trickle of water, a rivulet winding its way down the curb, filtered through, babbling and murmuring on its course to the cistern. Algae and moss grew on the wall beneath the grate like a verdant, vertical garden of ferns and fungus. The fertile smells of rot, decay, and old things pervaded the air like an invisible blanket.

He sat on a plastic stool, swords sheathed on his back as he just sat and took it in.

He let himself slip into an easy pattern of breathing. In, hold, out, hold. Overhead, the sound of cars whooshing by, horns honking, brakes squealing, engines backfiring, sirens howling were all drowned out by the sound of water. He let his mind, his soul, his thoughts merge with the sound of the trickle through the grate.

At least, he tried.

It was like he had his foot caught in a door, like he was tugging on something chaining him to the wall. Meditation used to come so easily to him. All it took was a breath, and he was gone. In his memory it was a beautiful, transcendent moment, and he felt like his wings had been clipped. The more he struggled to free himself from his thoughts, the more they persisted. The more he tried to let go, the more his memories clung to him, like tar.

He stood up, and whimpered a bit when he tried to put weight on his left knee. He had to hop awkwardly to the wall, burying his fingers in the moss, letting the water trickle over his arm while the circulation worked its way back into his joints. Experimentally, he moved his foot back and forth, letting his heel and toes skate across the top of the murky water.

"Dammit, Leon." He sighed.

He paced back and forth until he got his legs under him again, soft brace hugging his knee gently. There was a fresh coat of sealant over the cracks in his shell. He was pretty sure they'd long since sealed on their own, but neither he nor Dr. Donnie wanted to take the chance at another infection seeping in. In the faint light, if someone were to stand behind him, they would be able to see what was written on his shell.

In blue paint, on his left shoulder, was one kanji. In wire, holding part of his very skeleton together, was another. It had been an odd coincidence that Mikey had pointed out one night, back in July.

"Dude." Mikey grabbed his shoulder. "Hang on a sec!"

Leo turned, looking at him with a tired glare. "What do you want?"

"I don't want your face, I want your shell! Turn around!"

Confused and bewildered, Leonardo had done what Michelangelo had asked. He took the blue jar of acrylic paint off of the farmhouse table–leftover from his attempts at illustrating the landscape–and dipped a finger in it. Leo felt the finger tracing something on his shoulder, the paint cold.

"Michelangelo, if you're drawing a dick on my shoulder–"

"Nah, chill man. Trust me!" Mikey beamed.

Leo put his hand over the mark. It had been annoying in the moment. Mikey's whimsy was rarely gratifying for anyone but himself. But it had been a rare moment of wisdom in his foolishness.

Leonardo looked at his back in the mirror. '変化' was what it read.

"Henka?" Leo raised his eyebrow.

"The brace looked just like 'ka', so I decided to add to it!" Michelangelo grinned. "Pretty sweet, right?"

Leo sighed. "A couple of extra wires, and that 'ka' could have ended up as a 'karada'. One character off, and you may as well have drawn a dick on my shoulder."

Remembering Michelangelo's laugh kindled a warm, tiny flame in his chest. It was a moment he wished he could capture in something less ephemeral than memory alone.

He looped his thumbs in his belt, much in the same way that any other teenager would put his hands in his pockets, and he waited. Cold, dirty water flowed over his feet and around his ankles. He looked up at that moonless sky through the slitted shadows of the sewer grate, and he waited for the sound of sneakers on gravel.

He finally heard it, followed by the rattle of a chain link fence and a girl's grunt of effort as she absorbed a heavy landing. He saw a familiar shadow cross over the grate. With a nod, he heard the familiar sound of April struggling with the sewer grate.

"Hang on, Apes. I'm coming up." He called.

"I got it, Leo!" He heard the muffled protest. "Just gimme a minute."

Not heeding his human friend's denial, he braced himself against the ladder and lifted against the sewer lid with his shoulder, only to find April prying the crowbar under the lid.

"Aw, man." April complained. "I was gonna get it!"

"Sure, April." Leo smirked. "You were gonna deadlift 250 pounds."

"I've been trainin'!" She protested.

April was young, dark, lean. She wasn't necessarily athletic by her build, but she certainly wasn't waifish either. She was fairly tall for her age. She wore a longer shirt today instead of a midriff tank. Definitely a sign that the weather was getting colder. She wore a yellow denim jacket and a gray beanie jammed over her emphatic cinnamon curls. She pouted at him as he climbed back down.

"How am I supposed to move this stupid lid if you guys keep pushing it for me?" She started down the ladder. Her green Koopa shell backpack–a prize she'd won at a Super Mario Bros. speedrunning competition–thumped against her back as she descended down the ladder.

"Casey can barely get that lid off, and I'm pretty sure he's the only one who's beaten Raph in an arm-wrestling match. It takes two of us, April, always has."

"I still got my dignity to consider." She harrumphed. She shouldered off one strap of her backpack, unzipping the green shell and holding out what was to Leo liquid gold.

His eyes practically sparkled when he saw it. "Have I mentioned you're my favorite human?"

Translation Note

The word '変化' (Romaji: 'Henka') is a common '-suru' verb meaning 'to change'. It can also mean 'variation, alteration, metamorphosis, or mutation'. The first kanji (変) is an adjective meaning 'strange, unusual, or peculiar'. The second (化) is a suffix, usually meaning 'changing into, becoming, or -ization'.

What Leonardo referred to here (being one character off from drawing something lewd) is the kanji '体' (Romaji: 'karada'). This would have instead formed the word '変体' (Romaji: 'Hentai').