Any references to TMNT or anything from popular media and culture is NOT MINE. I only own my OC's.

Chapter #13

*Thursday May 29th, 9:00p.m. At the Sachs Estate*

Shredder walked into the meeting room. There was a table with swivel chairs all around it, and sitting in each one was one of Shredders students or allies. Shredder didn't show emotion, but there were a select few that he actually cared about, and all four of them were in this room at the moment.

First was Eric Sachs who had been in hiding for a little while after he was broken out of jail. Next to him at the table was Karai, a young Asian woman who was always right by his side. She aided in training the Foot soldiers that were recruited in the U.S.

At the other side of the table was a bald Asian man who looked to be in his mid to late thirties named Tatsu. He had the same job and rank as Karai. When Shredder could not be in Japan to lead the Foot, then Tatsu took over for the main branch, and when Shredder couldn't be in New York, Karai took over as head master. Tatsu and Karai saw each other as brother and sister figures since they both basically had the same jobs, so there was never really a reason for them to fight or argue over who was the best since in certain senses they were basically the same person.

The final person in the room was a tall and buff white skinned man with a blonde ponytail named Hun. Just like how Shredder had raised and taught Sachs in Japan, Shredder had basically done the same with Hun once he first arrived in New York years ago when Hun was still a young teenager. Shredder taught him how to defend himself, and once he finished his training he went out and provided for his master in his own ways. While Sachs used brains, technology, and money to help his master in whatever he needed to accomplish, Hun used his strength and intimidating personality to round up his own gang, the Purple Dragons, to take care of more petty crimes. This way he could distract the public with his gang's crimes, and then the Foot could get away with even more devious activity. Both men did what they needed to do and used their personal strengths to work together in helping each other and in helping provide for their sensei.

Overall, all four adults saw each other as family in a way and would do their best to protect one another, and all five saw each other as their own strange unique emotionless family.

Shredder first walked over to Eric Sachs. This was the first time that he had seen his student since his arrest months ago.
"Sensei," Sachs said as he bowed, "I can't thank you enough for sending your men to rescue me. I'll do whatever I can to show you how thankful I truly am."
Shredder put his hand on the man's shoulder and nodded. "Welcome back my student, we will continue our work soon."
He then walked over to Karai who also bowed toward her sensei. "We have good news sir."
He put a hand on her shoulder and nodded to her, and then walked over to the next person, Tatsu.
The man bowed towards Shredder. "Thank you sir for sending your men to help me and those from the main Japanese branch have successful travels from Japan to New York. We are all awaiting your orders."
Shredder repeated his greeting. "Welcome my student, we will work together soon."
Finally, Shredder walked over to Hun, who bowed to the Shredder as well. "Like Karai said, we have plans and news that we think will make you most happy sir."
Shredder repeated his greeting for the final time and then walked over to the head of the table.
"Alright, so what is this good news?" he asked. There was never any emotion displayed on his face or heard in his voice, but at the same time it was so easy to feel how tense any conversation with the man was.
The four sitting at the table all looked at each other and smiled as Sachs stood up.
"Please follow me Sensei, we'll explain as we walk."
Everyone stood up and followed Sachs.
Karai was the first to talk. "We searched for the scientist that we tricked into working for us before and we forced him to come back. Since he and the other's Hun and I forced to return have been here, they've been using his notes to create the mutagen that he had been working on before we found the turtles." She then nodded towards Hun.
He nodded back and began to talk. "The scientist's then made huge doses. At that point, Tatsu and I rounded up our men and had them break into both the state zoo and a local pet shop, basically wherever we knew we could go to quickly snatch a bunch of different animals."
The group then walked into a huge laboratory. All around the room were cages and containers of multiple different animals.
Shredder nodded his head. This was the only way he really showed praise, but that was enough to make his students feel proud of themselves for their accomplishments.
"So," Shredder began, "we are going to create a mutant army with the man-made mutagen?"
"Exactly sir" Sachs said with a smile. He then snapped his fingers and two of the soldiers in the room dragged over a terrified Jordon Perry.
Shredder glared at the man. "So, you thought you could try to run from the Foot Clan did you?" he said as he clenched his fists.
"I, um, well the police made me. I mean, I didn't really have a choice-"
"ENOUGH!" Tatsu shouted. "How dare you try to insult my master! Do you really think he would believe an excuse filled with such nonsense?!"
"I'm…I'm sorry…" the man whimpered.
"Can you mutate these animals?" Shredder asked the man who was lying on the floor.
"I…I've created a mutagen that should be able to give them some extraordinary powers…"
Shredder glared at the man. "If you can turn these animals into soldiers, then I will let you live. Is the mutagen ready?"
The professor shivered in fear, as much as he hated giving such power to such a horrid person, he wasn't ready to die yet. He nodded his head at the man towering over him. He hadn't gotten a chance to test out the mutagen he had been working on, but he was extremely confident in his work, so he had a strong feeling that this first and only test run would be successful.
Shredder nodded at Sachs, who returned the gesture.
"ALRIGHT!" Sachs shouted, "Everyone in this room, get these animals set up. This is where the fun begins" he said with a wicked smile.

Within twenty minutes or so, all the animals were put into cages or large spaced containers that would be able to hold them once they had mutated.
Within the different cages and containers was an Akita Inu male dog and his son who was still a puppy; a larger female tortoise and her two hatchlings, one a boy and the other a girl; a male and female adult terrapins and their hatchlings, two boys and two girls making four babies total; four male frogs of various colors; two female foxes of brownish-orange colors; a lioness; a male alligator; a male gecko of yellow skin with black spots and a female gecko of blue skin with red spots; a female arctic fox; a darker purple and blue colored female salamander; and a female kitten that had some ice cream stuck to its fur.

Professor Jordon Perry was disheartened as he prepared to inject each animal with the mutagen he had made. If he had known what all his research and hard work would lead to, then he never would have agreed to come and work for the Sachs Estate years ago. But sadly it was too late, and as he used his hand to cover his mouth to prevent himself from letting out any sobs, the mutagen had slowly started entering the bodies of each of the animals. Within a couple of minutes each and every animal began writhing around on the ground, not being able to control their bodies. Then, they each began to grow, and grow, and grow until they were either as tall as or even taller than a normal human being.

The professor looked over at the Shredder, and what he saw made him want to run for the hills. For the first time that night, Shredder was grinning from ear to ear with the most devilish smile the professor had ever seen. It was the smile of a mad man, of a psychopath, of someone who was drunk with power.

"Great, and this is the person who determines when I get to die. Not that it matters, I'm already living in hell."

Themes for what's going on inside Sam's head:
-AKMU: Melted
-Jung Yong Hwa: One Fine Day (not in a romantic sense though)

*Thursday May 29th, earlier that night around 8:15p.m. At the Lair*

Donnie heard a beeping go off and ran over to his collage of computer screens.
"Guys, we have trouble!"
Leo and Mikey walked over to where Donnie was and waited for details.
"It looks like there's been a security breech at two places. An alarm was set at a local pet store up the street earlier, and there was another one at the zoo. If you give me a second…aha!" Donnie said as he pulled up a few videos. "These security cameras are showing that there's Foot and Purple Dragon activity at both locations."
"Alright," Leo began, "let's gear up and see if we can stop whatever it is that they're doing. One of you go get Raph-"
"I'm already here."
Leo turned around to see Raph slowly walk down to where they were all standing by Donnie's computers.
"Hey, you okay?"
"Pshh, of course. A little cold isn't going to bother me" he said as he lightly swayed side to side. "Stop moving around so much!"
"Um, Raph, I haven't moved since you entered the room."
"Oh…really?"
"Yup."
"Shit."
Leo gave his brother a small smile. "As much as you want to go with us, it's probably best you sit this one out tonight. You'll beat yourself up a lot more if you get caught because of something silly like a cold."
Raph gave a loud sigh, hating that his brother was right. "Fine, I'll just chill here. Don't have too much fun kicking butt without me."
Leo nodded towards his brother and then turned to leave. Donnie was using the devices on his left arm to figure out which pathways would lead them to their destinations the quickest. To Leo's surprise, Mikey had his phone out as well.
"Andddd what are you doing?" he asked Mikey, tilting his head to the side.
Mikey looked up in surprise, and then with a smile. "Just texting Sam that we're heading out and that we'll be back eventually so not to worry when she gets here and its super quiet."
"Okay all set!" Donnie cut in.
The two brothers then stared at Mikey, waiting for him to finish his text message.
"Okay! I've slid into her DM's, and now I'm ready to go!"
"Never say that again, please." Donnie pleaded.
"Awww, why not? That's become my new phrase! It's the newest trend!"
"Because you over use and incorrectly and awkwardly use modern phrases. So stop now before you ruin it for everyone."
"Tch, don't hate the player hate the game!" he shouted as all three brothers ran off down the alley ways of the sewers.

While his brothers had been talking, Raph had walked over towards the four circular openings that lead into the dojo. He climbed up to the top left opening where the hammocks were and decided he would rest there. It was rare that he could lay and sway in the hammocks without there being tons of noise from his brothers, so he decided to take advantage of this opportunity. About ten to fifteen minutes later he heard someone enter the room.
"Huh, they're back early. They just left, what, ten minutes ago? Maybe they forget something."

Raph leaned over a little bit and was shocked that he didn't see his brothers. Instead, he watched as Sam walked in from the entrance along the wall at the end of the kitchen. From where she was standing, there was no way she could see Raph, so he took advantage of this and spied on her. She walked over to the bottom right entrance to the dojo and kneeled down facing the left side of the wall. Raph continued to secretly stare at her, wondering what she was thinking as she just blankly stared at the weapons wall. He watched as she took a cloth and a bottle with some type of liquid out of her back pack. He then clenched his fists together when Sam picked up the lone sai she had been questioning him about from days ago and began to dust and polish it.
"Are you kidding me?! I told her not to touch my stuff, and what does she do, SHE TOUCHES MY STUFF!"
Raph was just about to jump down from the upper level and begin yelling at her, but he stopped when he saw her put her hand back into her bag. His jaw dropped when he saw that in Sam's hand was an exact replica of the small sai that was hanging on their wall. He wanted to feel rage and anger towards her, but more than anything he was just curious. When he found the first sai in a dumpster one night about four years ago, he constantly looked for its partner. At the time he needed a new pair of sais that would fit his growing hands, and it had really upset him that he couldn't find the match, so he always kept it along the weapons wall in case he ever found the second of the two. He did use it every so often to practice certain attacks, but once he finally found a new pair where both blades were present then he just continued to use the newer pair, but he still always kept this one. All four brothers had saved all the weapons that they had fought and trained with over the years. It was their equivalent to when kids mark how tall they've grown on the side of a wall or door frame in their house, at least that's what he had seen kids do on t.v. His thoughts were disrupted when he heard some light sobbing. He peeked back over at the girl and noticed that she had been crying. She wasn't loud or crying her eyes out, but she did have some tears running down her cheeks. Raph listened carefully as the girl began to talk to herself.

"*sigh* I looked EVERYWHERE for you. Like literally everywhere, and in some places I'm not proud of either" she shuddered, "and you've been hiding down here all this time."
"Yeah, and I never would have expected someone like you to be hiding the other half all these years either" Raph thought to himself.
Tears continued to run down Sam's face as she softly spoke to herself.
"Well, I finally got a chance to reunite you two. Heh, it really threw me off when I saw you down here the other day. You brought back a lot of memories that I was finally starting to hide away. Well, you know what I mean, not hide away, but…I'm able to live life again, you know? I just wish your new owner didn't have to be such an ass about it."
Raph rolled his eyes.
"But, even if you were a bit dusty, you still seem to have a nice blade to you, and you can still see the initials, so overall it seems he did a good job at taking care of you" she said with a smile, her tears finally starting to dry up and fade away. "In a weird way, I'm glad the Hulk found you. I never knew I would find this place, but because you were taken by he who must not be named, I finally got to figure out where you've been hiding all these years."

Raph wondered what she was talking about. Initials? He thought the C.A.P. on the handle had been a brand name. He tried to think of the girl's last name and after a few seconds he remembered her mentioning it when they first met. Allan Park, that's what the A and P must have stood for, but what did the C represent? The next thing he knew, Sam was heading into the dojo with both of the sais. He quickly laid down as flat as he could, hoping she wouldn't see him up where he was.

"Alright bro, let's see if I can remember all that you taught me."
Sam began quickly slicing the sais across the open space in front of her. She moved so swiftly that you could hear the swishing sounds of the blades as she moved. Again, Raph wanted to yell and scream at the girl, but he was so lost in his thoughts, just as she was lost in hers. He was lucky that she was so emotionally wrapped up in what she was doing, or else she easily would have spotted him, but because of her personal distraction, Raph was able to sit up and watch her in plain sight. As he watched her in amazement, he continued to wonder what all her comments meant. How did these sais ever end up in her possession? When did she learn how to use them? Why had she thrown one in a dumpster? What had happened four years ago? And why did she just say 'bro' to the weapons?

Sam then swung the sais around and then threw them at a diagonal position down by her sides, only to have them go flying behind her.
Raph clapped his hand to his head. "What the heck is she thinking? Treat them with a little more respect, jeez!"
He then jumped where he was sitting a bit when he heard a loud slap sound. Sam had clapped both of her hands against her face in horror.
"Oh crap! I thought I was acting like him and was trying to be cool, but I don't have holsters!"
She then ran over to where the weapons had been thrown and she inspected them carefully.
"Oh thank cheesus, they're both okay. Phew, so neither of you guys have to be mad at me since they're both still in good shape.
"Guys? I'm assuming I'm one of them, but who else would be upset about my sais? Does she think Mikey would get upset? Or maybe Leo since he controls whether she gets to come down here or not?"

Both their thoughts were interrupted as they heard voices getting louder and louder as they neared the entrance over by the living room. Raph recognized his brother's voices, and before he could even wonder if Sam had heard them or not, his thoughts had been answered when he saw her run over to the weapons wall and carefully put one of the sais back and the other in her back pack. She then ran over to the fridge, opened the door, and shoved her head inside.

As the brothers walked in, Mikey instantly recognized his friend standing across the room. "Sam! Watcha doin?"
She turned around and smiled. "Looking for food. Soccer practice makes you hungry, but you guys are low on snacks."
"Oh that's okay cause I….don't have snacks in my room, hehe" he said nervously. He then noticed that Leo wasn't paying attention since he was focused on contacting April.
"Hey April, I have a favor to ask of you when you get a momen-"
"HEY ANGEL CAKES! How have you been?! What are you up to?! Did you miss me?!" Mikey shouted over his brother's shoulder. As Leo walked out in the alley ways of the sewers to try to talk to April on the phone with peace and quiet, Mikey continued to follow him and bombard April with questions and comments.
Donnie laughed as he rolled his eyes and headed for his lab. He noticed some movement to his right in his peripheral vision, and when he looked over he smiled and waved.
"Hey Raph, hope you're feeling better" he said with a smile, assuming that his brother had been relaxing in the hammocks while the rest of them were out.

While Donnie was smiling as he walked into his lab, Sam was standing still, frozen with fear. She heard a *thud* come from behind her and she knew that the hot headed turtle was walking towards her. She took a deep breath and slowly turned to face him. All she saw was his hands on his hips and without thinking she just began blurting out whatever came to mind.

"Okay I know you hate me and all but they both were originally mine, well sort of, but they belonged to my family so I had the right to check them out and you wouldn't answer any of my questions the other day and just I needed this okay? So hate me all you want but it's not fair that you wouldn't even let me clean them and-"
Just as she felt tears welling up in her eyes again, she was cut off when Raph used his hand to cover her mouth. She then for the first time realized that Raph had a calm expression with some sorrow resting in his eyes. He slowly removed his hand from her face.

"So, you gonna explain what I just witnessed for the past half hour?"
Sam just stood there. She didn't want to go into full detail about what had just happened, and just thinking about it made her come close to crying again, and realizing that Raph had seen her cry earlier made her even more upset. She hadn't even told Mikey much about her past yet, and if she needed to cry then she would rather it be in front of someone who would comfort her rather than hurt her. That's when she realized…Raph wasn't insulting her. He hadn't yelled, he hadn't gotten violent, he was actually standing there ready to listen to her.

"Why…aren't you yelling at me?"
Raph looked over to the side as his face darkened a bit.
"I've never seen a girl cry in person…"
"Oh, I get it. You're treating me like the damsel in distress" she said in a nasty tone. This was one of the reasons she didn't want to tell any of them about her past, because she knew they would treat her differently.
"Wait, what?" Raph asked in confusion.
"You're going soft on me because you know I'm broken. So I'm not Sam anymore to you, I'm the broken girl who makes you feel guilty for being yourself. I knew this would happen-"
"Stop" he said, cutting her off. "I'm not treating you like you're broken, I'm attempting…trying to be nice and understand…and stuff."
She tilted her head at him.
"Look" he began, "I've been treating you like shit because I thought you were just a nosy brat who couldn't keep her hands to herself and mind her own business. But obviously there's reasons as to why you're the way you are."
"The way I am?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.
"You know, super over confident and cocky when it comes to brains and strength. Someone your age and size shouldn't be able to do the things that you do, but you still do it. And…I'll admit I never really let you explain why, I just insult you every time…"
"…you're scaring me…"
Raph rolled his eyes. "Are you going to explain yourself or not?"
"Um…" she said as her eyes wandered to the floor, "please don't make me tell you. It's a long story that I've been hiding away for a while now."
Raph gave her a small smile as he put his hands on his hips.
"How bout this, you at least tell me who's initials these are, and then I'll refrain from kicking your butt."
She looked up at him and gave him a small smile. "C.A.P. stands for Chuck Allan Park. These belonged to my younger brother years ago."
Her eyes glistened as she remembered fighting alongside her younger brother of two years. Raph noticed this and tried to carefully ask more questions about the subject.
"Did he take those self-defense classes with you to?"
Sam snapped back to reality, but she continued to smile as she answered his questions.
"Yeah, we were the babies of the family, so our older siblings signed us up for a variety of different classes. Man the two of us kicked major butt together! I mean he was a million times better than me when it came to using sais. I'll honestly admit I was always jealous that I couldn't reach his level of expertise when it came to his weapon" she said as she jokingly shook her head.
"Do you mind telling me how he lost it? How does he fight with one sai?" Raph asked.
Sam took a breath, paused for a moment, and decided she was ready to reveal SOME information to the turtle in front of her.
"We were fighting some bad guys and it got kicked away by the enemy. I tried looking everywhere for it, but I could never find it. I guess you took it that fast" she said as she playfully glared at Raph.
He returned the gesture. "Well, now you can return it to him, and maybe if Leo is nice enough, he can come show me what he's got." Raph was actually a bit excited to meet another ninja who used the same weapon as him, but his excitement faded as he saw Sam's face slowly return to its soft and sullen form.
"Sadly that will never happen. My brother, he's…far away right now…"
Raph tilted his head in confusion.
"Okay, my entire family has been split up for a while now. That's why it's always just me and my older brother Jay. Everyone else has traveled somewhere else throughout the country. That's why I'm home alone so much."
"Do they ever visit, or even call or something?" Raph was shocked at how much concern he revealed in his tone.
Of course Sam caught on to this and rolled with it, not knowing when the hot headed turtle might ever talk to her this way ever again. "Well, we sort of meet up all together about once a year now. But that's usually it" she said as she shrugged her shoulders.

Raph wasn't sure how to reply. He knew he would be devastated if his brothers just disappeared and saw him only once a year. Family was all he had, so he couldn't imagine how Sam felt when her huge family was scattered and so broken apart. He wished that he had learned this earlier, but then he realized that he would have done exactly what Sam didn't want and he would have treated her as the broken girl and not as Sam Allan Park. He then began to smile again, realizing that he could still treat her as herself.

"If you want, you can take both sais home with you, or you can leave them here for safe keeping. Your call. There's no way Mikey can train you with them, but I can always give you some pointers if you'd like."
Sam didn't realize how much her jaw dropped when she looked back up at Raph.
"Did you just offer to help train me?"
"Well, let's put it this way. I don't want you to get your butt kicked because you don't know how to use the weapon you're armed with. You know, since I DON'T hate you and all."
Sam playfully squinted her eyes and glared at him. "What are you saying about my technique?"
"To put it bluntly, you're a mess. You had some good moves, but overall your technique is sloppy."
Sam put her hands up in defense. "As much as I would love to disagree with you, I know you're right. I haven't fought with those for a couple of years now, so I could use a few refresher courses, you know, from someone who doesn't hate me" she said as she turned toward Raph, aiming the comment directly at him.

Just then, Mikey walked back into the room, his smiling face instantly turning into one of concern as he saw Raph standing right next to Sam.
"What's going on?"
Sam smiled at her best friend. "You're leading me to the snacks that you don't have hidden in your room."
"Right! Don't follow me" he winked at her as he dashed back towards his room.

As Mikey headed towards his room, Sam looked over at Raph.
"I'm gonna take a rain check on that refresher course, but let's stay in touch Dauntless" she said with a smile as she walked away.

Once she was gone, Raph headed back up towards the hammocks. As he laid down and got comfy, he continued to wonder about her past. What had happened that her family was now scattered all over the country? He hoped that maybe now that he had opened up to her a bit, maybe she would slowly do the same, for safety reasons of course since it was important to know about the person who had appeared in not the most appealing of ways into their lives. As Raph thought back to the conversations he had recently had with the girl, he didn't realize that he now had a small smile on his face as he drifted off to sleep.

*Friday May 30th around 3:00p.m.*

Once school had gotten out, Sam went straight home to gather whatever she thought she would need when hanging out with Mikey and then headed straight for the sewers. The two talked for a while about their favorite games and shows and then not long after they decided to ride around the sewers on their skate boards. As the two rode around, Sam noticed a lot of empty spaces throughout the underground passage ways.

"Hey, how come you guys don't take advantage of all these huge open spaces?" Sam asked as the two skated by another large open space about the size of two small houses.
"Honestly, we just haven't taken the time to really look around yet. After Shredder and his guys attacked us at our old home, we instantly started looking for a new home farther away from where our old one was. We stumbled upon this place, thought that it was large enough for anything we might need, and within a few days we were all set here. We haven't really looked around anywhere else in the nearby sewer passage ways."
"Well, maybe you and I could start looking around, if you want to. If we find any spaces we like then we can decorate them the way we want to" Sam said with a smile.
Mikey gave her a quizzical look. "And how exactly would we decorate them? What would we use these rooms for?"
"Go Karts" Sam stated bluntly.
Mikey laughed. "Where the heck are we going to get go karts?"
"You guys realize what's above this place, right? I mean you have to know what's above the surface of where your new home is."
"…Uh, well, I know Donnie knows…and Leo knows…and everyone but me cared to find out…hehe."
Sam stared at him with wide eyes. "Seriously? Okay follow me."
"Where are we going?"
"You need to see what's above where you guys live, you're going to freak out when you see what's been above you guys this entire time!"

Sam led her friend to a manhole cover that would take them straight up to the location that was right above the turtle's home. When she lifted the manhole cover, Mikey's jaw dropped.
"We've been living under an abandoned amusement park this whole time?!"
"Heh, told you that you'd freak out" Sam replied, her hands on her hips. "And there's a bunch of go karts right over there" she said as she pointed to a further away spot.
Mikey ran as soon as he saw his friends hand go up. He inspected each of the go karts and then gave his friend a huge smile…and then began to frown.
"These are awesome…but where would we put them. We can't use them up here, we would easily be heard if we got them running."
Sam replied with a cheeky grin. "Oh I know just the place. Here we'll leave the karts up here for now, I have another surprise. Follow me!" she shouted as she turned and ran goofily back towards the manhole cover.
Mikey shook his head and smiled, wondering what else she was hiding near HIS home.
He followed her until they were…back by the lair?
"Um, Sam. You know where we are right?"
She turned around with wide eyes.
"Heck. Yeah!"
"….so you know that's the Hashi and the med wing behind us, right? As in we're right by the lair."
"Yeah, but we're not heading towards the lair, we're heading here" she said as she pointed to the wall in front of her.
"…we're going to walk through a wall?"
"See, right now this looks like a wall, but what you guys didn't realize was that this section of the wall was hollow. Why you might ask? Because it wasn't meant to just be part of the wall, but rather…," she then pushed against the wall and a bunch of bricks came crashing down, falling into an open space within the wall, "…to be an opening."
Mikey stared at the open space. How had there been an entryway right by their home that they hadn't even discovered yet? He took a step inside and slowly spun around as he observed the large open space. It seemed to be about half the size of their new lair.
"Sam…how did you find out about this?" he said as he looked back at her with wide eyes.
"The other day when I was sent to the Hashi, my legs felt like Jell-O afterwards and I needed the wall for support. As soon as I made my way out of the room, I quickly dived over to lean on this section of the wall, only to have it give out on me. I noticed there were some cracks in the wall, and I tried to push on it a little more. After a few minutes, this section of the wall caved in, and now boom! Here we are!" she said as she threw her arms up in excitement. "And this isn't the end either, come here!" she said as she started jogging over towards the left side of that wall. At the end of that wall was yet another opening. This lead to another room that was about the same size as the first, but Sam continued jogging on. There was once again another entry way, and this lead to the biggest room of the three.

Mikey couldn't believe his eyes. "This is what you were talking about, this is the space you want to turn into a go kart track?"
He turned to her and saw her running her fingers across each other in excitement.
"Ohhhh I have plans for all three of these rooms" she paused. "If...you're okay with them that is" she said with a nervous smile.
He smiled back and slowly swung his arm out in front of him like a servant. "Do share m'lady."
She chuckled. "The first one could be a sports room, the second could be a skate room, and then this would be for the go karts. Thoughts, suggestions?"
Mikey shook his head. "That literally sounds amazing. We already have game rooms, t.v.'s, workout spaces, so those ideas all sound amazing for these large spaces…you purposefully wanted to skate around today just so you could show me all this, didn't you?"
"I don't know what you're talking about" Sam replied bashfully as she turned away, trying not to make it to obvious how much she had been wanting to show Mikey what she had discovered.
He laughed as he put his arm around her.
"Why don't we head back to the lair and start making plans on how to decorate our new space?"
"Sounds good to me, I just need to go to Donnie's lab and get some blue print sheets."
Mikey paused. "Donnie allowed you to go into his lab?"
"Yeah, he told me a little while ago that I could go in, I just have to let him know what I'm taking before I touch anything."
"Really?"
"Do I need to say yes in another language?" she chuckled.
"No, just curious. Now onward to the room of things I don't understand to get some blue paper!"

Mikey would never admit it to anyone, but he was thrilled to hear that Donnie was finally giving his new friend a chance to be herself and get to know her rather than just push her away. He was proud of his older brother, and hoped that maybe he would become friends with Sam as well.

*Much later that same day*

Donnie was sitting at the computers right outside where his lab was.
"Foxes, a lion, an alligator…but then also household pets like a cat and a dog? Shredder, what are you up to?"
Donnie was reading online articles about the robbery that had just happened the night before, trying to see if there was anything that would give away whatever plan Shredder was scheming. He couldn't figure out why he would steal both vicious predators from the zoo while also stealing adorable animals from a pet store.

Just then, he saw something make a jolting movement in his lab and then heard heavy breathing. He looked over to see Sam breathing heavily, sweat running down the side of her lightly red face. Earlier Sam and Mikey were working on blue prints for who knows what, but after a while Mikey needed to move around some, so he kindly excused himself to go workout some with Raph, and by the time he had returned he discovered that Sam was fast asleep. With Donnie's permission of course, Mikey moved Sam over to the small bed Donnie had in his laboratory and left her to sleep there. She had been sleeping peacefully earlier, but now her eyes were filled with terror from whatever had lead to her abrupt awakening.

Donnie quickly got up and rushed over to the girl who seemed to be having a hard time breathing.
"Sam?" he said, snapping his fingers in front of her face, though this did nothing to change her condition.
He then placed both his hands on the sides of her cheeks. "Sam? You okay?"
Finally Sam's breathing calmed down some as she stared in Donatello's eyes.
"What happened?" she asked.
"Seriously? You're the one who looks like they just saw a ghost."
She shrugged. "I guess you could say that."
He frowned at her. "Is everything alright?"
He brought his hands back to his sides after realizing that they had still been holding her face.
"I'm good, everything is good. I just have night terrors every so often. Heh, I thought I'd be able to hide that a little longer, but of course I have one the first time I fall asleep here."
"What was it about?"
Sam sat quietly for a few seconds, not sure how to answer the question.
"Just a typical dream where I'm falling and I wake up as soon as I'm about to hit the ground" she said with a playful smile.
Donnie accepted her answer, but he had a feeling she was lying. He'd had dreams like that before and he didn't wake up with terror in his eyes like Sam just had.
"How long have you been having night terrors?"
"Ummmm, since I was about eight? I want to say that's about right."
"Do you have any idea as to what's been causing them?"
"Sorry Dr. Phil but I never really thought much about them. Usually when life got cheerier they began to go away, but even on my best days I've still had them. Sadly they just never go away."
Donnie could sense the pain in her voice as she spoke about her nightmares. He wished there was something he could do, but without her telling him the full truth, there was no way he could help his friend.
"Friend?" he thought, "when did I start seeing her as a friend?"
As he looked away, feeling a bit embarrassed and awkward because of the thought that just went through his head, he didn't notice that Sam was looking all over the room.
"Where did Mikey go? He isn't back yet?"
Donnie chuckled. "Mikey went to bed hours ago. He didn't want to wake you, so he asked if he could let you sleep here."
"Oh, heh, sorry about that. I can leave if you want me to."
Donnie smiled as he shook his head. "Nah, I'm actually about to head to bed myself, so you can continue to sleep here if you'd like. You definitely have to spend the night here since its too late for you to head home alone, and this bed it way more comfortable than the couch."
Donnie was a bit shocked at seeing the huge smile that spread across the girl's face.
"Thanks Don, I owe you one. Hey throw me that stack of post it notes."
He stood up and reached for the pack and tossed them to her. "What are you writing down?"
"How I'm going to pay you back."
"You don't have to do that, it's really no big-"
"Well the way I'm going to pay you back is not big deal either" she said as she smiled and folded the note so that it would fit into her jacket pocket.
Donnie smiled and put a hand on her shoulder as he turned to leave the lab. "Night Sam."
"Night Erudite" she said playfully as she turned over onto the bed.

Donnie walked back to his room around the corner from where the lab was. Maybe having this girl around wouldn't be such a bad thing after all.