Chapter 3: The Interrogation

Special Agent Maria Sage had her orders—locate the mutants that evaded capture and bring them back to base by any means necessary. The only lead she had was sitting in the backseat of her agency-owned vehicle. She peers at Casey through the rearview mirror as she drives to the precinct. A scowl is embedded on his face as he props his elbow against the window and watches the oncoming traffic. He hasn't said a word since they left his high school.

Sage couldn't believe her luck. She was just explaining to the office secretary about their ongoing investigation when, lo and behold, Casey Jones sulked out of the principal's office allowing her next steps to fall perfectly into place. It didn't take much to convince the principal that she needed to escort one of his troubled students off school grounds for questioning.

Sage was already well-read on Casey Arnold Jones. The boy's previous interactions with law enforcement were full of defiance including his interactions with some of her agents a couple of months ago. So she is surprised at Casey's cooperativeness as he follows her into the police station.

The local station has become the EPF's temporary office residence with access to the interrogation rooms as needed. Sage leads Casey into one of the rooms. They both take their seats, a table between them. Casey still hasn't said anything and neither has Sage as she takes her time placing a file folder and a recorder side by side on the table. She places a legal pad in front of her and pulls a pen from her shirt pocket.

Relaxed and leaning back, Sage takes a minute to observe the teen on the other side of the table. The stark fluorescent lighting highlights the nasty bruise blotched around his eye and across his cheek. Shoulders slumped and back curved into a typical teenage slouch, he keeps his hands in his hoodie jacket.

This cannot be the same brazen kid who flipped off her agents and gave them hell in Chinatown a few months ago. His scowl is still present but starts to fade into something akin to sadness as the muscles in his jaw subtly loosen. She assumed his sullen mood had something to do with the black eye. A fight at school maybe? It would explain why he was in the principal's office.

The muted tapping of his sneaker against the tile floor gives away his impatience and the distracted look in his averted eyes tells Sage his mind is miles away from the interrogation room.

When Casey notices he's being watched he stops tapping and tucks his feet beneath his chair before finally meeting Sage's gaze.

"Rough day?" she asks.

"It's high school, what do you think?" he answers with a shrug. He sighs, "I already gave my statement to the police."

"I'm aware," Sage nods as she leans forward, arms folded on top of the table. To get anywhere with this investigation, she will have to scale and gut the red herring statement that the kid reported to the local police. "I understand you've been through a lot lately," Special Agent Sage begins, her voice gentle yet probing, "with your mother's illness, your father's long hours, and then being abducted by mutants."

Casey's nonchalant demeanor becomes more attentive, shocked by Sage's knowledge. He tenses at the mention of his family.

"I just told two lies and a truth, Casey. Do you want me to guess which ones are the lie, or are you going to tell me?"

The raven-haired boy eyes her warily. "I don't know what you're talking about," he levels cautiously.

"Okay, I'm guessing then." Sage pursed her lips, tilting her head to the side with a shrug. "I gotta warn you, I'm pretty good at guessing. I've got a gut feeling about these sorts of things."

Sage opens the file folder on the table, spreading out a few photos face down.

"You see I believe your mom really is sick," Sage states with certainty, flipping over the first photo. The photo reveals an image of Casey wheeling his mom out of the hospital in a wheelchair. He was leaned over speaking into his mother's ear causing her to smile. "I also believe you're a good son. You spent a lot of time in the hospital with your mom… had to be hard to do while keeping up with school."

She watches as the teen snaps out of his impassive posture and leans over the table taking the photo in his hands. So many emotions shift across his face as he stares at the photograph. As he clenches his jaw and his lips curl down into a snarl, Sage sees the blunt face of his first emotion—anger.

"Stay away from my family. They've got nothing to do with your dumb investigation. If I ever see you or your stupid agents near my mom, I'll swing first and call it self-defense later," Casey says crumpling the photo before throwing it on the table.

Defiant, crass, and violent.

Nice to finally meet the infamous Casey Jones, Sage thinks to herself. This is the Casey Jones described in various misdemeanor reports but her behavioral science background tells her this secondary emotion of anger on display is a façade meant to protect and defend who he cares about, in this case, his mother.

There's something else just below the surface, and Sage has to be delicate to uncover it. He is just a kid after all.

"Casey, we have no intentions of hurting you or your mom. I want to make sure you both are safe," Sage speaks sincerely as she flips over the next photo and slides it across the table in front of him. "But if the first photo was a truth then the next one is a lie, right? Because you weren't really abducted by those mutant turtles, were you?"

The second photo is a screenshot from her body-worn camera the day they captured the large feral lizard in Chinatown. In the photo, Casey Jones stands alongside a red-masked mutant turtle blasting distractive fireworks.

"You were working with them, but why? Why would the same Casey Jones that helped his elderly neighbor carry her groceries," she asks while flipping over another photo that shows the neighborly scene she just described, "also conspire with mutants that are terrorizing the city?"

Slow and steady get results. Sage watches Casey's eyes widen as they dart between the photos, the flush of red anger quickly draining from his face. He licks his lips ready and averts his eyes, a sure sign to Sage that his next words will be a lie. Sage can finally see his primary emotion… fear.

"I've done my homework, Casey. I understand you are a good kid who's been through a lot," Sage begins, her voice gentle yet probing. "It's no wonder you seek refuge with unconventional allies."

Casey shifts uncomfortably in his seat. She knows she has to tread carefully to keep the line of communication open.

Sage leans forward slightly, keeping her tone as non-threatening as possible, "Casey, I need you to understand the gravity of this situation. These mutants were involved in violent incidents that day that put innocent lives at risk. They're dangerous, Casey, and for you and your family's sake it's important that you tell me everything you know about them."

Casey's breath hitches at the mention of his mother. "Leave my family out of this!" He warns, nostrils flaring with barely contained anger as he slams his fists against the table and his chair screeches against the floor when he abruptly stands.

The door opens as a burly officer steps in. He eyes Casey like a hooligan before turning to Sage. "This one giving you trouble?" he asks, his fist clenched, waiting for Sage to say the word.

"No, we're good. No trouble here, right Casey?" Sage holds her hands up in a calming gesture.

"Right," the teen mutters before taking his seat again.

When the door closes again, Sage turns her attention back to Casey who is practically stewing in his emotions as his foot starts tapping again. She remains calm, unfazed by Casey's previous outburst. "I'm not here to threaten, Casey. I want to protect you, your family, and your friends as well as the rest of the city."

"I don't need protection. We were protecting the city just fine before you and those other agents came along."

Inquisitiveness strikes her as she picks up her pen. "We? …Who's helping you protect the city?"

"The same mutants you're trying to kill," Casey challenges, anger still tracing his tone.

"We're not killing mutants. We're detaining them," she tries to explain without revealing too much information.

"The same way you're detaining Do—." Casey stops mid-sentence with wide eyes and Sage realizes he let something slip that he shouldn't have. He had a name for the feral mutant they captured. His expression scrambles for a way to backtrack but in the end, he just sighs. "Look. You're making a huge mistake. The mutants you're looking for and the one you guys captured, they're not a threat. They've saved more lives than you can imagine," his voice loses its hostility but he stands firm in his statement.

Sage makes note that his protectiveness is not just toward his family, but extends to the mutants as well. These mutants are a part of his inner circle, a lot closer than Sage originally thought.

"If that's true, then where are they? Real heroes don't run. Why are they hiding?" Sage offers Casey a challenging inquiry of her own.

"Because they're being hunted by people like you."

Pen tapping her notepad, Sage considers the teen before her. She could press him more, question and blackmail him until he cracked, but there was something genuine about this kid that gave Sage pause. Maybe it was the fierce love for his family or his blind loyalty to the mutants. Either way, if she pushed him too hard and too soon, she'd burn her only bridge to the mutant world that Casey seemed to be involved in.

"Give me a reason not to and maybe I'll be more inclined to your perspective," she offers as she turns off her recorder and stands, signaling for Casey to do the same. He seems glad the interrogation has ended based on his worn expression. "Until then, I have a job to do. I'll be in touch," she says, opening the door for him while offering her business card. As he takes the card, Sage holds onto it for a moment causing Casey to look up at her in confusion.

"The second lie," she reminds him. His face remains stoic but Sage still spots the youthful vulnerability that flickers in his eyes. "Families can be… complicated but they don't define us. A good support system helps, too." Sage says softly, empathy for the teen tugging at her heart. She has photographic evidence of his father hitting the bar regularly, and she has a hunch that the bar isn't the only thing he's hitting, but she purposely treads gently, mindful of her words. She needs him to trust her. It's the only way this will work.

"Take care of yourself," she says, a look of unspoken knowledge passing between them as she lets go of the card.

Swallowing back his apprehension, he nods stiffly before shoving the card into his back pocket.

Leaning against the doorframe, she watches as the teen walks out the front doors. Accepting her card was always a sure sign of a connection, no matter how small the gesture appeared. There's more to Casey Jones than meets the eye. With a little time and patience, Sage has a gut feeling this kid will lead her straight to those mutants, and her gut was never wrong.

Finding a corner seat, Casey allows his body to relax marginally as he settles into the familiar setting of the subway. The rumble of the train on the tracks offers a soothing backdrop to Casey's thoughts as recounts his conversation with Special Agent Sage. It was the weirdest interrogation Casey had ever experienced. When the local police questioned him it was pretty easy to fool them. He played the victim to get them off his case.

However, Agent Sage was steps ahead of him, calling Casey out on his lies to the police, piecing together his alliance with the turtles. Her line of questioning was smooth as suede, so innocently conversational that Casey almost slipped up and said Donnie's name. However, also like suede, her words held a graininess, a soft tactile texture that rubbed uncomfortably against Casey's personal life. Casey's heart was pounding when he thought Agent Sage was going to reveal his father's drinking problem. If she were to act on that knowledge it would cause so many problems at home. CPS, foster care, his mom's health… it would have been a nightmare.

When their eyes met, he knew that she knew the truth, the whole truth about his father's drinking and abuse. Despite this factual information between them, Agent Sage never uttered a threatening word. Her eyes gleamed with a type of sincerity and concern that couldn't be faked. Casey was both grateful for her restraint in the touchy subjects of his personal life and cautious of her direct questions about his sewer-dwelling friends.

He doesn't know why he took her business card. Just because she seemed to care about his well-being didn't mean she actually did. After all, she was some kind of top-secret government agent, why would she care about helping him? He shakes the thought from his head before the seed of wishful thinking can take root. It was a stupid thought.

Maybe April or Mr. O'Neil can reverse lookup the number or something, and find out where their headquarters are. The afterthought comes to Casey's mind. He feels guilty that it wasn't his first thought of action. He was being selfish. Sure his life is crummy right now but his turtle bros are dealing with life-or-death situations as Sage hunts them like animals. She was convinced the turtles were dangerous but also mentioned being willing to change her mind if Casey could prove otherwise. That was a thin line of trust to navigate. Could he trust Agent Sage? And if he did, would it break his trust and loyalty to the turtles?

Casey sighs as the subway train screeches to a stop. The complexities of the delicate web of trust are giving him a headache. He would deal with the EPF stuff later. As he leaves the subway car and shifts between the sea of people on the station platform, there's also a shift in his brain. A shift from worrying about his chosen family to worrying about his biological one.

The EPF interrogation made him late. He should have been home an hour ago. He bristles at the cold as it bites through his hoodie. He quickens his pace as home comes into view. Catching his breath, he unlocks the door and he steps inside. The warmth greets him with open arms as he drops his school bag to the side and rubs his hands up and down his arms, to buff out the cold still clinging to his body.

"Casey!" Aunt Melissa's nasally yet bellowing voice penetrates the room. "Where've you been, huh? I've been waiting over an hour for—dio mio! What happened to your face, bambino?" Have you been fighting? You better not have been fighting!"

Casey sighs as his aunt's expressions change from fussing him out, to overly concerned, back to fussing him out again in a matter of seconds.

"It's fine, Auntie," he groans as he bats her grabby hands away from his face.

Her lips thin out as she frowns at him. She isn't buying it but she seems too tired to dig any deeper into the issue as she pinches the bridge of her nose. "Whatever you did, I don't wanna hear it, just don't do it again. And do not worry your poor mother about it, or I will box your ears, got it?" She squints a single eye at Casey which means she has every intention of following through with that threat.

"Yes, ma'am," Casey answers with a nod.

Aunt Melissa pats his face and kisses his cheek. "Good. Now go get your sister while I finish packing her clothes. Oh, and there's baked ziti in the oven."

Casey lets out a sigh of relief as he walks down the hall. He loves his aunt but sometimes she is a lot and right now Casey needs something 'less' than a lot.

"But why can't I stay here?"

Casey follows the sound of his sister's voice to his parents' bedroom. Hand resting on the doorframe, he stands quietly as Angel pouts by their mother's bedside.

"Because your father goes to work early and Casey can't be late for school anymore," Casey's mom explains while tucking strands of Angel's outgrown bangs behind her ear.

"Why can't you take me? I thought you came home 'cause you were feeling better." His sister's logic was typical for any ten-year-old. However, Casey was old enough to know better.

"Oh, my sweet coccinella. I do feel better when I'm here with you, Casey, and your father." His mother smiles sweetly as she boops Angel on the nose. "I just need to rest a bit more but when you come from school tomorrow we can make stories together like we used to. How does that sound?"

"Oh! I can do the illustrations! It'll be like a real book," Angel says perking up at the suggestion.

"I can hardly wait," his mom says with an amused chuckle. His mom's eyes still shine with mirth even as cancer slowly drains life from her body.

Casey raps lightly on the doorframe. "Hey, Squirt," Casey calls out to his little sister. "Auntie's waiting for ya."

"See you tomorrow, ladybug." Beth plants a kiss on Angel's forehead and Casey ruffles her hair before she leaves the room, the sound of her footsteps disappearing down the hall.

Casey cautiously steps into the room. The atmosphere is both somber and strangely comforting. After having such a horrible day, he knows everything will be okay now that he's with his mom. The only light in his life is seeing his mother's face. He feels guilty for needing her while she faces her battle.

"Hey, mom," Casey murmurs, his voice soft as he edges toward the bed.

"Come here, love," she greets him with a smile that pierces the hopelessness surrounding her. She pats a space at the side of her bed.

Casey settles at the foot of her bed, his heart heavy as Beth's smile falters after her eyes trace over his face with concern.

"It's nothing. Got into a fight at school," Casey lies as he rubs at the guilt burning the back of his neck. He won't allow his mother's last memories of his dad to be of a violent drunk.

His mother's fingertips brush against Casey's bruise, and he winces involuntarily, the guilt of hiding the truth from her gnawing at his insides.

Her hand pauses on his cheek, her eyes searching his until he finally looks away.

Beth could always read him like a book. She called it a mother's sixth sense.

"Casey…" The disappointment in her voice is only outweighed by her maternal concern. "What's really going on, hm?"

Casey places his hand over her hand—which is still resting against his cheek—before lowering it on the bed and cupping her delicate hand between his stronger ones, the contrast a reminder of her numbered days.

"I… I got in-school suspension and kicked off the hockey team." Casey's posture curls forward as he shrinks at the admission. He chose the lesser of two evils, revealing his shameful day at school while hiding his father's deeds.

"Casey…" she repeats, her voice holding a melody of sadness and empathy. Fortunately for Casey, his mom's illness has dulled her maternal sixth sense just enough for him to get away with only revealing a portion of his troubles to her.

Casey pulls his hands into his lap as he looks down for a moment before meeting his mother's gaze again. "This guy was saying stuff and I just… I couldn't let him talk about you like that," Casey continues. "I'm sorry," he whispers as the weight of his actions truly begins to sink in.

Casey searches his mother's face for anger or frustration but only finds concern knitted across her brows and fierce love in her gentle brown eyes.

With a sigh, she leans back against the propped pillows of her bed. "Casey, do you remember why I always call you 'stink bug'?" Beth's voice is soft, carrying a hint of amusement that momentarily lightens the heaviness in the room.

Casey shrugs, curiosity flickering in his eyes as he recalls the playful nickname she has called him since he was a child. "Yeah. You said I managed to cause a stink without meaning to."

Beth chuckles softly, her fingers brushing through his hair. "It's more than that, honey," she begins, her gaze distant yet focused. "You've always had this knack for finding trouble while trying to do the right thing."

Casey furrows his brow, memories of childhood misadventures flashing through his mind—the times he stood up for others, and defended what he believed was right, even if it meant facing consequences.

Beth continues, her words intertwining with his memories. "You're like that little bug, wandering into places it shouldn't, causing a bit of a stir but always with good intentions."

A faint smile tugs at Casey's lips as he listens, a sense of warmth spreading in his chest at the familiar nickname and the wisdom behind it.

"You may get into trouble, but it's because you care deeply, Casey," Beth emphasizes, her eyes locking with his. "You stand up for what's right, even when it's difficult. I know you were defending me today, but I only ask that you make sure the battle is worth the fight, honey. Otherwise, you're going to spend a lot more time in suspension than you should."

"You're always worth fighting for." He says, the certainty in his words never missing a beat. He would suffer through a school year without hockey if it meant defending his mother from trash-talking jerks like Kevin McAllister.

"And that's why you'll always be my little stink bug." Her eyes shine with pride, causing a flush of red to color Casey's cheeks.

"Mom…" Casey gives a playful whine.

"What? Are you too old to be my stinkbug, hm?" she teases, poking at his side before tousling his hair. "Is there a girl I should know about who's calling you stinkbug now?"

Casey snorts at his mom's antics.

"Is it the pretty girl with the red hair? What was her name again… April?" His mother had met April when Casey invited her over during a few study sessions. Casey often groaned at how his mother doted on April like she was already her daughter-in-law. "She's feisty, I like her."

Casey shakes his head his grin downsizing to a small smile. "She's, uh, dating Donnie now." Casey always mentions Leo, Raph, Mikey, and Donnie as friends he hangs out with after school, his mother none the wiser of their turtle-humanoid nature.

"It's cool though. We're all cool about it," Casey says rambling a bit as he rubs the back of his neck.

"The right girl will come along, love." His mother encourages him as she squeezes his knee. "And when she does, you do right by her, hm?" she warns as she points a meaningful finger at him.

"Yeah, Mom, I will," he answers softly.

Even if you do find the right girl, she won't be here to meet her.

Casey ignores the hard truths that keep creeping into his mind. He meets his mom's gaze, but before he can utter a word his t-phone rings in his pocket. Without looking down, he blindly hits the mute button, sending the call straight to voicemail. He does this three times before the ringing finally ceases.

"It can wait," Casey says dismissively when he sees the questioning look on his mom's face. With everything else vying for his peace of mind, Casey needed this time with his mother. In her presence, the chaos of today fades into the background, replaced by a sense of calm he can't explain. No Kevin McAllister, no angry dad, no EPF agents. He just wants to stay here in this moment, in this bubble of serenity. They talk well into the nightly hours, one conversation drifting into another. Beth's laughter is a balm to Casey's soul, her old family stories warmth to the chill of loneliness in his heart, and her advice a fountain he didn't know he was thirsting for. There wasn't enough time but he would make do with what time he had left.

A/N: Hope you enjoyed this little tidbit into Casey's world at the moment.

Until the next chapter, have a great day on purpose!

~Poetique