Part 17

"--the death toll may still rise, but authorities say that things could have been much worse. Rapid deployment of emergency response teams, as well as local troop units, left untold numbers of these strange monsters dead throughout the city."

The soft drone of the new anchor's voice woke Leonardo. Stretched out on the sofa, he watched the blue tint cast by the screens' light flickering on the table and floor. His brother, Michelangelo today, napped on the nearby recliner. The remote lay on the floor beneath his little brother's hand.

"If I could just interrupt, Senator, we have a press conference--can we go to the--?"

The screen flashed and the sound changed pitch as the program moved from a studio to several reporters clustered around someone on the street. Leonardo let his eyes close, barely aware that someone had dropped a cover over him sometime while he slept, when a familiar voice woke him completely.

"There are still pockets of the creatures around the city, so people who are unarmed should remain indoors," Chanta said, her plastic good looks contrasted by the blood spatters on her green uniform and the firearms holstered at her side. "If anyone knows of any nests of these things, please call 911 to report it. We'll be going door to door throughout the city to make sure we get every last one of these fucks."

No censoring bleep covered her cursing. Knowing someone was out there destroying the bad things in the night was comforting enough that no one noticed. He had to squint through the light even though the televisions had been dimmed a little to accommodate his eyesight, but he felt reassured seeing his old comrade alive and well. Behind her he spotted several more men and women in uniform, among them a familiar black face in dreadlocks herding groups back and forth. He'd never seen Felix in uniform before and the amount of brass and metal on it surprised him.

"We'll release more information as we learn it," Chanta said, beginning to step back from the cameras. "We do wish to thank everyone who's been working with us, both seen and unseen, our unsung heroes doing their part to destroy these things. We couldn't have done this without you."

The last bit was delivered in a soft voice, the same one she used when she fought beside him in Stockman's game, and he half-smiled. No doubt they knew about the sunken ship by now. He wondered if they would explore the wreck and salvage any machinery on board, or if they would simply destroy it even more thoroughly. He didn't care either way. They hadn't misused Stockman's original pocket dimension. Perhaps the army could make sure that Stockman didn't come back one last time.

His mask lay draped on the arm of the sofa. Since he didn't think he'd fall asleep again soon, he slipped it on and adjusted the black lenses over his eyes, sitting up slowly as he did. The light comfortably dimmed, and he sighed in relief.

He didn't know what time it was. He didn't really care. With Michaelangelo asleep and the lair silent, he felt grateful for the rest. Donatello and Raphael were out again, probably hunting down more raw material for Donatello to use repairing the lair. Rough gouges from demon claws stood out prominently the floor now that Raphael had cleaned up the mess. The scent of blood lingered throughout the lair, though less perceptible to his siblings than himself, and they all wanted it washed away and patched up completely. He wondered if they'd want him to paint over the fresh plaster. Maybe he'd use that childlike dragon idea Michelangelo had--

Leonardo breathed in sharply.

Michelangelo's mural. He'd promised ages ago that he would create something on the side of his little brother's room. How long ago was that? All the way back at the farm. He winced. How could he have forgotten?

After a moment reflecting, he shrugged. Life threatening injuries and mental instability were pretty good excuses. But he was doing better now. No excuse now.

He glanced at Michelangelo as he eased off of the couch. His little brother lay slumped in the recliner with a comic book across his lap. From the looks of him, he wouldn't be waking up any time soon. Once he grabbed his mask from the floor, Leonardo crept out of the living room and up the stairs, putting his good hand over the stitches crisscrossing his shoulder. Donatello had threatened him with total rest if he pulled even one stitch out. He would just have to take it slow.

Plenty of paint cans remained in his bedroom. He'd planned on completing his mural of New York Harbor on his wall later on, but he could always get more paint. He grabbed a full can of green in his good arm, but as he started to stand, he froze. It put far too much strain on his injuries. With no one around, he could admit it and set the can down, reaching instead for a half-empty can. Much easier. He could even take a few brushes with him.

If he didn't want to wake his brother, he couldn't turn on the lights in his room, but fortunately he didn't need to. He knew this shade of green. A few candles in the corners would work fine, especially with his eyes.

"Okay," he whispered to himself, "I don't have to finish this today. Just get it started."

If he was lucky, when his brothers saw that he could paint without hurting himself, they would let him do that instead of forcing him to sleep most of the day. He began slow out of necessity rather than choice. His right arm from his fingers to his shoulder was too sore to move much, so he had to paint with his left. It didn't affect the outcome too much, since he was used to fighting with both hands, but he was glad Michelangelo had wanted a more simplistic dragon.

The outline came to him quickly. He'd practiced dragons long enough that their basic shape flowed out of his hand, changing only their positions. This one began in the center of the wall, its tail coiled near the floor, while its body shot up in sharp waves. Claws reached up to the sky where Leonardo imagined he'd put the sun later on. Two horns curled away from its head while its long snout pointed up.

Once that was done, he set down his first brush and picked up a second, thinner one. Although he used the same paint, he used a lighter hand to begin the details of swirls around its claws. He didn't look forward to the scales, but Chinese dragons had their own embellishments that made them worth the endless little loops. Ridges and flourishes along the back and around the claws like ribbons, the jaws that looked like they were laughing...his back was sore when he finished the outline. He lightly touched the stitches to make sure they weren't bleeding.

How long had he been working? The low drone of the televisions hadn't stopped, so he figured it couldn't have been long. He stared at the dragon to figure out what to do next. Start on the background, he decided, the unicorn, bunnies and garden that his brother wanted. But he'd need the rest of the paint cans for that.

The moment he started to turn away from the wall, his right leg twisted underneath him. He gasped more out of surprise than pain. It didn't feel like an old injury flaring up and his new cuts weren't nearly that severe.

Someone caught him before he could drop too far. Embarrassed at being caught, both from falling and for being out of bed, he sighed when he realized that whoever had him wasn't letting him go.

"I can stand on my own," he grumbled.

"Doesn't look like it," Raphael said. He bent and slung Leonardo's good arm over his shoulder. "C'mon, let's go back downstairs."

Leonardo groaned at the thought of managing those steps. "Can't I just sleep up here?"

"Where? My hammock, your mat, Don's second story bed or Mike's pizza crust magnet?" Raphael waited for him to adjust to his grip before leading the way out. "The couch is still the best spot."

"And speaking of the couch," Donatello said, leaning on the doorframe. "Who said you could come up here?"

"I got bored," Leonardo said, refusing to feel shame over using an excuse that drove him nuts when Michelangelo used it. "And you didn't say I couldn't. You just said not to tear the stitches out."

Donatello's eyes half-closed as he tried to remember exactly what he'd said before he left. When he couldn't think of anything helpful, he rolled his eyes.

"Tch. Fine. You're not allowed upstairs unless one of us is with you."

As they passed him, Leonardo paused. "Wait...what do you mean?"

Before he answered, Donatello gave his injuries a quick look to make sure he wasn't bleeding again. "I think I can ok you to come up here and work on the mural. It looks like it'd be good for you. You just have to have someone with you to make sure you don't overdo it again."

Leonardo sighed as they headed down. "I hate being watched."

"Huh?" Raphael gave him a look. "You didn't seem to mind just now."

Leonardo's stomach twisted up as his mind put fumbled to a realization. "Oh no...you two were watching? For how long?"

"Since we came back and found you and Mike missing," Donatello answered. "So that's about...an hour. Mike was watching until he went to make dinner."

"That explains why he shushed us when we came in," Raphael said over his increasingly annoyed brother. "I forgot you get weird about what you paint. Hey Don, did you know he refuses to hear what April sells 'em for?"

"You're kidding," Donatello said. "Was this before or after his head injuries?"

Brothers. Leonardo bore up under their comments as best he could as Raphael dragged him back to the living room and gently dropped him on the couch. The soft cushions welcomed back, and he groaned in relief as his body lost some of the stress and tension that had nearly sent him to the floor. As Raphael disappeared into the kitchen, Donatello came and sat on the edge of the couch, pulling the blanket over him.

"You can't keep pushing yourself this hard," Donatello said. "I know that your injuries weren't as bad this time around, but you still took the brunt of the punishment again and it keeps adding up."

"Didn't feel it," Leonardo said. "I didn't even feel tired 'till I fell. Still don't."

"Let me guess, you just feel a little shaky and lightheaded. Maybe like you can't focus." Donatello didn't give him the chance to reply. "You're exhausted. You know how we always need some downtime after a fight? You need downtime. I'm thinking three times as long as it took to get you to this point."

Leonardo gasped and sat up. "No way! Three years? Are you out of your mind?"

"What? No, not three--oh, oh I see where you got that number. No." Donatello smiled and did his best to smother his laughter. "I meant from when you got that bite. Not three years. Probably three weeks, I think. Maybe a little longer if you do something stupid."

Three weeks couldn't go by fast enough, Leonardo thought. But he didn't complain. He'd put his siblings through hell these past few days. After expecting to die in a bloody steel trap, suffering a few quips didn't feel so bad.

"Did you find anything topside?" he asked to change the subject.

"Yup," Donatello said, nodding at a far corner of the lair. "Got some concrete to patch up the floor, a ton of cleaners and disinfectants, and some stronger steel for around the bridge."

"I don't think anything's going to come up there again," Leonardo said. "You probably don't need to block it again."

Donatello looked over his shoulder at the bridge with a sigh. "I dunno. Every time I look at it, I think something big and awful is going to claw its way up. I want something over it."

About to respond, Leonardo instinctively tensed as someone slammed the oven door shut.

"Okay," Michelangelo called from the kitchen, "who wants pepperoni?"

As the lair filled with his brothers' chatter, Leonardo found himself relaxing more and more. Even when Raphael dropped a plate in front of him and gave him that familiar stubborn look not to argue about eating, Leonardo found that he didn't feel the same level of anxiety about being around his siblings as he did even a week ago. He'd always felt like he couldn't fail or show any weakness in front of them. He was the big brother. He had to be perfect all the time.

His world turned upside down when his brothers let him occasionally fail. So it was doubly surprising when that also felt like it'd put his world right-side up.

"Can we turn off the news?" Michelangelo asked as he plopped down on the floor. "It's just them cleaning up now."

"I kinda wanted to see if they'd try to raise the ship," Donatello said. "But I guess we could get Leo to call Felix later and just ask."

"Cool," Michelangelo said, flipping through the channels faster than anyone else in the room could follow.

"Forget it, it's a Tuesday night," Raphael said. "Nothing good on."

"I think History channel was doing a Lost Civilizations marathon," Donatello said.

"Well," Raphael said, "that's one way of putting us all to sleep."

"Better than your horror movie marathons," Leonardo mumbled.

As Raphael turned to argue, Michelangelo knelt on the floor and fumbled around under the sofa for a moment. He batted away two cat toys, a screwdriver and a throwing star before pulling out a little tattered box. The deck of playing cards inside were in good shape, though.

"Name the stakes, gentlemen," Michelangelo said as he shuffled them on the low coffee table. "Unless you know where the poker chips are."

"I think we lost those when Raph embedded half of them in the wall," Leonardo said.

"You shouldn't have dared me," Raphael tried to defend himself.

"It wasn't a dare. I put up a target and you just happened to be putting the chips away--"

"We can play for change," Donatello said. "I've got a couple jars of spare change I haven't given April."

While Donatello briefly left the room, Raphael disappeared back into the kitchen, leaving Michelangelo alone shuffling the deck, spilling the cards across the table, and gathering them up again.

"Hey, Leo," Michelangelo said, finally getting the cards back in a pile. "How long does it usually take to paint a dragon?"

Leonardo sat straight and set his plate down on top of Raphael's on the floor. "Two or three nights. If I can only work an hour at a time, though, it's probably going to take a few weeks. Not including the background."

"Dude, can I watch?" Michelangelo asked. "I mean, I know you don't like it, but it was so cool sitting there and you didn't seem to mind much this time. Please?"

Not mentioning that he hadn't noticed because of how tired he was, Leonardo also didn't mention how he'd need someone with him if he was going to work on that mural at all. He ruefully smiled at his little brother's exuberance and nodded once.

"Sure. It'll be nice to have someone there with me."

"Man," Raphael said as he came back in. "Tell you one thing. It's gonna be nice not having practice for a little while."

"Finally we get a break," Michelangelo said. "I'm so looking forward to kicking back playing video games for a week."

Almost arguing out of sheer habit, Leonardo stopped himself before he said anything. Why shouldn't they have a break? They'd saved the city, themselves, him...like Donatello said, they needed some downtime.

Leonardo glanced at the door to his master's room. For the past few days he hadn't seen Splinter at all. The absence, while something of a relief, also made him more and more anxious as the days passed. If Splinter demanded that they return to their usual schedule of practicing...

He shook his head. That had to stop that before it even began. Which meant that he had to speak with his master soon, and alone. He didn't think his siblings were going to like that idea. Not that he was looking forward to it either.

"Okay," Michelangelo said. "Poker. One eyed jacks wild. And no eating the cards if you get pissed, Raph."

Leonardo laughed despite himself. Right now he was playing poker with his brothers. He could worry about everything else later.

To Be Concluded...