Archive of Our Own ^beta

Even in comparison to most New Yorkers, Sally Jackson has seen a lot of weird things.

Yes, seeing strange things comes with being clearsighted, sure, but even for a clearsighted mortal who has been intimately intertwined with the gods of her world, Sally Jackson has borne witness to unholy levels of weird. Her firstborn is the demigod savior of the world, her secondborn is an aspiring artist who’s just discovered fingerpainting, and her husband is an English teacher with a passion for esoteric literature.

(Though she loves her children dearly, Sally has to confess that Paul’s oddness is her favorite. She’s never had to worry if his middle-ages poetry collection is prophetic or spend forty minutes googling exactly how ‘non-toxic’ his highlighters are.)

So when the giant turtle crawled through her window and passed out on the floor, trailing blood behind him, Sally Jackson did not scream. She did swear rather violently, and thank the gods that Paul had taken Estelle to visit his mother and Percy was at camp because she does not swear around her children, but she decidedly did not scream. Screaming attracts attention, magical and mortal.

Sally Jackson did not survive ten years of marriage to Gabe Ugliano by attracting attention. Percy Jackson did not survive seventeen years of life as Poesideon’s most powerful demigod child without a mother who knew how to hide.

Deep breaths, come on Jackson, Sally thought. It’s—they’re?—bleeding. Monsters don’t bleed. You would know, you’ve vacuumed up more than a few of them.

So, not a monster. At least, not a Greek monster. That still leaves plenty of other options. There’s been a few alien invasions—and Sally is so glad Percy was in New Rome with Annabeth when those dinosaurs (Triceratons?) came down from the stars. He would have tried to fight them.

As much as Sally loves her boy, she knows Percy is absolutely the type to bring a sword to an alien gunfight. They would have killed him.

Maybe the strange person is an alien, then? Sally supposes that doesn’t mean they're a bad alien, though. They’re certainly not attacking (to be fair, they’re busy bleeding out on her carpet, so even if they wanted to hurt her, violence is off the table) and there're certainly good monsters, like Tyson and Mrs. O’Leary.

Here’s the thing: Sally Jackson has no problem letting somebody who would hurt her son bleed out in front of her. Poesideon, as a general rule, does not fall in love with merciful women.

But Sally is not cruel. She’s not going to let some guy die on her floor because they look weird. She knows that she would not hesitate the same way if this person were human. Her son is not fully human. If it were her son bleeding out in front of turtle-guy’s mother, Sally would want turtle-guy’s hypothetical mother to help Percy.

But can Sally afford to get involved?

Percy isn’t due home from Camp for another week. Paul and Estelle can spend the night with Paul’s mother.

That means the only person who will interact with the green fellow on Sally’s floor is Sally herself. That’s an acceptable level of risk.

Then it’s decided. She turns on her heel and begins to act.

Sally pulls the first-aid kit out of the locked cabinet in her kitchen. She forgoes the ambrosia and nectar she keeps with it—she’s not sure precisely what she’s dealing with, so it’s best not to accidentally immolate them with the food of the gods—and returns to her living room. The stranger is still unconscious on her floor.

The first thing to do is stem the bleeding and assess what injuries will need treatment. Snapping on a pair of disposable gloves—infection can be more deadly than the injury itself, so it’s best to be sanitary—Sally begins to inspect the stranger.

They seem to have a turtle-like shell, with little bumps and ridges that resemble a snapping turtle (Percy had a turtle phase when he was only a little older than Estelle is now, so Sally read a lot of turtle books to him). The main source of the blood is a deep gash on their right forearm, though the rest of their body is littered with nicks and bruises. Sally sucks in a breath, standing and darting to the bathroom to grab some towels. She’s going to need to be able to see the wound in order to stitch it up.

Unfortunately, most of the clean towels are white. Sally should have known better than to get white towels—and she did, actually, didn’t she? Those towels were a baby shower gift from Paul’s mother, with Jackson-Blofis embroidered in blue near the hems. They were truly nice towels, the sort Sally had never thought she would be able to own until she met Paul.

It will truly be a shame to ruin them.

Oh well, it is what it is. Even if this stranger hadn’t fallen through her window, Estelle or Percy (or Sally herself—Percy didn’t get his ADHD only from his father) would’ve destroyed the pristine whiteness of the soft fabric. No use in crying over stained towels.

Settling back down next to the stranger, Sally gets to work. First, she applies firm pressure to the wound, humming sympathetically as the stranger twitches beneath her.

“Yeah, I know it sucks, buddy, but you can be mad at me when you’re not dead,” she says. “For now, you’re just gonna have to hang on, okay?”

The unconscious guy does not respond. Probably better that way, they’re going to need stitches, and stitches hurt.

After a few minutes, Sally removes the towel. Blood wells in the wound, but it’s no longer gushing in quite the same way. She can actually see the scaly green of their skin beneath the slick red of their blood, though it has taken on a sickly pallor.

A pinkish-white catches her eye—Sally winces, her stomach turning. That’s bone. She had known that they would need stitches, but hadn’t realized quite how deep the cut was. Poor guy; this is going to ache for weeks.

Practice and experience has Sally threading her curved needle. Though she feels a bit sick, her hands are steady as she sutures flesh together; if she was not able to act when confronted with injury, her life would have been over long ago. With the familiarity of repetition, Sally swallows her gorge and focuses on the task beneath her hands. The muscle groups are humanoid, so she doesn’t need to worry overmuch about sewing something together wrong.

Overall, this person looks sort of like a very short, very buff, and very green man with a turtle-ish face and a very turtle shell. As Sally had noticed before, the shell has the distinct ridges of a common snapping turtle, and there are little spines dotting the shoulders.

Percy’s turtle phase, while in equal measures endearing and exhausting, had left Sally with a fondness for the little things. She’d never thought she’d use that knowledge of turtles to identify an unconscious turtle-person’s species by the shell while she stitches up their arm, but her life is so weird it might as well happen.

The scaly green skin proves to be too much for the repurposed upholstery needle to pierce. Sally ends up tying off a layer of dissolvable stitches beneath the skin and using zip-stitch sutures to close the top of the wound. Finally, she puts a strip of gauze on top to soak up any additional blood and wraps the whole thing in clean, white linen bandages.

With the most urgent thing taken care of, Sally switches out her bloodied gloves and takes a moment to wipe the sweat off her face and pull her hair back. Though their skin is pale and cold, the turtle-person is still breathing. Feeling for a pulse, Sally eventually manages to find it on the underside of their jaw. Faint, but steady.

Okay, they’re not in immediate danger of dying. Time to get them off the floor.

The thing about the couch in Sally’s living room is that it’s Sally’s couch. That’s the couch she’s had since she dropped out of high school to take care of her uncle. That’s the couch that has survived three boyfriends (one of whom was a god), her marriage to Gabe, her marriage to Paul, and both of her very curious children who have a severe lack of impulse control. It’s ugly and beat-up and clashes horribly with the rest of the apartment but like Tartarus is Sally getting rid of her couch.

“C’mon old girl,” Sally mutters, coaxing the joints of her couch open as it creaks unhappily. “I know you’ve still got it in you. Don’t take that tone with me, I took you in from the side of the road and fixed up your leg. Yeah, yeah, I know that bit is sticky but you’re too old to give up on me now—ah-hah!”

With a great shudder, the couch unfolds into a futon. Despite the situation, Sally can’t help but grin at the sight of it. Then, stepping over her unconscious guest, she walks to the linen closet.

That’s another one of those things she’d never thought she’d be able to have, as a child. A linen closet, just for bedsheets and pillowcases and things of that nature. There are so many tiny, terribly human luxuries that Paul has brought to her life. Sally finds herself hesitating another moment: is she willing to invite something new into the life she has built?

Poseidon did not fall in love with merciful women, but Sally is not cruel. She has already sewn the person (and they are a person, until proven otherwise) on her floor together, she will not abandon them for being difficult, for being different.

So she pulls out the mattress topper Paul bought her (Gabe always tried to make her get rid of the couch, but Paul only tried to make it more comfortable for her) and rolls it out. Then she does battle with the fitted sheet—it’s purple, and covered in little stains and older than Percy is, but it’s soft and it was her mother’s.

Finally, Sally has to put the stranger on the couch-bed, without ripping open the arm she just patched up. This is where she could really use Percy or Paul’s help.

It’s not like she can go ask the neighbor to help her lift a turtle guy onto her futon. The Mist didn’t affect the alien invasion, so it probably won’t hide this guy from mortals. No matter how sweet that boy across the hall is, endangering either the neighbor or the turtle-person (probably both) is not a risk Sally is willing to take.

Turtle-guy is heavy. Sally is not a large woman, but she ain’t a quitter either.

Fifteen minutes, a lot of leverage, and a back she’s absolutely going to be feeling in the morning, turtle-guy is on the bed.

Sitting down next to them and dragging the first aid kit up next to her, Sally starts taking care of their other wounds.

Bruises are already blossoming beneath her fingers, and one ankle is visibly swollen. A bit of prodding confirms that it’s only sprained, not broken, so Sally wraps it up and puts ice on it. She can’t see any specific trauma to their hands or feet, so the number of fingers and toes are probably normal for them. There’s scrapes and scuffs on the shell covering their stomach, but the thing that concerns Sally the most is their face.

A red mask is wrapped around their eyes, sticky with blood. Gently, Sally dabs a wet cloth to it until it grows loose and peels it off. The fabric is silky beneath her fingers, though it has clearly been skillfully mended multiple times. A treasured object, then.

Sally sets it carefully to the side. She’ll clean it up and return it after she’s done. The face revealed is… well, it’s hard to tell, but Sally thinks the turtle-person in the bed is young. Maybe Percy’s age, maybe younger, maybe older. They certainly don’t look like they’re Sally’s age.

They are pretty short too…

One eye is swollen shut. Small bits of gravel and other debris are stuck in the cuts, like their face was slammed into the ground. Their… nose? beak? looks a little crooked, the trail of dried blood coming from it making Sally think it’s broken.

Percy broke his nose once. In fourth grade, another little boy punched him. Percy was blamed for it. Sally bit her tongue and smoothed the situation over.

Later that night, she rolled over in bed and wrote fury into the pages of her diary.

“Oh, when I find out who did this to you,” Sally mutters to herself as she carefully washes away the blood, “they and I are going to have words. Well, if you don’t try to kill me first, I suppose.”

Cautious women don’t have children with ancient gods. Sally always did like to play with fire. When it’s only her life on the line, she’s not afraid of getting burnt.

The turtle-guy is still as she picks gravel out of their wounds and applies neosporin and band-aids. Between the blood loss and the healing, they’ll probably be out long enough for Sally to get done cooking some sort of dinner. Maybe she should run by the local reptile shop and get turtle food? She still has to call Paul too…

Sally finishes tending to the turtle-person, disposes of her gloves, then turns to clean up her living room.

First, she tidies up the first-aid kit and returns it to its place in the kitchen, writing down what she’d used on the grocery list pinned to the fridge. Second she grabs her carpet cleaner and leaves the bloodstain to soak until she can vacuum it. Third, she gathers the pieces of equipment she’d taken off of the turtle-fellow and sits down at the table to inspect them.

There are two identical objects in hip sheaths—the shape is unknown to Sally, but they’re clearly weapons made of mortal metal, likely steel. Another point for turtle-person not being Greek or Roman in origin. In one pocket of the belt there are these strange little climbing claw things, modified to be able to work on a three-fingered hand. The next pouch has smoke bombs, which Sally carefully puts in a ziplock baggie and sets aside. The fire alarm is tetchy enough as-is.

In another pocket, she finds car keys with a little shell keychain. Finally, she pulls out some kind of broken cell phone device shaped like a little turtle shell.

A grin crosses Sally’s face. Though the phone has clearly been destroyed, shell theme is pretty cute.

Sally arranges the items neatly on her table. Heading to a cabinet, she pulls out her leather conditioner (that belt has seen better days), her sewing kit, her sword-cleaning kit, and a small basin with some laundry detergent so she can handwash the red mask.

Finally, she pulls out her phone and calls Paul, tucking it to her ear with her shoulder so she can work and talk.

“Hello? Sally, honey, what’s up?” Paul picks up quickly, worry in his voice. “Is Percy alright? Are you alright?”

“Yes, everyone’s okay. Just… can you stay with your mother tonight? Maybe for a few days?” Sally tries not to sound too sketchy. She feels like she succeeds, until Paul responds.

“Why? I can help with whatever it is, honey. I’m sure Mom will have no trouble taking Estelle for a few days, she adores that kid.”

You have a good husband now, Sally’s therapist says. Don’t try to do everything by yourself. Relationships are based on trust and mutual support.

“Actually…” Sally takes a deep breath, listening to Estelle babbling happily in the background. Paul is an adult. Paul knows about the gods. Even if he’s not clearsighted, Paul will help, no matter how weird the situation. “Yeah. Please ask Maria to watch Estelle for a few days. I’ll, um, it’s going to be easier to explain if you just come home and look at the whole situation.”

“Alright honey, let me go talk to Mom, then I’ll be home in just a few minutes, okay? I love you.” Paul doesn’t sound angry. Sally knows he isn’t angry. He wants to help her, he’s not going to get mad about that.

She still takes a deep breath. “I love you too, babe. See you in a few. Bye.”

Sally hangs up the phone and goes back to cleaning up. The mask is finished, draped over the back of a chair to dry. The car keys and climbing stuff were both alright, so they’re on the table beside the couch with the broken shell-shaped cell phone, within easy reach of the turtle-person’s good arm. The weapons weren’t in dire need of care, so Sally left them alone. It’s best not to try and mess with something she doesn’t know how to clean and accidentally damage an important item in the process.

The belt, though… Sally can take care of a leather belt.

So she conditions and polishes it until it’s smooth and nice and not bloody anymore. Then she sets it, along with the weapons, on the table to the side of the turtle-person’s bad arm. Paul is coming home soon and Sally will not be reckless with his life.

The carpet cleaner is done soaking. She vacuums it up, then empties the vacuum. Turtle-guy shifts, but doesn’t stir.

The stain on the carpet is much lighter. To most people, it looks like the aftermath of one of Estelle’s paint explosions. Sally knows blood too well to be fooled, though.

She sits at the table and waits for Paul to come home.

Thank the gods, her husband is fast. He knows Sally better than she does, sometimes, and there must have been something in her voice that told him to come home quickly. She hears his key in the door and his voice calling for her.

“In the living room,” Sally says. She doesn’t want to get up.

“I’m coming—oh my!” Paul says. His footsteps grow louder, then abruptly stop. “What—er, my bad—who is that?”

Sally starts laughing. Only Paul could be so… alarmed but still so kind. It’s what she loves about him. “I don’t know. They came through the window and passed out on the floor.”

“A friend of Percy’s?” Paul asked, taking a seat beside Sally and reaching across the table to hold her hand. “I mean, they don’t look human.”

“Not Greek,” Sally says, threading her fingers through Paul’s. He’s warm, lovely and warm, with very soft skin. He doesn’t have the calluses of Poesideon, a warrior-god, or Gabe, who often burnt his fingers on cigarette lighters when he was drunk. “though maybe… Percy does always make friends in strange places. I didn’t want to call him, though. You know he’ll come over and he’s already been through so much. I don’t want to give him another responsibility. He’s only seventeen, Paul.”

“I forget sometimes,” Paul says, “just how young our Percy is. Do you remember being seventeen? Gosh, I thought I knew everything back then. My biggest worry was whether or not Emma from art class thought my poetry was stupid.”

“When I was seventeen, I was trying to plan Uncle Rich’s funeral. I guess I felt like the world was ending, but it wasn’t, not really,” Sally says. Seventeen was a hard year. So was every year after, until she got rid of Gabe and met Paul and Percy got older and she was able to go to school and graduate. “I don’t want him to have to… worry like I did.”

Paul squeezes her hand. “Well, he certainly won’t have to worry like I did. That Annabeth, she loves him to pieces.”

A laugh jolts out of Sally. The world seems to get lighter, all of a sudden. Paul is lovely like that. “Can you handle dinner tonight, honey? I don’t want to leave our… guest alone right now. I’m worried about them.”

Paul stands, kissing her on the forehead. “I can handle it. Dishes too, don’t worry. How does lemon-pepper tilapia sound?”

Lemon-pepper tilapia sounded amazing, actually. Sally tells him as much, accepts a long hug, then returns to her silent vigil over the turtle-person.

*

Raphael wakes up to the smell of something good that isn’t pizza or Chinese takeout, which isa bit weird. The new lair doesn’t have a kitchen yet, though Donatello is working very hard on it. Master Splinter is clearly getting sick of eating out every day, and to be frank, everyone else is too.

Except Mikey. That idiot could live on nothing but pizza for the rest of his life. Quite frankly, Raphael has no idea how his brother wasn’t just a puddle of grease at this point.

He yawns, reaching up with one hand to rub his eyes—ow. Raphael swears quietly as pain lances down his right arm. Acknowledging that apparently made his stupid body decide to announce all the other agonies it was currently feeling. His face feels like somebody shoved a hockey puck up his nose, his shell and plastron are raw and stinging, his left ankle aches, and there are tiny cuts all over him.

In short: ow.

The bed is weirdly comfortable, though. Did Don spruce up the medbay behind everyone’s back? No, they don’t even have good WiFi yet, there’s no way they have a bed this nice in the lair. Good, bedbug-free mattresses are a bit of a rare commodity in the sewers.

So is Rapheal at April’s? He’s crashed at Casey’s apartment before, and that lug doesn’t even have a bed, much less a comfortable bed, so by process of elimination, he must be at April’s house.

It doesn’t smell like April’s house, though. April’s is always sort of… dusty and flower-y. This place smells like… well it smells like the ocean. Which is weird, because Raphael has been on boats and this doesn’t rock like a boat.

With a grunt of exertion, Raphael forces his eyes open. Immediately, he regrets it, hissing in pain and slamming them shut as light stabs at his eyeballs. Freakin’ ow.

“What was that?” A distant voice, one that sounds sort of like Professor Honeycutt in pitch and tone but less robotically British, approaches the edge of Raphael’s awareness.

“They’re waking up, I think,” another voice, this one alarmingly close, responds. “Keep an eye on the stove, Paul dear.”

Gritting his teeth against the pain, Raphael focus his eyes open once more. He isn’t able to see much, other than an unfamiliar cream-colored ceiling, considering he is lying on his back. He glances left—wall, a mid-tone blue, definitely not the sewer or the warehouse he now called home. He looks right—a big open window, freakin’ ow. His eyes close again and he fails to bite back a hiss.

“Oh, the light.” The second voice again, growing closer and then fading away, like the speaker is walking past his bed. “Hold on, sweetheart, I’ll get the curtains. You must have a concussion—I’m not surprised, really, you look like you took quite the beating. Paul, do you think you can turn off the overhead and just use the stove light?”

“Sure, no problem.” The first voice says faintly.

Even with closed eyelids, Raphael can tell that the room has dimmed. Judging by the swish of fabric, someone—probably whoever had been walking—had closed the curtains. The click of a distant light switch heralds more darkness. Raphael feels his face relax as the pain behind his eyes ebbed. Everything else still hurt, but at least he didn’t have a freakin’ migraine and could actually think.

Tentatively, he opens his eyes once more. The cream ceiling, the blue wall on the left, the now-curtained window on the right, and a nice wall with pictures surrounding a TV in front of him.

So he is in a house. The house is definitely not April or Casey’s.

Just great.

“Turtle luck workin’ as always,” he mutters under his breath. The occupants of the house had clearly noticed him waking, so there was no point in playing dead. If Raphael is gonna get screamed at by random humans, he is at least gonna get screamed at sitting up.

Trying to keep his injured arm as still as possible, ‘cause that thing hurt like shell, Raphael began to lever himself upright with his spare hand. Immediately, he regrets it. His vision blurs and his head spins, nausea rising in his chest.

Screwing his eyes shut, Raphael grits his teeth and sucks in a breath. He isnot going to puke all over himself in front of strangers. He is not.

“Hold on a second—“

Now there were hands on Raphael. On instinct, he lashes out, trying to bring his right arm in for an uppercut and—

Oh yeah, the big freakin’ wound from where some random guy stabbed him with a knife. A scream crawls up his throat and he forces it down. It escapes as a pained whine instead, which is actually worse than screaming his head off, ‘cause whines and whimpers and all that stuff’s embarrassing and Raph’s got a tough-guy thing going.

“Yeah, I’ll bet that hurt, didn’t it?” The person holding him says, not unsympathetically.

It’s the second voice, the one who moved and closed the curtains. Now that Rapheal’s brain isn’t trying to climb out of his eyes, he can hear it more clearly. Sweet and feminine, but with an experienced sort of steel in it. Kind of like Mrs. Morrison, but not quite as old-sounding.

“Now, since you’re clearly going to keep trying to sit up whether it’s a good idea or not, are you going to let me help you?”

Raphael grunts. Do I have a choice?

“Alright, taking that as a yes. Trust me, honey, you’re not the first person I’ve had to patch up on this couch.”

“Ominous,” he slurs. “G’n t’ sell m’organs, lady?”

The lady laughs. It’s a good sound. “On three. One, two, three!”

Raph pushes and the lady pulls with surprising strength. Honestly, she’s doing most of the heavy lifting. By the end of the whole process, Raphael is mostly upright, propped up by pillows, and the lady is laying on the bed next to him, stretching out her back.

“I am getting too old to do this,” the lady says.

Her back pops and Raphael will admit he’s a little jealous of the human ability to do that. Not that he’d trade his shell for anything, but sometimes he does want to crack his back just right, and it’s kind of hard to do that with an inflexible carapace holding your spine straight.

“Now, can you eat human food? Or will that make you sick? Any allergies?” The lady asks.

Raphael blinks at her. This is not how he was prepared for this conversation to go. “Uh… I’m allergic to peanut butter? But I can have human food, yeah.”

“Okay. There’s no peanut butter in anything we’ve cooked—my daughter hates it, actually, but my son loves PB&Js, so it’s definitely present in our kitchen.” the lady frowns thoughtfully. “Will that be okay, or should we get takeout for you?”

“Uh, that’ll be fine,” Raph says. “I just can’t, like, have spoonfuls of the stuff outta the jar.”

“Then you should be good to eat what my husband made. Do you like lemon-pepper tilapia?”

Raphael almost shrugs, but thinks the better of it when his injured arm twinges. As a compromise, he lifts and then drops his left shoulder. “Never had it. Really, though, there’s no need to bother, I’ll be out of your hair in just a minute if you’ll let me—“

“You are not walking or driving on that ankle young man.” The lady slides off the bed and crosses her arms. “You are staying right here until you can get home safely.”

“Lady, my brothers are gonna be real worried,” Raph starts. “It’s just better for everyone if I get goin’.”

“Okay then,” the lady looks him in the eye, a challenge in the arch of her eyebrow. “Go ahead and stand up.”

To be fair, Raphael does make an honest attempt at standing up. It doesn’t go well. He tries to argue his way into leaving anyway and the lady argues back. At some point, the guy from the kitchen brings out the food and it smells really good, and he gives Raphael a plate and a fork and Raphael is halfway through it before he realizes it’s probably poisoned or something.

Well, he definitely ate enough to kill him already so he might as well finish it. At least it’s a good last meal.

“Well, um,” the Professor Honeycutt-sounding guy fiddles nervously with his fork. Raphael and the lady are still glaring at each other, though both are too busy eating to keep verbally arguing. “I’m Paul, Paul Blofis, I’m Sally’s husband. It’s nice to meet you…?”

Raphael doesn’t break eye contact with the lady, who he guesses is Sally Blofis. “Raphael.”

At least this guy is reacting normally. Sure, the lack of screaming is odd, but he’s definitely wary of Raphael. The lady—Sally, seems to have taken this whole situation fully in stride, like Mrs. Morrison, except she’s clearly not blind. The only humans who do that are enemies or people who think they’re wearing costumes.

Sally said she patched him up. He knows there’s stitches in his arm. There’s no way it looked like he was wearing a costume when she was sewing him back together.

Raphael clearly needs to get the hell out of here.

“Oh, like the artist?” Paul asks. He sounds genuinely interested too, which is a bit weird.

“Uh, yeah,” Raphael says. “My Dad, that I need to get back home to, likes art history.”

“Your father wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself to get back to him,” Sally says. “Borrow my phone and call him. Give him my address so he can come over, if you want. But you are not leaving that bed until it’s safe for you to move.”

Raphael glares at her. “Lady, I am not waiting until whatever delusion you’re under wears off and you start screaming about aliens and call the cops.”

“You are not the weirdest person I’ve ever met,” Sally says evenly, taking a sip of her water. “I am fully aware that you are not human. It’s a bit hard to miss.”

“So, you gonna call the EPF on me?” Raphael snipes back. “Gotta say, they’ve already failed to dissect me twice. Terrible track record, really.”

Paul gasps, looking horrified. “Dissect?”

Sally lays a comforting hand on Paul’s arm, though she does not break eye contact with Raphael.

Okay, Raph can work with this. If he freaks Paul out enough, Sally will have to let Raph leave, and he can work it out from there. “Yeah, big scary mutant turtle running from the government. You don’t want that in your living room, now do you?”

Sally frowns at him. Despite the blankets wrapped around him and the fact that mutant ninja turtles rarely wear clothes, Raphael feels naked. “How old are you?”

“What?”

“How old are you?” Sally repeats calmly.

“Old enough,” Raphael snarls. “Why?”

“Because you’re acting like a frightened child.” Sally says.

“I am not frightened and am not a child,” Raphael snaps. “I am seventeen.”

The room is quiet. Raphael regrets that. He let himself get riled up, let shit slip, and—

”Percy’s age,” Paul whispers. “You’re my son’s age, and you’re worried about us calling the government to dissect you.”

Sally says nothing. She looks sad, but not surprised.

“I don’t need your pity,” Raph spits, though even he can tell the anger isn’t there. It’s… confusion, really.

“It’s not pity,” Sally says. She slides a little flip phone across the table. “Call your father, please. He must be worried sick.”

Raphael looks at the phone. This whole conversation is so weird and unsettling. Maybe if he does what she wants she’ll stop looking at him like that. Unfortunately, the phone’s too small.

Pointedly, he rests his hand next to it. The tip of his finger is bigger than the tiny screen. “Does it look like I can dial on that?”

“I’ll dial for you, then.” Sally takes the phone back. “Paul and I can go to the bedroom if you want to talk privately.”

“Eh, do whatever,” Raphael says.

“We’ll go, then,” Sally decides. She flips open the phone and looks expectantly at Raphael.

“Okay, so you’re gonna wanna start like you’re making an international call. It ain’t gonna charge ya, but my brother keeps us off the usual grid so we don’t get dissected.” Raphael waits for a nod, making sure Sally’s got it. ”So, um, the code you’re gonna enter after the plus is eight-seven-eight-five-three.”

Sally raises an eyebrow as she dials. “T-R-T-L-E? Turtle?”

“Don thinks he’s funny,” Raph says. “He made our phones, cause, well, it’s not like regular ones would work for us, so he got to name ‘em too. They’re called shell-cells.”

“I guess it was pretty easy for him to pick a theme,” Paul says absent-mindedly.

Raphael snorts despite himself. Don does love being on the nose.

Sally chuckles, the corners of her eyes lifting as she looks at her husband. It’s a bit like the way Casey looks at April sometimes, all light and satisfied, like he can’t believe she’s right next to him.

It’s sort of the way Raphael looks at his brothers, but also entirely different. He feels so… out of place here, at this normal meal with this happy normal couple being so normal. They’re talking about calling his dad like he’s a kid asking to sleep over, like he’s not a mutant ninja freak.

If Raphael weren’t so injured, he’d probably walk away and punch something right about now. Unfortunately, because he can barely sit up, he’s left to stew while Sally finishes dialing his father’s number and the phone rings.

Splinter picks up and then fumbles for a full thirty seconds while Sally and Paul head to the back room.

“Hi Dad—Dad, you’ve picked up, you’re alright, just put the phone to your ear, please,” Raphael says.

“My son?” Splinter’s voice is full of worry. “My son, where are you? What’s happened? Are you alright? Your brothers left to find you just a few minutes ago.”

“I’m, uh, in Manhattan. I couldn’t call ‘cause my shell cell was busted, sorry Dad. I, um, got a bit messed up by one o’ those anti-alien mobs, so I tried to find somewhere to sleep it off.” Jesus, Raph feels so embarrassed. He’s a freakin’ ninja, and just cause he got caught off-guard, some punks with a bone to pick almost managed to pick his bones.

“You are hurt?” Oh, Splinter is real worried now. ”Where? How badly?”

“Sensei, I’m alright. Some lady found me and patched me up. She gave me her phone and told me to call you, actually.”

“Does she think you are… human?” Splinter sounds as baffled as Raphael feels.

“No, she’s just… fine with the whole mutant turtle thing, apparently.” Raphael cannot keep the skepticism out of his voice.

“My son, is there something you are not telling me?”

Raphael winces. “She’s almost, like, too fine with it, I guess? Her husband’s kinda freakin’ out about me, but she’s just totally fine with me. She fed me dinner and yelled at me for sitting up with a concussion like you and Don do. It’s really weird.”

“Why are you on the phone if you have a concussion, Raphael? You ought to be resting, my son.”

Uh oh. It’s the Dad Voice coming out. Time to be reassuring, because there’s no stopping Leo’s fussing, and both of them fussing at the same time is downright unbearable. “Sensei, I’m fine. Really. Just a bit busted up, nothing bandages and rest won’t fix.”

“Very well,” Splinter does not sound convinced, but he changes the subject anyway. “May I speak to your host?”

“Eh? Sure, I guess,” Raphael says. Covering the phone with his hand, he calls in the direction of the bedroom, “hey! My dad says he wants to talk to you!”

The bedroom door opens. Sally comes out, so Raphael hands the phone to her.

Sally puts it to her ear, where it disappears under her dark curls, and begins speaking. “Hello—oh, it’s nice to meet you. Splinter, you said? Well, I’m Sally Jackson. Your boy is unfortunately in no shape to move around right now, but you’re welcome to come to my apartment so he’s not surrounded by strangers. Oh, he told you he was fine? He did now, did he? One moment, let me put you on speaker.”

Raphael feels his stomach drop.

“My son, precisely how injured are you?” Splinter asks, voice made tinny and unfamiliar by the crummy flip-phone speakers.

“Well, um,” Raph starts, stuttering nervously, “it’s not that bad? Some guy got a lucky shot, is all.”

Raphael hears his father inhale to start grilling, but Sally cuts him off. “Splinter, pardon us for one moment, please?”

“Very well, one moment,” Splinter does not sound pleased about the interruption, but Raphael’s father has a lot of ideas about being polite to your hosts, so he allows it.

The bed dips as Sally sits down on the edge. She lays the phone in between the two of them, hits the little mute microphone button, and fixes Raph with a Look.

Raphael gulps.

“Baby,” Sally says, voice kind but unmovably firm, “either you tell him or I do. My own son is just about your age, and he got himself real badly hurt a year or so ago and I didn’t know if he was alright for months. Do you have any idea how scary it is to not know if your kids are safe? Don’t do that to your father, honey. Tell him the truth, okay?.”

Raph deflates a little bit. “But—“

“So you want me to tell him, then?” Sally reaches for the phone.

Oh, absolutely not. That would be so much worse. Raphael snatches the phone away. “I’ll tell him.”

Sally raises an eyebrow at him.

It takes him a second to realize the error. Raphael sighs, then holds out the phone to her. “Unmute it, please.”

Sally unmutes it.

Raph holds the phone in his good hand, cradling it in his lap, and looks up at the ceiling as he starts talking. Maybe that will make it less embarrassing.

“So, um, one of the guys maybe had a big kitchen knife, and I couldn’t spin my sai fast enough to block it ‘cause I did what I always do and got angry enough to lose focus and well… better my arm than my face, yeah? Miss Sally stitched it up real good though, so it’s fine and I’m fine and don’t worry about me.”

Splinter makes an exhausted noise over the phone. “What else, Raphael?”

“What makes you think there’s something else?” Raphael asks, though even he can hear that he’s being evasive.

“My son, you are many things, but subtle is not one of them.” There is a distinct fondness to Splinter’s voice, clear even through the worry.

“Um… I have a lot of bruises?”

“Also…?” Splinter presses.

Raphael sighs, wishing he could melt into the bed and never talk again. Freakin’ humiliating. “Also I think I sprained my ankle again. And I have a concussion again. And I broke my nose again.”

“Well done, Raphael. It is important to trust your fellows with your wounds. We cannot care for one another as a family if we do not know what is wrong,” Splinter says.

Raphael grunts, but the praise warms his chest. He opens his mouth to say something else, but yawns instead, a big thing that shows off all his blunt teeth.

“You must be tired. Rest, my son—but call Leonardo first, your brothers need to know you are well, and I would feel much better if you were not alone.”

“Alright, Sensei,” Raphael says. “I’ll talk to you later.”

“Rest well, my son.” Splinter says, though it sounded an awful lot like be careful.

Raphael hangs up. He takes a deep breath and leans back, closing his eyes and staring at the ceiling, trying not to think about how hard it was to stop talking to his dad. He’s almost an adult, it shouldn’t be so difficult to handle himself.

“Your Dad sounds nice,” Sally says after a moment, pulling Raph from his thoughts. “Splinter… what an interesting name. Is he a turtle too?”

“My brothers and I are adopted, so no,” Raphael thinks for a bit, considering his next words carefully. Then, because she already knows that they’re mutant turtles, so he might as well go all-in: “he’s a rat.”

Sally blinks at him. “Huh. Didn’t see that one coming, to be honest. Four turtles and rat.”

“Nobody ever does,” Raphael snorts. “April—a human friend of ours—passed out the first time she met us. I think Dad scared her more than my brothers, honestly. Giant mutant rats tend to freak people out. She warmed up to him, though. She gets him special conditioner for his fur now.”

“People tend to be very cruel to people that are different,” Sally says. “It’s not quite the same, but my son has ADHD and dyslexia, so he was always picked on in school. That led to him being really isolated from most other kids. He never had many friends, until he turned eleven and started going to a summer camp for kids like him. It’s hard, to be different. Your family faces a lot of challenges others don’t.”

“We went to outer space once,” Raph offers, because he felt like he should say something. “There, we were just another bunch of aliens. Or when we went to the Battle Nexus championship—man, we looked downright normal compared to some of those guys!”

“I’m glad you have a place you can fit in,” Sally says. “It gets easier when you find others who like you. Plus, my niece, a girl from Paul’s side of the family, has made many friends over the Internet. You can’t see what others look like there, it’s all just text.”

“I guess—“ Raphael stops, looking at Sally.

She’s put a finger to her lips in a shushing gesture, and her head is tilted, like she is listening for something. Raphael can’t hear it, but Sally stands, walks silently over to the window, and pulls the curtains open in a firm, swift motion.

Raphael squints against the glare, though the sun had begun to set and his headache wasn’t as bad, so it didn’t take long for him to adjust.

Donatello, Leonardo, and Michelangelo looked back through the glass, frozen like deer caught in headlights. They are all perched on the fire escape, and, judging by the doohickey Donnie is holding, had been tracking Raph’s busted shell-cell.

Hoo boy.

*

Paul Blofis tries to be open-minded, really, he does. His mother and father were friends with people from all walks of life, so Paul learned about things like autism and lesbians far earlier and far more kindly than most other children of his generation. He didn’t really do any dating after high school, because most people he liked were very mean to his friends, so it was really just Paul, until he fell in love with the woman from his late-night english class.

Sally Jackson took open-mindedness to a whole new level. She introduced Paul to a world he still has trouble believing in sometimes, one full of gods and monsters and all sorts of other strange new people. There are children, cousins of her son, that visit at strange times in strange ways, so she keeps ambrosia, nectar, and a fully stocked first-aid kit in the kitchen. She reads poetry written in Middle English by repressed Irish monks when Paul asks her to.

Obviously, Paul married her.

So when Sally left to speak to Raphael’s father, Paul sat on the bed and took a deep breath. He is so worried for the young man on the couch, who lashed out the way many of his students did when they felt he was trying to be cruel to them. He had met many children who’d gone through terrible terrible things, chief among them his own stepson, Percy, but hearing a seventeen year old child, no matter how green, speak about getting dissected?

It was horrible.

Sally is good at taking things in stride, perhaps because she lived her own horrors as a child. Paul could see the anger in the way she held herself, the tightness of her eyes, how she wanted to reach for Percy’s father and drown the people who made this young man feel like he had to defend his right to exist.

I have a thing for playing with fire, Sally said once, a warning cloaked in a teasing tone. Percy gets it from me, really.

Paul thought he was being smooth and romantic when he responded, well maybe I have a thing for arsonists.

Sally laughed herself sick and had to reheat her dinner, because it went cold in the time it took her to recover. Paul counted himself very lucky that she found his awkward earnestness charming, because he had been so sure she would break up with him for it.

So Paul sits on the bed and takes deep deep breaths to compose himself while Sally speaks to Raphael’s father. He is not going to make any vulnerable teenager close themself off, even if this vulnerable teenager is a giant turtle.

So when he hears the living room window open and his lovely wife start talking to someone new, Paul moves to listen at the door.

“Well, are you all going to stand there until somebody sees you? Come in, but be quiet about it, Raphael’s got a concussion. I’m assuming you’re the brothers he was supposed to call?”

“Er, uh, yes ma’am,” a new voice says. It is soft and confused—actually, it really sounded like Percy when he first met Paul, desperate to make a good impression on a strange adult. “I’m Leonardo, that’s Donatello—”

“And I’m Michealangelo!” A new voice, almost… surfer-dude? cuts in loudly. Paul winces at the volume. Poor Raphael.

“Mikey!” Leonardo—and another voice, by process of elimination, that must be Donatello—hiss. “She said quiet.”

“Oh, shell, sorry dude—er, uh dudette? Miss dudette?” Michelangelo apologizes. “Aw jeeze, Raph, you look awful.”

God, that kid is adorable. It reminds Paul of the time he taught a summer class at the local juvenile detention center. The kids treated him like a peer, because he was nice to them, so they’d slip up and call him dude or bro and then try to backtrack.

Some of those kids had been at his wedding.

“What happened to you?” Leonardo asks.

Okay, time to make himself known before anything personal starts happening. Being sure to make noise, Paul pushes open the bedroom door. “Hello to the living room,” he called softly.

“Hello to the, uh, that room!” Michelangelo hollers back. “Who are you?”

“Mikey, if I could stand right now, I’d beat th’ shell outta you,” Raphael grumbles from the couch.

“Quiet,” Donatello hisses, “do you know the meaning of the word quiet?”

“Mikey, please,” Leonardo sounds exhausted. “Don’t shout.”

Ah, Paul thanks wryly. Brotherly love.

“Sorry guys,” Michelangelo says. To his credit, he did sound actually sorry, the way Percy did when he accidentally woke up Estelle. “I forgot.”

“I’ll kill you later,” Raph promises, but Paul can hear how there is no bite to the words. These people (turtles?) are close, the way Percy is with his friends.

“I’m Sally’s husband,” Paul says, walking slowly into view. “My name is Paul. I’m an English teacher at Goode High. I come in peace.”

He takes a moment to assess the scene in front of them. The futon takes up most of the living room. Paul hates the look of that couch, but it’s Sally’s special couch and he’s not going to make her get rid of it. Raphael is on the futon, propped up on the pillows, just like he’d been when Paul and Sally went into the bedroom.

There are three more people—turtles?—inside, though. They’re all around the same height, five foot even, though each of them are wearing masks of a different color. The blue turtle has two swords sheathed across his back, the purple one has a bō staff and a brown rucksack, and the orange one has nunchucks on his hips. They’re all wearing brown belts with pouches for items, like the one Sally had said Raphael was wearing, but are otherwise naked.

Paul supposes that turtles don’t generally wear clothes, so naked is a very relative term.

They’re all sort of staring awkwardly at each other until the turtle with the orange mask bounces forward and takes one of Paul’s hands, shaking it enthusiastically.

“I’m Michelangelo! But you can call me Mikey!” he says. Michelangelo—well, Mikey—is a very strong turtle. “Thanks for not dissecting my brother! Or calling the government to dissect my brother!”

“Uh, no problem?” Paul says. He looks to Sally for guidance, but she’s already engaging with the blue turtle. Is that one Leonardo or Donatello? “Really, it’s Sally you have to thank. I just made dinner.”

“Oooo… dinner. Do you guys have any leftovers?” Mikey drops Paul’s hand and looks around, as though the food he is after may spontaneously appear somewhere in the living room.

“I’m sorry about my brother,” The purple turtle says as he edges around the bed. Putting his hand on Mikey’s shoulder, he adds “Michelangelo, you cannot just ask people for dinner.”

“Why not? I’m hungry and the whole house smells like food and I waited until somebody else brought it up.” Mikey pouts, crossing his arms. “Besides, the cupboards would be way emptier-smelling if they were on food stamps, it’s the time of the month when that sort of stuff runs low, and I can smell all kinds of foods in the kitchen. I’ve hung out with Angel and Casey enough to know that kind of stuff. I followed all the asking rules, Don.”

Donatello—Paul doesn’t think you can get the nickname Don from Leonardo—sighs. “It’s rude to ask when you don’t know somebody well enough. These humans took care of Raph, we cannot be rude to them. Please apologize to Paul.”

“It’s okay,” Paul says, “really. Mikey’s right, we’re not hurting for money right now, we can share our food. We ate all our dinner, but I’ll dig through the fridge and see what I can pull together.”

“See, Donatello, Mikey’s right,” Mikey grins at his brother, pulling him into a side hug. “And Mikey scored us dinner! Big win for the Mikey community!”

“Mikey, it might’ve been fine this time, but we can’t afford to be rude to people who can rat us out,” Donatello hisses. “We really, really cannot afford to have any humans mad at us.”

“Casey’s allowed to be rude,” Mikey complains.

“Casey’s human, Mikey. You know it’s different for us,” Donatello says. He is speaking in a low tone, though his eyes keep nervously darting to Paul, making it clear that he knows Paul can hear every word. “April doesn’t mind, but that’s because April’s got time to get to know us. She doesn’t think we’re aliens. She thinks we’re her little brothers, so it’s endearing when we’re hungry.”

“We’re not even aliens,” Mikey argues weakly. “We’re literally from Earth.”

“I know, but most people don’t,” Donatello says. It’s clear they’ve had this conversation before, several times. “C’mon, Mikey, we can eat at home, now that we know Raph is okay.”

Paul feels his heart break a little bit. He’s been witness to this conversation before—hell, he’s had this conversation before, with so many kids who are held to different standards then their peers for things they cannot control.

“How about we head to the kitchen?” Paul suggests. “I have no problem making you guys some dinner. I’m assuming you all haven’t eaten yet, yeah?”

“No, we haven’t,” Mikey says, perking up.

“Really, we’ll be fine, I’m not even hungry.” Donatello says. Even if Paul had never seen a hungry teenage boy in his life, he would be able to tell that was a big, fat lie. “It’s fine.”

“I insist,” Paul begins ushering them to the kitchen. Sally shoots him a grateful look. Is she trying to have a private conversation with the blue turtle? Paul hadn’t even noticed, he just wants to feed these kids. “Really, I love cooking for people. Any dietary restrictions?”

“Donnie hates things with too many different parts that aren’t the same, like fruit salads and lasagna,” Mikey says.

“Mikey,” Donatello hisses. “I’m sure whatever you’re making will be fine, sir.”

“Son,” Paul says gently, “I want to make you something that’ll be nice for you to eat. I, for one, cannot stand blueberries. My wife and children love them, but when they make pancakes they always make some plain ones for me.”

“I really don’t want to trouble you any further,” Donatello says, which tells Paul nothing about what he can eat.

Okay, Paul’s clearly not going to get any further with this whole second dinner plan until he addresses the actual problem. The table in the living room won’t work, since it’s too close to whatever private conversation Sally is trying to have, so the kitchen floor it is.

Paul sits down, beckoning for Donatello and Mikey to join him.

“Oh, are we having a Serious Talk Now?” Mikey asks as he flops into a sort of sloppy criss-cross applesauce, picking at one of his knee pads.

Dontaello’s face darkens as he sits down on his heels, keeping his legs tucked neatly underneath him and folding his hands in his lap.

“Well, not a serious talk,” Paul says, “but I want to come to an understanding. I know you guys are wary of me, and you have every right to be. There’s now an EPF officer in every police station. Whether or not you’re aliens, you’re different, so that means you’re gonna be targeted.”

“They’re in all the police stations now?” Mikey sounds surprised.

Donatello’s mouth is pressed into a thin line. He looks resigned.

“I’m a teacher, which means I work with a lot of vulnerable kids. I know how dangerous it is to be different. My stepson, Percy, he has a lot of trouble in school, so he’s often the first to be blamed when things go wrong. With his record, teachers tend to take anything and everything in the worst way possible. I’ve been in the principal's office to defend him when he got in trouble for laughing during lunchtime.”

“How the shell did he get in trouble for that?” Mikey asks.

“One of the teachers overheard him and thought he must have been making fun of her. He wasn’t, he was laughing at a joke his girlfriend told him, but just being in the wrong place at the wrong time was enough, because people are always waiting for him to do something wrong.” Paul looks over at Donatello, making gentle eye contact. “I promise that I am not waiting for you to do something wrong. I want to offer you the same grace I offer all my students, including the grace I offer my son.”

“I… I see,” Donatello says slowly. “We still have to be careful. We can’t get too used to people being… so accepting of us.”

God, if that doesn’t just break Paul’s heart. He understands it, though. Keeping eye contact with Donatello, he nodded.

“Okay, understanding reached, can we please focus on dinner now?” Mikey begs. He falls dramatically to the ground, groaning and covering his eyes. “I’m wasting away.”

Paul laughed. Bracing himself, he got to his feet and pulled open the fridge. “Yes, we can focus on dinner. Right now, I’m open to suggestions from the audience.”

“You mentioned pancakes earlier?” Donatello asks, a bit nervously.

You cannot fist-pump because the purple turtle asked you a question, Paul. You cannot do it. No matter how proud you are of him for being brave and expressing his needs.

“I believe I did. I can certainly do pancakes. Do you like anything in them?”

“Ooo! Do you have chocolate chips? And whipped cream?” Mikey asks. Paul can hear him bouncing on his feet.

“I thought you were wasting away,” he says wryly, fishing the eggs and milk out of the fridge and pulling a mixing bowl out of the cabinet. “But yes, we do. I take it you’d like chocolate-chip pancakes, Mikey?”

“I wasted away and then came back around,” Mikey chirps. “Chocolate chips saved me. Hey Donnie, do you want chocolate chips?”

“Plain for me, please,” Donatello says. “Leo likes apple slices, though. Dad likes blueberries. We should take some dinner home for him, if you don’t mind, he’s probably starving. I haven’t got the stove working yet, so he can’t really make anything, and he’s bad with technology, so he can’t get take-out.”

“I can certainly make your father some pancakes,” Paul smiles, grabbing the flour and sugar from their places in the pantry. “Even if he does like blueberries.”

*

So Leo’s been having a bit of a rough week. However, being distracted enough that a random lady is able to catch him and his brothers sitting outside her window by opening her curtains quickly? Wow, that is… embarrassing.

At least Raph isn’t here to laugh at him and—oh, no, he’s in there? On the bed? In this random lady’s house? Leo is in hell, actually. What’s that Raph always says? Turtle luck?

Yeah, Leo’s feeling the turtle luck right now. He’s really, really feeling that turtle luck.

Well, it seems Donnie’s shell-cell tracker is still working alright. That’s one bright side. Oh—the lady’s opening the window. Is she going to scream now?

The lady sticks her head out and invites them all inside. Leonardo has no idea how to react to this, but neither do Mikey or Don, so it’s up to him to figure this stuff out.

They go inside, and then the lady’s husband comes out of a back room, and wow that is the least threatening man Leonardo has ever seen. He’s wearing a sweater-vest and he sounds a little bit like Professor Honeycutt. He’s also taking Mikey being, well, Mikey at full-throttle very well.

“So, you’re Leonardo. Come sit down, honey, I’m sure Paul is trying to feed your brothers. Have you all eaten yet?”

“No, uh, no ma’am,” Leo says. “It’s alright, though, we have food at home, and I really don’t want to impose…”

“Just call me Sally, no ma’am or miss needed,” the woman sitting across from Leo says. The armchairs are mismatched, but very comfortable. “And please, my son is around your age. I know you all must be starving. You can eat here and at home.”

Leo is starving. He’s also worried about taking food from somebody who can’t afford to lose it.

Some of that must show on his face, because Sally’s expression changes. “Honey, I grew up very, very poor. I’m quite comfortable now, because there were people who shared their food with me when I needed it. Now that I have plenty, I want to share it with others. You’re doing me a favor, really.”

“Raphael is allergic to peanut butter,” Leo says, because he doesn’t know what else to say. “But not too badly. He can eat stuff that’s been near peanut butter, or that’s from the same kitchen, he just can’t eat it out of the jar or he gets sick.

“He mentioned that earlier,” Sally says calmly.

Everything about this woman is just throwing Leo off. She’s treating this whole situation like it’s normal, like she invites mutant turtles loitering on her fire escape inside for dinner on a semi-regular basis.

It unsettles him greatly. People who treat Leonardo and his brothers as a fact of life are either fellow mutants, aliens, or enemies trying to dissect them, and this woman is as human as they come (even if her house smells rather violently of the sea).

Weirdly enough, Leonardo isn’t getting dissection vibes from her. Granted, he also didn’t get dissection vibes from the Shredder, but the Shredder didn’t save Raphael’s life and try to feed the rest of his family dinner.

“Pardon my bluntness,” Leonardo starts slowly, trying to be polite, “but why aren’t you, er, freaking out right now, Sally?”

“I have seen much weirder,” Sally says immediately. “I cannot tell you exactly what—it’s a personal family matter—but trust me, I know the world is a strange, strange place.”

“A personal family matter?” Leo’s heart stutters as his mind jumps to Karai, how her relentless pursuit is a family matter. “What sort of personal family matter?”

“It’s not related to you,” Sally said. “We’re… hm, Greek, I suppose, is the easiest way to put it. Your father, he is… not, I am assuming, as Raphael said he was a rat?”

“Yeah no, Dad’s, uh, Japanese, I guess?” Leo said. “And a rat. He was born and raised in Japan, then immigrated to America, so I guess we’d all be Japanese-American, then? I don’t really know anything about Greece.”

“So no, you do not need to worry about my own family matters. Just know that I am familiar with strange people,” Sally’s eyes glitter teasingly, “and hungry teenage boys.”

Leonardo feels himself blush. “We had to find Raph, he’d been missing for hours,” he says weakly. “Running around rooftops works up an appetite.”

Sally raises her eyebrows. “What were you all doing up there?”

“I mean, it’s not like we can use the sidewalk,” Leo says, “and the sewers only get us so far. Besides, when it’s dark out, nobody really notices people jumping between buildings.”

“That must take a lot of skill,” Sally says. “Did you teach yourselves?”

Leo shakes his head. “Our father is our sensei. He learned ninjitsu when he was young, and is passing his training on to us.”

“He knows how to use all those weapons? He must be a very skilled man,” Sally says . “My son teaches sword fighting at his summer camp. His girlfriend does most of the dagger lessons. From my understanding, it’s quite difficult to master so many different skillsets.”

“What kind of camp has sword-fighting lessons?” Leo tries not to sound too suspicious.

“It’s a camp for kids with ADHD and dyslexia,” Sally explains. “The sword-fighting helps them focus, gets all the energy out. Percy loves it. Honestly, Mikey would fit right in there, he seems like a really sweet boy.”

“I thought it was for kids with ADHD and dyslexia?” Leo frowns. “I mean, besides the fact that we’re all turtles who can’t go to summer camp for obvious reasons.”

“Oh, that’s my bad,” Sally apologizes. “Mikey reminded me so much of my son, and of myself—I have ADHD as well—so I thought he must have it. I mean, I guess you can’t really go to the doctor if you’re a turtle.”

“I had literally never thought of that before,” Leonardo says slowly. “I—hmm… I should ask Don if he knows anything. I’d heard of it before, just, like, around, but I’d never thought about applying it to us. You said Mikey reminded you of yourself and your son? How so?”

“Well, the volume control for one. I’m pretty good at it, though I slip up and scare Paul sometimes, and Percy has a lot more trouble. And… hmm…” Sally bit her lip, looking thoughtful.

“Is… that all?” Leo prodded gently.

“I’m hesitant to say more, because I really don’t want to overstep—Mikey knows his own brain better than anybody. Heck, I still haven’t gotten a doctor to work with me. The last one I went to said that women couldn’t have ADHD and told me I was drug-seeking.” Sally rolls her eyes, her tone dipping into frustration. “At least Percy got diagnosed young enough. It’s easier for little boys.”

“I see,” Leo says. “That makes sense. I’m glad Paul was nice to Mikey, he can be… a lot, initially. The turtle thing doesn’t help.”

Sally laughs a little. “Leo Valdez, one of Percy’s friends from camp, is a lot like Mikey. He introduced himself to my husband as Captain Toolbelt, Former Supreme Commander of the Argo II and Current Supreme Commander of Festus the Dragon and then fixed Paul’s broken laptop in about fifteen minutes. It was finals week, so Leo was Paul’s favorite person for the next month.”

“Wow… that sounds kind of like Don, actually,” Leonardo says. “He really likes technology. We can’t exactly go to tech stores, so he builds all his stuff out of scrap from the dumpsters. He’s made some really, really cool stuff though. For his Christmas present, April dressed him up and took him to a Microcenter, just to look at stuff, cause, I mean, it’s not like we really have any money. He talked to me about CPUs for three hours when he got home.”

“Oh, Don and Leo would certainly get along, though I think he and Mikey would be quite the dynamic duo. Remember, oh, a year or so ago, how all the billboards in Times’ Square read ‘ALL DA LADIES LUV LEO’?”

“My brothers teased me for months,” Leo says, horrified. “I was convinced it was Don, even though that’s not his style… I thought Mikey put him up to it… Was that—was that—”

“That was Leo Valdez, yes.” Sally smiles fondly. “He’s a good kid.”

I can never, never, NEVER let Mikey be alone with that kid, Leo thinks. They’ll do something terrible.

Sally starts laughing again. “Oh, kid—ha—your face!”

“Were you, um, were you kidding?” Leonardo asks hopefully.

“Hm? No, no, that was Leo.” Sally says firmly, even as she wiped away tears. “I supposed Mikey is fond of jokes, then?”

“Glitter has been banned from our home since we were seven,” Leo deadpans. “It was his fault.”

“That sounds about right,” Sally says. “Oh, I haven’t laughed like that in a while. You doing okay, hon? I know you’re hungry, and it sucks when family members are missing. You’re the oldest, yeah?”

“Oh? I’m fine,” Leo answers. “And, well, I guess? We’re quadruplets, got mutated at the same time, so age isn’t really a factor for us, but I’m the one in charge when Dad isn’t.”

“You must have had a really hard night,” Sally says sympathetically.

“Eh, it wasn’t so bad,” Leo says. Sure, it was a rough night for a while, but it wasn’t like they had to spring Raph from a Triceraton jail or one of Bishop’s dissection rooms. “Really, I mean, we found Raph and he was, y’know, okay, you helped him call Dad, we didn’t have to bust him out of a prison, and you’re feeding us dinner. This has been a pretty good night, all things considered, actually. Our home got destroyed a week or two ago, so we’ve been living off of takeout while Donnie gets electricity and appliances set up again.”

“Do you have to rescue your brothers often?” Sally asks.

Leo shrugs. “I mean, I guess? Usually whoever’s after us manages to get all four at once, so we break out together. We broke out of a Triceraton jail with two spoons, a metal cup, and floor wax, so it’s not like we’re defenseless, you know?”

“Were you captured during the invasion?” Sally asks. “That must have been terrifying.”

“Huh?” Leo blinks. He’d forgotten that the Triceratons weren’t common knowledge before the whole invasion thing. “Oh no, we accidentally got beamed to space way before that, when we were still fifteen. We spent three months up there, though it was only ten minutes down on Earth, for some weird reason.”

“So you all broke out of alien juvie—”

“No, no, it was adult prison. I think they thought we were adults? Or they just didn’t care. I mean, it’s not like we were going to correct them, y’know.” Leo tried to imagine telling one of the guards that they put him in the wrong prison.

The only one of them he can imagine doing that is Mikey. He’d say something like, excuse me, mister alien dinosaur sir, me and my brothers are supposed to be sitting at the kids’ table.

Leo snorts. Yeah, like that would have gone over well.

“You all remind me so much of my son,” Sally sighs. “I wish I could help more…”

“Miss—er, Sally, you’ve already helped us so much,” Leo stresses, anxiety rising as one of the nicest people he’s ever met tried to… blame herself for not saving them from the Triceraton prison? For some reason? “You probably saved Raph’s life. I’m not our usual field medic, but even I can tell he lost a bunch of blood. We wouldn’t have been able to find anything but a body. Not only that, you called our dad and you’re making us dinner. Most people would’ve screamed and called the EPF and tried to have us dissected by now, but you’ve helped so much.”

“Oh, honey, you don’t need to reassure me,” Sally says. “I’m not sad—well, I’m a little sad for you, but mostly I’m, ah furious on your behalf, I suppose. You’re all such kind, good boys, and even if you weren’t, even if you were terrible nasty people, you would deserve to able to do things like go to the store and the doctor. I am so—so frustrated with the people who are making that impossible for you.”

“Raphael told me Casey said something like that to him,” Leo says contemplatively. “I mean, it was Casey, so I believe the exact quote was closer to it’s real freakin’ stupid that jerks like Hun can walk around in broad daylight and get McDonald’s and you guys can’t even use the freakin’ stairs when you visit April ‘cause someone might see you, but it’s… similar, I guess.”

“This Casey sounds like he has the right idea,” Sally comments, a grin crossing her lips. It’s not a happy grin—it’s an expression Leo’s most often seen on Raph, that sort of anger that comes out as a smile, because if you let even a little bit of it show, all of it will boil over and you’ll try to kill someone. “You and your brothers are always welcome in my home, Leonardo. Just… try to be quiet, when you come in, hm? I have a young baby and it’s a nightmare getting her to sleep. Oh, and I need to introduce you to my son before that can really be an open invitation sort of thing, he’s, ah, a bit shy.”

Leonardo is torn. On one hand, he wants to give his family another safe haven, a place like April’s or Casey’s that they can just go. On the other… can he justify exposing this woman and her family to people like Karai, all because he wants to have another place to go?

“I… your offer is generous and deeply, deeply appreciated. Not many people help us,” Leonardo begins. “But I can’t, in good conscience, accept. If we come here… well, let’s say our friend April is often targeted by our enemies, to the point that our sensei has begun to instruct her in ninjitsu.”

“Your world will not bring harm to my family,” Sally says. “There are laws, old, old laws, that will prevent us from clashing like that.”

Leonardo wants to find arrogance in those words, but he cannot. There is no pride, no bluster, no boast. Sally says your world will not bring harm to my family like it is a simple statement of fact. “Can you be sure of that?”

“I will need to speak with your father first, so I cannot say with true certainty,” Sally answers. “For now, however, I think pancakes are ready.”

*

Though Splinter truly would prefer to use the door, he cannot take the chance of being spotted in the hallway. Thus, after determining he has approached the correct apartment, he reaches for the window, intending to shimmy it open. He jolts backward, alarmed, a moment before his claw brushes the painted wood of the window.

There is old magic here. He hears the sea rushing in his ears and the smell of brine fills his nose, causing him to sneeze as he stumbles backward, gripping the rusty rail of the fire escape for support as his bad leg twinges.

Splinter is unfamiliar with this… energy. It is not chi, not in the sense he knows, not the centered, studied thing the Ancient One coaxed from his students. This is volatile, unbalanced, but it is anchored.

This whole apartment is… essentially spiritually welded shut.

My sons, Splinter thinks, fur bristling uneasily, just what have you found?

The window opens, startling Splinter further. He sensed no movement from within. A woman peers out. She is middle-aged, with deep brown eyes, tan skin, and curly hair pulled back into a ponytail. “You must be Splinter,” she says, extending her hand with a bright smile. “I’m Sally, Sally Jackson. Come inside, you are welcome here.”

Just like that, the rushing abates and the sea-brine smell is no longer stifling. It is still there, rumbling at the edges of Splinter’s awareness, but it is no longer a threat, merely a… warning.

The lockbox of the house has been opened as well. He can hear the people inside now, Raphael’s snoring, Mikey’s excited chatter, the unfamiliar man responding kindly to him, Donatello and Leonardo’s soft conversation. Splinter can also smell food.

Splinter accepts Sally Jackson’s hand, shaking it, then performing his own greeting tradition of a bow. “I am indeed Splinter. Thank you for caring for my son.”

“You would do the same for mine,” Sally Jackson says, stepping back to allow him into her apartment. “I ought to be the rule instead of the exception.”

Splinter decides he likes this Sally Jackson very much, actually. Gracefully, he goes through the window and allows her to close it behind him. His walking stick clacks on the floor as he rushes to Raphael’s side.

His son is colder than usual, likely from blood loss, but his snoring confirms that he still breathes. A tightness in Splinter’s chest abates and he allows himself a moment of broken composure, slumping forward to press his forehead to Raphael’s, letting his sensitive ears listen to his son’s slow, steady heartbeat. At last, Splinter takes a deep, shuddering breath, straightens his shoulders, and pulls himself away.

“You can stay with him, if you want,” Sally says, putting a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll bring you some food—I believe Paul made you blueberry pancakes? Donatello said you liked them best.”

“I must see my other sons,” he says.

Sally nods. “Come to the kitchen with me. I’ll fix your plate, you can see your boys, and then we can come back to the living room. You can sit with Raphael while we talk.”

Oh yes, Splinter likes this Sally Jackson. “I believe that is a good plan.”

Splinter is a mutant rat. He has not been in many kitchens. Still, he finds himself looking around approvingly as he enters Sally’s kitchen. Despite its current state of mess (which is at least partially Michelangelo’s fault, judging by the amount of flour), it is clear it is a place well-loved and well cared-for. Leonardo and Donatello are sitting on the floor, near what Splinter assumes to be the apartment’s front door, inhaling pancakes with gusto. Michelangelo is at the stove, bouncing excitedly around the man cooking there.

Leonardo, of course, is the first to notice Splinter. His wonderful son catches his eye right as he shoves an entire pancake in his mouth and nearly chokes. Frantically, Leonardo elbows Donatello, who glares at his brother until he follows Leonardo’s frantic gesturing to Splinter.

Donatello’s eyes widen and he shoots to his feet, catapulting his plate and his pancakes across the room.

With ease borne from years of pancake incidents, Splinter catches the plate and the pancakes (made easier by the lack of syrup and other toppings, as his son prefers them plain) and holds them out to Donatello. “I believe these belong to you, my son?”

“Sensei, you’re here?” Donatello squeaks, coughing as he chokes on half-chewed pancake.

Leonardo, still chewing his own massive bite, thumps Donnie’s back a few times. Even when he panics, he cares for his brothers. Every day, Splinter thanks his ancestors, Hamato and rat, that at least one of his sons is somewhat responsible.

“Yes, Sally invited me. I wanted to see Raphael and make sure you hadn’t all forgotten your table manners.”

Leo chews faster.

Mikey, on the other hand, darts away from the stove to sweep Splinter into a hug. Splinter smiles, patting his son’s back indulgently, even as flour dusts his robe. “Hi, Sensei! Paul’s made us all pancakes and he’s really nice! He’s an English teacher and he also likes comics! We’ve been talking about them the whole time and he’s told me all this neat stuff I didn’t know ‘cause apparently there’s a lot of references to stuff like poems and old books in them, which is so cool!”

‘Paul’ turns away from the stove and the only thing Splinter can think is that he’s the polar opposite of Casey Jones. Paul holds himself very gently, moving without the grace of a warrior like Sally, but without the heavy feet of men like Casey. Even the hand he offers for Splinter to shake is soft, the calluses on his palms that speak of pencils rather than daggers.

“I’m Paul Blofis,” Paul says, shaking Splinter’s hand. “Sally’s husband. I loved comics as a kid, and a lot of the kids I teach have dyslexia, so comics are much easier for them to read than novels. In my opinion, they’re fantastic teaching tools, especially for kids who are tired of throwing themselves at long novels written in complicated ways.”

Splinter nods, considering Paul’s words as he steps back to bow. “I am Splinter. I believe Sally and I must speak first, though as a fellow teacher, I would love to continue this discussion another time.”

To his surprise, Paul returns his bow, without any of the usual awkwardness.

Splinter raises an eyebrow.

Paul smiles, turning back to the stove and flipping the pancake he is cooking. “I spent a year abroad in Japan while I was in college,” he offers by way of explanation. “I’ve lost any of the language I had, but I remember some of the customs.”

“It is not often I am greeted with familiar politeness,” Splinter muses. “A pleasant surprise, as most of this night has been.”

Paul’s smile brightens and he picks up one of the plates sitting next to the counter. “Glad I could do that for you. Now, you said you had to talk to Sally? Can’t do that on an empty stomach.”

“Indeed, it is unwise to parley on an empty stomach,” Splinter says. He takes the plate, enjoying the warmth on his paws and inhaling the sweet scent of blueberry pancakes. Oh, he feels a joke coming on. “As the great sage Sun Tzu once said: you’re not you when you’re hungry.”

Paul drops his spatula and Sally breaks into peals of sweet laughter. There is nothing Splinter loves quite like using his wise, stately affect to deliver an unexpected, how did Michelangelo phrase it? Ah, yes, he called it a zinger.

“Dad, you’ve got to stop doing that,” Leonardo groans, finally having defeated his pancake. “I quoted one of your made-up ones to a Foot Ninja the other day and he asked if I was stupid.”

“I remember that,” Donatello says, delighted, “the expression on your face.”

“It was great,” Michelangelo adds. “I wish I’d been able to get a picture so I could add it to my scrapbook.”

Leonardo looks miserably at his father. “It was really embarrassing.”

“My son, it is the duty of all parents to embarrass their children,” Splinter says wisely. “Now, I must go speak with Sally. Enjoy your dinner, do not forget to thank the chef.”

“We won’t!” Mikey says. Then he turns around and starts talking about superheroes again.

I’ve got it, Leo mouths behind Mikey’s back.

Splinter gives his son a proud smile, then turns to follow Sally into the living room.

The strange couch-bed he settles on is quite comfortable. He tucks his legs up, beneath his body, careful not to put any pressure on Raphael as he drapes his tail over his son’s chest. It is good to feel his breathing.

Sally settles herself in the armchair closest to Splinter and folds her hands in her lap. There is a set to her shoulders and a firmness in her jaw that leaves Splinter feeling like, despite her hospitality, this woman will be unafraid to challenge him.

“I’ll begin by asking you what you know about my family,” Sally asks. “I heard you outside—I know you felt the protection on this house. What do you make of it?”

A strong opening. Frowning thoughtfully, Splinter takes a bite of his meal, savoring it as he mulls the question over. “I know… I can feel the sea here, a rushing my ears and salt-scent in my nose. I could not sense you or my sons moving inside, until you opened the window and allowed me entrance. Both you and your husband smell of the sea, and though the scent lingers with you especially, you are not the source of it. I can only assume that a very powerful spirit that I am unfamiliar with is very, very fond of you and yours.”

“That is… close enough, I suppose,” Sally says. Interesting, then. The right ideas, but not the right words. Splinter will have to meditate on this. “What do you know of the ancient laws, pertaining to the, ah, the separation of old powers?”

“Very little,” Splinter answers. “My Master Yoshi and I, we did not leave Japan for many years, and we spent most of our time in America secluded from the wider public. After that, well, my sons and I could not safely interact with the surface world. There was not much chance for any… mixing. I remember, though, when the city fell asleep, how I felt compelled not to leave our home, to ignore the great storm thundering overhead. I suppose that was a time these ancient laws kept two powers apart?”

“Exactly,” Sally says. “That powerful spirit you sense, he is from a… different power to yours, you could say. My family, we are Greek. Your family, you are Japanese. Different worlds, different rules. Most of the time, it’s best to just… stay separate.”

“Many powerful beings are rather territorial,” Splinter agrees thoughtfully. “It would be unwise to allow them too close. They would rip apart the world, rather than share it with one another.”

“Gods are not good at sharing,” Sally adds. “But, sometimes, things… cross over, for lack of a better word. Some people are born with the gift—or the curse, depending on who you ask—of seeing through the barriers erected. My people call us Clearsighted, other peoples have other words. So… these ancient laws, they don’t always work in the same way for people like me.”

“I see,” Splinter says. “So…”

“I want to, in the event of a night like tonight, make my home somewhere you and your sons are welcome to come,” Sally says. “I spoke to Leonardo about it already—he tried to dissuade me, for fear of your enemies coming for my family. I do not think, however, that the gods of your world would be willing to declare war on the gods of mine. Neither want to be left without a world to rule.”

“You are playing with fire,” Splinter muses evenly. “A dangerous ploy indeed, to hope that great evil is introspective enough to realize that there will be nothing worth doing in a world rent to shattered pieces.”

“My husband once said he was fond of arsonists,” Sally quips, the glimmer of a joke Splinter does not know flashing across her eye. “Let me tell you, I am not moving recklessly because I do not care for the lives of my family or the lives of your family. I am moving with purpose, because I did not raise my son to turn his back on people he could help, and I cannot expect him to do something I do not do.”

“We have hard lives,” Splinter warns.

“I had a hard life. My son’s will never be easy in the way mine is, and I brought him into the world knowing that, wholeheartedly. My life was only made better by people who could help choosing to. I will not join the people who turned a blind eye because my hard life broke their hearts.”

Oh yes, Splinter quite likes this Sally Jackson. “Then, we are in agreement?”

“I suppose we are,” Sally says.

And that was that.

*