Part Sixteen: Lessons



Mike and Don circled each other, quarter staffs held in a basic defense position, their feet making no noise on the glossy, hardwood floor. Mike was looking a little worn from the sparring match, his skin shone with perspiration, while Don looked cool and unruffled. Don moved in, feinted to the left and struck Mike smartly on the ribs before Mike could block it. Mike let his breath out sharply, either in frustration or to dissipate any pain from the blow, then made his move. Rahab was not sure what happened after that, but Mike was down, his carapace making a resounding crack on the floor. Fast as a lizard he was on his feet again, and he looked over at Leo, who had been watching on the opposite corner from Raphael. Mike slowly shook his head, and Leo shrugged, and made a time out signal to Don, who bowed precisely to Mike. Mike returned the bow with far less precision and stalked out of the dojo.

"So, what did you think, Rahab," Leo asked her as they left the building.

"Pretty um, different," she said. "Doesn't anyone ever talk in there?"

"Students aren't supposed to talk in the dojo," Raphael cut in. "They don't have anything important to say."

"They don't?" Rahab looked at him. "Since when?"

"No offense intended, Rahab, it's a tradition in this clan," Leo explained. "It's part of the training, one has to learn the art of not speaking. Only sensei can speak."

Rahab smiled. "Aren't you guys sensei?"

"Sure, but we've learned it so well, we don't need to talk. It gets to be second nature after a while," Leo said, smiling back.

"Yeah, SURE it does," Raphael mumbled.

Leo gave Raphael a long look that Rahab couldn't read. They walked in silence.



"Raph, why won't you see a doctor," Rahab asked, in exasperation.

"I HATE doctors," Raphael muttered as he lay in bed, grasping his forehead in a way that was becoming all too familiar to Rahab.

"This is not normal, even for you," she said, as she sat next to him.

"I've always had headaches, you know that."

"Everyone gets headaches, I know," she answered. "But this has been getting worse and worse, and so's your mood swings."

"MY mood swings, what about YOURS," Raphael shot back, then winced from his outburst. Rahab got up and wandered out into the hall. She saw Don standing there, holding a small wooden box, a look of curiousity on his face.

"How's he doing?" he asked Rahab.

She sighed and shrugged.

Raphael groaned quietly from within the room. "Somebody shoot me, plee-eze..."

Don rolled his eyes, and went in. Acupuncture. A lot of good that will do Raph if he has a brain tumor, Rahab thought to herself.

As she went outside, she could hear Gaele giggling in the garden. Smiling, Rahab opened the gate, and saw Gaele and Mike sitting by the fish pond, dropping crumbs to the ornamental carp. Mike looked up as she approached.

"Is it time to go in?"

"No," Rahab said as she sat down next to him. "What are you guys up to, no good?"

Mike stared at her, head lowering. "Well, aren't we chipper today," he muttered.

"I'm feeling okay, but I guess you're not," Rahab said, ignoring Mike's goad.

Mike said nothing, but watched absently as Gaele gleefully grabbed handfuls of crumbs from a brown paper bag.

"Heeeere fishie-shiffie-shishies," Gaele called out to the carp, as she sprinkled the water. "Daddy, look! Look, Daddy, look! LOOOK!"

Mike turned his attention on her. "NOW what?"

Gaele giggled. "Look at the fishies eat, Dad! Eating like little piggies!"

"You're gonna make 'em sick, sweetheart. Lookit their bellies, they're gonna blow up like little fish balloons."

Gaele doubled over and laughed raucously at Mike's half hearted joke. Mike stared at her in mock surprise.

"She laughs just like you," Rahab said, smiling at him.

"Yeah, I guess she does," he said, and sighed.

"Well, something's wrong." She rested her elbows on her drawn up knees, and stared at Mike. Gaele ran out of crumbs, and now was walking slowly around the perimeter of the pond, humming a tune half to herself.

"With who," Mike asked, looking at the pond.

"Everybody," Rahab said. "Everybody seems depressed."

"I'm going home," Mike said.

"Oh? Where's that?"

"You know," Mike said, staring at her sideways.

"La-la land."

"Whatever."

They sat silent for a while, and watched their daughter play on the shelf of rock on the other end of the pond.

"How's the old man?" Mike broke the silence.

"Raph? Not so good today."

"That's too bad."

Rahab made a noise of assent, and there was silence again. A belated thought broke Rahab's peace. Mike's going home?

"You're going home?"

"That's what I said."

The look on Mike's face and the tone of his voice told her plenty, but she asked the question anyway. "What about Gaele?"

Mike inhaled slowly. "What about her?"

"You want to take her with you, don't you?"

He gave her a long, cautious look. "I'd like to."

Rahab thought she was prepared, but she wasn't. She stared out across the pond and the trees behind it and the mountains behind them, and she did everything she could to appear calm, but it didn't stop the tears. She glanced at Mike, who looked stricken, and he pretended to suddenly notice something in the pond. She saw Gaele stand up and stare over at them, head to one side like Mike did, sometimes.

"This is no good, Rahab," Mike said softly, so Gaele couldn't hear.

Rahab wiped her eyes hurriedly. "I know," she sighed. "Mike, it's just... there's been so much going on, Raph is sick or something, and there's the new baby..." She saw Mike's face darken when she said that. "I can't fight anymore, I don't have any fight left in me."

"I HATE fighting," Mike muttered. "You saw what happened in the dojo this morning."

"I wasn't talking about that- what happened in the dojo, anyway?" Rahab said, changing her mind in mid-sentence.

Mike winced. "I've lost interest. I don't want to play this ninja game anymore, the Way of the Ten Thousand, and all that crap. You know, there's a lot we coulda walked away from, but Leo and Splinter kept up the honor-scout business, to keep us going. " He cursed softly. "We're all lucky to still be in one piece! Then again, maybe we're NOT all in one piece. Ninja warriors are supposed to be some kinda bunch of suicidal wackos. Who the hell wants to be part of that?"

Mike had spoken quietly, but to Rahab it was as though he had shouted at her. "Splinter's teaching has helped me a lot," she said, feeling hurt.

"Yeah, I know," Mike said, softening. "I know how much Splinter means to you, I love him right to death, he's been like a father to me. He's done a lot of good, but I think he was wrong to get us so wrapped up in some family feud that had nothing to do with us. We are who we are, there's no reason to apologize for our existance, and there's no need to get mixed up with humans in their stupid conflicts."

"Funny you should say that, Mike," Rahab said after a thoughtful silence. "I can clearly recall back to Croton how cheerfully you sent those home invaders to meet their maker."

Mike laughed quietly. "That's a different story, milady. It's one thing to be sitting in your own home, minding your own business only to be rudely interrupted with obvious threats to life and limb, and it's another thing to sit and meditate on death to the enemies of the clan."

"Splinter never taught that!"

"Yes he did," Mike countered calmly. "He had good intentions and everything, but it cost us a lot of brain cells. I seriously believe we would have come out all the better if we had just walked away from the whole stinking mess, instead of staying on, letting those bastards rip our lives apart. Humans fighting with humans, that's all it was, it really had nothing to do with us! Splinter and Leo, and even Don, they said we had to finish the job, because it had all to do with f-ing honor."

"Mike, I hope you don't talk like that around Gaele." Rahab said reproachingly.

"No! No, I don't. I'm just getting worked up when I talk about this sh- this stuff." He watched Gaele approach. "Besides, we have our own business to take care of."

"Yeah..." Rahab said. "You have a daughter to raise. Just... be careful, okay? And don't spoil her too much."

Mike stared up at Rahab, as she reached for Gaele to envelope her in her arms. Gaele squeezed her mother's neck affectionately in return.

"You mean, uh..." he said hesitantly.

"You may take her back with you, Mike. She'll be all right," Rahab said, leaning her cheek against Gaele's. When Rahab let go of her, Gaele immediately ran and jumped into Mike's arms. "It's obvious she's made her choice."

Mike looked at Rahab, with a mixture of surprise and confusion. "Are you sure you're okay about this?"

"Well..." Rahab said, her throat tight. "I have Devon, and I hardly see her anyway, she seems pretty busy with you. I'll be all right, we can always... visit. What is there to stop me from doing that?"

"N-nothing," Mike stammered, and shook his head in disbelief. "Nothing at all, you can be with her as much as you want."

"I'm getting tired of Japan," Rahab said, stroking Gaele's hair. "I don't think we'll be here much longer."



A few days later, Mike left with Gaele. Rahab kept her mind as busy as she could that day, trying to think of how much Gaele enjoyed being with her father, he had her around him all the time anyway. She's only going to be with her other parent, she's a big girl, old enough to go to school, plenty old enough to go on a trip with Dad... Rahab needed time with Devon, he's such a demanding, active baby, Gaele would only feel neglected because of that.

These thoughts kept her from chasing the car that took Mike and Gaele to the airport. She didn't want to appear upset in front of everyone, especially Gaele.



Things went smoothly for a week or two, once Rahab got used to not having Gaele playing noisily somewhere in the garden or giggling by the fishpond, but Rahab knew she could always pick up the phone if she wanted to hear Gaele's voice...

One evening Rahab came back from a lesson with Splinter to find Raphael lying on the bed in a fetal position and Devon wailing in his bassinet. She picked up the baby, and quieted him, as she watched Raphael's sides rise and fall unusually hard and fast.

"Hon," she called to him tentatively. He didn't respond. She put the pacified baby back in his bed and then approached Raphael. "Are you okay?" Raph twitched a little, but did not awaken. "Talk to me, Raph!"

She felt a growing sense of alarm when she came around toward the front of him and saw only the whites of his eyes showing. She ran to Don's house. Don must have been asleep, because he took longer than usual to answer her urgent calling, and he looked very annoyed. She followed him as he strode down the path to her house, and waited anxiously as he silently gazed at Raphael.

"Looks like he's had another seizure," Don muttered. "Go get Leo, will you?"

"What do you mean, another seizure?"

"Will you just go get Leo?"

The tone in Don's voice was not to be argued with, so Rahab went immediately to Leo's apartment, and brought him back. She waited in the living room, as Don and Leo talked quietly in the bedroom. After a long time they came out. Don went home, but Leo stayed, and put a kettle of water on the stove to heat.

"Have some tea, Rahab," Leo said. "It will help you relax."

"How is Raph?" Rahab asked anxiously.

"Raph's going to be okay..."

"You don't sound very convincing, Leo."

He gave Rahab a long, sober look. "I'm sorry, Rahab, I didn't tell you this before, but it seems Raph has some sort of trouble..."

"I know that," Rahab interrupted. "But what is WRONG with him?"

Leo closed his eyes a moment, as though to summon up more patience. "Rahab, will you just relax? I told you, I don't know exactly, but it looks like he has trouble with, uh... seizures of some sort."

"What kind of seizures?"

"I don't know."

She cupped her hands over her face, and felt suddenly very tired. She felt Leo's hand on her back, giving her a little reassuring rub, which she didn't mind in the least. When she raised her head again, a steaming cup of fragrant tea was waiting on the table in front of her.

"Drink this, Rahab. I'm going to take some to Raphael." Leo then disappeared into the bedroom.

When he came back, he saw the Rahab's tea had been untouched. "Why haven't you drunk your tea?"

Rahab straightened from the position she was in. "It's too hot. Besides, I think need something stronger."

Leo gave her a look, and sipped from the cup. "It isn't too hot anymore, and you don't need anything stronger, believe me. Give it a try."

"Okay, Dad..." Rahab said, and sighed heavily.

As she drank, Leo watched, a little smile on his lips. "Interesting you should call me that," he said.

"Call you what? Dad?"

He nodded, and took the cup from her when she finished, and he filled it up again from the teapot. She frowned, but Leo insisted she drink it. "This is a good, strong herbal tea, you'll be surprised what it can do for you."

Rahab drank it more slowly than the first cup, as she was feeling a little oversaturated by then. When she drained it, Leo took the cup and washed it in the sink. He was very much at home with domestic duties, it seemed. People who spent a lot of time meditating, drinking herbal tea and humbly serving people could easily be labeled some sort of New Age wimp, but Rahab knew Leo could easily put that misconception to rest, especially on the dojo floor, or 'behind the Seven Eleven' as Raphael had put it.
Raph... her thoughts turned to him again, and her heart surged with new anxiety. What was wrong with him? Either Leo really didn't know, or he refused to let on that he did. Either way, it must be something serious. Real serious. Maybe it was from all the knocks and jars of Raph's turbulent youth that was taking such a toll on his brain. Such a delicate instrument, though it was very well protected in a solid bit of packaging... her mind seemed to wind slowly down, and ground to a halt. She noticed Leo was watching her closely, as though waiting for her to do something.

"What," she said, her mouth ajar.

The last thing she saw was Leo's transparent little smile.



Rahab raised her head, and then realized it was morning, and she didn't know where the time had gone. She looked around and saw she had been sleeping in the spare bedroom, and she wore only the comforter, and her clothes were bunched at the foot of the bed. She felt odd in a pleasant sort of way.

There was the tiny sound of something small falling into the bathroom sink.

"Who's there," she managed to call through a sleep roughened voice.

"Just me." After a moment Raphael's head poked out from the doorway of the bathroom that connected the two bedrooms. He had been brushing his teeth. He still looked a little groggy, but he seemed to be in good spirits.

Rahab fell back into the pillows in relief. "Nice to see you up and about. How do you feel?"

"Okay," Raphael said a nonchalant voice. "Kinda had a rough night, tho."

"Yeah," Rahab sighed. "I know."

"Was I bad?"

"Were you bad? What, don't you remember?"

"No," he said in a little-boy voice.

"Well," Rahab languidly stretched under the comforter. "As I recall, you must have been feeling a lot better, to waylay me the way you did. I couldn't say you were bad, I'd say you were very bad in a very good kind of way."

Raphael had sat down on the edge of her bed as she talked. "No, I didn't mean that, I meant..." A look of pleasant confusion came over his face as he looked her over. "I was, huh?"

Rahab lay her head in his lap and adoringly looked up at him. "How about an encore? You up to it?"

"Very funny," he said, pretending to be indignant. "You are a very naughty lady to take advantage of me like that."

"You do remember!" Rahab said in protest.

"I guess prob'ly!"

"I guess prob'ly," she said, trying to imitate his voice, then broke into a giggle. "Must have been that tea Leo gave us."

Raphael sighed. "No telling what will happen to you when Leo makes you drink his tea."

"What will happen?" Rahab asked, suddenly serious.

"AN-ything..." Raphael murmered in her ear, as he crawled in beside her. She giggled again, and pulled the comforter over the both of them.

Next section... Rahab 17

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