Part Six: The Wind


She entered the little shop, and nervously looked around. As her eyes adjusted to the dim interior, she could barely make out the posters on the walls and cieling. Some were so faded, there was only a hint of the figures and action going on. The shelves were lined with paperbacks and comic books, most with figures and action and action and figures, and monsters with semi-nude female figures writhing in their grasp, glowing in lurid colors...

Dazed, she searched for something, reading titles and dropping them in vague distress. Behind a glass counter, a fat young man in a Batman t-shirt and yellow hair slicked back from his pimply forehead stared at her with a jaded expression on his face."Lookin' for somethin', lady?"

"N- ninja..."

"Hah?" He leaned toward her. "WHADJA say?"

"T-teenage Mutant-"

"TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES?" He stood back as though she were a rabid dog. "I dunno, MIGHT be some over there. They come in when they come in, y' know... look for yourself, OVER THERE." He spoke too loudly, as though she were hard of hearing.

She looked back at him, as she wandered in the direction of his indifferent gesture. He promptly turned his back on her. She saw nothing but stacks and boxes of paper. She asked another young man with thick glasses, standing in the back. He sighed gustily and looked heavenward as though asking his Maker why He sent all the morons his way, and reluctantly led her to a rusted display stand, stuffed with wrinkled, torn Barbie and GI Joe comics.

"No, this is a mistake," she said. "These aren't--"

"It's NO mistake," the man sneered, and disappeared.

Ah, Turtles. The familiar logo.

She pulled the comic out and opened it, to see bright, pea-green, bulbous, popeyed characters wearing neon colored outfits, standing awkwardly, or suspended in midair, throwing forks or knives or something... She saw the one that had an "R" on his belt buckle, with a goofy expression on his face, holding a slice of pizza in one hand.

She closed it in embarrassment.

She searched and found more of the same cutesy stories, where they brandished mean looking weapons at the bad guys, but never actually used them. In the background there was a furry character in a red housecoat who looked as though he were telling them to be careful with those things or they'd put someone's eye out.

Then she found an odd one with a glossy cover that didn't belong with the kiddie colors... she stared at it in morbid fascination. Trembling, she turned the pages.

Demons... darkness, then she saw the center picture. A creature vaguely resembling a Turtle wore a mask with pale slits for eyes, and was gleefully tearing the heart out of a man's body with its bare hands, blood spraying everywhere...

She set it down in disgust, pressing her hands against the insistant gnawing in her bowels and turned to see the blond, dough faced man approaching her with a cardboard box in his hands.

"Take a look at this," he said in a feeble attempt to be friendly. He dug his chubby fingers into the yellow newsprint, and pulled out a green plastic thing, which he dropped into her hands. She turned it over. It was a squat, toadlike action figure, wearing a little plastic belt and a bright red bandana for a mask. His little hands clutched a pair of shorthandled pitchforks in a death grip, and it had what looked like a horrible grimace of pain on its face.

"What is it?" she said, her face growing hot.

"That's Raphael," Mr. Dough Face crowed. "A-and here's Michelangelo..." he added, pulling another squat figure out of the box. "Raphael's the NASTY one. Look! You can make them fight..." He made the figures butt heads. "Arr-arr-arr!" He dropped them back into the box. "Piyaawnngg, and they're DEAD!"

"No!" She backed away in horror.

"But you can HAVE 'em! For FREE! I've been trying to get rid of them for years, I can't even GIVE them away! The sanitation guys won't take 'em, they aren't recyclable, if I burn 'em, I'll get a citation for air pollution, I can't bury 'em-" The man talked frantically, spraying her with spittle. "C'mon, lady, gimmee a break, here, I'll even PAY you..." His whining voice faded as she ran out of the shop and into the blinding sunlight.

She ran a long time down the street, and staring faces kept blocking her way. A couple of chunky boys in oversized clothes followed her, chanting, "Heroes-inna-half-shell, Turtle POWER!" Her stomach hurt, and she stopped and doubled over. Her stomach hurt bad, now...



She groaned aloud, and opened her eyes. She was in bed. To her horror, she felt the sheets were wet. "Oh, nooo!"

"Rahab?" Raph's voice was approaching. "You okay, babe?"

"Where have I BEEN," she mumbled.

"What?" He sounded distracted. "You've been sleepin' in, this morning-" He saw the sheets. "Oh, geez."

"Stomach hurts,"she grunted.

Raphael's eyes were wide. "Are you SURE it's your stomach? Maybe I'd better call the midwife, huh?"

She struggled to sit up. The pain was receding, but her advanced state of pregnancy interfered with her ability to get up easily.

"You better stay down." Raphael gently pushed her back.

"It's okay! I want to get up!" she snarled, batting at him. "Outa my WAY!"

He stood back in silence, and let her struggle to her feet. He took another look at the bed, and immediately picked up the phone.

"What are you doing," she demanded.

"Looks like your water broke. They told me to call the midwife when your water broke." he said tensely.

"You've been calling the midwife for the last three weeks, every time I had so much as a gas pain," Rahab said in annoyance, waddling into the bathroom.

"Well, THIS time your water broke, this is NO false alarm."

"All RIGHT, so my water broke!" she shot back.

When she came out, she saw Raphael pacing back and forth, the cellular phone pressed tightly to his ear. "Arrhh, I HATE being on hold," he muttered. "COME on!"

She started to yank the soiled sheets off the bed.

He patted her. "You don't have to do that- Hello?" His attention went to someone on the other end of the line.

She left the sheets and put on her robe, then another wave of pain seemed to cut her in half. "Ouch," she said quietly, hoping Raphael wouldn't notice. The pain continued, and she hunched over it. She heard a string of oaths behind her, and Raphael's firm grip on her arm. She didn't resist, but allowed him to steer her to the bed again. She half sat, half lay on it, while he spoke quickly to the midwife, then hung up.

"Uh, she's on her way," he muttered, as he lifted her in his arms. He carried her to another room down the hall, that had recently been outfitted as a birthing room. He carefully lay her on the bed.

"I had this wierd dream," she said, when the pain receded enough to let her speak.

"That's nice." he said, helping her out of her robe, and covering her with a sheet.

"Were you guys really Ninjas?"

"Huh?" He looked bewildered.

"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles," she said slowly.

He gave her a blank look. "They're just comic book characters, Rahab, you know that."

"I know, but-" The oncoming pain discouraged any further conversation.



Relief, at last...were her first thoughts as she awoke from exhausted, dreamless sleep. She stared lazily around the room, which was quiet and empty of people. Quite a contrast from last night, with all the fuss going on, people in light blue coats moving around, Raphael hovering over her anxiously, reminding her to do her breathing exercises, as each wave of pain threatened to overwhelm her. She had barely seen the baby, vaguely remembering the catlike sounds it made. The baby! Anxiety made her struggle to rise, but her limbs felt like lead and there was pain. Flustered, she lay back.

She tried to call out, but her voice did nothing better than a strained warble. She cleared her throat and tried again. "Help." She listened quietly. She could hear voices, someone laughing softly. "Hey! Somebody, HELLO!" That sounded better.

"Hello!" somebody called back. Raphael's grinning face appeared. He looked tired. "Hey, Momma! How're you doing?"

"Where's the baby," Rahab demanded weakly.

"Hold on." He disappeared, and came back in a moment later, gingerly carrying a little bundle. "Here you go..." He deposited the baby in her lap, letting go after she got her arms situated.

She peered into the little pale, green face, its swollen eyes tightly shut. It stirred when she unwrapped the blankets, its sticklike legs stretched and kicked, and relaxed.

"What happened to it," Rahab stared at the asymmetrical dome of its head. "It's kind of lopsided."

"The nurse said it will even out in a couple of days, so will the double shiner... poor kid, she looks like she's come off badly in in a boxing match."

"She?" Rahab looked up at Raphael. "A girl?"

"Yep."

"A girl!" Rahab said happily. "Gaele..."

"Who?" Raphael looked puzzled.

"Gaele! That's her name."

"Gay-lay? Where'd you get a name like that?"

"GAY-leyh! She just told me," Rahab crooned, stroking the tiny cheek. Gaele opened her mouth wide, and made a tiny sound like styrofoam rubbing together. "See? Now she's telling you."

Raphael's mouth twitched. "I think she's sayin' she's hungry..." He turned to leave.

"Raph?" She called him back. "Are you mad at me?"

"Nope, Just wiped out. I'm gonna get some sleep."

"I guess I was pretty rough on you last night, huh?" She thought a moment. "I guess- I've been hard on you a long time before that."

He shrugged.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

"No problem, Rahab. Don't worry about it."

"I am really sorry, Raphael. You've been so good to me... and all you got in return was a rotten mood." She burst into tears.

"Hey, it's okay, really. I understand. Take it easy, you're gonna get the baby riled up. Just relax," he said, rubbing her shoulder.

She wiped her eyes, and looked again at Gaele's little face. The tears came back.

"What is it now," Raphael asked gently.

"She looks- she looks just like Mikey!"

"Well, she looks like you, too! So what?" He tried to reassure her, but she cried harder.

When the maternity nurse came bustling in, Raphael sidestepped her, and gave Rahab a bewildered look, as he went out.



She was given to crying spells for little or no reason, and the midwife, on her follow-up visit, explained it was called post partum depression. Something to do with hormones wreaking havoc with her head. Sort of like a severe case of PMS. She didn't know what to make of it, she still had that occasional twinge of strange, conflicting feelings from her transformation. She wondered if Raphael and his brothers suffered from it. If they did, they didn't let on, though Raphael tended to lapse into odd, unreadable moods, at times.

Gaele, on the other hand, would never know what it was like to be something other than what she was... a 'quasi-reptilian humanoid', as Raph had put it. Once she had recovered from the rigors of being born, her bright, golden eyes missed little during her waking hours. Her skin tone darkened a little as her limbs filled out and grew stronger. She did have Mike's features, but she was obviously going to have Rahab's iguanid body, and that blue-white hair. Like Raph had said, she was a little beauty.

One evening, after Rahab had fed and bathed Gaele, Raphael came up to the nursery.

"Gaele's got a visitor." She tried to read his face but it showed nothing.

"Who is it," she said apprehensively. "Gaele's going to bed."

"Uh, it's Mikey. He's here."

"Mikey?" Her heart jumped. "What does he want?"

"He just wants to see her. No biggie."

After a few moments of hedging, she gave in, and slowly descended the stairs, clutching a drowsy Gaele to her chest.

Mikey leaped up from his chair when he saw her. She stopped in her tracks and looked him over suspiciously.

"Hows it going," he said, flashing a nervous grin.

"It's going."

He stared round eyed at the baby, "That's... her, huh?" He grabbed his forehead. "Geez, of course it is, silly of me... what's her name again?"

"Gaele."

"Gaele... Gaele... yeah, I like that," he said softly, his eyes never leaving her.

Rahab sighed. "Would you like to hold her?"

Mike's mouth opened. "You- is it okay with you? Geez, yeah... sure I would."

As she lowered Gaele into Mike's arms, she could feel him trembling, but he handled the baby with surprising confidence. Rahab looked up at him, but he was into Gaele's face, as he gradually sank into the chair.

"Ain't she a beauty," Raph said in the background.

"Yeah..." Mike breathed, his face ecstatic. "Hey, she's lookin' right at me! I didn't know they could do that."

After a long silence, Rahab spoke up. "Mike, I hope you don't mind, she has to go to bed. I just got her on a decent schedule."

He looked up. "Oh, uhm, no problem. Here," he reluctantly passed Gaele back to her. "I can see her in the morning, maybe she'll be more wide wake then, huh?"

"Sure. After she's had her breakfast," Rahab said, smiling a little. She took the baby upstairs and put her in her hammock. She made it sway a little, to rock Gaele back to sleep. Such a good baby, everything seems to please her... she must have Mike's generally easygoing disposition. She hoped Mike still had his.

He and Raphael were talking animatedly until she entered the room. They both drew themselves up, and looked at her.

"Did I miss anything?" She eyed them.

The brothers looked at each other. "No," Raphael said.

"So, Mike. What did you think," she said, sitting on the couch beside Raphael.

"Huh?" Mike looked up from staring at his feet. "Uh, it was... really intense. I can't find the words."

"He's overwhelmed," Raphael cut in.

"Yeah, overwhelmed." Mike glanced at him, grinning. "You could say that."

Rahab leaned forward toward Mike. "So, what are your plans?"

"What plans?"

Raphael started to say something, but Rahab interrupted him. "What are you going to do, Mike? About Gaele?"

Mike's grin faded. "I want to keep her."

"WHAT?" Rahab started up.

"No, I don't want to take her away," he said quickly. "I just want to be around her... you know, be her Dad?"

"You mean LIVE with us," Rahab said, aghast.

Mike and Raphael exchanged glances. "Yeah," Mike said.

Rahab clenched her jaws. "No," she said fiercely. "NO! I don't want that! You're asking too much of Raph and ME!"

Raphael touched her arm. "We can work it out, Rahab..."

She shook him off. "Whose side are you on, anyway?" She glared at Mike. "You can visit her, Mike, but forget about LIVING with us!"

"I have just as much right-"

"You didn't have to go through what I went through to HAVE her!" Rahab snarled.

"If it weren't for me, she wouldn't even BE here," Mike shot back, standing up. "I didn't kick you out, you LEFT me!"

"I did NOT," she hissed. "We had nothing going on between us-"

Mike gave her a little smile. "We had to have SOMEthing going on between us, how do you think you got pregnant in the first place?"

She gave Mike a searing look. Raphael stared at the ceiling and scratched his neck. After an uncomfortable silence, he looked at them.

"This isn't easy for me either, Mike," he said quietly. "But it's something that has to be accepted..."

"Why should I have to accept it," Rahab muttered.

Mike was still glaring back at Rahab. "Well, what do you suggest, cutting the kid in half?"

Rahab was too shocked to answer.

"Hey, Mike, take it easy," Raphael said, frowning at him.

"She's my kid too, Raph. Ever since you called me the night she was born, all I could think of was, whoa, this wasn't a joke, it's really happened! I have a real, live, daughter! Somebody I know is gonna LOVE me no matter what. And NOBODY is gonna keep me from her-" His voice cracked from emotion, and he suddenly turned away from them.

Rahab's throat went tight. "I'm sorry, Mike."

He hastily wiped his eyes on his coat sleeve. "Yeah, well, forget it, what's done is done." He inhaled noisily through his nostrils. "This is the here and now, so, where do we go from here?" He came back to where they were sitting.

"You can stay here, Mike, this house is plenty big enough." Rahab sighed, blinking back the tear.

Raphael stared at the floor in front of him. "The offer stands, Mike," he said quietly.

"But you'll have to change a lotta diapers," Rahab said.

Mike gave her an odd look, then grinned faintly. "Small price to pay," he said.

Next section... Rahab 7

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