TMNT are the property of Mirage, who should really consider doing some chibi fiction...

Moving Day

"All right, my sons! Here we go! Follow Father!"

With a cheerful voice and a worried heart, Splinter led the way from his old burrow to their new home.

He had found this place secreted deep in the tunnels of the sewers. Though he could not understand much of the writing on the signs, he had figured out that this "fall out shelter" was a place to live. "Shelter" had been a word he had quickly learned, having once had it, then lost it, and then needing it when he had rescued the baby turtles that day in the sewers. "Fall" to him was confusing, as well as the "out"- he knew these words, but for the life of him, he was not sure of the meaning on the sign- unless it meant that this shelter protected against anyone falling out, and now that all four were quite active on their feet and in their minds, he needed a place they would not fall out of!

It was hard to leave this place that had first been his refuge after the death of his Master Yoshi, and then the home of his four adopted sons. It had been safe and familiar. He had by great good luck managed to get the rocking chair and the tattered bedding through his endless scavenging. The low table had reminded him of his dear Master Yoshi. But now-

This new place had old furniture in it. Dust was thick on it all as well as the floor and the tunnel just outside of it. Inside the dwelling, he had found no evidence of bugs or rats- very unusual, but it would make things easier.

The living area had a couch and a few hard back chairs. Lights were everywhere, but Splinter was shy of using the electricity, for fear of attracting attention. However, turned on, it did make it seem like "day" inside. There was a table in the kitchen with six chairs, a refrigerator, a stove, and a sink.

His examination in here had shown him that the stove was still connected to a gas line- all he had to do was turn it on and light the pilot (once he learned how)- and the taps ran cold water for the moment. He opened a small door and found a tall, white, cylindrical "something". A fleeting memory of his Master Yoshi working with something called a "water heater" came to mind, and he knew then what he was looking at. The directions were attached as to how to turn on the gas and light the pilot, and he looked forward to the day when he did- hot baths would be better than cold ones for the Turtles!

In the cupboard were some dishes, a few pans, and in one low section he found stored food!

For a moment he was afraid- were there people living here after all? But that was impossible. He had examined this place from top to bottom. The human scent was long gone, replaced by dust and stray cobwebs. The food evidently was old and oddly packaged. With his limited reading that was getting better and better, he figured out that some of it was dry and needed to be "cooked".

Something else he would need to learn, he knew.

Just off of the living room was a small room that seemed to be set up in a way that reminded him sharply of Master Yoshi- it appeared to be a place for exercise. This would make a good dojo for himself- and the boys, when they were older.

There was a bathroom. Splinter knew that the toilet was the place to do one's "business", and he wondered if he would be able to learn to use it- after all, he would need to teach his sons. Constantly cleaning them up from that aspect of parenthood was not his favorite activity. He knew that humans put some sort of covering over their young, and he had tried that, having "liberated" a package of diapers from a carelessly watched docking bay of a grocery store- but it had not met with much success. Human diapers were just not made for turtle shelled babies. He had managed to teach them to do their business at a safe distance from their sleeping and eating area, but now this would be a new challenge.

There were two chambers that he knew were bedrooms, and this had pleased him the most. In the larger room were two sets of bunk beds, and several "closets" or "wardrobes" for keeping clothing. When he'd searched it out, he'd found extra blankets sealed up in protective plastic, and that had been nice! The beds were dusty, but he could take care of that. The boys would be warm.

The two top beds were rather high up; he would put two in each of the bottom ones for now, and the tops could be used as they grew larger.

The final room was a smaller bedroom with a low, large bed- and shelves with books! Two rows of dusty books greeted his eyes! This had excited him more than the stored food! This was indeed the best thing he'd found! HE would be able to improve on what he'd been learning, and in turn he would be able to teach his sons as well!

A few late night trips to clean the essential rooms first, then he was ready to move his family.

He had found an old wagon months ago, that he would use to haul large loads with when scavenging below grounds. He considered making two trips; if he put the turtles in the wagon, then he could get them into the new home quickly, and he could return for the table and rocking chair, for he did not wish to part with these two items. The rocking chair had been a great find; he had made use of it with each and every one of the turtles, who found great comfort from sitting in his lap as he rocked it slowly back and forth.

But the idea of leaving them alone in a new place suddenly filled him with fear. He decided to put the table and chair into the wagon, and trusted that the turtles would follow him, as they always did. It would just be a slower trip.

The trip, indeed, had been slow and full of excitement for the worried parent. Most of it consisted of:

"Donatello! Do not play with the wire!"

"Michelangelo! Take that out of your mouth! Nasty! Nasty!"

"Leonardo! Stop fighting with Raphael!"

"Raphael! Stop fighting with Leonardo!"

"My sons! Where are you? My sons!"

"Do that again and Father will have to spank!"

"If you do that one more time, and I have to stop this wagon..."

Finally he had been forced to squeeze three of them into the wagon somehow, and carry the fourth on his back. The trip went faster then.

The family finally arrived in this darkest of dark tunnels. Only one pale light, across the way and separated from them by a deep channel that contained a trickle of water, illuminated the area poorly. The turtles could barely see the well-hidden door that Splinter now opened, pulling the wagon into this unknown place, then closing it and locking it behind him.

It was pitch dark in here- until Splinter flipped a switch, and then the turtles were momentarily blinded by the brightness! They had not been exposed to so much light since before they were mutated. They had thought that the lights at home were normal. This! This was amazing!

It was only one light, glowing from the center of the ceiling overhead, but try as he might, Donatello could NOT look at it directly as he had been able to do with the ones that fascinated him at home. He thought of the storybooks and pictures of the Outside that Splinter showed them and told them tales from.

Squinting, he pointed to the ceiling.

"Sun?" he asked. Splinter, following his gaze, shook his head.

"No, Donatello, it is just a light. It is just a very bright light."

Gradually their eyesight adjusted to this new level of brightness, as Splinter put down the one he was carrying and lifted the other three from the wagon. He set about unloading their meager belongings, leaving the foursome to themselves for a moment.

Their eyes were huge! They stood in a tight group just inside the door, afraid to move, looking everywhere- and everywhere they looked was new and strange and huge and bright and- and- What was this place?

Splinter carried the rocking chair into his room, turning on lights as he went, and returned to see the four still grouped up in fear.

"My sons, this is our new home," he said, smiling.

"Home?"

"New home?"

"When we gowin home?"

"This is our new home," Splinter said again, kneeling down on the floor by the couch and holding his arms out. "We are going to live here from now on."

As one, they crossed the floor; as one, they entered his arms and felt safe.

"Why we gonna home here?" Donatello asked, curiosity having already taken hold of him with the flicking of the switch.

"It is safe, and large, and better protected from the surface dwellers," he replied, cuddling the four.

"Wassit?" Michelangelo touched the dusty couch.

"That is a place to sit up off of the floor," Splinter explained.

"Why?"

"I do not know," he replied, which had quickly become the best way to prevent a ten-minute "why" fest from occurring.

"We sleep here?" Raphael asked. Then he got worried! "Blankies! Us forgets blankies!"

Near panic among four young turtles!

"No, my sons! We have new blankets to use," he tried to assure them, but they didn't see any blankies around, not one! How will they sleep with no blankies?

"Let me show you where you will sleep," he said, and with a bit of effort he managed to rise up with all four- they instinctively grabbed on and holding still, which made his job of lugging the four growing turtles a bit easier. He carried them into the room, and their eyes, already wide with the hugeness of this place, grew even wider!

"Beds?" Leonardo asked, remembering the picture book of the bears. "Theys beds?"

"Wow! Beds!" Raphael was less concerned now about the blankets. He had liked that book with the bears sleeping in the beds! Funny bears!

Gently he set them down, and with him standing there, the four began to explore the beds, which Splinter had already dusted and made up.

Donatello was fascinated more with how the bunks were built than the actual beds it seemed. He had toddled up to the nearest one, a tiny hand on one of the posts that seemed to him to reach up to the ceiling, feeling the metal and staring in wide-eyed awe from bottom to top.

Leonardo was the first to make it up onto the bed, Raphael a close second. For a moment they froze on their hands and knees, feeling how they had "sunk" into this strange thing, fearing briefly would it eat them up- then realizing that they only went in so far, and it was bouncy!

Giggles began to come from the two of them as they crawled on the mattress, feeling it move and give and spring back up. Raphael started pushing with his hands repeatedly, making it bounce more and more, and laughing harder and harder with each reaction of the mattress.

Leonardo suddenly spread out on his plastron, and started squealing with delight at the sensation of moving up and down while Raphael was making the mattress "bounce bounce bounce".

"Me! Me! Me! Me! Me!" Michelangelo was struggling with all his might to get into the bed with his brothers, but as the smallest of the four, he was having the most trouble. Gently Splinter helped him to climb up on his own, and he immediately joined in with what the other two were doing, no fear at this new experience!

As fast as they had scrambled onto that one, Leonardo and Raphael carefully scrambled off, little legs dangling and stretching, wiggling their toes in search of the floor as they tried to get down without falling- Splinter wished that he had a way to take a picture of their faces at this point, they had such a combination of looks on their faces; fear of the unknown coupled with toddler determination to get down.

Once their little feet touched the floor, the two of them raced to the other bed, struggling and scrambling to climb onto it, and the entire process began again.

Splinter let them play like this for a while. Soon they were exploring the entire room, looking into the empty closets and drawers, climbing under the beds (this quickly became a game that only babies understood), becoming more and more dust-covered- and then it happened. Donatello had discovered the ladder leading up to one of the top bunks. Splinter had not thought to move it. As he watched three of his sons chasing each other around the room, running and squealing to their hearts' content (something that had been impossible in the old place! Splinter always said "No running! No loud noises!"), he suddenly heard Donatello speaking to him from above.

Looking up, he saw the tiny turtle face peering down at him from the top bunk, grinning as if he had achieved the greatest feat in the world!

"Likes it!" he piped down to his father, who was suddenly gripped with parental fear that his son would fall and hurt himself. "Likes it high up! I's bigger'n you!"

Splinter slowly rose so as not to startle his son into scooting towards the edge. He kept his eyes on Donatello, smiling all the while, and moving around to the side of the bed as if nothing were wrong. Yet he was conscious of the rapid racing of his heart at this turn of events!

"Yes, you are bigger than me," he agreed, as Donatello scooted around in a sitting position. Splinter's head and shoulder were just above the mattress- lifting them into and out of this would not be difficult- but there would be time before any of them would be sleeping up there. He held his hands out to Donatello, who laughed happily and without fuss let his father lift him out and down to the floor.

"Don's bed!" he insisted, however, pointing to the top bunk. "I's bigger in that bed, bigger'n ever'one!"

Splinter looked again at the top bunk, and the room. If he were to push them against the wall, perhaps... the head and foot rails were high enough, but he would need to find something that would keep anyone from rolling out from the side.

"Very well," he agreed, aware that Donatello was now tugging insistently at his robe and pointing still. "That will be Donatello's bed once Father fixes it so you will not fall out."

The other three suddenly perked up- while they had been playing, their brother had already staked out a bed!

Now three pair of eyes spotted the other ladder- and the race was on. Leonardo managed by sheer determination to make it to the top first. Raphael came struggling up right behind him, and Splinter had stood close by, reluctant to stop them but ready to help. He knew that there would be no preventing this lively quartet from finding a way into the top even if he removed the ladders. Their increasingly creative ways of getting what they wanted had made this move all the more urgent.

What surprised him was the sudden agility of Michelangelo! The last to walk, he had quickly caught up to and surpassed his brothers in his abilities to get into the most trouble possible!

Now, with his own eyes wide, Splinter watched as Michelangelo, first studying the ladder and how the others had got to the top, without hesitation made the difficult climb, soon joining his brothers in the bed, where Leonardo and Raphael were already squabbling about whose bed it was. Most of the argument was unintelligible, but Splinter could clearly make out the oft repeated "Is MINE!" shouted by both of them with ever-increasing volume and anger.

"Now, now, my sons," he said, disapproval in his tone. "You know I do not like you to fight!"

At his words, the two turned to look up at Father- and were suddenly startled to be staring into his eyes.

It occurred to them at that moment that they were a long, long way from the ground.

Splinter had a hard time not laughing. The twin expressions of shocked awareness, followed by a slight fear, was quite cute and comical to the Rat. He lifted his arms to them, and they both scooted over as quick as possible, so that he had to take them together. They clung rather tightly to his fur as he gently lowered them to the floor, and for a few seconds he did not think they would release him. But he got them to let go, and they both seemed relieved.

He turned to lift down Michelangelo, only to find him already snuggling under the cover, resting his head on the pillow. His eyes were closed, but Splinter knew he was not asleep.

"My son, what are you doing?" he asked, amused, and now he did laugh.

"I's seepin'n my bed!" he replied, squeezing his eyes tight. "I's high up like Dontello! Likes it! Likes the bed!"

Splinter shook his head. Well, that settled it. He would have to make sure that both sons would not fall out.

"Very well," he agreed, lifting his son out of the bed. "You may have this one, and Donatello the other. Leonardo and Raphael wil have the bottom ones. But not right now. We must have something to eat, and then you must all have a bath."

" 'Kay!" Michelangelo shouted, and the four followed Splinter out of the room and into the kitchen.

So much room! As the Rat rummaged through the few supplies he had already brought here, along with some of the food he had found in the cupboard that needed no preparation beyond opening and serving, the Turtles climbed all over the chairs, marveling now at their new home, already forgetting the old.

Soon they were running back and forth between the couch and the kitchen table, and Splinter once again marveled- the more they did this, the better they seemed to be at it.

Yes, this move was definitely for the best. He could never have raised them safely in the old place.

Listening to their cheerful voices and the sound of running feet, he only gave a tiny sigh for their old home- their first home together. So many memories of them were there, but he knew that he was not leaving them behind.

As he set the food on the table, and the toddlers once again scrambled up into the chairs (though they were so small, they had to stand on their knees to reach their meals), he knew that those memories would not be lost with their old home.

And so many new memories were just waiting to be made!