Fade

Part 13

By Dierdre

Beta read by Sassyblondexoxo. Go read her fics!

And now, without further ado, here’s the next chapter. I hope y’all enjoy. :)

There was blood spoor in the air. I drew it in with every breath and tasted it on the back of my tongue, eerily reminiscent of the metallic tang that was even now flooding my mouth in a surge of bitter saliva. My throat felt hot and swollen with the urge to scream, as if I could change destiny and deny the obvious with a protracted burst of furious vocalization. It was an instinctual desire, as old as mankind, yet I tamped it down forcefully, for it would do me and those I loved no good at all.

They must have been attacked. Either Raph had gone to the surface and gotten himself hurt, or --and the thought chilled me to the core-- the Foot had found the lair. Why else would there be the stench of blood, why else the silence?

So terribly, desperately silent…

That last thought was nearly enough to send me over the edge into panic, and it was only the memory of Splinter’s teachings that prevented me from tearing through the lair like a localized hurricane, hunting desperately for two of the few people left alive that still meant a damn to me. Instead I took a calming breath and raised the kunai to shoulder level, held lightly in my grip and ready to throw as I willed my body to stop shaking. I listened intently for the slightest misplaced sound, instinctively dropping my mouth open to better detect low frequency sounds through the vibrations of my Eustachian tubes. A strange but useful trick Master Splinter had once taught me, God rest his soul.

After nearly a full minute, where I heard nothing more ominous than water rushing through distant pipes and the industrious scratching of a hidden sewer rat, I finally relaxed a little. If there had been someone here before, then they must have already left. And even if someone was still lurking in the shadows, waiting patiently for the proper moment to strike, it no longer mattered. I simply couldn’t delay any longer.

There was no sense in trying to conceal my presence, for with the clatter of my leg brace I might as well have been accompanied by a marching band, so I strode forward with a confidence I didn’t really feel. Scanning the dimness around me, searching for any signs of trouble, it wasn’t long before I found myself only a few paces from the hallway with that strange pressure flaring in the back of my skull, urging me onward.

Trusting in my instincts, I quickened my pace and plunged into the hallway’s dark confines, nearly gagging from the now overwhelming stench of blood. My eyes gratefully latched onto the first scrap of light they saw; a bright line of luminescence that filtered through an open slit in the dojo door. Lips thinned in determination, I tightened my grip on my weapon and yanked open the door.

A dark and hidden part of my mind had half expected to find a body, but the scene laid out before my eyes was somehow worse. Raphael’s sais were lying forgotten in the center of tatami mat, their shine dulled to nothing by the pool of congealed blood they rested in, with a trail of footprints, staggered and rimmed in red, leading out into the hallway.

My heart in my throat and my head spinning with thoughts too terrible to contemplate, I looked down. I… I was standing in blood. His blood, my brother’s blood.

With a strangled cry, I spun around and staggered out the door, fumbling desperately for the light switch. The part of my psyche still capable of rational thought counseled against this action, for it knew beyond any doubt that I would hate what I saw, but fumble I did, overcome by a wild need to see.

My fingers finally hooked the switch and I pulled quickly downwards, and then up again, repeatedly flicking the little nub of plastic in a vain effort to shed some light on my nightmare. The bulb must have burnt out, however, for I was left in gloom, with only the light from the dojo’s floor lamp spilling out into the hallway to reveal the beginnings of a rusty trail of footprints. And there on the far wall, lit up at the edges of the light… a smeared print that could have only come from a blood-soaked, tri-fingered hand.

The last vestiges of my calm shriveled away like rice paper in a gas flame, and the kunai slipped from my grip to clatter unheeded to the ground.

“Raph! Leo! Oh god… Raphael!”

I flung myself into darkness even as the echoes of my cry reverberated off the corridor walls to die amongst the latticework of pipes above. Limping as quickly as I could, all but running in my haste, I used the wall for support as I propelled myself forward like an unsteady arrow, bound for the end of the hall and Don’s room, where another thin shaft of light beckoned. Unseen droplets of blood burst under the onslaught of my sneakers and splashed up to stain my ankles, the cold wetness turning the already foul corridor into a choking blanket of copper scent. I barely noticed this, however, or felt the discomfort when one of my nails caught on the rough brickwork and ripped away. I was too busy panicking; too busy praying to God to have mercy on us, the children he seemed to love to destroy.

And then light pierced my eyes from the partially open door, blinding me momentarily and causing me to fumble in my desperate grasp for the doorframe. My hand clutching at nothing, my descent was further aided by a silver dollar-sized patch of blood, which negated the traction on the soles of my feet and sent me careening forward. My shoulder hit the door, flinging the wooden plank against the wall with a hollow thud a millisecond before I hit the ground.

The breath whooshed from my lungs in a pained exhale as a miniature volcano welled up in my hip and spilled liquid fire along my nerve endings. Tears welled up unbidden in my eyes, but despite the overwhelming desire to curl up into a little ball of distress, I blinked them away and peered into the wan fluorescent light. What I saw compelled me to push my way into the room with my good leg and begin clawing forward on my belly, dragging my braced and useless appendage behind me.

Leo, streaked with red but seemingly otherwise unharmed, was sitting with his legs curled in the familiar Lotus position, his eyes gazing into the middle distance. Raph was slumped oddly on the floor beside him, as if he had been leaning against the wall only to slide sideways to the ground. A crude bandage, black with dried blood, was wrapped around his right arm, standing out in stark contrast to the pallor of his skin. Limp and seemingly lifeless, I couldn’t even tell if he was breathing.

Rust red ground its way into the loose weave of my sweater and coated my hands as I dragged myself over the spatters of blood, but the damage to my clothing didn’t matter in the slightest. If what I feared were true, then I wouldn’t have to worry about the state my wardrobe anymore, because that would be the end of us. Raphael’s death would not only scatter the final pieces of our hope beyond the possibility of recovery; it would shatter the board. I might as well put a bullet through Leo’s skull right now, and then bite the barrel myself.

All but climbing over Leo’s lap in my clumsy, pain-fogged haste, I pushed aside a drawer from the broken medicine cabinet and pulled myself into a semi-upright position at Raph’s side. Leaning my shoulder against the wall, I reached out with weak fingers and pressed them against the side of his neck. I felt for a pulse through the layers of corded muscle, not daring to breathe, and then let out a little sob of relief when I found one. It was weak and slow, but it was there. Thank God, thank God.

Now that I knew he was still alive, some of my panic faded away, leaving me cold and trembling with shock. I looked up and stared wide-eyed at the chaos that surrounded me, Don’s once serene room transformed into an Abaddon of spattered blood, shredded bedding and scattered medical supplies. What in the world had happened here?

The only person capable of answering my question was beyond my hearing, lying pale and mottled with a gruesome patchwork of his own blood, so I pushed those worries to the back of my mind. I took a calming breath and ran a hand over the bandage, where the blood had stiffened to the consistency of dried glue.

Yes, ‘why’ and ‘how’ would have to wait.

It would have been better to get him up off the floor and into a warm bed, but with him unconscious and unable to help I had to compromise. By pulling with every ounce of strength in my weakened arms and bracing against the wall with my right leg, I was able to straighten him out of his uncomfortable huddle, shifting his body so he lay flat on his shell with his injured arm draped across his plastron. I then crawled over to the bed with all the ease and grace of a wounded seal, dragging down one of the pillows and slipping it carefully under Raph’s head.

After checking his pulse one last time and finding it unchanged, I gathered up enough courage to turn away from him again and grip one of the metal bedposts. It took three tries to lift myself to my feet, and when I finally succeeded my weak leg throbbed with such intensity that I felt the pulse of it all the way to my temples. Ignoring my body’s protests with the resolute determination of one who had grown accustomed to pain, I clenched my teeth and strode heavily out the door.

The next hour was spent in a haze of hard labor and low-grade anxiety, as I bustled about the kitchen in preparation for amateur surgery. Two large metal pots were found nestled in the back of one of the cabinets, and I filled them with water from the cluttered sink, setting them on the stovetop to boil. A reluctant trip back into Don’s room for a search through the strewn medical supplies revealed an utter lack of proper bandages, although I did find the scissors, needles and packets of surgical thread.

Gathering up those items and the torn blanket unaccountably draped across Leo’s lap, I took everything back into the kitchen and spread it across the table. I boiled an instrument tray in the smallest pot first, before doing the same with the needles and scissors. Setting the items aside to dry atop a layer of clean paper towels, I used a steak knife to cut the remaining length of blanket into strips, and then tossed those into the pot as well.

As I waited for the cloth to boil itself clean, it took a concentrated effort to keep my hands from shaking, for I knew the dangers of what I was about to do. The sewers of New York were arguably the last place on earth that should be used as an operating room, and with primitively sterilized instruments and a proletarian at the needle it was a bout of sepsis waiting to happen. He should be going to the emergency room, getting patched up by an expert with an autoclave and a whole bucketful of antibiotics.

But no. All he had was me, a cripple who had never stitched up a wound without the comforting presence of Don nearby, ready to step in should she make a mistake. Christ, I would gladly give up a year of my life to have him here with me now.

I wasn’t sure how long the strips needed to boil, so I went with my gut instinct and removed them from the burner after ten minutes, draining the pot and wringing out the makeshift bandages with my freshly scrubbed hands. I’d had to remove the glove that protected my scarred hand for this and the hot water burned like a firebrand against the delicate skin, but I did my best to ignore the hurt. This was more important.

Lacking any better mechanism, I hung the damp strips from a hook above the stove, hoping that the heat from the still active burner would quickly dry out the makeshift bandages. After carefully shifting the second bubbling pot to a cool burner, I spent the next little while pacing around the table with all the nervous energy of a caged tiger, praying that I was doing everything right and keeping a close eye on the steaming strips of cloth. A kitchen fire was the last thing I needed right now.

Once the strips stopped steaming and upon tactile inspection seemed relatively dry, I turned off the burners with a relieved sigh. So far, so good.

It took two trips to carry everything through the darkened hallway, and even after my previous exposure its charnel house stench almost enough to make me gag and drop the water pot. I somehow managed to avoid both disastrous outcomes, however, and made it into Don’s room without incident. A couple of thick towels from the bathroom had been spread across the floor at Raph’s side, acting as a buffer against the filthy floor, and I set the pot of sterilized water beside the instrument tray before lowering myself to the ground with an involuntary moan.

I couldn’t simply remove the dressing to get to the wound beneath, for tearing away the strips of cloth would only make things worse. And so, with Leo at my back as an unseeing witness, I draped another towel over my legs and pulled Raph’s limp arm into my lap. Ladling out some water with a clean measuring cup, I poured a small amount over the bandage, suppressing a shudder of distaste as pink-tinged liquid dribbled over the sides and quickly soaked through the towel. I told myself it didn’t matter; my clothes were a lost cause anyway.

The cloth sucked up the liquid almost greedily and after a few complicated moments I was able to pull the loosened knots apart. With plenty of water and lots of patience, the bandages were unwound one at a time and tossed away to lay in a sodden pile of cloth beside the medicine cabinet. Using a clean, damp strip to dab at the wound, I gently loosened the mass of clotted blood to expose the true shape of the injury. What I saw puzzled me at first, but then understanding hit like a sucker punch to the jaw.

My heart thundered in my ears as I stared down at Raph’s still form, disbelievingly, as if I’d never seen him before. “No,” I whispered. “No, he couldn’t have…”

I’d never been claustrophobic before in my life, but suddenly I was very aware of the many tons of rock hanging over my head, pressing down on me and constricting the walls in a fashion that exuded menace. The oxygen seemed to be draining from air around us, and I found myself beginning to gasp like a land-trapped fish.

Realizing in a disconnected way that I was dangerously close to a panic attack, I placed Raph’s arm gingerly back atop his plastron and used the bedpost to lever myself to my feet. Swaying dangerously, my eyes wild, I maintained enough presence of mind to snag the bottle of iodine from the second drawer of the metal cupboard, before stumbling out the door.

Inside the dubious sanctuary of the bathroom, I placed the bottle beside the faucet and gripped the cracked porcelain of the sink with white-knuckled fingers. I bowed my head and spent a few moments trying to regain mental equilibrium, my breath rattling like dice in my chest. It couldn’t be what I thought, it just couldn’t. He was too stubborn to take the easy way out, and despite everything I knew he still loved us. He wouldn’t hurt us like this. He wouldn’t try to kill himself.

But the holes in his skin were a perfect match for the prongs of his sai, the same weapons he had never so much as scratched himself with in all the years I’d known him. Ragged puncture wounds, as if he’d buried the weapon into his arm and ripped it out in a fit of rage.

It hurt to even think of it, but I couldn’t deny the evidence before my eyes. Perhaps I didn’t know him as well as I thought I did.

I rolled back the blood-streaked sleeves of my sweater and with shaking hands turned the water on hot. Grabbing the antibiotic soap from its dish, I proceeded to scrub hard from my elbows to the tips of my fingers. Over and over again, scouring myself clean and rubbing my skin raw, as my eyebrows drew together into a pensive frown. He might have decided his life was worth nothing, but it was still precious to me. I was going to save him, whether he liked it or not.

I wished wholeheartedly for a pair of surgical gloves, but lacking any such convenience I had to make due with the iodine. The burnt umber liquid reeked to high heaven, but I nevertheless made sure to coat every inch of my skin up to the forearms. It wasn’t perfect, but I was as sterilized as I was going to be.

A moment later I was once again sitting at his side, his arm in my lap as I used the already stained ribbon of cloth and a few more cups of water to cleanse the last of the blood from around his wound. Tossing it to rest among its kindred beside the medicine cabinet, I then doused the punctures and the surrounding flesh in iodine.

Threading a needle with one weak and aching hand was no easy task, but after a few tries I succeeded, my fleeting sense of triumph quickly dissolving under the onslaught of guilt, anger and sorrow that was battling for supremacy in my gut. I willed my hands to remain steady and took a final calming breath, before bending over his arm and getting to work.

Even after a couple of years of practice I still hated suturing a wound. The slight resistance of the skin before it popped under the pressure of my needle had always sickened me, as had the faint squeaking sound of the silk tread as it was pulled through flesh. I had long ago learned to quell my instinctual desire to vomit, but it didn’t stop the experience from being an unpleasant one.

In an effort to distract myself from my grisly work, I found my thoughts drifting back to the first time I’d ever had to put my amateur first aid skills to the test. It had been immediately after one of their first fights with the Shredder, when Splinter had called me and requested my assistance, his polite tone spiced with urgency.

I had raced to the lair with my heart in my mouth, only to find Raph unconscious and Leo bleeding profusely from twin slash marks across both arms. Master Splinter and Don, both ignoring their comparatively minor hurts, had been working together with almost eerie synchronicity as they stitched up the eldest sibling. Don had torn himself away long enough to press an instrument tray into my hands and point wordlessly towards Mikey, who was leaning against the wall with a red-stained rag pressed to his shoulder.

Patching him up had been a nightmare, one that I could still remember with crystal clarity. My hands had shook throughout the whole ordeal, my stitching was timid and I’d had to leave halfway through to throw up in the bathroom sink, but somehow I had done it. I had been absurdly proud of my accomplishment, a feeling which remained with me until the stitches were removed a few weeks later. Apparently the sutures had been tied off too tight and over time the thread had cut into his skin, leaving a faint parallel pattern of scarring over the healed slash, like a crooked railroad track.

I had apologized profusely, horrified that I had mutilated him in my ignorance, but Mikey had just laughed and hugged me reassuringly. He said he kind of liked the effect; it made him look tough, like a real ‘manly turtle’. He had then strutted around the lair, flashing his new scar and acting so outrageously that I had no choice but to laugh, and to love him all the more for his kindness.

I grudgingly pulled myself back to the present as I tied the last suture and cut the black thread, setting the bloodied scissors and needle back into the instrument tray with a sigh of relief. I rinsed my hands in the half empty water pot and poured more iodine over the stitches, before starting on the much more agreeable task of bandaging his arm.

My weak hand was sending out sharp twinges of distress by the time I tied the last knot, but I gently set his freshly bound appendage back on his plastron before allowing my hands to fall to my lap. I gave the bandage a critical glare as I tried to massage some life back into my cramping fingers. The bleeding had been minimal as I had stitched him up, the sutures precise and evenly spaced, and staring now at the neatly crisscrossed strips of cloth I abruptly decided that I had done a damn good job. No amateur track marks for him, it seemed, and as long as he favored that arm for a while he should regain full use of it.

Provided, of course, that he wanted to stick around that long.

That last incautious thought brought with it a wave of negative emotion, causing me to frown hard as I gathered up the pot and surgical tools. Levering myself to my feet and making my halting way back into the kitchen, I set the items on a clear space on one of the counters.

For a long moment I simply stared at the overflowing and cluttered sink, my head swimming with the knowledge that there was still so much left to do. Few things rusted metal faster than blood, and I knew I needed to clean the scissors, needles and instrument tray before I did anything else. I also needed to mop up the blood that stained the hallway, gather up the scattered medical supplies, clean Raph and Leo up, and then take a hot shower myself.

All these things and more had to be done, and any responsible person would perform such chores without hesitation, but as I stood there swaying from exhaustion I realized I simply did not have the will. My mind and soul ached as if they had been scoured with coarse sand, and never in my life had I wanted sleep so much as now. My body begged for it.

The cleanup can wait until tomorrow, I thought leadenly. Everything can wait until tomorrow.

I raided the storage room adjacent to the dojo, operating on autopilot and barely aware of what I was doing, and managed to find three tatty and heavily darned blankets. They were musty and moth-eaten, but also dry and warm, which was all that mattered to me now.

Bundling them up in my arms, I plodded back into Don’s room and deposited them on the bed. I shook out the thickest one and draped it over Raph, bending over laboriously to tuck the trailing edges beneath his legs as a defense against the cold concrete. Unable to help myself, I spent a moment stroking the side of his face, seeking comfort in an action that he would never allow under ordinary circumstances.

I loved him so much it made my heart ache, yet a spreading miasma of guilt now tainted the feeling; a sneaking and irrational suspicion that this was all my fault. His wound had been bandaged when I found him, an act of self-preservation that hinted at second thoughts, but it still didn’t change the fact that he had tried to kill himself. Somehow I had missed the signs, too wrapped up in my own self-pity to see just how far he’d fallen.

God, what kind of person was I?

My back was protesting its odd position so fiercely that I was forced to straighten and reluctantly turn away. Fixing my attention on the only remaining brother, I sighed deeply and spoke, “Stand up, Leo.”

He obeyed with surprising alacrity, rising to his feet with a fluidity that seemed at odds with the faint popping of his joints, proof that he had been sitting in that same position for a very long time indeed. A weak flicker of curiosity flamed as I noticed a line of blood at the corner of his lip, but it was quickly smothered by the detachment that had settled over my psyche like a protective mantle. Any one of a thousand such mysteries would have to remain unsolved, because right now I couldn’t bring myself to care.

I called Leo over and ordered him to stretch out on the bed, before throwing a blanket over his body and tucking it securely under his chin. Sliding the last remaining pillow under his neck, I then limped around and all but collapsed on the other side of the bed, where the feeling of finally getting off my feet brought with it a wave of relief so intense it bordered on dizziness. I had to sit there for nearly a full minute, eyes closed and hands limp at my sides, before I felt clearheaded and steady enough to pull the stained gray sweater over my head. I let it drop to the floor with a sneer of distaste, and then wriggled like a shedding snake to peel off my still damp sweat pants. I slipped off my shoes and tackled the leg brace next, fumbling at the buckles in my impatience to rid myself of the infernal contraption.

My brace clattered to the floor, leaving me clad only in my pajamas and a fine patina of filth, reeking of blood, sweat and iodine, but not caring. I lay on my back and wrestled the last blanket over my body, staring mutely at the ceiling as I waited for the warmth to seep into my bones. I normally didn’t like to sleep with a light on, but tonight I needed its protection to keep my demons at bay. Just as I needed the warmth of another living soul beside me, as a tangible reminder that the world had not ended and that I was not alone.

I turned over on my side and pillowed my head with my good arm, feeling the tug of habit as I reached under the blankets and gripped Leo’s hand. As I had done numerous times before, I lightly massaged the pad of flesh between his thumb and forefinger, a repetitive gesture designed to soothe. “Close your eyes and relax, Leo,” I murmured. “Sleep now and dream of something better than this.”

His lids fluttered once before sliding obediently shut. I soon followed suit, waiting in self-imposed darkness for a sign that he was surrendering to sleep. My thoughts drifted of their own accord back to the old lady on the bus, and I frowned in remembrance of the lies she told, feeling like a fool for having believed her for an instant. There was no light at the end of the tunnel for us, only a slow slide deeper into the abyss. The events of the past few hours had proven that.

I was pulled abruptly from my dark musings by a slight shifting of Leo’s hand. My eyes snapped open as his fingers twitched once, flexed experimentally, and then curled around my own. He showed no reaction to my gasp of disbelief, but merely cradled my hand in a gentle grip as his breath slowed with the encroachment of sleep.

The gesture might have been nothing more than an involuntary reflex, and therefore devoid of meaning, but the comfort it nevertheless provided was what finally broke me. A choked whimper tore its way out of my throat as hot tears forced themselves past my lids, etching salty trails across my face. I buried my head in my folded arm, attempting to smother the sound as I began to sob in earnest.

Feeling lost, like a small child trapped in a nightmare, I held Leo’s hand tightly and cried myself to sleep.