Fade

Part 8

By Dierdre

Beta read by Sassyblondexoxo, with consultation from Chibi Rose Angel. Go read their fics!

And now, without further ado… on with the fic! I hope y’all enjoy. :)

The most profound and devastating emotions can sometimes have flavor. Sudden terror brings with it the taste of iron, as thick and cloying as a mouthful of old blood. It weakens the defenses even as it coats the tongue and clogs the esophagus with the phantom essence of mortality.

I was in no physical danger, but fear for another can affect the body as powerfully as fear for self. And so I stood in the kitchen with the note clutched in my ridged fingers, the bitter taste of iron creeping stealthily up the back of my throat.

The message was impeccably polite and phrased as an invitation rather than a demand, so there was no obvious reason for my extreme reaction. Leo had trusted Karai, despite the woman’s unshakable loyalty to the Shredder, which counted for a lot in my book. Perhaps her intentions really were as benign as the note seemed. But…

But I vividly remembered the Foot’s past treacheries, and the fear churning in my gut spoke of catastrophe.

I had no time to continue sorting through my feelings, for at that moment I felt a presence materialize behind me and heard a gravelly voice say, “What are you doing?”

Yelping in involuntary surprise, I whirled around so quickly I nearly toppled over. Raph had ghosted up behind me, moving with that eerie silence I’d never been able to copy, and was now staring at me with a slightly puzzled frown. That look faded quickly, however, when he saw the incriminating note in my hands.

I didn’t even see him move. One second I was holding the thin paper firmly in both hands, and the next he had plucked it from my grasp without even brushing against my fingers. “You went through my trash? April, what the hell...?”

Despite my nebulous yet genuine fear, shame still made my cheeks burn. “I’m sorry, Raph, but I knew something important had happened during your run. I had to find out what.”

He scowled and muttered something about ‘nosey broads’, before once again crumpling the note and tossing it in the bin. “Stay out of this. It has nothing to do with you.”

“Of course it does! We’re family,” I said. “I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

He rolled his eyes heavenward. “That was just beautiful, April. You should write Hallmark cards.”

Raphael, the nihilistic comedian. Great, just great.

Taking a calming breath and resisting the urge to kick him in the shin, I said, “I’m serious, Raph! I have a real bad feeling about this. You’re not going to meet with her, are you?”

I had a pretty good idea what his answer would be, but my heart still sank when he let out a bark of laughter, a short-lived and sardonic sound reminiscent of gravel being crushed underfoot. “Oh, yes. Yes, I am.”

My eyes widened and I reached out, gripping his forearm with urgent fingers. “No! You can’t go now! Not like this. Not alone.”

Twisting out of my grip, he glared at me. The sarcasm that had previously colored his speech was gone, replaced by a tone as flat as the Salt Sea and just as lethal. “Karai killed my family. Eviscerating the bitch and strangling her with her own entrails is only justice.”

I had experienced too much recently for the graphic description to phase me, but the expression in his eyes chilled me to the bone. I had no doubt that he would do exactly what he said.

And that was it, the reason behind the fear that had gripped me since I’d read Karai’s message. If Raphael went to her now, it wouldn’t matter if her intentions were beneficent or not. He would charge in, loaded for bear with murder on his mind, and would start a massacre that would leave uncounted numbers dead. Himself mostly likely included.

Counting to ten in the hopes of slowing my pounding heart, I struggled quell my rising panic and to heed the advice my mother had always tried to impart to me. Remain calm, cool and collected, April, and the world will bend to your will. Wise words, yes, but Mom never had to deal with someone like Raphael.

“We don’t know for sure that she was the one who tampered with the bomb. Stockman or Hun-”

“Have both disappeared from the face of the earth,” he finished. “She probably had them killed, too.”

The bomb had been intended only as a distraction, something to keep the more talented Donny away from the computer terminal long enough for Shredder’s latest plan to reach fruition. It had never been intended to actually detonate. I know. I had been there, and I had seen the surprise in Shredder’s eyes right before poor Don had taken him out.

So it made sense, in a way. Neither Karai, Hun nor Stockman had been present when the bomb went off, but Karai was the only one to make her presence known after the fact. She had the most to gain from Shredder’s death, as well as the intelligence and the ruthlessness to quietly kill all possible opposition and tamper with the bomb right under Saki’s nose. The deaths of so many of the Foot’s sworn enemies would’ve simply been icing on the cake.

And yet…

“It’s a possibility, I’ll admit. But we don’t know that it was her, Raph. We have no proof!”

His eyes narrowed to slits and one hand reached up to caress the pommel of his sai, an absent gesture that indicated his rising anger. “I know she did it, April. That’s all the proof I need. Why the hell are you defending her?”

I tried to count to ten again, but was unable to achieve the clarity of mind for even that simple task. I had only the feeling in my gut to go on, but I knew, as surely as I knew my own name, that if he left tomorrow I would never see him again.

My composure was steadily, inexorably crumbling, rapidly replaced by despair and a wild, unreasoning anger. I was fighting a losing battle. I didn’t have the right words to convince him to stay, and most importantly, I didn’t have his respect. I was failing him, and he was going to die. Oh, Christ. Oh, god…

Calm, cool and collected, April, I thought desperately.

“I’m not,” I replied. My hands curled into fists, as if I could wring out the appropriate words from the chamber’s musty air. “I’m just saying that we don’t have enough information. If she’s guilty, then it’s more than likely a trap. But even if she’s innocent, Karai is no one’s fool. She’ll have a whole army of Foot soldiers waiting in the shadows in case you attack her. Either way, you’ll get killed!”

The frantic edge to my voice seemed to have no effect on him, for he folded his arms across his plastron and said, “Maybe, maybe not. It doesn’t matter.”

He sounded so… indifferent.

Fear-induced adrenaline shot across my nerve endings, flaring my vision white at the edges, and my temper snapped with an almost audible sound. My right hand snaked out of its own accord and struck him across the cheek with a resonant crack, hard enough to throw his head to the side and send a tingle of pain darting up my forearm.

The unexpectedness of my action froze us both. For a long moment we stood unmoving, his eyes wide in an expression that echoed my own. I didn’t have a clue who was the most surprised at that moment, him or me.

Slivers of ice slid down my spine in shocked reaction to what I’d done, quickly followed by a nauseating sense of guilt. I hated the feeling, but it was nothing compared to my horrified realization that, for an instant at least, slapping him had felt good. Very good.

With my voice shaking and sudden tears clouding my vision, I took a deep breath and tried to apologize. But what I meant to say and what actually came out of my mouth were two very different things. “How dare you say something like that?” I choked. “It matters a whole hell of a lot, Raph. If you die, then what happens to Leo? What happens to me? You guys are all I have left.”

He seemed to have regained his composure, for he snorted and rubbed his knuckles across his red cheek. His eyes were dangerous, anger rolling through them like a low-hanging thunderstorm. “Don’t give me that bullshit, April. You’re human, remember? The whole damn world is yours.”

Some of the guilt faded away as another bright curl of anger flared. “Now who’s giving out bullshit, Raph? Look at me!” I tugged savagely at my left sleeve, pulling back the pink cloth to expose the livid scarring than ran from my knuckles to the edge of my jaw. My arm was now nothing more than a length of withered muscle wrapped in skin the texture of melted candle wax, and the sight of it was enough to make my stomach churn. “All anybody sees now are the scars, a brand of mortality on a person that used to be just like them. I’m a walking, talking reminder that they’re not invulnerable, and that sets me apart.

“People are afraid of me now. And if they don’t fear me, they pity me, which is worse. My own mother can’t talk to me on the phone without bursting into tears.” I smoothed the sleeve back down, playing with a loose thread at the hem in a conscious effort not to bite at my glove. “Don’t you get it, Raph? I don’t belong in the world any more than you do. How can I?”

Raph snorted derisively as I fell silent, his narrow gaze hard and as sympathetic as stone. “Oh, cry me a fucking river, April. If you think that self-pitying speech is going to change anything, then you’re not as smart as I thought you were.”

He was wearing hostility like a protective garment, and I knew him well enough to know he didn’t really mean the things he said when he was like this. But the words still hurt like a punch in the stomach.

“If you don’t give a damn about me, then that’s fine,” I hissed. “But what about Leo, huh? What am I going to tell him when he comes back to himself? If you get yourself killed, then he’ll die too!”

“Leo’s dead, April.” His eyes flickered, anger momentarily supplanted by an emotion deeper and far more tragic, before he turned his face away. Glaring at the refrigerator as if he had a personal grudge against it, Raph continued bitterly, “His mind died nearly a month ago. His body just hasn’t caught up yet.”

I winced as my emotional rollercoaster shifted again, climbing a spike of guilt and leaving anger far behind. “His mind isn’t gone, Raph,” I said softly. “He just needs some more time to recuperate.”

“And how do you know that?” he snarled. “He’s a fucking vegetable now. Nothing has happened since he lost his marbles to tell me otherwise.”

Without realizing it, my hand had crept up to my mouth. I bit at the black cloth, teeth grinding the fabric in an effort to muster up some courage. He was going to hate me for this, but there was something I had to tell him. Something I should have told him several days ago. “He spoke to me, Raph.”

His head whipped back in my direction so fast I actually heard his neck vertebrae pop. “You… he what?”

“Leo spoke to me. In the dojo, the last time I was here.”

Raph’s belligerent gaze was wiped clean in an instant, his jaw slack and eyes empty of everything but shock. A year ago I might have found his stunned-bunny expression amusing, but now all it did was scare me. Even without the facial scarring, he looked too much like Leo right now.

Shifting uncomfortably, I asked, “Are you-”

I never got to finish, for Raph moved so fast he seemed to blur. He was suddenly only a few inches from me, close enough that I feel his breath on my face, his hands on my arms in a grip so fierce that I soon felt the tingle of obstructed circulation in my fingertips.

A yelp of protest died in my throat as I was pinned by his gaze. He stood several inches shorter than me, but the height difference mattered little when fury and betrayal rolled off him so thickly it was almost tangible. Raphael loomed. “Why didn’t you tell me that, April?” he hissed. “How could you not tell me!”

“Because I didn’t want to get your hopes up!” I cried, guilt and alarm making my voice shrill. “I thought I’d have time to work with him, to see if I could get him to speak again. If he did, then I’d know for sure it wasn’t a fluke!” His fingers tightened even further and I whimpered, attempting to twist out of his grip. It was about as effective as pushing back the ocean with a broom. “Raph, stop. You’re hurting me!”

His eyes flickered, anger blanketed by momentary surprise, and I blew out a wobbly breath when his grip loosened. He probably hadn’t been aware that he was doing it. “What did he say?”

“I asked him where he was, and he…” I hesitated, turning my face away from that furious, pleading expression. “Oh, god, Raph, I’m sorry. He said he was in hell.”

Releasing me so quickly that I staggered, he backed away until his shell struck the kitchen wall. His shook his head, eyes fever-bright with an emotion that was difficult to pinpoint, and reached into his belt pouch with a shaky hand. He pulled out a slightly crumpled cigarette.

I said nothing as he lit up, the sharp bite of butane and acrid smoke drifting past me and assaulting my nasal passages. He took a long drag of his cigarette, nearly a quarter of it dissolving into ash with a single protracted inhalation. My father had often done the same thing when he was upset, before esophageal cancer took him from me and my mother.

Raph bowed his head and exhaled slowly, tendrils of smoke slipping between his teeth and curling lazily towards the ceiling. He flicked ash from the burning tip with a practiced tap of a thumb. “Damn it, April,” he breathed.

I sidled cautiously towards him and leaned against the wall, not close enough to touch but hopefully enough to provide some measure of comfort. “I should have told you sooner. I’m sorry.” I seemed to be apologizing a lot tonight.

Taking a more moderate puff, he nodded slowly. All the anger seemed to have drained from him, leaving him exhausted and strangely hollow.

“But now do you see why you need to wait?” I asked, in a tone as gentle as it was possible to make it. “It will take some time, but Leo will come back to himself. Between the two of us, we’ll make sure of that.”

I fiddled with the hem of my sleeve, pulling at the loose strand until it separated with a weak snap. “I’m still not convinced that it was Karai who tampered with the bomb, but when Leo gets better the two of you can find out for sure. And if it was her, then the both of you will stand a much better chance of taking down the Foot than you would alone.” My lips curved into a humorless smile. “Hell, I can still fire a gun. I’ll help.”

“But if you go alone, without knowing Karai’s true intentions, then there’s a good chance you’ll just die. You’d probably take a bunch of them with you, but Master Splinter, Don, Mikey and Casey would still go unavenged.” I reached out and laid a careful hand on his shoulder, my gut unknotting slightly when he didn’t pull away. “So, please, don’t go now. Wait just a little longer. Please?”

The silence stretched for a long moment and my heart sank to my sneakers, but when I opened my mouth to continue my plea, a hand reached out and briefly touched my fingers. When he spoke, his voice was so tired it seemed to drag down the atmosphere. “Shut up, April. You’ve convinced me. I’ll wait.”

My shoulders slumped and my knees weakened from sheer relief. “Thank god,” I whispered, with the thankful reverence of someone who’s narrowly evaded disaster.

He grunted in response and pushed my hand away. Turning on his heel without another word, he once again disappeared through the kitchen door, his footsteps plodding and uncharacteristically loud. Silence rushed in to fill his place, empty and subtly echoing, and for once I was grateful for the solitude.

More exhausted than I could remember being in a long time, I lowered myself back into my chair. Leaning back with my hands folded over my belly, I watched as ribbons of cigarette smoke wove themselves into a fine latticework above my head, before fading into oblivion.