warning: not intended for munchkins. Adult situations, violence and nasty language follow.

Chapter Six: Frustration

or

Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except Me and My Monkey

When I get lonely and I need to be
Loved for who I am, not what they want to see
Brothers and sisters, they've always been there for me
We have a connection, home is where the heart should be
Madonna, Keep it Together

"You gotta get the right rock," Raph says, "that's the trick."
Carlos hands him a reasonably flat one. "Like that?"
"That or flatter. The rounder they are, the harder they are to skip--"
A rock whizzes past them, hits the river, bounces once, twice, three times-- and lands on the next bank.
"Wow!" Carlos turns and smiles at Leo. "That was great!"
"Thanks." Leo crouches down, picks up another rock. "Here, this one should work pretty well."
Carlos takes it, mimes a throw. "Like that?" he asks, looking up at his father.
"Keep your arm flatter," Raph says, showing him.
"And ya gotta throw it fast," Leo adds.
Carlos throws, and it bounces twice before sinking into the water. Raph and Leo cheer.
Carlos turns, looks up at his dad with innocent, expectant eyes.
Raph rolls his eyes and says, "Hey, why don't you see what your cousin's up to? Maybe she'd like to come out here..."
"Okay," Carlos says as he runs off.
Leo looks at Raph suspiciously. Raph shrugs his shoulders. "What? He likes Angela..."
Leo cocks an eyeridge.
"He wants me to ask you something," he says. "And I try to explain to him that I gotta ask you the right way, and I can't ask you with him sitting there lookin' cute 'cause that's blackmail..." Raph looks up at the sky.
"What?"
"Looks like it's gonna rain again..."
"And you were gonna ask me..."
"Look, we've talked about this a lot, Leo, if I didn't think it at least had a chance of working..."
"What?"
"You wouldn't wanna...I mean, I know you wanna come back to the city...and...I mean, we lived in that van for so damn long, the apartment's bigger than we know what to do with it--"
"Are you serious?"
He looks back at his brother. "Yeah. I am."
"You think the two of us could live together again? Without killing each other?"
"Three of us," Raph says. "I don't know...maybe we could get it right this time, ya know?"
Leo looks out at the river, picks up another stone, throws it out to the water. It bounces pretty well, but it doesn't make it to the other side.
"Let me think about it," he says, his eyes still on the river.
"Take yer time...but I'm warning you, I'm gonna tell the kid I asked you..."

Tokugawa says, "you were right."
Nakamora looks up from the desk. "What?"
"That project he was involved in...very interesting."
"He wasn't--"
"Well, it did end badly, no doubt about it, some anti-vivisectionists broke into the lab and blew half of it up...no, no, that's not the interesting part, you see. The interesting part was that the project's existence is almost completely secret, and the university's never said just what they were studying...but its name was Chelonia. Project Chelonia."
"And this means?"
"Chelonia is the genus name for 'turtle.'"
Nakamora frowns. "That doesn't mean--"
"Why would they put a primatologist on a project named for turtles?"
Nakamora's face freezes.

It had settled into something resembling stability after a while, Leo and Karai and Isamu and she almost looking like a family if you didn't look too closely. Plenty of people didn't like having Leo around, but knowing he was the best warrior in the compound convinced them to keep their mouths shut. And some of the others had started coming to him for advice, asking him to help them with fighting, with Karai...it was working, almost. Almost felt like something permanent.
Then Satoru had come back.
Karai's son, the older one; the one Leo's age.
He'd liked her, liked her so much it almost started giving her the creeps. She was sixteen then, still thought of sex in roughly the same terms she did when she was thirteen and living off it. She liked the attention from him, liked him sometimes...but...
He wouldn't take "but" for an answer.
He wouldn't take "no" for an answer either.
She'd struggled, she'd fought, but she wasn't much good, she'd come to the training too late...she remembers going down, her head swimming, his hands on her body...
And shouting, angry voices, Satoru and Leo struggling...
She remembers Leo's voice: "Know that it is only my love for your mother that keeps me from--"
"You gaijin freak, don't you ever talk about my mother like--"
"Satoru," he said. "Go. Before I change my mind."
He helped her off the floor, bandaged her up, sat her on the futon, made her tea.
"Well," he said finally, an odd, ironic cheerfulness in his voice. "Nothing to do now but sit around and wait for it to hit the fan, huh?"

"Didn't take it well?" Raph asks, tracing down her side with the tip of his finger.
"Mmm." She turns toward him, picks his hand up, scrutinizes it. "I guess he started looking into my past then. And into what my father'd done."
"What...what had..."
"He'd been planning a coup," she says, turning his hand over, his palm meeting hers. "Wanted to take over everything, take out the Council..."
"Holy shit..."
"And when everyone found out I was his daughter...hiding among them..." She flops back down on her back, rests his hand on her stomach. "That was the end. She told Leo he'd have forty-eight hours to get out. They broke in four hours later...and we ran. We went to California, and I got a lead on Byron..." She touches his hand, pulls it further up her body... "And you know the rest--"
"Yeah," he says, rising above her, his mouth lowering to meet hers. "I know the rest..."

Carlos walks into his uncle's room, finds him sitting on the futon staring at something.
"Uncle Leo?"
Leo starts, turns to him, smiles a little. "Hey, Carlos."
"Whatcha looking at?"
"An old picture." Leo taps the side of the futon, and Carlos scrambles up next to him. Leo hands him the picture. "This is Karai. She was...a friend of mine, back in Japan. And that's her little boy, Isamu. He's a little bit older than you are." He puts his arm around Carlos and squeezes.
"She's pretty," Carlos says.
"Yeah."
"Do you miss them?"
"Oh, yeah," Leo says, and his arm tightens around Carlos. "Every day."
Carlos stares at the picture for a long time. "I miss my mama."
"I can imagine," he says softly. "I bet yer dad does, too."
Carlos shrugs his shoulders. "Every time I wanna talk about her, he..."
"Yeah," Leo says. "But it doesn't mean he doesn't miss her. It's just...some people feel better when they talk, and some people feel worse..."
Maureen appears at the doorway, and Leo grabs the picture, shoves it in his belt like a kid caught with a dirty magazine. "Oh, good, you're here...you seen Raph?"
"No."
"They called...it was his sister. She's been murdered."

"I hate this," Mike mutters. "What, breaking into the NYPD records department on a pleasant holiday weekend?"
"That too," Mike says. "But I hate more that she's dead..."
"Casey thought she was dead anyway," Don says, flipping through a file.
"Different when you know," Raph points out. "And her system was clean when she died..."
"Doesn't seem very fair," Mike finishes.
"Ah," Don says. "This one's the Lisa Jones file..."
"Where did they find all the paperwork?"
"They didn't have much time, whoever killed her," Leo says. "Something went wrong-- somebody heard some kind of disturbance and called the cops. I figure they grabbed what they could and ran."
"That the case file, Leo?"
"Yeah," he says, flipping another page. "Pretty much what we already knew..."
"They thought she'd be easy to take," Don says. "Listen to this: One brother, short arrest record, no convictions, history of mental disturbance...should not be a problem. Mother in Florida. Neither of them have made any apparent effort to find her in at least five years."
"She was easy to take, Don...nobody was looking for her any more. Didn't mean no one cared about her any more, that's all."
"Shit," Don says under his breath.
"What?"
"Letter...a letter from her...Dear Arnold: I bet you thought I was dead..."
Raphael walks over to Don. "Ohh, man..."
"I'm at a new place now," Don reads, "and they're trying a new experimental treatment-- and it's working! They don't want me to have visitors yet, but as soon as I can, I'll try to find you...I've missed you so much, Arnie. I know I've made a mess out of my life, but maybe this time I can pull my shit together. I've been clean for a week now-- two exclamation points. I can't wait to see you-- maybe I'll buy you lunch! Your loving, fucked-up, sister, Lisa."
"Look," Mike says dully. "She dotted the 'i' with a little heart..."
"Shit," Raph says, incapable of saying anything more.
"Three women..."
"Four," Mike says. "There are four files here..."
"But there were only three bodies," Leo says. "Where's the other one?"
Don, flipping through the last file, asks, "You want my guess?"
Raph asks, "What the fuck are we gonna tell Casey?"
Leo puts a hand on Raph's shoulder. "Go ahead, Don."
"I think she's pregnant."
"What?"
"I think they tried cloning Saki again. Only the old-fashioned way this time..so to speak. In vitro. All they'd need was a blood sample, and a surrogate, and some way to..."
"When I find them," Raph growls, "they're gonna wish--"
"They figured these women had no families--"
"Or families that gave up on them long ago..."
Raphael takes the Lisa Jones file from Don, opens it up.
Don says, "they figure there are a hundred thousand junkies a year who can't get into treatment, just in New York State..."
Mike shakes his head. "And once they..."
"Yeah. They didn't need the others any more, so they got rid of them...dead women tell no tales, I guess..."
Raph frowns at something in the folder for a second, passes the folder to Mike. "Look at those notes...the handwriting. Does that look familiar?"
Mike frowns. Don says, "it didn't look familiar to me..."
"No," Leonardo says, leaning over to look at the file. "It wouldn't."

"Been some kinda weird weekend, huh?"
"I guess," April says to Maureen. Raven and Carlos are playing tug-of-war with his monkey again; she reaches over and detaches the girl's hands from Mono. "I'm runnin' to the bathroom, I'll be right back," Maureen says, and leaves April and Byron to cope with the kids. "Come on take it easy," Byron sings, grabbing Carlos' hand before he can pull at Raven's hair. "Take it easy, take it easy...everybody's got something to hide...
April lifts Raven up before she can clobber Carlos and reseats her on her right. "Tell me again why we picked McDonald's..."
"They wanted the Mulan Happy Meal," Anna says, bringing a tray filled with the familiar boxes to the table. The kids squeal with delight. "Look, guys, they're giving the horse away this week..."
"Too cool!" Shadow says eagerly, grabbing her box and ripping it open. "Look, mom! Isn't it great?"
Casey, sliding into the booth, asks his daughter, "Can I wind it up?"
"No," she says. "It's mine..."
"You wanted one," Anna says with mock seriousness, "you should have gotten your own Happy Meal."
"Maybe I will next time," he says, grabbing his Big Mac from the tray.
A woman screams.
Casey turns toward the door, sees the man, the gun, drags everyone down...

"Well," Nakamora says. "I suppose this just confirms our first instincts..."
"We'll have to terminate him as soon as the project is complete."
Ed stands with his back at the door, listening. He's acted stupid long enough that they've stopped worrying about him. He realized what had happened to the other three women, the unsuccessful subjects...but he also realized how long he would last if he didn't play dumb.
"Should I tell the others?"
"No. It's best if only we know...he's not the brightest boy, but let's not take chances."

He starts with the people waiting in line, takes down an old guy who doesn't jump behind the counter quick enough, a woman guarding her kids...turns to the tables, a man trying to hide behind the big mushroom kids' table...
A noise gets his attention, and he turns, fires--
Into the mop bucket, which seems to have come from-- where the hell did it come from? Over by the bathrooms...he turns his head in that direction...
Maureen lifts up the plant pot, smashes it down on his head, once, twice, 'til there's no chance of him moving. She kneels down and takes the gun from his hand.
And no one says anything for a very long time.
"Hell," Casey says finally, "I'm impressed."

A hesitant knock at the door. Nakamora and Tokugawa exchange glances.
"Come in, Hanson," Nakamora says.
He pokes his head carefully in the door. "Look, I was thinking...after the baby's born..."
"We have quite a bit of time to worry about that," Nakamora says reassuringly.
"Well, I want a pediatrician to look at the child. Do we know anything about the original subject's early medical history?"
"No."
Nakamora shoots a withering glance at Tokugawa.
"Then we don't know if he's at risk for jaundice..."
"He'll be fine," Nakamora says brusquely.
Hanson says carefully, "I don't know what your motives were for bringing this child into the world, but I would think you'd have a vested interest in keeping this child healthy. Having its liver fail within the first month of its childhood is not uncommon, and completely preventable. Now, if you think his life is disposable, of course..."
"All right, all right," Nakamora says sharply. "What do you think we should do?"
"If you get me some medical credentials-- say as a family practitioner-- I can get her to a pediatrician without anyone suspecting...I'll say it was a young patient, and rather than abandon the baby, she insisted on having it at my office..."
Tokugawa shrugs his shoulders. "There is a certain logic..
." Nakamora frowns. "We'll see what we can do."
"Thank you," Hanson says, "I was afraid that it might take some time..."
Nakamora cuts him off with a nod, and Hanson retreats. The phone rings and Nakamora lifts it to his ear with a ninja's efficient grace. "Yes...yes...what do you mean, something went wrong?"

"I keep thinkin' about all the things I shoulda done...I shoulda tried to find her again, April, I shoulda..."
"Casey," she says gently. "When my dad had his stroke..."
"It's not the same thing," he says.
"It is and it isn't," she says, "he was overweight, he'd smoked for years, we all knew he was at risk...but..."
"Yeah..." he puts his arm around her. "You always think, maybe everything'll be all right..."
"Or maybe there's just too much damage done already..."
He puts his head on her shoulder. "I'm too damn tired, April...why do we talk about these things this late at night?"
She collapses onto the bed. "It's the only time we're awake and the kids aren't."
He laughs a little, drops beside her. "Oh, yeah...think they'll be up at six again?"
"Are there cartoons on tomorrow?"
"There's always cartoons."
"Then they'll be up at six..."

Tokugawa kneels at the edge of the rooftop, looks out over the city.
I warned you that this city would be my destruction. And you laughed.
"Once you have gotten used to the noise, the smog, and the ugly women, I'm sure you'll grow to love New York as much as the rest of us do...it is hideous, vulgar, and brash-- but you'll see...it's the land of opportunity, my old friend."
The opportunity to lose everything, perhaps.
He moves back a little from the edge, unsheathes his sword, holds it before his face.
I have failed you, Oruku Saki. Again. But this time is the last...
I wish I could have lived to see your second birth. He holds the sword up, points it... The women have it easy...
The pain is like a light, a blinding light, and it shimmers and fades...

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

"Lookee here, boys," Mike says, putting on a fake country-hick accent. "Donny boy found somethin' on ahr shooter."
"What?"
Don frowns at the computer, turns to Leo. "Cops can't get much out of him...doesn't seem to be much left..." he taps his forehead with a finger..."but they did get a location."
"A location?"
"Well, he described where he'd been held, and it matched something..."
"What?"
Don opens the window back up. "That."
Raph whistles. "Hey, Leo, check this out..."
"What?"
"It's where they found the bodies, of Casey's sister and the others...that's what that cell was for--"
"Brainwashing..."
"Much as I hate to admit it," Don says wryly, "I think Byron might have been right..."

"All right...we can just unfold the futon, and we'll be fine, we got some extra sheets here..."
Knock, knock.
"See who that is, willya, Carlos?"
"Okay," Carlos tells his dad, trots over to the door. "Who is it?" he calls.
"It's April, honey."
"Papa?"
"Go ahead, let her in..."
Carlos opens the door, grins at her. "Uncle Leo's staying at our house," he says, with a touch of pride.
"I know...do they need anything? I got extra sheets, and some pillows..."
"Uh...a pillow would be good," Raph calls, his head still in the closet. "Found the sheets, but I don't know as we've got any pillows to spare..."
"I'll be fine," Leo says.
"Sure...you want one or two?"
"One's fine, but I..."
"I'll be right back-- you wanna come with me, Carlos?"
"Okay," Carlos says, and bolts after her.

Byron asks, "You're sure you don't mind the couch? 'Cause I mean--"
"The couch is fine," Anna says. "It's great, really."
Byron walks over to the linen closet, opens the door.
"We did have some pillows in the bedroom closet," Don says, his voice holding a note of triumph. "Byron, let me get those--"
"I'm right here," he says, pulls the sheets out-- "got the sheets, but the pillowcases must be--"
"Byron--"
"There...something..."
Something rolls out of the pillowcase and hits the floor. Anna picks it up.
"Um..."
Don moves to snatch it out of her hand, but Byron gets it first, opens the box, looks at Don with something akin to shock.
Don looks at the floor.
Anna looks at Don, then Byron, then Don again... "You know," she says, "I was gonna see how Leo was doing...I'll be back in a little while, okay?"
"Uh-huh..." Byron says, his eyes returning to the box.

April and Anna almost collide on their way to the apartment. Carlos has to stop short to avoid a three-way traffic jam.
"Oh-- sorry--"
"Hi...just bringing up a pillow for Leo."
"Hi, Anna," Carlos says.
"Just getting out of Byron's apartment..."
"What happened?"
"Uh...well, I'm not sure, but Don was hiding something in the linen closet he didn't want Byron to see and--"
"The ring."
"It was a ring?"

"Look, I know...marriage is not an option. Even if I were human, it's still not legal and even if it were legal I'm still not human...and...I don't know, I don't know if we'd want to get married anyway...but..." He looks down at the box in Byron's hands.
"But...?" Byron prompts.
"But I love you," Don finishes, looking back up at him.

"We got the pillow," Carlos says, holding it up to Leo like an offering.
"Thanks, Carlos," he says, takes the pillowcase from its resting place on the futon.
"Look, your dad and I talked and..."
"Yeah?"
"We're gonna try it."
Carlos grins. "Really?"
"Try what?" April asks, frowning.
"Well..."
Raph catches Anna's eye, gestures upward, mouths roof. She taps her wrist. He mouths eleven. She nods, and his face stretches into a long, vulpine grin.
"You know I was trying to figure out where I was gonna live when I got back..."

Mike asks the phone, "So they're going to live together? In the same apartment?"
Maureen frowns at him. "Who are you talking to?"
"Don," he says, looking up at her. "Byron's got that ring on..."
"Great," she says smiling. "But I thought he was saving it--"
"Tell you in a minute," he says, reaches out, pulls her next to him... "They really think this is a good idea?"
Maureen shakes her head at him. "In a minute," he tells her, turns back to the phone. "Maybe I oughta call Raph...his idea? Holy cripes...maybe I oughta have Maureen go over, knock some sense into 'em..." He squeezes Maureen, gives her that proud grin he's had on his face ever since yesterday night, when they told him about McDonald's. "Yeah, I guess you're right, be a bummer if they kill each other in front of the kid...they might behave themselves..."
"What in God's name are you talking about?"
"Yeah," he says, putting his free hand over Maureen's mouth and using his shoulder to keep his ear to the phone, "I gotta go, Maureen's gettin' restless..."
She knocks a fist into his plastron and he laughs.

When Isamu couldn't sleep or was sick, he'd end up in bed with them sometimes, lying between them or curled up next to his mother, with Leo's arms encircling them both.
They felt like a family, then.
The woman he wanted to marry and the son he wished was his...
Leo sits up, puts his head between his knees, focuses on his breathing.
"Uncle Leo?"
"Carlos," Leo says gently, "you should be in bed."
"I have to pee," Carlos says.
"All right," Leo says. "You better make it quick."
"Okay." He trots off toward the bathroom.
He is still focused in on his breathing when Carlos returns.
"Leo?"
Leo raises his head. "Yeah?"
Carlos holds his monkey out. "You can sleep with Mono. He helps me when I can't sleep."
"Well, then you oughta hold on to him..."
"I'm okay. I'm getting bigger, you know. I don't need him every night."
Leo nods very seriously. "Well, thank you, Carlos. Now you're gonna get right to sleep, right?"
Carlos nods back; Leo holds his arm out, pulls him in for a hug. "'Night, Leo."
"'Night, Carlos."
Leo watches Carlos walk into the bedroom, shut the door. The light turns out in the room.
Leo holds Mono up, and they look at each other for a moment.
Waking in the morning, Leo discovers that he's still holding the little guy in his arms.

Contents are the property of phishtar, with the exception of the Madonna quote and the Beatles reference. And, of course, many of the characters are the intellectual property of these guys. If you try to profit from any of this, good luck...you're gonna need it. If you'd like to link to this story, please link to the main page. If you'd like to reproduce this for any reason, email me and we'll talk. Your comments are welcome as well.