Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Fan Fiction ❯ Bad Places II: Rebirth ❯ Chapter 10

Part 10

Everyone was dead, Shredder, the Foot Clan, his brothers, Splinter, April, Casey, everyone except him. He knelt on the hot metal floor and watched the fire explode from below. No sound. Debris landed silently around him while the fire spread and a constant static drone hissed in his ears. He watched the fire creep over his brothers, their bodies stacked in a half-eaten pile, burning them beyond recognition and leaving them black and charred as it swept towards him. The flames touched him but he didn't move, sitting still as it burned the blood off of him. It devoured him and moved past, leaving him in total darkness. He raised his hand, black and twisted, wondering why he was still alive. The white noise grew louder until he recognized it as his own mindless, hungry shriek.

Leo woke up, heart pounding, breathing too fast. The dream instantly vanished from his memory but he remembered the feelings, crushing despair and fear, the overwhelming sense of no escape. He shifted and the blissful painlessness evaporated, leaving him too sore and tired to move. As he breathed in, he found could only breath half as much as he should. For a moment he started to panic, trying to breathe deep. It was no use. He could only breathe in small amounts. When he didn't feel himself becoming lightheaded, he calmed down and lay still.

His entire body felt twisted. Moving his good hand felt like breaking bones. Turning his head made him feel like he was falling and he grabbed the side of the bed despite the pain. Ridiculous, he thought. Yesterday he was hacking through the entire foot clan, but now he couldn't move without pain. And yesterday he'd fought in the dark, the ninjas mere red silhouettes against the shadows, but now he was totally blind, without even hints of shapes. He hesitated. No, something was covering his eyes. He thought about taking it off, but he was too tired to seriously consider it and his eyes would probably hurt if he did anyway.

A cold hand touched his shoulder and he tensed. He hadn't sensed anyone nearby. God, he couldn't even move. Had he made it home last night?

"Relax, it's all right." Keeping his voice low, Raphael lightly touched his sibling's head. "Finally. Thought it'd never break."

"What?" Leo whispered almost too softly for his brother to hear.

"Fever," Raph said. "It was pretty damn high for awhile, and you coughing up blood didn't help. Don't scare us like that ever again, man. Bad enough we had to fetch you back home, but you nearly made all that for nothing." Leonardo's silence didn't put him off from talking. Raphael kept speaking in low tones, but Leo didn't think he was trying to comfort him. Raph sounded like he was comforting himself.

"You probably noticed you can't breathe in that much. That's Don's fault. He says he gave you too much of our blood at first. It was like speeding down the highway and hitting a wall without breaking. Your body was adapting too fast in both directions, nearly tore you apart, so instead of pints, he's gonna do it with small vials of blood. I'm kinda glad you slept through it but at least the worst is over." He lightly touched Leo's torn hand. "See, the claws you were gettin' are gone. Last to come, first to go. And you should be able to breathe better in a couple days, we hope."

"How long?" Leo asked.

"Pro'lly another couple of months before -- oh," Raph nodded once as he understood. "Two days. Don used a sedative to keep you under. We...we nearly lost you. Your cuts were infected. Guess the tower wasn't so clean, huh? And it took awhile to stop the bleeding. I guess that the fee...um, that other part of your DNA wasn't built to heal. The fever was the worst, though. We've been working in shifts keeping an eye on you. I guess maybe we can relax now."

"Every..." Leo paused. Speaking was hard with only a mouthful of air. "Everyone else?"

"Better'n you. A little scorched around the edges, and we won't be holding onto our weapons anytime soon, but nothing bad." Raph hesitated. "Leo...I know you probably ain't feeling all that hungry right now, but you need to eat something. Your body's gonna start feeding on itself and you can't afford that right now."

Leo winced and turned away from his brother, tightening his grip on the bed as the world spun around again, but his brother wouldn't let him dodge the question.

"I can't let this slide," Raph said. "Either you eat or...well, you don't wanna know about the other option Don's been itching to try out. Look, I promise nothing complicated, okay? But you have to eat. Do you think you can?"

I think I liked giving orders better than taking them, Leo thought. "Now?"

Raph smiled at the tone. His big brother sounded just like Mike when he didn't wanna do something. "Nah. I'll give ya a couple of hours of rest first, okay?"

Leo nodded once, squeezing his eyes even tighter. The vertigo simply wouldn't go away. He expected to hear his brother leave and let everyone know he was awake, but instead he heard Raphael sit down beside him again. Pages rustled near his bed and he figured that his brother was reading. Now there was something he wished he could see. He had no clue as to his brother's tastes in books.

Blind and forced to lie still, he listened as the room expanded from his bed to his brother to the walls around them, and indistinct voices leaked through the water in the pipes buried in the wall. After a few minutes he heard Raphael's voice, less than a whisper, as he read.

"On difficult ground, keep moving. On enclosed ground, devise stratagems. On death ground, fight."

Should have known. He settled his head on the pillow and breathed a small sigh of relief when the vertigo lessened somewhat. "Raph...?"

"Yeah?"

"Could you...read out loud?" Even though he could probably quote it to him verbatim.

"No prob." Leo would've sworn he even heard his brother smile as he flipped the pages a few times. "Terrain, twenty-three. If fighting is sure to result in victory, then you must fight, even though the ruler forbid it; if fighting will not result in victory then you must not fight, even at the ruler's bidding."

"You picked that out," Leo said, trying not to laugh. It made the gash in his side ache.

"Yup. I found this one, too. 'The consummate leader cultivates the moral law, and strictly adheres to method and discipline; thus it is in his power to control success'. Y'know, if you'd just handed this book to me awhile ago, we coulda saved ourselves some arguing. This really explains why you do all those things that drive me crazy."

"Would you have read it?"

Raph paused. "Nah, probably not. Maybe some of it. I only started reading it 'cause it was here when we got you home and I got bored watching ya, but I can really see where you get some of your strategy from now. But I still think you're too patient."

"Even after last night?"

Raphael laughed but he didn't answer, quietly reading another section. "The onrush of a conquering force is like the bursting of pent-up waters into a chasm a thousand fathoms deep." No wonder their enemies had lost. They'd simply chosen the wrong night to attack their family. With a sigh he slowly shed the weight from his shoulders. His brother was back. He didn't have to worry about fighting or killing for now. He flipped to the start of a new chapter and began to read.

Two hours later, Raphael set his book down. He'd read through the 36 Stratagems and started into the generals' commentaries, and his brother was starting to look more in control of himself. "You ready?"

A short sigh, which meant that Leo had hoped he'd forget. "Yeah."

Raphael gently slid his hands under his brother and helped him sit up. It didn't take much work, his brother was only tired, but he needed leverage since he couldn't put much weight on his arms. After a little maneuvering and with the pillows from the rest of the beds, Leo was mostly upright. It took awhile longer for him to settle the spinning in his head.

"I'll be right back," Raph said. "Just try to relax."

Easy to say when he wasn't the one about to fall. Leo just nodded once and focused on the pillows behind himself. They weren't moving and he had to convince himself that he wasn't moving either. He turned slightly to his right, pressing his face into a pillow, and tried reciting stratagems to himself. It helped a little, but Raphael's hand on his shoulder helped more. He couldn't see what Raph was holding, but he felt the heat radiating from it.

He couldn't move his left arm and could only bring his right hand up to the bowl Raphael held, depending solely on his brother to feed him, and he drank in small sips. Only because he'd once done the same for Raphael long ago when they were small during a bout of pneumonia did he manage to keep his sense of pride. That, and the horrible taste distracted him. Whatever Michelangelo had cooked up and decided to call chicken soup probably involved parts of the bird not normally used. When what little he'd been brought was done, he paused to take several breaths, happy when he could draw in a bit more than before.

"You can't tell me anyone else is eating that," he whispered.

"Nope," Raph said with a smile. "No one else'll touch it and you don't have a choice."

"Just wait, I'll get all of you back for that." Leo paused to take several breaths. "Any idea when I'll be back to normal?"

Raphael hesitated, setting the bowl aside and leaning back in his chair. "A couple months before you're up and practicing again, though you'll probably be out of bed in a week or two."

"And...?" Leo pressed, though he couldn't bring himself to say it.

"Don ain't sure. You were changing over half a year, so maybe six months. He said it could end up a number of ways, like you completely going back to normal, or you might need a weekly or monthly dose of our blood, or you might stop somewhere in the middle. He's, uh...he's not too confident about your eyes."

The way they were feeling inside his mask, hot and scratchy, he didn't feel confident either. But he was exhausted already, and decided to worry about it later when he might be able to do more about it. Since he was more comfortable sitting up, he simply drowsed where he was, barely noticing his sibling changing the bandages on his hand as he fell asleep.

A few hours later Raphael stood in Leonardo's room. It felt wrong to be inside alone and he couldn't help looking over his shoulder to make sure no one was watching. He knew they weren't. April and Casey were out of the lair now that it was safe, Donatello was in front of the televisions, Mike was watching their brother, and Splinter was in his room meditating on the cosmos. Well, maybe not the cosmos, Raph thought, but that was the running joke between his siblings and it probably wasn't too far off anyway.

He looked around his elder brother's room. Leonardo had painted his own cosmos on the ceiling in the form of Van Gogh's Starry Night and cleared the far wall in anticipation of a new mural. Judging from the art books left wide open on the floor, he was studying various depictions of the Virgin Mary standing with golden light silhouetting her. But then a bunch of a postcards and photos of the Manhattan skyline also dotted the floor. If Raphael squinted, he could make out the sketched pencil lines of buildings on the wall, so his brother was planning on the skyline, but a large blank spot stood out to one side, waiting to be filled.

Raphael shook his head. He'd ask Leo later. For now he wandered through the room, picking his way over the books and photos, and stopped at the bookshelves.

Row after row, nothing but books on tactics and strategy. Even the few that weren't purely military manuals were historical accounts of war. World War II seemed to be Leonardo's favorite, or maybe that was just the one he found the most material on. There was a book on something called the Great War and a huge volume on the Warring States Era, but he didn't recognize anything else.

He stood up and turned. Even if the wall hadn't been cleared, the room would seem obscenely empty, like his brother had no life beyond studying warfare. The scattered art references on the floor didn't help. They just made the room seem emptier. It was nothing like his own room, full of training gear, his free weights, the huge hammock he'd slung near the ceiling. His own room looked lived in. Leo's...Raph shook his head. He hadn't noticed before because he only came in when it was dark, but his brother had even taken down the few display weapons from the walls. He didn't know if that was good or not.

With a heavy sigh, he flopped down on Leonardo's bed and stared at the ceiling. The yellow swirling stars were relaxing, and from this angle he saw that Van Gogh's building in the background had only been suggested with faint lines, not entirely drawn. He guessed that his brother had decided to leave it out halfway through and just went with the stars.

Water rushed through pipes hidden somewhere behind the walls. Muffled through the bricks, it sounded like whispers and low voices. Raphael shivered. No wonder Leo was a little weird in the head if he listened to that all night. Heck, how did he avoid having to go to the bathroom all the time? Raph glanced at the door and the large pipes running along the ceiling of the lair directly across. He paused and peered at them.

On the largest, a wide patch had been polished to a mirror sheen directly in his line of sight. From it, he could see the entire lair, from the front door to the kitchen and stream to Splinter's room, without even turning his head. The view was warped like staring into a Christmas ornament but everything was clear. He could even watch Donatello flip channels, although the screens were too small to see.

"You sneaky son of a bitch," Raph said softly. He sat up and immediately the mirrored patch disappeared from view. He experimented through the whole room and even from the other doorways on the second floor, but it was only visible from Leonardo's bed. No wonder they'd never noticed. "You never stopped watching, did you?"

Inside the sick room, Mike sat at his brother's side bringing him up to speed on the news, at least as far as the tower was concerned. Leonardo, for his part, sat quietly and listened as his brother described all the news channels speculating wildly about terrorists until the newest rumors involved arson and gang warfare.

"The cops even mentioned that all the bodies were dressed as ninjas, but then the Japanese embassy got all upset about racial stereotypes and they're threatening a lawsuit now." Mike grinned and leaned back in his chair, tipping it backwards slightly. "Now they're wondering what to do with the building. It's really gutted, but there's enough left that they might try to fix it."

"Figures," Leo said. "I go to all the trouble of blowing it up..."

"The snow's what did it," Mike said. "It helped the fire fighters a lot. Well, that and the upper floors were totally empty. There wasn't much to burn."

"Mm."

Mike glanced at his sibling. "Dude, you okay? I mean mentally, 'cause I know physically you're kinda screwed up but Raph says you're screwed up in the head too sometimes. I mean he says it all the time, that you're screwed up sometimes. Geez, I'm not helping, am I?"

"It's okay," Leo said. "He's right, a little. I haven't felt this tired since...ever. It's nice to just sleep for awhile, that's all." Heck, it was nice just to breathe easier. Sitting up helped, he thought. "Don't tell Raph I said that, though."

"No prob," Mike laughed. "Besides, you'll have plenty of time to sleep once you're fit to travel."

"Travel?" Leo asked, sitting straighter. "What do you mean?"

"You don't know?" Mike asked, worry creeping into his voice. "He didn't...oh man, he's gonna be ticked I told. I thought you knew."

"Knew what?" Leo fidgeted and tried not to. "Mike, is this bad?"

"No! No, it's good, really. Splinter just said it'd be a good idea to get you out of the lair for awhile, kinda like a vacation. You gotta admit, you could do with some quiet time just to heal, and Casey's farm place is real nice right now."

"I...guess..." Leo wondered why Raphael hadn't said anything before. "How long would I have to stay?"

"Just 'till you're better, maybe a month or so."

A month of doing nothing, he thought, but the forest might be a welcome refuge once he was able to run through it as before.

Mike frowned. His brother was acting strange and he didn't know why. "Just think," he said, forcing a cheerful voice, "it'll be just us four for once. We haven't done that in, like, ages."

Leo looked up, or at least seemed to. "You'll all be with me?"

"Of course." Mike's jaw dropped as he figured it out. "Oh, you didn't think we'd...Leo, we wouldn't just drop you off and leave you all alone! How can you even think that? Okay, granted, even halfway through we'll probably wanna hit each other and we'll probably go off on our own once in awhile, y'know, for 'me' time. But only for a few hours, I swear. You sure you didn't hit your head when you fell in the elevator shaft? 'Cause, dude, thinking we'd leave you all by yourself--I mean, especially when you're acting weird and you need regular shots--that's just...man, Raph was right, you are screwed in the head..."

As Mike went on, alternating between reassuring him and snapping at him, Leo smiled and listened. Part of him loved hearing his brother prattling like he had before his eyes turned black, and part of him took in every word of comfort Mike offered. And part of him just liked the steady drone of his brother's voice drowning out the whispers and low voices in the water pipes behind the walls. Without his eyes to show him where he was, his brothers' voices were all he had to remind him he was safe.

Well, as safe as they could be with Raphael watching over them.

TBC...

Author's Note: Raphael was Leonardo's copy of Sun Tzu's Art of War, probably dog-eared and well-worn.