Shards of a Memory

Her progress through the house was met with a great deal of whispering and pattering feet, and she made another note that she would really have to do something about replacing the burned-out lights. It was far too dark a place to raise growing children, and it made finding them in the shadows extremely difficult, especially given the fact that they were half-trained ninjas.

They led her a merry chase, did her babies, she would give them that, and she was growing concerned as she followed the quiet giggles back up to the dojo. She was ready to drop the whole thing and engage in pursuit in truth when she stepped through the door to find them sitting in the little pool of sunlight streaming through the grate above.

“What is all this?” she asked, folding her arms as she eyed the too-innocent expressions on all four faces.

“Happy mother’s day, Kaasan!” Leonardo piped up, his brothers chiming in with practiced tones, some lagging only a little behind the others. Leonardo glanced at Michelangelo, his expression turning to aggrieved impatience, and he gave him what was clearly meant to be a surreptitious elbow in the bridge of his shell.

“Oh, right!” Beaming, Michelangelo pulled his hands out from behind his back. In them, he held a cluster of trash. On closer inspection, it appeared to be various pieces of red paper bound with twist ties and wire into… into…

Oh. They had made her a bouquet.

As Shard sank to her knees before them, reaching carefully for the paper flowers to avoid any pricks from the wire, her boys watched her anxiously.

“Did we miss it?” Donatello asked. “We used the numbers on the papers to try to get it right, but we were worried we might have missed it.”

“Told you we should have gone up to check,” Raphael muttered.

Shard was still stuck on the numbers on the papers until she realized that there must have been any number of “only 5 days until Mother’s Day” advertisements washing up with the trash.

“Indeed I am glad you did not go up to check,” Shard said sternly, but softened the words with a smile as she set the flowers aside and opened her arms. “And today is the perfect day, my sons.”

Quickly exchanging the grins of successful conspirators, they piled into her arms, and her purr thundered through the room as she gathered them close, her tail wrapping around them as she kissed each one in turn, to the sound of their usual laughing protests.

“Do you like your flowers?” Michelangelo asked, his little hands knotting in her houmongi so that he could climb up higher and nestle his head beneath her chin. “We worked real hard.”

“They are wonderful,” she said, shifting her arm so that he’d stop slipping and yanking on her collar. “But truly, my sons, you are all the gift I need. I am not so old or so stern that I will turn down time with my children.”

Raphael snorted quietly. “That’s not a good present. We gotta give you something.” He blushed at her look, and hid his head against her. “I wanted to give you food, but we didn’t know what to do.”

Ah, yes. She had been introducing New Year’s and traditions enough that they’d have some idea there was a special food that should be prepared for a holiday. She had to think back to remember what was appropriate in this circumstance, though.

“I believe,” she said, “that helping your mother with the chores is one of the traditional gifts in this case.”

Raphael looked up in alarm. “Time is good,” he said quickly.

Frowning, Leonardo elbowed him. “We’ll help,” he said firmly.

Shard laughed, hugging them close and nuzzling them all in turn. “I have an idea that may incorporate all three,” she said. “I believe something with egg is appropriate for today, and we still have one or two we can use. Why do you not come spend time with me, and help me make something warm for breakfast?”

The looks of joy on their faces told her she’d hit on it, and egg was still something of a delicacy given how difficult they were to scavenge. They tumbled to the floor before taking her hands and tugging her to her feet, presenting her with a ceaseless flow of chatter as they led her to the kitchen. Managing four enthusiastic six-year-olds through the cooking process was more of a challenge, even for something as simple as tamagoyaki (or as close as she could come while improvising with the ingredients available to them), but the added work only served to make the dish all the sweeter. As she sat with them, watching them exclaim over their creation as their bouquet sat in a place of pride in a nearly-clean jar in the middle of the table, she thought, perhaps, there was something to this day after all. Perhaps, having lost her mother so young, she had avoided it more than she had admitted. But truly, she could think of no greater gift than this precious moment with her children.

When she woke, she had been certain someone was watching her, but the room was empty when she opened her eyes. She smiled quietly to herself. Ten years had greatly improved her children’s stealth, but a mother always knew when her children were trying to sneak something past her.

Truth be told, given all the recent excitement and her sons’ remarkable tale of their voyages in the stars, she had forgotten about the day. But her sons, it appeared, had not, and the chase was as much of a tradition in their family as any of the more official ones. And so she moved through the house, hands folded neatly behind her back, her ears twitching occasionally at the sound of a muffled giggle, or a particularly heavy footstep, followed by a hissed “Geez, Casey, you think you could try to make more noise?” Then came the muted sounds of a scuffle and a quiet hiss from Leonardo.

Ah, yes. The number of children may have grown over the years, but they were no less dear because of it. Eventually, she found her way back to the dojo, and to the children waiting beneath the tree.

The chorus of “Happy Mother’s Day!” was different every year, as voices changed and new voices joined them, but it never failed to warm her heart.

“What is this?” she asked, keeping with the tradition as she knelt before them, though she could not hide her delighted smile, holding out an arm to April as the girl broke ranks to hug her. She nuzzled April’s cheek, for she well understood the strange, bittersweet pangs this day held for her.

“We just wanted to do somethin’.. Y’know… uh... “ Casey began to blush beneath the stares of the others, and thrust a large bouquet of carnations toward her. “Here.”

“Dude!” Raphael cuffed him lightly upside the head as Shard took the flowers. “We practiced.”

“Everything’s clean, too,” April added, with a look that Shard well understood. She knew the pain of trying to coordinate all of her children in a cleaning effort. She was fairly certain Leonardo was also a motivating force, but he was far more used to it. With a commiserating look, she leaned forward and gave April a quick kiss on the cheek. Of all the children, April was the only one who never protested (except, occasionally, Casey, but only ever if they were alone).

Michelangelo pressed in impatiently, holding out a steaming bowl toward her. She took it with a look of confusion, along with the spoon that Leonardo offered. “You made chawanmushi?” she asked, the unvoiced “without me?” hanging on the end of it.

“Murakami helped,” Donatello said. “He had some ideas to make it really special.”

“We’ve got everything ready for tamagoyaki downstairs,” Leonardo said. “But this year we wanted to do something for you, too.”

And at last, she understood. Her children finally knew something of what April experienced every year on this day. Over the years, though they had maintained their traditions, they had almost become rote. This year, her sons had a chance to re-examine what this day actually meant to them, and had changed it accordingly. They knew her well enough to know that it was the time spent cooking with them that she enjoyed the most. But they were, in their own ways, finding ways to address what they still could not quite bring themselves to talk about.

The chawanmushi smelled delightful, and she’d no doubt it tasted it, too. There was fish in it somewhere, and if she didn’t miss her guess, someone had added the tiniest amount of catnip for spice. But there was something important she needed to do first. Carefully, she set the dish aside, and opened her arms.

Though they were all too big for it, somehow they managed to pile into her lap all the same, April and Casey only a fraction of a second behind. She held them as tightly as she could, reassuring them as best she was able that she was here, and that she wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

Michelangelo came first, which did not actually surprise her. He was often the first to seek her out after long separations, and though she did not yet know the details, she knew that for her sons, they had been apart from her far longer than she from them.  All of her children bore healed scars she did not recognize, and she made a point of cataloging each new mark that her babies brought home. Her youngest came in quietly, but with no attempt to hide his presence, toddling over to her with sleep-heavy steps and dropping down on her futon with all the grace of a beached seal. He wriggled in next to her and pressed his head against the deep fur on her chest, his fingers knotting in it even as her arms came around him and he fell quickly back to sleep.

Leonardo came next, which did surprise her, particularly given his protestations of a need for sleep that deferred the telling of whatever incredible tale they had just lived. His steps stilled as hesitated in the doorway, and when she glanced up, his careful expression told her that he was assessing the situation and weighing his presence against Michelangelo’s. But when she inclined her head, he took the invitation without hesitation, curling up against the small of her back, but facing outward, toward the door. She far preferred sleeping on her back, but trapped as she was between her sons and their obvious, if inexplicable, need, she could sacrifice her own comfort for one night for their sakes.

Raphael followed not long after his brothers. His familiar steps came, strong and deliberate, but masked by a veneer of stealth. He did not want to be discovered, clearly, as his steps froze in deliberation at the sight of the two brothers already occupying her increasingly crowded futon. But when Shard carefully shifted her hand to pat the blanket, he came at once, shoving at Leonardo to clear himself a space and draping himself across her legs. Ignoring his little pout of defiance, Shard ran a soft hand across his head before settling herself back down again.

By this point, she was not surprised when Donatello wandered into the room much later, stopping short as his eyes adjusted to the dark and he spotted the other turtles scattered around her. His eyes were raw and red, and he smelled of solder and grease and the other strange perfumes of his science. She’d barely seen him on their return home; he’d just vanished into his laboratory, murmuring something about “write it all down before I forget.” But he was here, now, drooping with exhaustion, and he came to her when she held out her hand, settling himself next to Michelangelo with a soft, weary sigh.

Their presence kept her awake long after their breathing evened out into the long rhythms of sleep. Every so often, one of them would shift, clinging to her through their dreams, and she watched them closely, her face dark with concern. They had been parted before, and it had not been long since the reunion in which they had found her wandering mad in the sewers and brought her back to herself, but even that had not brought this reaction from them. It was certainly not the sort she would have expected following a triumphant victory, no matter how trying the circumstances leading up to it. There was only one thing she was certain of:  for whatever their reasons, her children needed her. So she petted each one of them in turn, their quiet murmurs as they nestled closer bringing a smile to her face, and followed them into sleep.

When Michelangelo brought out her brush the next morning, it confirmed her suspicions that  something was amiss. It would be another week, at least, before she was in need of a good brushing, and Michelangelo of all her children ought to have known it. But the raw need on her baby’s face silenced any objection she might have made, and if they all gathered closer than usual as they awaited Casey and April, she did not mention that, either.

She did notice the looks they cast toward the white fur on her stomach as she slipped her houmongi down around her waist, and the way Michelangelo lingered around the corresponding place on her back as he brushed. He spent a long time there, and each time the brush crossed that particular spot, his fingers followed, digging into her fur a little as though searching for something.

April, too, gave her the same look when she and Casey arrived with breakfast from Murakami’s. Casey was, at first, too deep in his usual response to seeing her without her robe,  turning several shades of red and looking anywhere but at her. It usually amused the children to no end, for the turtles ran about in stages of undress on a daily basis without any untoward reaction from him, but their jibing lacked its usual enthusiasm, and in time, Casey, too, stared at her when he thought she wasn’t looking.

At long last, with their friends present and “awesome Earth food” they had evidently missed in hand, her sons and daughter finally deigned to explain the events of the previous night. They told it in turns, passing the narrative from one to the other as they passed around the food, sometimes tripping over each other in their haste to clarify a point or to defend a questionable decision. Shard listened with wide eyes, disbelief giving way to amazement as they spun their incredible tale, and at last, she began to understand something of their reaction and the way they clung to her. It explained, too, the odd events of some weeks past, when her children had arrived home fram patrol early with strange twins of themselves in tow, and returned later that night with no memory of the events or answers to her questions.

But there was a gap in their story that grew more pronounced as they told it. A hole in the narrative in the shape of her silhouette. She had refrained from commenting, at first, though it bewildered her. Had she not been distracted by the strange children in futuristic garb clinging to her as though the world was ending, there was no power on Earth that could have kept her from following the other set of her children onto that ship. But as the tale continued, leading to its end, she took note of the way the children pressed closer to her. The way all of them, Casey and April included, found reasons to brush their hands against her. The way Michelangelo kept up his brushing long after her fur had any need for it.

Donatello took up the telling of the story as they neared the conclusion, filling in the gaps with a technical knowledge the others lacked to explain the threat of this black hole machine and the presence of their duplicates. And as he reached the point at which their circular path diverged from the old and a new future began, the look on Leonardo’s face slipped the last of the missing pieces into place.

She remembered the desperation with which he had cried her name, alerting her to the Shredder’s treachery. In truth, she had not expected that even one as twisted as Shredder could stoop to such levels of dishonesty -- not even he, she had thought, would risk the destruction of the world and the child they each laid claim to for the sake of spite and jealousy. She would not have caught his strike in time had Leonardo not warned her. Only now did it occur to her that the warning had come seconds before the Shredder could have begun his strike.

She understood, at last, why the children stared. Why Michelangelo’s hand had come to rest over the place where the Shredder’s blow would have fallen, searching for the wound that was not there. The wound that would, had it been delivered, have most assuredly been fatal.

Her children had watched her die. They had seen her die, and pressed on, and returned to save their world.

And in doing so, they had saved her.

As the tale came full circle, ending where she had come in, the children fell silent, watching her in expectation. Drawing a trembling breath, Shard shook her head, clearing it of the shadowed thoughts of that other path. Briefly, for the most fleeting of instances, she caught a glimpse of falling petals and a breath of their sweet perfume before the sights and smells of home reasserted themselves. “Oh, my children,” she said softly. “My dear, brave children. I am so very, very proud of you.”

Leonardo knew. As her eyes met his, she saw the moment when he realized she had figured it out. She did not think that the others had, but it did not stop them from piling into her arms when she opened them, and if her fur grew damp from more than one set of tears, the kisses she rained upon them, earning a chorus of laughing, shaky protests from human and turtle alike, ensured that those responsible could not be identified.