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A New Lease on Life	By : Ghost-of-a-Chance Category: +S through Z > Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Views: 3157 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I don't own TMNT, any of its characters or devices, or any songs/books/movies referenced. No money is made from this story. I DO own any & all OCs included in the story...and a Woozle.

Chapter List
- 5
- 6
- 7
Suggested Listening: Avril Lavigne "Nobody's Home"
5: You Can't Set a Broken Soul
February 8, 2016
"Why'd you have to leave, Amber?" Aaron muttered into a mostly empty glass of reeking of Wild Turkey. "Why'd you go out on your own like that? You were safe in the shelter…"
Amber stared in dismay from the dark corner of the skeazy Glenville bar. Aaron would never have been caught dead in a place like this, much less drunk on hard liquor. Despite his fondness for getting trashed on cheap beer, he hated hard liquor, and even more so, the memories it always brought forth—memories of the family he lost to the bottle. Though the truth hurt, Amber knew without a doubt he was drinking over her—her senseless, needless death drove her best friend to drinking.
"Willis…" Ashamed, heartbroken, she inched toward the bar. "Aaron, I'm sorry…" As though she never said a word, the barkeeper laughed derisively behind his newspaper.
"Thee-is is ruh-DICK-yuh-lus!"• the portly man drawled thickly. "Thee-is ahticle says ova half tha people who died in tha twista was ig-NOR-in tha sirens—any dumb bee-itch who'd go out in whe-thuh like thay-at dee-zerves"• Without warning, Aaron's glass crashed into the wall behind the counter, shattering from the impact.
"Shuddup!" he slurred and clumsily launched himself over the counter at the barkeeper. "Ya don't know 'er—ya got no right to judge 'er!"
As the two grappled and traded blows, the ceiling tore away; Amber turned to the gaping rafters, her heart racing. Clouds gathered in the barren skies forming menacing grey thunderheads. Blue and green lightning cracked from cloud to cloud racing the rolling thunder.
Her lungs tight from fear, her ears aching from the plummeting air pressure, Amber fell to the ground, scrambling into the nearest corner and staring up in horror. Though torrents of rain fell, though the power flickered and failed, though wind tore through the bar like a vengeful ghost, the patrons never budged, staring blankly through their drinks as if unaware that the world was coming to an end. She was alone—alone with the demon that killed her and haunted her dreams.
Sirens wailed in the distance; a familiar sputtering roar deafened her. Grey-green clouds split in a merciless, mocking grin. As the world fell away around her, Amber screamed unheard pleas to the merciless winds, certain she'd breathed her last.
Amber shot up in bed with a shriek; as her racing heart calmed and the phantom ache in her skull faded, the blanks filled themselves in around her. Old, stained brick walls, a vaulted concrete ceiling with exposed ducts, pipes, and wiring, the distant rumble of a passing subway train, slow whirring and beeping from the ridiculously advanced machinery around her…she was safe.
"Not again," she rasped. She pulled the patched quilt around her and waited for the shaking to stop. "Damn night terrors…gettin' fuckin' old."
She glanced wearily at the alarm clock tucked into the nearest shelf. It was four am…she got five full hours of sleep. In her previous life, she was useless without nine to ten hours a night; now she was lucky to get three. The hourly trains triggered nightmares and kept her awake fighting a constant barrage of graphic memories and chills that had no basis in temperature. Five hours of uninterrupted sleep? 'It's like Christmas,' she thought with a sneer, picturing a decent night's sleep packaged up in a box with a big red bow.
Without further ado, she disentangled herself from the sheet and quilt, rummaged under the cot for her folded clothes and basket of toiletries, and padded out of the room barefoot. After a quick stop in the bathroom, she set up the coffee maker on autopilot, staring blankly through the scratched wooden table as the percolating machine hissed, dripped, and belched.
After downing a cup of sweetened, creamed tar-juice, she set up a second cup with only sugar and delivered it to the still slumbering genius. Her task complete, she hit the showers, choosing the farthest stall from the door as usual; that stall had a working lock. The room's fixtures were obviously salvaged from somewhere, but fixing the warped, vandalized locks apparently wasn't very high on Donatello's list of priorities. Maybe because the lair normally had only male residents and men weren't as squeamish about being seen in the buff? She cringed, wrenching the elastics from her tangled hair; she still wasn't sure if Mikey barged in on her on purpose that one time but she wasn't willing to risk a recurrence.
The moment the water started up, she started humming loudly to block out the sound. She once loved the sound of running water and slept deepest when rain was falling...but that was a lifetime ago. That was before her fear of severe storms became a fear of even the lightest rainstorm, and before she was killed by what she feared and given another life. Now the sound of rain terrified her and the spraying showerhead sent chills down her spine. As she lathered up her hair, she thought back to better times, better days, and a soft voice that once lulled her to sleep with songs of their youth.
Water rattling in the overhead pipes ripped Donatello from his hard-earned sleep. As his eyes blearily cranked open, he again cursed his decision to leave the pipes over his bedroom uninsulated. The old subway car he modified for a bedroom didn't quite reach the ceiling overhead and that extra space overhead created a nasty echo. Scratching his neck, he hoisted himself up in his bed and fumbled for his glasses. As his eyes focused, the blurry splotch by his alarm clock solidified into a mug of steaming coffee. The coffee was prepared far too sweet, as usual, and he nearly sprayed it all over the clock's display once he realized what it read.
"Four-thirty in the morning?" He groaned, digging his knuckles into his aching eyes. "You've gotta be kidding me...this can't go on." His bedroom was the closest to the lab, so lately, he was woken several times a night. Every time Amber cried out in her sleep, every time she thrashed around and fought the demons haunting her dreams, every time she woke up screaming herself hoarse, he was woken by the noise. Every time her nightmares deprived him of sleep, he spent the rest of the night struggling with his own thoughts and feelings. Regret at her condition—guilt for being unable to save Kimber's life—resentment over lost sleep and interrupted work—disgust with himself for resenting Amber when she wasn't really responsible for what was happening…the list went on and on.
With every day that passed, he became ever more certain that Amber wasn't as well as she tried convincing herself. Every time a train passed too close to the Lair, she fell into another panic attack and sometimes even a flashback. Several times daily she'd turn up missing without any word of where she was going; more often than not he found her tucked beside the running washing machine or wedged into the foot-well of his desk, shaking violently and smothering tears in her knees. She was getting worse every day…and for the first time in his life, Donatello was faced with a problem he knew was beyond his skill.
Amber wasn't a broken machine—she was a broken woman. He couldn't fix her.
"It was down in La-wheezy-yan—OW! -Jus' about a mile from Texarkana," an off-key voice echoed from the bathroom. Donatello sank into his usual seat at the battered table, staring through his coffee cup. "DAMMIT! In them ol' cotton fields back–SCUNNER!"• The water had long since shut off; every now and then, the song was interrupted by a cry of pain or curse, signifying that Amber had moved on to impatiently wrenching the tangles from her still-damp hair. She wasn't used to Kimber's body, especially the second set of posts in her ears and the ring on the left one and routinely snagged them in the bristles of the brush. Between oaths and verses, Donnie dozed off at the table, nodding into his empty cup.
"Ah, shoot." The sudden oath startled him awake, and in the blink of an eye, he was crouched before his chair brandishing his empty coffee cup as a weapon. Amber stood in the doorway to the kitchen cringing in embarrassment. Funny how she wasn't surprised by his reflexive actions. "I woke ya up again, didn't I?" She brought the coffee carafe over to refill his cup as he slouched back to his seat.
"Yeah," he answered trying to stretch the crick out of his neck. "No big deal, though. It's not like you do it on purpose." She shook her head with a wry smile and made her way to the kitchen sink. As she passed, he realized something was different…he stared in surprise. Instead of just keeping her hair in a high, messy bun like usual, she'd separated it into twin tails at her nape and braided them tightly. The other day, she discovered that even though her hair still smelled like Power Punch, the red was starting to fade. Apparently she was so excited to be returning to her natural color that she changed things up a little. With her hair still so red, though… He winced. Breakfast was going to be a disaster.
"So," he attempted, striving for a casual tone and failing. "What's with the change?" She ducked around the open fridge door to meet his eyes.
"You noticed?" She smiled brightly as she measured out ingredients for pancake batter. "I got sick'a fighting my hair all day so I went back to basics—before I got here, I usually wore my hair like this. I'm lazy like that." She pulled a carton of wilting blueberries from the fridge and picked out the stems as she tossed berries into the bowl. "After all the change an' drama, it's a real comfort havin' my braids back."
"It's…" He scrambled for words between the worries. "…cute. Maybe you should wait until the dye fades, though. I just know—"
"S'up, Angelcakes?" Mikey called out from the doorway. "What's for—Whoa!" Donatello cringed, retreating to the coffeemaker; he knew this was going to happen. "Blueberry pancakes?! Sweet!"
"Wait, what?" Donnie muttered. What happened to the expected teasing?
"Yup!" Amber grinned, mixing in a little extra sugar as Mikey dug out a pair of battered skillets and spatulas. "They were about dead anyway, so I figured why not? It'll be a nice treat." As Michelangelo fried pancakes and Amber scrambled eggs, Donatello watched in silence. Sure, Michelangelo seemed to be behaving himself, but Mikey wasn't the only one prone to zingers. He hoped he was worrying for nothing.
About halfway through the batter and eggs, Leonardo and Splinter sat at their places, conversing over morning tea. Right as the stove burners were switched off, Raphael lumbered through the door to the coffeemaker. Halfway there, he pulled a double-take, gaping at Amber's braids in disbelief and derision. He said nothing, retreating to his seat with a steaming mug of coffee. When Amber bustled to the table to dole out breakfast, he struck.
"So," he sneered, "where's da meat, Wendy?"
"Hey, now," Leo began, but Mikey cut him off.
"Don't be such a jerk, Raphie," the youngest scolded, playing with the end of a punch red braid. Amber's comforted smile warped into a deadpan glower a moment later when she felt both braids lifted up at either side of her head. "Too many freckles! She looks more like Pippi Longstocking!"
Called it.
"Hardy, har, har," she grumbled and set the two platters down a little more roughly than necessary. While Raph and Mikey bantered over which was a more accurate resemblance, she retreated to the lab with yet another cup of coffee. Donatello was used to Raph and Mikey's antics—he was the butt of their jokes more often than he'd like to admit and usually just let it roll off his back—but this time, he was angry. He loaded her untouched plate and his own with pancakes and eggs and dug for flatware in the drawer.
"Amber's been nothing but helpful since she arrived," he reminded the two troublemakers. "She cooks, she cleans, she picks up after your ungrateful asses, and right when she starts to relax, you tease her!" He scoffed and shook his head as he left. Sometimes those two disgusted him, Raph especially. He found Amber on the cot in the lab, lying on her back with her head dangling over the side and brushing through her long loosened hair. Though he'd only seen them once, he already missed the braided tails; why eluded him at the moment. "Hey."
"Hey yerself," she shot back with a grin, wrestling her hair into a high ponytail. As she sat up and fastened the coiled mass into a sloppy bun, he pulled up his rolling stool and held out her plate.
"You forgot this—dig in." Moss green eyes scrutinized him seriously. He avoided her eyes, passing the plate and flatware. "Don't mind them. They're just—"
"It's okay, Donnie." Confused, he finally met her eyes; she didn't really seem upset anymore. "If unflatterin' comparisons and immature folks were all it took to ruin my day, I'd'a died a hermit. This body? It ain't me—I was short, fat, clumsy, partly crippled, an' I started goin' grey before I hit drinkin' age. I've been called much worse'n any'a that. It's no big deal." She halfheartedly scraped a chunk of egg around on her plate while Donatello let the description sink in. "B'sides, Aaron used to say much worse…an' he's—was my best friend. I'm used to gettin' shite from people, and I'm more than willin' to give it back." She shot an up-to-no-good grin up at him. "I'll get'em…but not 'til they've let their guard down."
"If you're sure, Amber," he relented, then paused for a bite of his own pancakes. "Forgive me for asking, but…before twenty-one?" She chuckled.
"Yeah. Lots'a early grey in my family. My uncle Bart went shock white while he was in high school; findin' my first silver at nineteen was lucky, considerin'." She took another sip of coffee before adding, "It always hit the redheads worst. I wasn't a redhead, but there was enough red in my hair to turn me into a brown skunk." He couldn't help but grin at the mental image.
"It didn't embarrass you?"
"Course it did," she answered honestly. "For a while, I kept my hair cut above the neck an' never went anywhere without a hat or hair-scarf—couldn't afford dyein' it all the time. Course, then everyone jus' assumed I was goin' bald and started pullin' me aside to talk about the cancer I was supposedly dyin' of. I finally had it when my roommate Mercy dragged me to a cancer survivors group shpeal; flipped'er off, flashed my stripes, an' walked home. Apparently the granny-hair spoke for itself." She finally gave up on pushing her food around and passed the plate back to him. "Guess I'm not really hungry; help yourself. I better get to work, right?"
"Amber," he scolded, latching onto her arm and anchoring her in her seat. "You have to eat—you skipped breakfast and lunch yesterday, and the day before you only ate an apple! You're not getting adequate caloric intake like this—at this rate you'll—"
"I'm not starvin' myself," she argued. Against her will, a memory played through her mind's eye: City Hall's basement, Aaron crouched before her with a bowl of soup, coaxing her to eat even though her stomach felt full of concrete. She fought to keep control but that memory had a dozen more on its heels; together, they swarmed her. "I'm just not hungry! Trus' me, I spent my whole life hungry when I shouldn't be—"
"You should be hungry! If you keep this up you're going to—"
"I don't need a nanny, Donnie!" she burst out vehemently. "I'm a grown woman, not some anorexic tweenager. If I ain't hungry, I ain't hungry, an' no amount'a shovin' food at me's gonna make me hungry!" Without another word, she stormed out intent on silencing her memories with manual labor.
"I just don't know what to do, April," Donatello muttered into his palms as she watched him with worry. Beyond the lab's closed door, Amber was hard at work in the dojo, waxing the floorboards to mirror brightness on her hands and knees…for the fifth time in as many days. "She hardly eats anything and guzzles coffee like it's water," he ranted harshly. "She barely sleeps, wakes up screaming, then spends the whole day and most of the night cleaning everything in the lair in the least effective ways possible—she intentionally wears herself out every day, then crashes in the early hours, too sore to do anything! She's having panic attacks more and more often and she's been spacing out for hours at time—the other night we found her wandering the sewers barefoot talking to someone who doesn't even exist in this reality!"
He fell silent, choking up. She and Mikey had been washing dishes when someone dropped a glass, and the sound had somehow flipped some hidden switch in her brain. She walked barefoot right through the shards like a zombie and somehow found her way out the front door, muttering the whole way about hungover friends and neurotic dogs. When they finally found her—after following what felt like a mile of bloody footprints—the sight of her adamantly arguing about music with 'Aaron' silenced the long lecture he'd planned. "She's going to kill herself at this rate, April," he confessed weakly, dropping his hands to dangle helplessly between his knees. "…and there's nothing I can do to stop it."
"Donnie," the older woman murmured leaning forward for a reassuring squeeze of the shoulder. "You're a brilliant guy and a talented engineer, but you can't just 'fix' people—if someone's broken, you can't reconnect some wires, tighten a lug nut or two, slap on some duct tape and expect them to work again…and if those injuries aren't physical…" She trailed off, avoiding his eyes. "…Broken bones heal quickly once you immobilize them, but there's no way to set a broken soul. It's not your fault."
"You're waxing poetic on me, April," he teased halfheartedly. "I'm not Mikey; you don't have to play down the gritty details." Finally, she met his eyes, her own serious.
"She needs to see a doctor, Donnie…a psychiatrist. I think Amber has Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder…and it's only going to get worse."
Just outside the shuttered door, Amber silently slid down the wall and landed in a boneless heap. She wasn't supposed to have heard that conversation, she was sure of it, and she wouldn't have heard it if she'd not come to apologize for taking Donatello's head off earlier. Now her overreaction and subsequent attempt at apology had exposed her to a secret discussion and triggered a plethora of fears. Even as she fought to rationalize away the knowledge, stubbornly scolded herself that PTSD wasn't caused by something as minor as a natural disaster, she knew it would explain so many things.
She'd never been in a war zone, had never seen battle, and had never seen her comrades fall one by one—she was a janitor, not a soldier!—so how could she have developed something even seasoned warriors weren't guaranteed stricken with? She'd insisted her whole life that she wasn't weak, that she could handle anything given enough time to work through it…yet she was completely broken by something as stupid and meaningless as a storm.
'Am I…' she though disjointedly, tears pricking her eyes behind her glasses. 'No…I am…I really am weak after all.' Without a word she stood, dusted herself off, and wandered out the front door, stopping only to grab a battered flashlight from the kitchen counter. A walk wouldn't fix her intolerable weakness and it wouldn't fix her, but maybe it would at least give her time to think. A line of music echoed down a storm drain from a passing car, reminding her of a time when she didn't feel so lost. 'Where were they going without ever knowing the way?'
Tolkien was right: not all who wander are lost, but she knew she wasn't among them.

Up Next: a break from the angst with Cohabitation Chaos.

Glossary
~ Thee-is is ruh-DICK-yuh-lus! Thee-is ahticle says ova half tha people who died in tha twista was ig-NOR-in tha sirens—any dumb bee-itch who'd go out in whe-thuh like thay-at dee-zerves- This is an ungodly blend of Deep South and Hick you usually hear from folks trying to imitate a southern drawl and sucking at it. This is ridiculous! This article says over half of the people who died in the twister [tornado] were ignoring the [tornado] sirens. Any dumb bitch who would go out in weather like that deserves [what they get.] Unfortunately, yes, shit like this gets said after storms with a significant death toll. It's inaccurate at best and victim-blaming at the worst, and if you say it around people who lost someone, it's a good way to get your nose broken. Just sayin'.
• Scunner - Scots curse, regards something which hurts or ticks you off. Compare to "motherfucker."
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A New Lease on Life