「ABSENCE」 TMNT 2012

38; Blame

Raphael rolled his eyes, once neon green, now red from crying. "This is literally the worst timing," he croaked with a sniffle.

Jeff wanted to snort and laugh at them for looking so pitiful, trying to be tough but failing because of their grief. But for once, he kept his mouth shut. They looked like they were going through enough already.

Shredder, on the other hand, was not so thoughtful. He took one look at Leonardo's body and the looks on the faces around him and greeted them with a smirk.

"Turtles!" He shouted over the vibrating missile. "We meet yet again."

    Michaelangelo, once a joyful, positive personality, spat in Shredder's direction. The others' faces had hardened to sharp glares that could kill in one swift motion if they were physical weapons. They clearly weren't excited to see their enemy.

    Shredder's shoulders lifted with his laughter. "Pathetic," he said. "Be glad he's dead, for if he were still with us, he would have to endure the same fate as the rest of you."

Donatello's hands clenched into fists. Casey shook his head in disgust. April stood defiantly. Elly wanted someone to knock her unconscious.

She had no idea what was going on. All she knew was that her best friend had just died before her eyes. There was a time when she thought she would never be happy again after the turtles and April had helped her escape. She was joyful, of course. Grateful, most definitely. But happy? Able to move on immediately? Absolutely not.

April was an amazing friend. She'd helped Elly past innumerable obstacles in the time they'd known one another. She waited for Elly after therapy sessions her parents had insisted she attend. She bought Elly strawberry shortcake from their favorite café. She let Elly cry. She hugged Elly when she was scared. She stayed over to comfort Elly on midnights she would rather be sleeping. She continued to help Elly without complaint, and for that, Elly would never be able to thank her enough.

The turtle brothers had also been there for her, cracking jokes to make her smile, and including her in their daily activities to take her mind off her thoughts. They didn't say it, but she knew what they were doing, and she thanked them over and over again until they locked her out of their bedrooms so she couldn't continue her speeches.

All this, and then there was Leonardo. Calm, cool, and uptight, Elly hadn't thought she would ever be able to see past the invisible wall he had undoubtedly put up to everyone. But somehow, someway, he'd let her in, and she'd done the same for him.

It was cliché, really. Two struggling people coming to love each other as no one had before. Except in this case, they already had many people around them to love them. They just needed to love one person, and then lose them, to realize their selfishness.

Spending time with Elly made Leonardo think about his own relationships with his family. The way she talked about her parents and brother – especially her brother – made him want that same enthusiasm in his own life. But he just couldn't find it. He didn't feel the same appreciation for his brothers and father, and it hurt. The guilt ate away at him.

As for Elly, now that Leo was gone, the person she made bets with over who could chug green health juice the fastest, and who she debated with over whether or not coffee was better than tea (she agreed with Lucas on that one), she was lost. No more early morning conversations while he made fun of her yoga form. No more buttered toast in the sewers. No more teasing about how bad the other one's breath was. Leo was one person, and for Elly, one person less.

"This must be the escaped Subject 205," Shredder mused, eyeing the shaken Elly.

    Her. He was talking about her. Subject 205. Yes, a name of her's. A dreaded one, but a name, nonetheless. Fear tingled down her spine. She didn't want to go back, didn't want to return to that dark cell. What if he took her back?

    He must have noticed how much wider her eyes had become because he let out a deep chuckle. "Good thing for you I don't want you near my men. Is this your doing?" He asked her, gesturing to Leo's silent body.

    She glanced down at the face she had come to miss in the midst of her nightmares. Her doing? What could he mean by that? What had she done?

Shredder chortled. "Ah, you do not know of the sickness you've caused." Her head shot up to meet his observant gaze. "Yes. While you spent time in my dungeon, you developed a disease which spreads quickly to those who are able to handle it."

"I'm not sick," Elly declared, lifting her chin. She didn't need to be kind to this man.

    "Not anymore," corrected Shredder. He went on to explain the origin of this 'disease' to her. "It's an illness that has just surfaced recently. It is directly injected into one subject, but that subject does no develop any true health issues."

    Donatello frowned, trying to process this in his head. "Back up a bit," he said.

    Jeff took a tentative step forward, still wary of the sickness. "It's because of a chemical in one of the Kraang's brain serums," he clarified. "Because they experimented on Elly Mason, here, she got it. There's a cure, though," he added, as if the fact alone would solve all the current problems.

    "But . . . if it doesn't do anything to me, how did Leo get sick?" Elly questioned in a shaky voice. This was all so confusing.

    "Because it only effects the perfectly healthy people you're in close proximity with for extended periods of time. They're the only ones whose bodies can handle it," quoted Jeff. Then he grinned to himself because he had remembered an exact portion of Baxter Stockman's explanatory lecture. "But don't worry, you're cured," he added after. "We snuck the medicine into your water the other day."

    Karai rolled her eyes. That was a stretch of the truth since she'd been the one doing the work.

    This was all still processing in Elly's mind. She was cured, but the disease had still passed on to Leonardo because she had spent a lot of time with him. And since he was so, profoundly healthy, his body was able to carry it and eventually kill him.

So in short, she was to blame for his death. Without knowing it, she had killed Leonardo, and now not only would she never live it down, but his family would never forgive her.

But one question remained: how many other people had she infected from the time she procured the illness to the time she was cured? Surely Leo's brothers and father would be developing headaches anytime now if this information was true. And what about her family? Would they be left to suffer from this as well?

"That mutant is probably the only one you've been in contact with who'll ever be able to handle it," Jeff commented. "The rest of you love pizza too much."

Unfortunately, that thought was not comforting.