When she woke up that evening, she thought she would never again have to wake up in that lumpy bed, in that crummy apartment, in that run-down neighborhood ever again. She had already slept the whole day away, unable to force herself to get up, only able to sleep and plan the rest of her evening. Still, she felt it was the beginning of her day and should start it as such, so she woke up expecting that she would eat her bland breakfast of buttered toast and off-brand coffee. She would send one last email to her parents (not that they usually wrote back), and attend one last work banquet. She would buy a big bottle of ibuprofen, find a nice bench in the park and just stop. Stop with her monotonous, pointless, dragged-on lonely life; stop with her lackluster attempts to connect with people who only pretended to care to keep face; stop being a dreamless nobody; stop being a lifeless shell; stop.

She woke up that morning perfectly ready to die.

Her expectations first varied from her plans when she discovered she was out of butter and her coffee pot handle fell off, dropping her brew onto the floor and burning her feet. She cursed softly and jumped away from the burning liquid before reminding herself that she didn't care anymore. She was ready to stop, so what did she care about pain?

She dressed slowly, deciding that breakfast was equally pointless, and instead taking the time to pick out her best jewelry, not for the sake of the people at the banquet but for the sake of the people who found her after she stopped. She didn't want to look like a slob, she wanted to look like a person that mattered in death, because she hadn't in life. Or maybe a homeless man would find her, take the jewelry, and move on before he was caught. What did in matter anyway?

Her dress was black, below the knee, tight but professional with black pumps that were rounded at the toes— not pointed, she remembered hating those old lady shoes when she was young enough to care. They hurt her burned feet, but it reminded her that she was still alive and had to act like it. They would remind her until she truly stopped.

She did her long black hair— once shiny, now incredibly dull— into an Audrey Hepburn, Breakfast at Tiffany's bun on the top of her head, holding them in place with rhinestone studded pins— the ones that matched her necklace and bracelet. Her makeup was simple. Foundation to cover up old acne scars, and powder to make her less shiny. Eyeliner and mascara as always, and pale pink lipstick, not red; red called for attention and she didn't want that. She wanted to stop.

On the subway going in the opposite direction she would normally travel for work, she pondered whether or not she would have bothered going to work today if it weren't just a banquet. She imagines not; she probably would have just stayed in bed and stopped there, but she was glad it was this way. She wanted to be found in the park where it was certain she would be found in the morning, rather than in her apartment where people would not look for her until she started to smell. She didn't want to be found that way, because then people would just remember her as the disgusting mess they will tell their wife all about when they got home.

Arriving at the Wyndham Hotel was like arriving at a funeral, and she noted that most of the employees and guests had already arrived. No one had noticed her absence of course; no one cared that the young intern, who had been stuck an intern for three years longer than she had been promised, was absent or late. There were more important people to attend to, mosey up to, and pretend to care about.

As she waited behind an older gentleman to show her ticket to the doorman, she looked up towards the darkening sky on a whim. She didn't know why she did it as there was nothing to look at but dark, muggy clouds of smog, but she felt the odd urge to do so, like when one feels like they are being watched, or near a person of great importance. She saw a flicker of something, most likely a pigeon settling on the rooftop, but nothing more.

"Miss?" She gave a small jolt, and looked to the expectant doorman. "Do you have a ticket for the banquet?" She wordlessly handed him the azure blue ticket with the dull sheen and he took a quick glance before nodding curtly and allowing her in. She wanted to look up at the sky again but didn't want to waste any more of the man's time, and made her way to the nearest elevator.

The gathering of businessmen and women chatting almost amiably served as a dull background buzz; whitenoise to her own thoughts. Once upon a time she would take this opportunity to get to know all of the important people, and try to impress her boss. They would all smile politely, listen to her ideas, but at the end of the night, none of them would remember her name, and by they next gathering, none of them would remember her face. She stopped trying a long time ago.

Now she sipped quietly on sparkling cider (she wasn't old enough for the wine— she was four months shy of that) and gazed at the lazy artwork around the ballroom. They were all gilded works, made to look pretty, but not capture the artist's soul or tell a story; there was no purpose in any of it. They were just ways to pay bills and keep the ignorantly wealthy people happy.

People were beginning to slowly mill into the dining area when everything changed. Not ten feet away, a window exploded inward. The tinkling, clattering sound of glass sounded like fairies, but the hard thud and crunch of the individual did not. She fist wondered how a person could possibly manage to fall into a penthouse level ballroom from the outside. The nearest rooftop was twenty feet over and two stories up, and yet there he was. As people comprehended that his appearance was more alarming than his entrance, they began to scream and rush as a mob towards the elevators and stairs, and when those at the back could not push through to the front fast enough, they ran for the hallways leading to private business rooms. She felt that she really should be running with them, screaming about a monster in the ballroom and pushing to get away, but her burned feet were blistering and swelling in her black, round-toed pumps, and she didn't want to run and make the pain worse than it had to be.

Because she did not retreat with the rest of the guests, she was able to better observe the unexpected intruder. He (or at least, she assumed it was a he, as she had nothing to indicate otherwise) was a turtle. There was no mistaking that. She was well aware, even at a glance, that the scales, shell and blood were far too real for it to be a costume. He wasn't just a turtle though. He was at least five and a half feet tall (three inches taller than herself without her pumps), and anthropomorphic, so obviously he was either a mutant or an alien (both of which had become strangely frequent in the city of New York in the last few years.) He wore only knee and elbow pads, a brown sash about his waist, and a thin purple mask, no thicker than one of her hair ribbons, over his eyes.

She thought at first he must be dead. No human could possibly survive all that had apparently been done to him, but then she realized what she had just thought. All that had been done to him. He was injured, he was the victim, and he needed help. She knew how to help.

She walked quickly to his side, and kneeled in the glass, cutting her clean-shaven, unprotected knees and shins, but that didn't matter. A few cuts didn't matter if she was just going to stop later, and if she was going to make sure that this mutant turtle wasn't going to stop.

Step One: "Sir, are you alright?" she asked, tapping his unbloodied shoulder urgently. "Can you hear me? If you can hear me and understand me, I need you to open your eyes and blink twice, or give some indication that you are conscious." There was none— not so much as a groan or flutter of his closed eyelids.

Step Two: She felt for a pulse on his wrist and noticed vaguely that he was very well muscled, like a green, reptilian athlete of sorts. His pulse was there, but it was weak and hard to find. She leaned her ear down right next to his face and determined that he was not breathing.

Step Three: She looked down at his naturally armored chest, and had to make a wild guess as to wear his breastbone would be (if he had one), measured two finger widths down, and started compressions. She threw much more of her weight into them than she normally would on a human, knowing that if she could not push past the plastron, the compressions would do any good. She reached thirty, lifted his chin, awkwardly plugs his nostrils, and breathed into him. Pulling back, she listened again. Nothing. She started the compressions again, using all of her weakened strength, and all of her lessened body weight, trying to save this victim of violence who had to matter more than she did. She felt a twang in her wrist, and new she must have sprained it, but continued. She would stop later, but he could not.

As she continued with her compressions, her breathing, and her checking for his even weaker pulse, she failed to notice three new intruders to the party. By this time, all of the humans other than herself had vanished from the scene, but there were sirens in the distance, slowly getting louder— this too she failed to notice though as she focused entirely on her task. The three saw her crushing down on their brother's already cracked plastron, saw the puddles of blood, and their unmoving partner, and assumed the worst.

When the leader first looked at the supposed assailant, he thought for a moment it was Karai, but no, this woman was smaller with longer hair that was beginning to fall out of it's neat bun. She lacked the toned muscles and poisonous green eyes that the Foot leader possessed. That didn't mean she was any less dangerous to their fallen brother.

"What the shell are yah doin' to 'im!" the red banded turtle screamed, rushing forward and forgetting to mind the glass.

This was enough to make the young woman pause in her compressions. She only had time to glance at them and assume they were friend, not foe. After all, the three new guests were also turtles, and based on the red one's cry, they were worried for her patient.

"He's not breathing," she said, without missing a beat. "I'm not strong enough to get the compressions to work passed his plastron. You are obviously stronger though; you do it."

This gave them pause. The red one glanced at the blue banded leader, silently asking for guidance. The blue one nodded and came forward, feeling the glass, but not caring in the moment. The orange one was the only one to stand back, watching fretfully, but not wanting to get in the way.

"I'll do the compressions, you do the breaths," Blue instructed as he kneeled next to Purple. She paused, only for a moment, surprised that he didn't want to take over completely, but complied without question. There was a life on the line here, and it wasn't hers.

As Blue pressed hard into the compressions, there were painful resounding crack of the splintering shell's underside, but that was not the immediate problem. Blue counted allowed, and once he reached thirty he paused just long enough for her to breath life into him and checked his pulse in the meantime. "Again," he said, and began the compressions. He had only reached twelve when there was a strangled, gurgling breath and a heaving cough. The woman and Blue turned him onto his side as he pulled in ragged breaths and spat out crimson blood. Red and Orange were soon at their side, joining them at the bloody, glass-riddled scene.

"Donnie," Blue said in a wavering leader voice. "Don, can you hear us now?" Purple— or rather "Donnie"— nodded weakly but didn't attempt to speak. All five of their heads turned though when they heard the distant pounding of dozens of feet on stairs and realized that the sirens had stopped at the foot of the building.

"We really shouldn't move him, but I suppose we don't have much of a choice ," the woman said. "You need to be careful how you carry him, but if we stay here you will be discovered, and the police will likely shoot on sight." The three kneeling turtles all exchanged worried glances. They would definitely end up harming Donnie further if they brought him with them across the rooftops, but what choice did they have when the knowledge of their very existence was at stake? Plus, Donnie was far from able to dodge flying bullets.

"Raph, you help me carry Don," Blue instructed. "Mikey, you bring her."

She almost protested then that she had plans to attend to, but realized she did not want to voice these protests. If they left her there, she would be questioned and watched by the police all night, and would never get to fulfill her plans, and anyway, she needed to make sure this "Donnie" did not stop. The three other turtles needed him, so she would do her best to help, then she could stop.

Orange— Mikey— only offered a quiet, "Hold on," as he scooped her up and darted after his brothers out the broken window. She had assumed they would simply use a fire escape and find their way to the ground, but they easily found their way to the rooftops and stayed there. In retrospect it made much more sense than assuming no one would see four giant turtles running around the city. The venture was more thrilling than anything she had felt in months. Every time they soured and descended through the air, she would feel her stomach flip at the anticipated drop, and with every leap she could feel just a little more life returning to her. It kind of like riding the Thunderbolt at coney Island, but much more dangerous and far more exhilarating, She used to love going to Coney Island, but hadn't been there in years. It was much more fun going with a friend, and she had none that she kept in contact with anymore.

Suddenly, there was a much further drop, and she worried maybe for a second they had fallen, but their plummet was controlled, and Mikey didn't seem to be alarmed. They stopped momentarily in an alleyway just long enough to lift a manhole cover and descend into the sewers. The smell was terrible, but she didn't say a word of complaint. In fact, she didn't speak at all much to the surprise of the orange-banded terrapin.

By this point in their meeting, she should have gotten past her shock, and started screaming, demanding answers, or trying to fight back against them. Not even April or Casey had reacted this calmly in their own introductions to the turtles. April had passed out (twice) and Casey had reacted with extreme violence. This woman hadn't said a word since informing them that Donnie needed CPR. Had she possibly had encounters with mutants before? They were, after all, not the only mutants in the world (or even in New York City). Perhaps it was all for the better, because he himself was too worried about Don to want to deal with a panicked human, especially a female— their screams were the highest and loudest.

They arrived at their home soon enough, but not quickly enough for their liking. Donnie's condition had worsened slightly during the journey and he had passed out, but he was still breathing. To the young woman's surprise, their home was actually quite nice, with traditionally patterned rugs, simple furniture, separate rooms, plenty of space and a pond of sorts right in the middle, and it did not smell nearly as rank as the sewers (much to her relief.)

"My sons," came an anxious call, and she looked towards the living area to see a giant rat standing on it's hind legs, wearing a robe and carrying a walking stick. She stiffened momentarily, before realizing he must have been the one who had spoken and must therefore also be a mutant.

"My sons," he said again. "What happened? How did Donatello come to be so injured? And who is this woman you've brought into our home?"

The woman listened quietly and glanced at the turtle masked in purple, and considered his name. Donatello, like the Italian renaissance artist. Donnie or Don were just nicknames and she had to wonder what the rest of their names were. Raph would most likely elongate to Raphael or Raffaello. Were they all named after artists?

"I'm sorry Master Splinter, but explanations will have to wait," Blue said, and she realized his name was now the only one she did not know. "Right now, Donnie needs immediate help." He turned his gaze to the young woman. "You seemed to know how to handle medical emergencies back at the hotel. Are you good with first aid?"

She nodded. "I know CPR, and how to clean and wrap wounds, but I'm no doctor, and I don't even know where to begin with broken turtle plastron, or a cracked shell."

"Well, you seem to know more than I do," he admitted. "And right now, with our doctor our for the count, you're our only hope. Will you help us?"

She nodded again. "I will do my best, but someone else will have to look up what to do about his shell. Your shells are what replace your spines, right?" He nodded. "Then that will be the most important thing."

"I will call our friend April and see if she can do some research for us, and inform us what to do," the rat, Splinter, said. "Then I will aid the both of you in caring for Donatello."

Blue nodded. "Right. While you do that, I need Mikey to find clean washcloths and bring some warm water. Raph, see if you can find some tweezers, he still has some glass lodged in his skin. Bring the antiseptic wipes as well." They all nodded and ran to do their appointed jobs. "Miss, if you'll come with me, we'll get started on helping Don." She followed him to the room that seemed to double as a laboratory and a med bay, and washed her hands thoroughly before getting to work.

She again checked his pulse and breathing to make sure he was relatively steady before starting to clean his bigger wounds with warm water and alcohol, and stitching them up. The stitching wasn't perfect, or pretty by any means, and it was far more difficult to sewer tough scales than human skin, but she managed with their extra thick needle. She only wished, as the blood oozed between her fingers, that she had gloves. Leo reset his dislocated shoulder and mentioned that his wrist might be broken, but there was little they could do about that until this "April" character showed up with better supplies. Donatello groaned and twitched as they worked to patch him up as quickly and efficiently as they could, but never woke, and so they were unable to give him any pain medicine (ibuprofen she realized in a moment of dark irony).

"I believe that is all I know how to do," she said after and hour of meticulously sewing scales, plucking out glass, and wrapping him up like the egyptians of old. "I cannot check for a broken bone without an x-ray, and I wouldn't know how to work it if we had one."

"April should be here soon," Blue— or rather Leo she had learned to call him— assured her. "Master Splinter said she is stopping by a CVS for some more supplies as well as a sling and a brace."

The young woman glanced at the unconscious turtle on the hospital cot. "Will they even fit him if she is able to bring them?"

Leo's lip twitched upward just a bit. "We're fortunate enough that they carry extra large sizes of everything for the… larger members of New York City's population." She nodded and they sat in momentary silence.

"I'm sorry, Miss," he said after a while. "I never did ask your name."

The woman smiled sweetly and inclined her head, her actions looking particularly noble what with her groomed appearance. "My name is Hikara Mai, but just Mai is fine."

Leo bowed traditionally in a way that Mai had not seen since moving to New York. "Thank you for helping my brother, Mai. My name is Hamato Leonardo, and I believe you have met my brothers, Raphael, Michelangelo, and of course, Donatello."

"Leo, Raph, Mikey, and Donnie," she surmised. "Charming. Did you name yourselves or…"

"Our sensei, Master Splinter, names us when we were young from a book of Italian renaissance artists," he explained. He looked to his fallen brother, and his friendly smile melted away to a frown of concern. "Do you think he'll be alright?"

Mai regarded the turtle as well, and could already tell the difference in coloration; his face slowly taking on a pea green rather than the sickly sea-foam color he'd been upon first discovering him.

"I think he'll be fine," she said. "Although I really don't know much about turtles, he appears to be very strong, and he's already improving much faster than I would have thought possible."

"It's the mutagen in our blood," Leo explained. "We heal faster than humans."

They fell into silence then, broken only when one of the brothers, or their rat sensei, would check in on Donatello. For an hour, Mai sat by idly, lost in her own thoughts, checking the injured turtles vitals every fifteen or so minutes. When the red-hair woman named April arrived, they were able to properly treat his injured wrist and use a special glue-like substance on his cracked check and plastron. After that, they found that there really was nothing else they could do.

"You should make him drink water when he wakes up," Mai suggested. "Dehydration will do nothing for him, but if what I've seen in hospitals, being properly hydrated will help him." Leo and Splinter again bowed respectfully, followed half a second later by Raph and Mikey with prompting from their brother.

"Thank you, Miss Hikara," Splinter said sincerely. "Your kindness and attention to my son is most appreciated. It would be very much appreciated if you were to come again in a day or two to further check up on my son, but I will not push if you would like to leave and never return.

The young woman responded quickly, before remembering her plans of going to the park to stop. "I'll do everything I can to help," she insisted. "It will be no problem at all to check on him and change his bandages tomorrow." They all gave her warm looks of gratitude then, and she was filled with a warmth she'd forgotten would exist within a person, filling her with a sense of unexplainable joy.

Arrangements were made for Raph to escort her home and retrieve her again the next evening. She checked on the purple banded turtle one last time, and then she left with his brother. The trip was swift and just as exhilarating as her journey to across the rooftops earlier that night. She and Raph didn't say more than a few words, but her observation was that he wasn't much of a talker, and shy of unknown humans. He bid her a gruff goodnight, leaving her at a bus stop near her apartment, and disappeared like a shadow, leaving no trace that any of what had transpired was any more than a vivid dream.

It was when she returned home that morning, just as hint of dawn were twinkling in the distance, that she realized with a start that she had not stopped like she had expected to. Instead she was feeling more alive than she had felt in a little over a year. All because she suddenly had a purpose, and she resolved herself to hold onto that purpose a little longer.

Maybe she wasn't ready to stop after all.

Hello out there! To those of you waiting for updates on some of my other works, I am so sorry! I present to you this quite one-shot as a peace offering and an apology. I will hopefully be updating 'Giving Way to the Light' here soon, and I have rather big plans for 'Beautiful Eyes."

This one-shot was kind of just a little thing I had rattling around in my head for a while about a year ago, so I wrote most of it, went to bed, and mostly forgot about it until I came across it tonight and decided to finish it and post it. I wouldn't call it my best piece of writing, but I rather like how it turned out, even if the ending was rather rushed and sloppy.

I love getting feedback, so please don't be shy, though I don't stand well for blatant disrespect, so if that how you like to spend your time, then please don't even bother. Other than that, I hope you enjoyed the story! Peace Out!

~TygerSong