Midori: Chapter Seven
***
"Are you sure?" Splinter asked, worry evident on his face.
Don placed his ear over her mouth. He didn't feel or hear anything. "Yes." He checked her pulse. Her heart was still beating, that was good, right?
"Don."
Don looked up as Leo gently pushed him aside. "Her heart's still beating," he managed to say. Leo needed to know that so that he wouldn't do any chest compressions, and Don briefly wondered if he could do those anyway, whether the shell was flexible enough. Leo nodded.
Don just stood back and watched. He made a mental note to ask Leo to teach him CPR. Or maybe April, and he berated himself for not taking her up on her first offer to teach them. It made him feel weak to just be standing here, not able to do anything.
Don let out his breath when Midori gasped for air. He hadn't even realized that he had been holding it.
Midori coughed several times and pulled herself up into a sitting position. After that she groaned and slowly opened her eyes. She looked around and caught sight of Leo and Don. Her eyes went wide with fear and shock and she backed up, right into Raphael's grasp. He caught her roughly by the shoulders just before she would have fallen off the arm of the couch.
"Don't hurt her, Raph," Don said.
"Me hurt her? I think you have that backwards."
Midori fought against Raph's grip. His fingers were digging into the bandages over her shuriken wound and a gash on her other arm. Donatello slowly approached, his hands up to show her that he meant no harm. "It's okay, we're not going to hurt you. We're trying to help."
Midori looked around for a way to escape, her heart beating a mile a minute. They had caught her, what would they do to her now?
"Raphael," someone said. "Please release her, or you'll reopen her wounds."
Midori looked towards the sound of the voice and saw a large rat there, looking over her head. She looked up at who she supposed was Raphael and he glared down at her. "Be good," he growled at her before letting go. She moved quickly to the other end of the couch, nearly falling off again.
This time it was Leonardo who caught her. He didn't hold her roughly the way Raphael had, he just set her back on the couch and sat down on the arm.
"Midori."
She turned at the sound of her name to see the rat again. She cocked her head to the side to study him. He didn't look as dangerous as Taro said he was, he looked kind, worried, and a bit frail. He had a calming aura around him that made her forget her panic.
"Why have you brought me here?" she asked.
"My sons Leonardo and Donatello," he gestured towards the Turtles as he mentioned them, and Midori glanced briefly in their direction. "They found you in the sewers, badly beaten. You nearly died."
Midori paled after hearing the rat's words. Died? And they had rescued her?
"So, do you know who did this to you?" Donatello asked, leaning forward slightly. Another Turtle appeared behind him, the one in the orange mask.
Midori paused, trying to remember what had happened. She knew it a minute ago. It was...
She pressed her fists against her knees, the muscles and tendons becoming tense. Don frowned when her shoulders started to shake. Splinter sat beside her and placed his hand over hers.
"I..." she sobbed. "I just wanted... to leave."
Raph's face darkened. "I knew it."
Midori leaned forward and cried, hiding behind her arms. Splinter rubbed the back of her shell while the other Turtles stood around, completely at a loss for what to do.
***
"Are you hungry?"
Midori looked up at Michaelangelo, who stood smiling at her, carrying a tray with a bowl on it. She reached out and took it from him, saying a meek thank you in return.
"I thought you'd be, seeing as how you haven't eaten in like three days."
Midori looked up from her soup. "Three days?"
Mike rubbed his hands together nervously. "Yeah, that's how long you were out. Kinda scary there for awhile." He ended with nervous laughter.
Midori blinked. "You were worried about me?"
"Yeah, I mean, of course." Mike sat down in the chair next to the couch.
"Why?"
"Why? Uh..." Mike looked at her, her brown eyes holding a serious curiosity. "Because you were hurt."
"But I thought we were enemies."
"Uh, yeah..." Mike looked around, hoping to see someone to relieve him from this conversation. Luckily for him, Leonardo happened to be walking by at that time. "Why don't you ask Leo, he brought you in."
Leo paused and gave Mike a questioning look. Midori looked up at Leonardo. "Why did you rescue me?"
"Well, it was more Don's idea than mine, but we really couldn't leave you there. Enemy or not, we still had to do what was right. You should eat that before it gets cold."
Midori became confused for a second at the sudden change of topic, but quickly realized that he was referring to her soup, which she hadn't touched. She took a spoonful and found it very good. It helped take off the chill she'd been feeling.
"So where were you going to go?"
Leo gave Mike a chastising look. He had just told her to eat and then Mike goes and asks her another question.
"I don't know," she replied after swallowing another spoonful of soup.
"You could stay here," Mike suggested, trying not to sound too eager.
Midori hadn't thought much about where she was going to go once she had left the Foot. She knew she couldn't go back to her old home, they would find her there. Besides, she had learned too much to ever go back to the way she was living before. She'd had a sketchy plan to find the other Turtles, but everything had been shattered, just like that mirror, the moment the gun had gone off. She still couldn't believe Taro had pulled the trigger, after he had been so nice to her, telling her it was all right to leave.
"Midori, are you okay?"
She was pulled from her memory by Leonardo's voice. She blinked away the glaze over her eyes and his worried face came into focus. She took a ragged breath and realized that she'd been on the verge of crying again. Before today, the last time she had cried was about six or so years ago, when she had fallen through the floor of the warehouse, twisting her ankle and cutting her face. The scar from that was still visible over her right eye and cheek.
She silently nodded and went back to eating. She heard Mike get up and leave, saying something about going to see someone named April.
"You can stay here as long as you want," Leonardo told her, before leaving her to her soup.
***