Chapter 7
Author’s Note: Hello, I am back. I cannot promise a schedule or a reliable number of updates because life is a cruel, cruel mistress, but I am back for now. This story still inspires me, and I think about it all the time, but it is still very important to me to give it my all; half assing a story like this would be the height of rude and insensitive in my eyes honestly, so, that’s why updates are slow. I hope all who read and enjoy this story can understand that.
Also due to the current state of the world, I am out of work for awhile. If you are interested in commissioning me please message me! I charge 10USD for 2,000 words, 15USD for 5,000 words, and can pretty much write about anything.
If you aren’t interested in a commission but would like to help out an immune compromised author please donate: pay pal (DOT) me ( / ) TheQC
Thank you, anything is appreciated in these trying times.
Also, if anyone has any testimonials or articles on this sort of thing, and would like to share, I am always willing to read up more on this sort of thing; anything to help me stay reliable to this story.
Now, enjoy~
Chapter Seven
Today was the day; the day that Karai was slotted to go home. Finally. It felt like a dream—of course that could still be the drugs—but a good dream! The best dream! If it was a dream she didn’t want to wake up. She was all smiles throughout her sponge bath, and chatted up her nurse about how excited she was to go home; so what if she hadn’t progressed further in her therapy? That didn’t matter now. She didn’t need the doctors or the physical therapists. She n e e d e d her family, and that was all; and that was what she was finally going to get.
“You really are excited.” The nurse said with a smile, brushing Karai’s hair and pulling it back into a small stubby tail. Karai didn’t mind in the slightest.
“Yes. It’s been so long. I am ready to be home. To be with my father and my brothers; they came all the way here to get me.” Karai had told the nurses that her family was coming to New York from Japan to help her recoup more before taking her back. It was really the only way she could explain away the fact she never had family visiting her.
“That’s good. How long has it been since you’ve seen them?” The nurse inquired.
Karai sighed and gave the smallest shake of her head, looking towards the window as the nurse went about straightening up.
“A long time. It feels like forever.” She said quietly. Perhaps that was a bit dramatic, they visited her often, but she was tired of the hospital, it felt like the place drained all of her positivity and hope. Soul sucking, the place was absolutely soul sucking, and she was eager to get away.
Nothing quite like white speckled tile, gray-blue and off white walls, dreary curtains and plain bedding to suck all the joy out of living; who would want to live in a place like this, certainly not her; she understood on some level, the need for neutrality, easy to clean and sterilize surfaces… but why did it have to be so lifeless? The only reason people got better in a place like this was so that they could get out! Shouldn’t a hospital be inspiring, comfortable? A place to recover and prepare patients to reintegrate out into the world? Okay, maybe that was too much to ask of western medicine.
“Well, today is the day.” The nurse said with a smile as she packed up Karai’s accumulated things, even putting her flowers in a paper bag. Karai looked towards the window, smiling at how close freedom was.
“Today’s the day.” She sighed, hopeful. She’d improved as much as she could under these circumstances, and in this place. Once she was home, she was sure that she’d continue improving. She’d be better in no time.
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“TODAY’S THE DAY, TODAY’S THE DAY, KARAI’S COMING HOME, TODAY’S THE DAY!” Mikey dropped down into the living room, singing loudly, nearly landing on Raph before flipping over the sofa and bouncing lightly.
“Christ! Mikey, would you—“ Raph hissed, “I’m going to break your face if you don’t knock it off!”
“But Karai’s coming home today!” Mikey chimed turning on the spot and beamed, eyes wide. “Aren’t you excited?”
“Maybe I’d be more excited if you didn’t almost land in my frosted flakes.”
“Mikey, Raph’s right, calm down.” Leo said, not really paying attention while he read on his phone. Mikey wilted a little.
“Man dude, how can you guy’s not be psyched about Karai coming home? It’s been like, FOREVER.” He whined, draping over the back of the sofa. Raph huffed and worked on finishing off the rest of his cereal. Leo turned off his phone and looked up.
“Mikey, it isn’t that we aren’t excited, but there’s just so much to do today. It’s… a bit dower.”
“How can you say that?”
“Because Mikey! Karai’s…” Raph snapped, slamming his bowl down, milk sloshing over the sides and onto the table before turning to look at the younger turtle, “Because Karai isn’t the same anymore!”
“Is… is that a bad thing?” Mikey asked in a quiet voice. Raph blinked, opening his mouth before closing it, grinding his teeth together before marching off. Leo watched him go before looking at Mikey.
“No. It isn’t a bad thing Mike. But, it is a bit scary. We’re just, a little nervous that maybe her coming back here isn’t going to be the best idea. What if, what if we aren’t enough for her? What if we can’t help her?” Leo sighed, fear and anxieties churning tightly in his chest. Mikey hopped back over the sofa and crossed to the older turtle, gripping his shoulder.
“Hey. We’re her family. We gotta at least try.” He said with a smile. “Don’t we?”
Leo blinked, then gave a small weak but genuine smile. Sometimes Mikey really surprised him.
“Yeah. You’re right Mikey. We got to at least try. We’re her family, and it’s our responsibility to try.”
“Yeah!” Mikey beamed.
“Okay guys,” Donnie walked out of the garage, dark circles under his eyes, but despite how sleep deprived he looked, he was surprisingly perky, “I just got a text from April, she, and her father, and oh, Casey, are heading to the hospital to pick up Karai. April said she’ll text us when they’re a few blocks away and we can all go and meet them at the lift ramp.” He said with a smile, locking his phone and looking up at the other two. “Did I miss something?”
“TODAY’S THE DAY!” Mikey sang with a wide smile and jumped up, hugging Donnie.
---
“Can you do it?” Casey asked, walking backwards out of the hospital’s automatic doors, anxiety written all over his face.
“Yeah, yeah, let me do it.”
“You sure, I can like, push?”
“Let her do it Casey.” April said as she followed beside but slightly behind Karai as the other girl drove herself out of the hospital in her new—but hopefully temporary—sip and puff wheelchair.
Casey and April were heading out with Karai, Mr. O’Neil trailing behind with the release papers, receipt, and instructions for care. Karai was getting her chair to the van, carefully; she had gone through more training on how to use it than she could remember. Casey followed nervously, not sure how to handle the situation.
“That’s amazing, you’re really good at that.” April praised as they came to stop at the back of the van. Karai smiled a little awkwardly.
“Yeah, lot’s of practice. You should have seen me during the first few weeks… it was, embarrassing.”
“Well, you’re doing great now.” April said with a smile as her dad opened the van and lowered the ramp.
“I wish this thing came with instructions.” He mumbled while the ramp lowered slowly.
Over the course of the drive from the hospital, Karai filled Casey and April—and in some ways Mr. O’Neil—in on the workings of her chair, how she used it, and how learning how to work it had gone. She really hadn’t been joking when she mentioned that she had spent a considerable amount of time crashing into things. It wasn’t easy learning how to drive something with what was basically a straw. She also told them that apparently there were quite a lot of set ups that involved function along those lines. Computer systems, even some cars could be retrofitted, not that she ever intended to need any of that. It was interesting though. People had made some improvements to living like this. Some. Not much. Karai supposed some was better than none.
“That’s kind of wild. Driving a car. Like this.” Casey mused, looking a little sheepish. He really didn’t know how to act around Karai. It wasn’t that she made him uncomfortable per-say, but he didn’t want to make h e r uncomfortable.
“It is. It’s not terribly common. This sort of thing, there’s complications that are pretty common. Some people can’t even breathe well on their own; I’m glad that isn’t me.” Karai said looking down at her thighs. April gently gripped her hand and smiled. Karai returned the small smile.
“Even if you required oxygen we’d make it work.” April assured. Karai however w a s genuinely grateful that was one less thing they currently had to worry about. She had been on oxygen for ages in the hospital, but she had made some decent improvement in that part of her physical therapy. She could breathe on her own. And her lungs were pretty strong actually. As far as she was concerned, as long as she kept improving—and she was sure that she would now that she was going home—she would never need to get back on oxygen.
“There’s actually some other chair set ups on the market, with different technologies. There’s one where there’s a magnet of some kind implanted in the tongue so the chair can be driven almost like using a video game joycon—but it’s your tongue. I don’t know how common that one is, but it sort of sounds a bit wild.”
“Oh man, I feel like that one would have a lot more risks.” Casey mused. “I mean, what if you’re like a tongue fiddler y’know? I’m always rolling my tongue flicking it against y teeth—”
---
“So, Donnie is still working on retrofitting everything, but the basics are functional and you’ll have some pretty decent mobility within the lair itself.” April said as they got Karai and her chair unloaded from the van. “And you’ll have street access, should you, you know, want to get out of the sewer and have a life.” She chuckled, making Karai smile brighter.
“We could go for walks. Or, well…you know.”
“We can definitely get out and go to the park or the movies even.” April really wanted them to go on dates. They really hadn’t gotten to do that before the accident. Hanging out was nice, great even, but she wanted them to have special occasions. Make special memories. She wanted to help keep their relationship normal; or as normal as possible. “Oh! Before I forget.” She began fishing in her pockets, mumbling to herself and then pulled out a remote. “So, obviously it’ll need some work, but, Donnie made this remote for you. A simple two button system for the lift. Up and down, really basic. But you’ll be able to use it to solo operate the lift.” She pressed the button and they began lowering down with a slight tremble then a steady motion and hum of mechanics. “That needs to be oiled a bit more.” April said with an awkward smile.
“That’s great. We could attach that to my chair. The doctors talked about some other options and additions. I could use that with another straw tool.” Though she was determined that in a few months she could at least use her fingers. Some more physical therapy and she would have more mobility.
“Yeah, and I’m sure Donnie can get or make whatever you’ll need.” Casey said with a brighter smile. He was warming up. Slowly. Karai wasn’t insulted in the slightest. She knew this was weird for them. Hell, it was kind of weird for her to; mostly because she was still in denial, though she wouldn’t even admit that to herself.
When the lift finally settled down below the street, Karai was immediately blasted with a puff of air and then a shower of confetti. She closed her eyes and then laughed, squinting her eyes open slowly.
“WELCOME HOME!” The turtles greeted, Mikey’s voice drowning out the other turtles.
“Oh my god, you guys!” She beamed at them. “You’re all ridiculous.” She couldn’t believe she was finally out of the hospital and home! Home. Back with her brothers.
The four turtles were around her in an instant, all welcoming her and showering her with praise, and concerns, and joy at her return. They’d all missed her, and worried about her, and they’d definitely lost sleep over her as well.
“It is so good to have you back home,” Splinter sighed, stepping up and shooing the boys away with a wave of his paws, before gently stroking her hair, “your return was greatly anticipated.” He beamed and leaned down, gently nuzzling her.
Only in that moment did it properly hit Karai, she was home. Really, actually home. This wasn’t just some hopeful dream, she wasn’t going to wake up back in the hospital alone. She sniffed, eyes beginning to burn.
“Oh,” she said softly, blinking rapidly, “I didn’t think I’d cry.”
“It’s okay to cry.” Casey said from somewhere behind her. April pulled out a handkerchief and gently dabbed at Karai’s eyes.
“You’ve been gone a long time, and you’ve been going through this mostly alone. Now you’re finally home. You can cry all you want.” She assured. Karai sniffed again.
“No, if I cry I’ll just have trouble breathing.” She said, voice cracking as fatter, hotter tears began to spill over her cheeks. She couldn’t help it. She was so happy, so relieved… and perhaps a little embarrassed, though none of them seemed to care as they huddled around her to try and comfort her.
Once the tears had stopped and Karai had been able to catch her breath, she let Leo push her through the tunnels; she appreciated the gesture, given that she was still a little winded. She made a mental note, no driving her chair after crying, otherwise she might end up passing out due to lightheadedness—and that wasn’t something she really wanted to happen, she could only imagine how the turtles would react.
“My dad’s letting me spend a few nights here so I can help you settle back in, if that’s okay with you of course.” April said as she walked beside the chair, holding Karai’s hand; even though she couldn’t feel it—and there was a strange dissociation seeing her hand being held and not being able to feel it—she did like the sight of the other girl holding her hand. It left her feeling warm inside.
“That sounds amazing.” Honestly that sounded like the best idea in the world, and she was surprised it hadn’t occurred to her to ask!
“Actually that really is a good idea.” Donnie said, catching up to walk on Karai’s other side so the girl could see him as well. “I’m going to give you a tour of the lair and explain some of the retrofitting we’ve put in place, but it’ll be good to have a uh, well a girl around to help you as you settle in, and get used to the system.” After all, while they were all no doubt willing, Karai would need help dressing and cleaning and other things. Sure, given sometime she’d be able to do some things on her own, but, until she improved she’d need an extra pair of hands, or four.
“Did you get a lot done?” She asked looking at Donnie; she hadn’t seen him in awhile, he probably had visited the least of the turtles, and not because he didn’t want to see her but because he had been so busy working on the lair. He looked taller.
“Oh yeah, sure there’s still a lot to do, but I think I really got the necessities installed. I wanted to be sure that the basics were worked out, no kinks y’know, and that there would be room to improve and expand once you were settled in. You virtually have accessibility to the whole lair, well, more like eighty percent of it, but again, room for expansion and improvement.”
“Eighty percent sure sounds better than none. And anything would be better than being back in that hospital room.” She sighed. She never wanted to go back to that room. Ever. “I would have been happy just to be in a single room, so long as it was here, at home, with all of you.”
Nothing beat the sight of the entrance to the garage—which, no longer looked much like a lab. Wheeling her in through the large opening Karai was faced with a bedroom… her bedroom. Only much larger than it had been before.
“Donnie…”
“What do you think? I hope you’re not mad that we moved your things, but, we wanted everything to feel like your old room.” Donnie said with an awkward smile.
“You gave up your lab… for me?”
“Ah, who needs a big space like this to run experiments? I really didn’t need the space, and well, you did, so, ta-da~!” He spun on his heel and gestured to the room. “Of course the garage door will be locked; we don’t need any random weirdoes wandering in.”
The first fifteen minutes back at the sewer lair—home—were spent with Donatello explaining the ceiling track system that he had installed, and how Karai would be able to get from her chair to her bed, from her bed to her desk, or to the newly installed retrofitted toilet—which he was very proud of. It was, a lot, but Karai listened quietly with a smile nonetheless; how could she not? He had put so much effort and care and thought into her room, she was actually rather stunned; if not for the surprise and admiration she might have cried again.
“Of course we’ll have to work out some bugs over the next few weeks, after all, just because it works on paper doesn’t mean that it will work in real life—that would be too easy. But either way, April will be here to help out for a few nights, and of course we’ll all be here, so you’ll be right as rain.” Donnie assured with a bright smile.
From the bedroom they moved out to the rest of the lair. And as in her room there were tracks out in the lair as well—Donnie explained that they’d be worked on some more so that Karai could get into the smaller spaces where her chair wouldn’t fit, or up to the dojo, where they would have another chair for her. Not motor powered of course, but a chair nonetheless that Mikey had volunteered to push around whenever she needed.
The ramps gave her access from the kitchen down to the living area, down to where the sofas were. There were also several other swing-lifts around the lair for Karai’s use. All in all, her brother’s—mostly Donnie—had put a lot of considerable thought and effort into retrofitting the lair for her.
“And this is only the beginning, the bare minimum! I have so many more plans for the future to make living here easier and accommodating for you.”
“Donnie, I’m not going to be in the chair forever.” She said, and from her tone it was obvious that she believed it. She had hope and faith that she wouldn’t be in the chair forever, she would get back on her feet, and they wouldn’t need even this stuff.
Casey and April shared a glance, and Splinter’s ears flicked back a little, though she missed this exchange.
“Wwell-well yeah, but we don’t know how long that will take! Best to be over prepared and overreact than underprepared right?” He let out a small puff of air which might have been a nervous chuckle. “But either way, for scenarios where none of us are here with you, like if there’s an invasion or something I’m working on designing a robot butler!”
She couldn’t help but laugh at that, Leo and Raph also laughing—Mikey seemed to be the only one who really thought that was a cool idea, but then again, he would.
“A robot butler?” She asked cocking a brow. Donnie flushed a little and swallowed.
“Yeah! I mean, think about it? If there’s a power outage or some other disaster and you’re here all alone, the robot butler could take care of you until we get back.”
“Maybe that’s not a bad idea.” April provided though she was grinning widely due to the ridiculous idea. Karai glanced to the side to look at her.
“You think?”
“Sure, I mean, I know that I’d feel a whole lot better knowing you were taken care of in the case of an emergency.” She said with a small smile. Karai felt her chest tighten and warmth fill her cheeks. Well, now that the red head put it like that, maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea; it sounded a little less ridiculous coming from her than from Donnie.
“Okay, let’s continue the tour.” She said looking back at Donnie. The taller turtle’s face lit up and he bounced a little as he got back to the tour.
While the tour continued on, with Donnie giving ever detailed notes, it occurred to Karai just how much thought had gone into everything that had been done—not to mention the thought that was going into projects not yet complete or even projects that hadn’t gotten past the blue-print phase. It was sweet, amazing really, but it also made her feel a little sad—she couldn’t even exactly explain why—she hardly understood it.
What would happen to all of this work when she got better? Would he just… have to take it down, throw it out? She supposed what she felt might have been guilt, guilt for all the hard work that would end up being thrown away like scrap.
But nonetheless, Karai listened and smiled, and told herself that she would appreciate all the care, even after she got out of this chair.
“It’s really amazing what Donnie was able to get done in such a short amount of time—well, I mean, it probably didn’t feel short for you, it certainly didn’t feel short for me.” April was laying out a sleeping back and pillow on the floor beside Karai’s bed; Karai was already changed and in bed—a chore but nonetheless an impressive feat given neither she or April really knew what they were doing when they decided to retire for bed.
“It felt like an eternity.” Karai sighed. April’s head popped up over the side of her bed, and their eyes met. April stood and placed a hand on Karai’s, expression somber.
“But you’re home now. That’s what matters.” April smiled, and though it was small, it was genuine. She was so grateful that Karai was back with the turtles, and out of the hospital—though, she herself had doubts how long this charade would be… manageable. Karai couldn’t live in the sewer forever. It just… it wasn’t the right environment for her. But that was a conversation for another day, week, month.
April leaned in and pressed a kiss to Karai’s forehead, then her cheek, hovering, eyes closed, heart beating in her throat.
“April?”
“I’m fine.” She stood up straight and sniffed, eyes glassy. “I’m just really glad you’re here. And, we’re going to be okay!”
“Of course we’re going to be okay.” Karai said, eyes wide, surprised; her cheeks were dusted pink and she felt her own heart pick up speed. “Please try not to stress April. Tomorrow is a new day, a proper day, and we can finally spend it together.”
April smiled and knelt down on her bedding.
“Right! Together.” She settled into her sleeping bag, pressing the button for the lights and sighed, gazing up at the ceiling through the dark. “Good night Karai.”
“Good night April.”
Authors Note: I will hopefully try and upload this again soon—I really don’t like the fact that I’ve been so slow—but again it really is an important story and deserves my best efforts; and I guess I’d rather not upload at all if I can’t give it my all, I hope that that makes sense at least?