Z31

Zoe

I found myself on a motorcycle wearing a helmet that drowned out the sound of the wind over my head, clinging to the jacket covered shell of a turtle, flying down the highway at insane speed. While the world whooshed past us I examined the pieces of the puzzle; three turtles, five kids, the sewer, his inhumanity, mine, and then the bizarre fact that none of this felt foreign to me. I slumped against him, rested my head against his jacket, soaking it all in, and felt exhausted.

"You okay?" His voice fills my head through some kind of intercom.

"Yes, just overwhelmed I guess. Tired."

His helmet moves up and down in a curt nod, "We're here."

He pulls onto a long gravel drive, stopping in front of a sleepy old farmhouse. Another vision grabs hold of me as my gaze falls to the porch swing.

The sun was shining, the cushions were green, I couldn't move, and there was blood.

"Hey, come on, I'll uh- show you around."

I follow him through each room of the house and random images, voices, moments would jump out at me. But they were fragments, broken, and missing the spaces in between. The children's toys, the cribs, and the entire basement that he informed me to be ours, those things provoked tender emotions without faces and I hurt to see them. Finally he led me to the barn behind the house and we entered a dojo.

"Sit, anywhere you want. We're gonna do something I hate." He motions around him and I stand staring at him.

"What's that?"

He spits the word out like he hates the taste of it, "Talk."

I laugh and his head whips in my direction, the corner of his mouth quirks upward. "You always did think that was funny."

"Did I?"

He shrugs, "Give or take a few fights."

Picking a fluffy blue mat to sink into I make myself comfortable and sit Indian-style, looking at all the apparatus around me. "So why'd you bring me here to talk? Why not the sewer house, or the farm house?"

"The lair, our home in New York, it's called the lair."

This seems important to him so I give him an accepting nod. "Why not the lair, or in the house here? Why the-"

"Dojo? Well, we could've done this in the dojo at the lair, but if Antonello saw you," he shakes his head, frowns, "it'd tear him up if you didn't remember him." He tightens his mask and sniffs, "and I picked the dojo because it's a special place for both of us. When we're in here I am your Sensei. We train together, and I've taught you things. It's why we met in the first place."

Over the next couple of hours I listen to him tell me a fascinating story, a story of honor, kindness, patience, anger, passion, friendship, birth, family, and home. A story that he clearly adores, one that is apparently ours, one that is full of the best things in life, even within its limits; a story of love.

As he speaks I get a few images, blurs, noises, but that feeling that ache in my chest is spreading throughout me, taking on its own rhythm, one that burns my fingertips with the desire to touch him. One that draws me closer and closer to him as he tells his story, our story, and by the time he explains to me how I was hurt and forgot who I am, my fingers are drifting up to his cheek and tears are slipping freely down his cheeks.

"I thought you were dead Z. Then I thought…" he leans his face against my hand, closes his eyes, "I still might have to let you go. We have to do what's best for the kids."

I close my eyes too, press my forehead to his and just feel him; thin fabric beneath my fingers, breathe him in, cedar and sweat, listen to his rhythmic inhales and exhales, feeling them soothing my fractured heart. My fingers are throbbing, aching to join with him. Merge. Join. Connect. The words flip through my head and my head tilts to the side, my lips seek his, wide, soft, cool. Right. His mouth parts and his tongue lightly brushes my lips and I part my own, feel the thick smooth muscle wrap around mine and my mind falls blank, encased in a sea of emotion urging me to get as close to him as I can get and... to let go.

"Five kids?" I whisper against his lips.

He hums into my mouth a mumbled confirmation, as I savor the sweetness of him, seeking more. My eyes open, I move my lips from his mouth to his cheek, relishing the feel of pebble smooth scales beneath them. He's slow to move and I see he's hesitant. His eyes meet mine and I see it, a wildfire, one that reaches into me and wants to pull me forth with ferocity. One that I realize I would enjoy, one that would provoke me to live with fight in my gut and strength in my heart, "Love me Raphael. Help me find you, somehow. Help me. I'm lost."

His lips find mine again, delicious, wet kisses, hot with breath, needy, perhaps desperate, and I think not only for the body but for the connection; the soul reaching embrace that will surely come of such a joining. His hand slips through my hair, his fingers run the length of the jagged scar across my scalp, I trace the one over his lip, am compelled to remove his mask. He lets me, and I look to the material in my palm. Red, scrap of fabric. Red, passion, fire. And the images rain over me, "I held this, the night we… made a…" Images of him over me, his mask in my hand, "baby."

He chuckles and the sound stirs more memories when he tells me, "that would be, babies, as in three."

My lips are swollen from his kisses and I want more, I want him to reach into me and pull me free from this shadow I'm tipping in and out of. "Will you, touch me?"

He sighs, rubs a hand over his face, "God, Zoe, I want to do everything we do, but you don't even know me. It ain't," he sniffs, looks away, his voice dropping, "it ain't right."

"You say I'm an empath. That my hands, I used to reach you with my hands." I hold them out, "Is that why they're hurting so bad? Because they didn't until I got near you and now they hurt so bad, and there's this pain in my chest, in my… heart. And my body and mind, they're screaming at me to get as close to you as two beings can get." A knot hits my throat and his eyes fly up to meet mine. The question falls from my lips, "Do you love me?"

He does not hesitate, looks me in the eye. "Yes. Till my dying breath."

I nod, "Then help me remember you. Help me find my way back." Tears slide down the bridge of my nose off the side of my cheek, "Even if it's weird. I just want the ache to stop. Because it hurts…" I press my lips together struggling to contain the rising tide within me, the pressure in my chest that something supernatural is surfing the crest of, determined to break free.

He wipes away my tears, kisses my lips, whispers to the crook of my neck, "I can't, you-" he clears his throat and the vibration tickles but I press myself closer to him, breathe him in. "You smell, really," he exhales long and low, the air ghosting my flesh, raising the hairs on my neck. "Really, really- oh, fuck it." He tips his head snatching my lips up with his, his hands grabbing the hem of my shirt yanking it over my head only to press his mouth to mine again. My heart is slamming against my breast the energy rushing through me reaching my extremities, flooding my core leaving my center wet and eager.

"Raphael," I whimper.

He growls then stops himself, alarmed eyes searching my face. "Am I scaring you?"

I'm trembling, the electric thrumming of my pulse mixed with this static energy slams against my insides and I shake my head, "No." I reach up to stroke his cheek, "Not at all."

He shifts above me, tugs at the waistband of my pants, "These've gotta go."

I lift my hips, press them up and feel something smooth and thick brush my hand. Wiggling my pants off beneath him while he breathes into my neck, his teeth grazing my shoulder, I move my hand toward that thickness. His breath hitches as I stroke the thick ridged muscle that tapers at the end, his tail. My fingers glide up to where his length has extended and he reaches between us, growls as he finds my panties and tears them quickly, throwing them away before sliding a finger over my center. He finds me wet and a sound rises from his plastron, it vibrates, reminds me of a cats purr with ch to it. He stops that too, whispers against my lips, "S'that bother you? You always-"

"No. Just be you," I shift my hips up seeking him, grabbing his hand in mine, lowering them together to guide him into me. I can feel his fingers, his length, my fingers, his tail, my body opening to him, drawing him into my depths.

He hisses as he draws himself in and out and I tighten around him, eager for him to drive in deeper, wanting to lose myself in the exquisite, agonizing pressure and taunting rhythm. With our hands still intertwined, I drift inside my body, the energies are combined, feeding into each other, hearts beating in unity, breathing as one, there is no ending and no beginning, just us…

Just us.

It feels like we have merged… like some unbreakable bond has been forged and nothing else in the world matters…

The memory of our first lovemaking reaches me, and both forward and back the memories flow one motion unfolding into another, in beautiful cadence; the ripples turns to waves, the waves to a cresting tide, ebbing and flowing, and he is with me, holding me, carrying me… Only there isn't just us, there are five little faces to which I can now put names, even personalities, even how they got those names, and who gave them to them. I can remember their births, their creation, forwards, backwards, my life not only fills the void but mends the fracture in my heart and quells the ache, and I am full at last; complete as he shudders within me, coated in sweat, slick and wet, lips locked, hands intertwined, eyes open and gazing, fire and light burning in them, our bodies still joined. He's found me, pulled me from my darkness and for the graces of knowing him in every way possible, I am whole, complete, he is my other half and we are one.

He kisses my lips, runs his tongue over a bite I never felt, "Sorry, that part wasn't supposed to happen."

I grab the sides of his head, pull him to me and kiss him with a ferocity usually reserved for him. "You found me Raph."

He slides his palms over mine, squeezes my fingers, presses his lips to mine again and I taste his tears. "I know, I'm just sorry I waited so damn long to come for you."

We lay connected to each other, make love again, sleep in each other's arms until morning light creeps in through the spaces between the boards; tiny, heatless rays gracing his rippled green flesh. I lay looking up at him, his arm my pillow. "I love you Raphael. You and everything we have together. Everything. Every scar, every fight, every sibling, every home, every child, I love where we are together and every step that we've taken to get us here. I wouldn't change a thing and I-"

He presses his lips to mine then whispers against my lips, "Shut it Z, you're killin' me." He gives me a squeeze, kisses the top of my head. "I love you too Zoe, and all that other stuff-" He squeezes me again. "Yeah, all of it."

"Raphael?"

"Yeah?"

"Let's go home."

"Zoe."

"Yeah?"

"Don't you know?"

"What?"

"Home is wherever you and I are together."

A/N: Thank you to every reader that has supported and encouraged me to continue writing this story. I'm so glad that my first fan fic ever turned into a series that you enjoyed. I look forward to writing more for you in the future. :)