Disclaimer: I don't own anything

NOTE WARNING: This is a dark fic. This is not "Raphael Gets and Owie" or "Leonardo Reads the Paper" or "Michelangelo's Favorite Pizza". People die. People live. Dark stuff happens, including rape allusions, nudity, and a M/F scene towards the end (which, despite everything, is a happy ending.)

Master Splinter frowned at the crushed can that peeked out from a corner. Michelangelo had been better about picking up the crushed cans and trash around the lair lately, but apparently in their haste to go fetch pizza, he had missed that one. It was singularly annoying that his sons did not share his penchant for neatness and orderliness. Didn't they know that trash laying around was a magnet for rats?

Other rats, anyway.

Splinter stretched out of his lotus position and crept over to the trash. The lair seemed absolutely silent with the turtles out—well, aside from the hissing and rumbling and shushing of the pipes above and the trickle of the sewers outside. So, on silent padded paws he picked up the can.

Then he saw another one—a bright scarlet Coke can—over by the door. He really needed to remind them about neatness. Michelangelo was to take out the trash. Leonardo was to sweep and mop. Raphael was to make sure that the refrigerator was cleaned out and the kitchen was tidy. Donatello was to take care of the vehicles and the storage areas—particularly his laboratory area. Everyone had a task and everyone worked together to keep the lair clean and livable.

Another voice in his head argued that Mikey had been absolutely overjoyed in the past few weeks to take the trash and—Donatello insisted—recycling up to the surface and dispose of it. Such joyful enthusiasm in one's chores was something wasn't it?

Splinter stood there silently, arguing with himself whether or not to punish Mikey when a tiny hand wrapped in black cloth poked inside and grabbed the can. Splinter instantly hunched down, ready for attack, but nothing came. No Foot soldiers. No Shredder or mutants. Only a soft patter of feet going away.

Curious, Splinter leapt to the overhead pipes which offered a delightful maze of shade and shadows to hide in and crept out to peek at the intruder. A willowy figure wrapped in an improbable combination of hoodie, oversized pants, and gloves walked quietly—though not ninja quietly—along the wall to a maintenance shaft. From there, the figure pulled out several gray trash bags and then walked on.

Splinter's whiskers twitched. Donnie had found the gray bags which promised to be recycled, recyclable and biodegradable and had impatiently forced all of the recycling to go into them. It was unlikely that this was a chance meeting of someone trying to pick up trash and clean out the sewers.

Or was it? Splinter followed behind the figure and watched as the figure wound through the sewers and then looped the tied bags over the shoulder to climb a manhole cover ladder. It was a familiar cover—near a recycling facility that was very close to TGRI labs. He waited for a few moments as the figure wrestled with the bags and finally got them up to the surface. He waited longer, peeking through a vent to see if someone was waiting.

The was no one, only the figure pulling the bags down the alley.

He finally crept out, following the figure at a distance. She often stopped and looked around fearfully, but she kept a steady pace to the center. A bored guard greeted her and took the bags. They disappeared for a moment and then she reappeared later with a few bills.

Splinter ducked behind a dumpster, waiting for her to pass. She was trying hard not to run, and stumbled to the cover where she climbed down again.

Then nothing. For five, ten minutes, there was nothing. The lab was closed—no one came in and out on a Sunday—the center behind him closed and the bored guard began fiddling with some kind of electronic device as the gates closed. His fellow rats crept out around his feet, looking for food.

He sighed and crept back down himself. The figure was gone. Worried and whiskers twitching, he slid back to the lair. No one was there. Nothing had been disturbed.

Nothing except for Splinter's peace of mind.