Brothers

Chapter 3

Ollie Ollie Oxen free" Mikey shouted out gleefully, trying to see who was home, as he walked through the elevator doors leading down in to their lair.

"Jeez, Mike could you have yelled any louder?" Don asked bring a hand up to rub his ringing ear.

"Yeah do you want me to?"

"No! Now help me put the stuff we got into my lab." Donatello walked off carrying what looked like to Mikey a big metal cat. But he wasn't about to voice his thoughts, knowing that doing so would insure a Donny rant.

"Aw, but I wanted to see if Raph gets in trouble for going topside," he whined. Actually, by now it was early morning and he knew that Saturday cartoons were on.

"Michelangelo!"

"Fine, fine! I'm coming, keep your shell on" Mikey hefted the box up higher and started after Don, hoping to just sneak the box into his lab and disappear to the entertainment center, before Don found something else for him to do. Unfortunately it was not to be.

As soon as he snuck out of Don's lab he heard the elevator open up. "Great," he murmured to himself. "Knowing those two, they will be yelling at each other, or one or the other will be hurt." Mikey paused. "You know come to think of it, they should have been back already." Now that thought drove Mikey into a mild panic and he walked towards the doors. By now if everything was normal he should have heard Raph yelling. His voice was loud enough that when he was mad you could hear it through the doors, but it was quiet and that usually meant someone was hurt.

He stood in front of the elevator, waiting until it opened all the way before he stepped back letting his brothers through. This is new. Both of his brothers were quiet. Wait, what?...he took a second glance. Leo was holding a kid. "What the shell?" he breathed out. Why did Leo and Raph bring a kid down here? I thought that we were supposed to take kids to the police if they weren't hurt. He thought.

"How in the world did you mess up so bad that Leo thought he should bring a human kid home?" Mikey asked Raph, thinking that his hot-headed brother had messed up, and did something really bad. He jogged up behind Raph as they both followed Leo to the entertainment center.

"Hey! Fer once it wasn't my fault, Leo here knows this kid and decided to bring him here instead of taking him home." Raph shot back at Mikey, a little miffed that he was always the first to blame when something went wrong, well actually second to blame, Mikey was first.

"I can't take him home, Raph" Leo replied, interrupting Mikey's next question "its thousands of miles away." Leo set Tomas gently down onto the threadbare couch and covered him with a blanket." Mikey could you make him something to eat? Actually, you might as well make breakfast for everyone." Leo paused, adjusting Tomas to a comfortable position. "Did you and Don get what he needed from the dump?"Leo rubbed his temples, a sign to everyone that he was getting a headache.

"Well, I'm not sure. But Donny seemed pleased with the junk we brought home." Mike responded rubbing the back of his neck a little sheepishly.

Leo nodded "I understand," he said "I'll go ask him, and bring him down here. Then I will explain everything" he turned around and headed towards the work room, where they could hear metal being pounded.

Raph snorted, following Mikey into the kitchen "what... can't tell a carburetor from a circuitry board," he asked.

"Well no. Wait, how did you know he was looking for a cictry... circ that thing" Mikey asked getting a kettle down for tea.

"I heard him grumbling about it before I snuck out." Raph replied getting out the eggs and tossing them to Mike.

Michelangelo caught the eggs, and turned around and began to make breakfast "Psshh, yeah snuck out! The entire family knew you were going out, Raph"

"Well at least I can tell the difference between a carburetor and a circuitry board!"

"Raph, the only reason you can tell the difference is because one of them relates to vehicles," Leo commented coming into the kitchen. "Don will be here in a few minutes he just needs to finish up."

"So what's the deal with this kid," Raph asked sitting down at the table. "How do you know him and since when could you speak Spanish?"

"Wait, you can speak Spanish?" Mikey asked dumbfounded.

Leonardo looked up from where he had been making the tea and raised his eyebrows. "You guys, I spent almost two years in Central America, and I did go there to learn, you know!"

"Well yeah, but I just thought you trained all day, or meditated." Mikey cracked open an egg, and tossed the shell towards Leo who opened the trash lid. Five more shells soon followed the first. "Master Splinter said he felt your presence a lot when he was meditating"

Well yeah, I did med... Wait, Master Splinter saw me on the astral plane? Why didn't he come and talk to me?"

"We asked" Raph replied sitting down at the table, "but he said that you were there to learn, and needed to do stuff on your own. He didn't want to interfere in what you might be learning."

"But I called for him!" Leo had raised his voice in disbelief. "There were a couple of times I needed his help, but I could never find him! Are you saying he deliberately hid his presence from me?" Leo almost shouted.

"Sounds like it bro, but hey, you're here now, so it worked out ok, right?" Mikey responded from the stove waving the spatula around, accidently flinging a bit of eggs towards Raph who had to duck in order to avoid it. "Oops! Sorry bro," Mikey said hastily before returning to the eggs.

Raph glared at him, then turned towards Leo, who had been muttering something under his breath.

"What did you just say, Fearless?" Raph asked, too tired to get angry at Mikey for flinging egg at him.

Before Leo could say anything, a startled scream came from the living room. A rush of green ran to where they had heard the noise.

There, in the living room, Tomas was backed up against the couch with Donny nervously in front of him holding his bo out in a defensive position.

"Donatello! It's ok! He's a friend. I brought him here. Put your bo down." Leo said calmly once he saw the situation. He berated himself for not telling Donatello about the boy in the living room and causing undue panic.

Don glanced at Leo before spinning his bo back in its holder, behind his back. As soon as he did Tomas jumped up and ran towards Leonardo, hiding behind him nervously glancing around Leo's legs looking around the lair, his nervousness quickly changing to curiosity.

"Leo, what's going on?" Donatello asked. "What is that boy doing down here?" he continued, when Leo didn't answer fast enough in his opinion.

Leo opened his mouth to answer, but before he could talk, a soft grumbling could be heard. Leo glanced behind him where Tomas was rubbing his tummy, sheepishly glancing up at Leo. He smiled softly before speaking softly, but fluently in Spanish to Tomas. Tomas answered back quickly. Donny and Mikey, never having heard Leo speak in Spanish before, stared in wonder. Leo looked up after Tomas finished speaking. "Let's all have breakfast and then I will explain how I know Tomas and then I will answer all your questions."