Chapter Text
The room was full of smoke, choking her lungs as she stayed as low as she could. She could feel the heat of the flames closing in on her and he unseeing eyes burned from ashes that flared all around her.
"Momma! Papa! Help me!" She could only cry as she curled in the corner, her hands reaching out a few times only to yank them back as she felt the flames lick at her. She felt tears streaming down her face as fear coursed through her. "Momma! Papa! Wh-where are you!?" She coughed between shouts.
The roaring flames made it difficult for any replies to reach her. She couldn't hear anything but that.
Suddenly there was a crash of smashing glass, making her jump and she felt some rain down on her. She heard wood breaking and groaning. She heard the door to her room slam against the wall and a shout of pain and fear finally reached her ears.
"El-Elena! Where are you?! Elena!" She finally heard her father yelling over the roaring sound.
Her head snapped up towards her father's voice and she rose to her knees. "Papa! Papa!" She cried, hands reaching out, only to yank back from the flaring pain of heat probably only a few feet from her. She cringed deeper into the corner of the burning room.
"Elena! Don't move! I see you! Honey, for god's sake, do not move!" Her father cried to her.
She nodded weakly, darkened eyes searching for what she knew she couldn't see. "Wh-where is Momma?! Wh-what happened?! Why is our home on fire?!" She cried fearfully.
"Mommy's right here, honey!" She heard her mother call. "Now isn't the time to discuss it! You need to stay right there! There are firemen coming to you!"
"Bu-but what about you?!" She cried fear in her voice.
"We will be fine, Baby! We will just fine! No matter what happens, we will be together again! We love you so much, honey! Always, always remember that! But you just need to stay right there!" Her father called, his voice breaking weakly.
A lie. She knew it was a lie. Her father was a terrible liar.
"Papa!" She cried shakily before she heard breaking glass and felt heavy gloved hands grab her. She screamed and started sobbing and crying for her mother and father as she was dragged out into a high basket of a fire truck.
A few moments later, she heard the dreaded sound of the building collapsing. And she screamed, knowing her parents were still inside.
And then Eleanor Harker woke up.
Gasping and sobbing at once, Eleanor, who went by Elena, sat up, clutching her worn sheets. She saw only darkness, which was normal for her. It had been since she could remember, having lost her sight when she was a baby. But she remembered those dreams, could almost see them in her mind's eyes. She remembered the feeling of the flames burning her skin, remembered those horrific screams. It was a nightmare she relived every few weeks, months if she was lucky.
But to dream that horrible dream of her parents' death in a terrible fire, she hated it.
At nine years of age, nine years ago, Elena had lost both of her parents, Adam and Jeanette Harker, leaving her orphaned and living with a not so nice uncle, Vincent Harker. And being blind to top it all made her life even more miserable.
For seven years, Elena lived with her uncle, who mostly ignored her unless she did something he didn't like. For seven years she was forced to go to a Boarding School and now that she was eighteen and graduated from school, she lived in a ratty apartment in New York City. Yet, even as she was graduated with Honors, she had a crappy job as a telemarketer and she had to go to Night School, even if it was for a couple hours.
Not very many jobs out there would hire a blind girl and her uncle refused to help her pay for the real college she wanted to go to. He told her she had to earn her own income to pay for College.
Elena sighed as she rubbed at her darkened but weary eyes as she shifted her bed sheets and reached blindly for her clock she kept on the bed side table to see the time. She had bought one of the clocks that read out the time with a push of a button, due to her disability. And those things didn't come cheap.
"The time is, three oh nine." The electronic voice rang out for her.
Grimacing, Elena knew it was time to get up, even though she had only ten minutes longer before her alarm went off. She had work at five and it took a little bit of a walk to get to the bus stop as it was, as well as beating the city traffic.
Climbing out of bed, she began moving about, now knowing every inch of her apartment after living there for half a year. She had made sure to memorize it all so she didn't bump into anything. The first week in her apartment had been a nightmare for that.
Elena Harker, age 18, soon to be 19, was a pretty girl, as everyone always told her. She didn't know her own face, other than what she felt with her own hands but she had plenty of people tell her she was pretty, for a blind girl. She had short blonde hair, which she kept short for easier handling. Her eyes were a deep blue but with a hint of milky white which stated her obvious blindness. She had a good frame, slender and yet curved in all of the right places. She knew she was at least 5'6", according to her usual doctor.
Though she was blind, she did amaze people with her skills as a violinist. She had been playing the violin since she was very young and it was not common for many to know a blind violinist. She was very good at it and did want to make a career out of it.
The problem was, not many musical talent agencies would give her a chance because of her blindness. Elena hated to admit it but she sometimes had to, her life was not an easy one for her. She did have few friends but not many. Mostly they were her coworkers. But she was sure they were just sympathetic towards her and that was why they were friends with her.
It wasn't long before she was stepping out of her apartment complex and onto a busy sidewalk with her four foot long blind stick in hand, tapping it against the ground as she began walking.
Though, even as she walked down the side walk, what she didn't know was she was being followed.
As soon as Elena arrived at work, T. C' s Telemarketing she was assaulted with the sounds of many voices of her coworkers making the annoying calls and typing at their computers. She merely smiled faintly as she tapped the ground with her blind stick, making her way to her booth where she worked.
"Elena, five feet ahead, mail cart." Someone spoke up with a thick Brooklyn-ish accent as she heard approaching feet.
Elena stopped when she felt her stick tap against something. She smiled, turning her head towards the one who spoke.
One of her few real friends, Casey, was the type of guy who did not give sympathy when it was not wanted but he treated her respectfully enough. He was older than her by a good ten years. And while Elena had never seen his face with her own eyes, she knew his description well. He had been one of the few people who had let her feel his face to imprint his image into her memory.
He was 29 years old, roguishly good looking, if not a little gruff. He did have a strong chiseled face with high cheek bones. His ginger brown hair was long enough to pull back into a pony tail, which was how he mostly wore it. He was a good deal taller than Elena by several inches, at 5'10". His eyes were dark brown and always full of mischievousness, though Elena never saw it. She picked it up in his energetic ways, though. She could almost feel his emotions very easily when he was around her. And he always had the hint of a trickster.
"Morning, Lovely. How's the night classes treating ya?" Casey asked as he sidled up to her and lightly touched her arm to let her know he was there.
Elena smiled in his direction but shook her head. "Honestly, not bad. It is kind of difficult but not too terrible. I put in a few good hours last night. Finals will be coming up soon." She told him as she felt him starting to guide her around the obstacle in her path.
"Yeah? What time did you finally pull your nose away from that computer?" Casey asked humorously.
Grimacing, Elena truly didn't want to answer that. She knew fairly well that Casey didn't like the idea of her being out so late on the streets of New York. He always offered to walk her home, always willing to go out of his way to make sure she arrived safely and didn't have trouble. But she didn't want to be a bother to him.
"Let me guess." Casey said now seriously. "Five A.M?"
Elena scowled in his direction, now pinching his arm lightly. "You followed me home again, didn't you?" She asked frowning.
Casey shrugged at her side. "Okay, okay. I won't deny it. I did. I wanted to make sure you got home okay. Your part of town is dangerous, Elena. For anyone. And I don't to see you getting hurt." He told her.
Elena rolled her unseeing eyes but smiled. She knew that her neighborhood wasn't safe. No part of New York City is safe anymore. Not these days. And for someone blind, especially a woman like her, it was downright dangerous. "Thanks for looking out for me, Casey. But I will be fine. I haven't had trouble." She told him.
"The keyword is yet." Casey said blankly.
And Elena smacked his arm, a light laugh escaping her. She knew she should take him seriously but she honestly couldn't see why anyone would want to bug a blind girl like her.
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Far below the streets of New York, in the somewhat dank and dark sewers, another person was getting a concerned lecture on nightly outings.
While not many people knew what was hidden below their very feet, a certain reporter did know the most hidden secret of New York. She did her best to make sure that no one found out about them but it just didn't help that a certain hothead Ninja just couldn't help himself.
"Raph! What happened last night?! You sent five guys to the hospital with numerous fractures all over their bodies!" April O'Neal said too excited and not in a good way.
Sending the gorgeous dark haired woman a look, the nearly 6'3" creature shook his head as he ate a slice of hot pepperoni pizza she tended to bring him and his brothers all of the time, since it was their favorite food.
"Don't start, April. They were stalking human girls for weeks. And I wasn' about to let them get away with jumping that one last night." Raphael grumbled as he chewed a mouthful.
The other occupants of the room, minus one, who was too enthralled with the comic books April started bringing for him, all scowled.
"Raph, we have to be careful. You know what would happen if our secret was blown."
"Oh, shut it, Leo! I was doing what we promised we would do! Protecting citizens! So what if a couple of jerk offs got roughed up! It ain't like they saw me!" Raphael, the red wearing, 6'3" mutant, talking, humanoid turtle scowled right back to his slightly smaller brother.
April unfolded the newspaper she held in her hand and slapped it down right in front of Raphael. "Oh, that's where you're wrong, Raph! One of the guys you beat up swears he saw a giant of a karate guy dressed up in a turtle costume throw him into a bunch of trash cans." She said before jabbing the paper to show the article.
"They were all drunk, April! Like anybody would believe them anyway!" Raphael shot back.
"Raphael." came the serious speaking voice of the oldest occupant.
Unlike Raphael and his three brothers, this one was a large, mutant rat. He was grizzled gray and brown from his age now and unlike his adopted sons he took care of since they became mutations, he wore clothes. He wore a somewhat raggy Chinese outfit, a fukata; a blue Chinese robe like shirt and worn brown trousers that emitted a long whip like tail from a slit behind.
Raphael huffed in irritation but respectfully stood up to face his master and father. "Yes, Master Splinter?" He asked lowly.
Splinter looked at him with his dark eyes, rather sternly. "You must show more restraint and control in yourself. The fact that one was able to see you or even tell others is concerning. You must not go too extreme when you are patrolling the city. And you must not go alone anymore." He said firmly. "The city is not ready for our revealing if ever. Only April O'Neal and her colleague, Vernon must know of us."
Blowing out a huff again but nodding, Raphael stood up straight and then bowed in respect to him. "All right, I will." He said gruffly before turning and starting to leave.
"Raph, where are you going?" Leonardo asked still irritated with his brother.
Raphael growled shooting him a look. "I am going to check out the south end, is that okay with you?" He shot before leaving before anyone could stop him.
Sighing, a few heads shook in irritation.
"Man, we have got to work on his people skills." It was Donatello who spoke up as he went to his collection of computers and began working again. He made sure to pull up a security screen that showed Raphael stomping down the sewer tunnels.
"What are we going to do about him? Why is he being like that?" April asked sighing and folding her arms.
Michelangelo snorted from where he was reading a comic about the Avengers. "Raph is always like that, beautiful. I think he's just bored because we haven't see any Foot around since we tossed Armored Ugly off that tower months ago. We all are." He said before grinning. "Man, this Captain guy is pretty lame! I think I like the Iron Man guy more! He at least has a sense of humor!"
Everyone rolled their eyes as they watched Mikey dig into to more pizza and reading.
"I don't see the whole big deal! So I beat up some guys! And one saw me!" Raphael grumbled to himself as he kicked some can across the dirty sewer ground.
He was so angry about getting a lecture about the whole thing. He was just trying to keep a bunch of guys attacking girls. There had been a rise in that kind of crime lately. He didn't like it when he heard about stuff like that.
True, he knew he should have been more careful with......
Suddenly something dropped down from behind him and clattered against the ground and years of training sent him on edge, turning with a jerk and whipping his Psis for any sign of trouble.
"Oh no! You have got to be kidding me!" He heard a girl's voice from a high grate just above.
"Hey, asshole! Watch where you're going?! Can't ya see she was walking there?!" A man's voice snapped, slightly muffled from the thick concrete. "Hey, ya okay?"
"Yes but I dropped my stick! I think it went down into the sewers!" The girl's voice rang out, now directly into the grate. She was obviously trying to peer down into the sewers to find whatever she lost.
Frowning, Raphael quietly went over to what fell and found a long stick with a leather strap in one end. He stared at it for a moment then looked back up to see a silhouette of someone on top of the grate, moving their hands around as if searching for something. He could see that it was a girl and she looked frustrated as she searched frantically all over the grate.
"Ugh!" The girl whined softly as she pushed her fingers into the grate as if trying to reach for the stick. "Maaaan, I just replaced my old blind stick too! After that last one broke because of those guys on the bus!"
"I don't think you're going to get it back, Elena. Those sewer drains are pretty deep and unless we can get a city worker over here, it's lost." The man's voice rang out. It sounded like he was just behind the girl, out of view.
The girl sighed heavily and in defeat. "But I need my blind stick! We can't just put off lunch just to get to the store to buy another one. How am I going to get home tonight? And I am not about to ask you to lead me around just because I flipping useless being blind!" She exclaimed in frustration.
"Dude, Elena! You are not useless! Quit putting yourself down like that! And I don't have a problem taking you home after work." The man spoke again.
Raphael frowned as he listened to the conversation before he bent down and picked up the stick. He turned his yellowish green eyes up, seeing the girl still checking the grate openings before lifting it up towards her searching fingers. He made sure the strap was facing upward so her fingers could feel them. And sure enough, the girl's fingers brushed against the strap and her face obviously lit up as she scrambled for the strap.
"Hey! I got it! It must have caught onto something!" She said happily now carefully lifting up the stick right out of Raph's hand.
"What?! Seriously?! Talking about lucky!" The man said sounding amused as she pulled it carefully up and out of the grate.
Raphael watched the girl pull it out then check the stick over with just her hands. He didn't know too much about blind humans but it was obvious that she was really reliant on that stick.
Shrugging to himself, the mutant turtle listened to the girl breath in relief as she found nothing wrong with her blind stick before he turned and kept walking on. He did feel slightly better with himself as he wandered on to make his checks. He wasn't so angry now that he helped someone who seemed to really need it. Even if it was just one simple thing like that.