Work Text:
Please Don't Cross The Road
by Pirate Turner
All his other children were fast asleep around him, but Michelangelo kept his eyes wide open. "Mikey?" Splinter asked the small turtle, cupping a furry, loving paw around his tiny shell. "Are you not sleepy, my son?"
"No," Mikey answered slowly, but Splinter knew he was stifling a yawn.
"What troubles you?"
"I was just thinking." Splinter felt Mikey's small, green tail gradually wag.
"About what?"
"Somethin' Raph said today."
"What did he say?"
"He asked me somethin', but I didn't know the answer and he wouldn't tell me."
"I'm sorry he wouldn't tell you."
"And he laughed at me."
"I'm sorry," Splinter said truthfully, his tail swishing. "He shouldn't have done that. I'll talk to him about it tomorrow." He rubbed his paw in soothing circles on Michelangelo's shell. "What was the question? Perhaps I know the answer."
He smiled upon hearing Mikey's countenance brighten in his voice. "I bet you do!" The turtle child's tail wagged excitedly. "Why did the chicken cross the road?"
"That was his question?"
"Uh huh."
He would certainly have to talk to Raphael. The boy was somehow managing to slip up to the surface world, from which no good could come.
"Maser Spliner?"
"Hmm?"
"Do you know the answer?"
"Well, my son, that is a very old question with many different answers, but the true question is not so much why the chicken crossed the road as it is what was waiting for him on the other side. You see," he continued, his wise and gentle voice slowly lulling Michelangelo's eyes closed, "crossing the road is a very dangerous thing, and it changes everything in a chicken's, or a turtle's or even a rat's, life."
Mikey yawned. His tail gave another, slower wag. "It's that big a deal, huh?"
"Yes, and perhaps more so. The chicken may not make it all the way across the road, but once he starts, he might also not be able to stop. Everything he knows changes in that trip across the road."
"It's gotta be something way impotant for him to wanna go, huh?"
"Yes."
"Why would he want to go?"
"I suppose that would depend on the chicken," Splinter mused as Mikey hugged him a little tighter. "If you were a chicken, why would you go across the road?"
"For you," Mikey murmured quietly and simply. His eyes shut, but then, after a moment, he asked, "Maser Spliner, what's a road?"
His words were barely audible, but Splinter braced himself for the answer he knew he'd have to give. His children were too young to know about the above world and its true dangers. He knew they'd have to find out eventually, but he wanted to hold that day at bay forever. His silent prayer was answered as Mikey suddenly snored, saving him from having to tell him of the horrors above for one more day at least. Splinter smiled and slept with his sons clinging to him as he hoped they would forever but knew they one day wouldn't.
The End