Terms of Allegiance

Part One: Suspicions

He was being pulled slowly but insistently from oblivion to awareness.

Distinctly, he heard Michelangelo say, "I think he's waking up."

With great effort, he opened his eyes. The haze of faces shifted and slowly came into focus. He was lying on his bed and his whole family was crowded into the narrow confines of his room. They were looking at him anxiously. Finally Mike asked, "How do you feel Raph?"

He thought about it. He felt heavy and sluggish. "Okay, I guess," he said slowly. His tongue felt like cotton moving in his mouth. He struggled to recall what had happened, why he was here. He started to sit up and was pushed back down gently. "Easy, Raphael," Splinter ordered. "Do not overexert yourself."

He rubbed his eyes. They ached. "What happened?"

"You were knocked out in the fight," Donatello explained. "Do you remember?"

He did now. It had been an ambush. They had been tailing two members of the self-proclaimed Big Toe, a small clan of ex-Foot ninjas. The weakened New York Foot Clan was fracturing; pockets of deserters banded together, causing as much crime as the old Clan and fighting each other for territory. The one thing they shared was their sentiment towards the killers of Oruku Saki. The ninja that had attacked Raphael and his brothers had outnumbered them but were relatively inexperienced fighters; scrappy, but sloppy. Raphael remembered facing off against a couple of them. That was where clarity ended.

"How long have I been out?" he asked, the sting of embarrassment in his voice.

"Over a day," Don answered, looking at him steadily.

"What time is it?"

"Two-thirty in the morning."

"Geez." They must have hit him hard. He looked at each of his brothers in turn, but they seemed uninjured, except for Donatello, who had a gauze bandage near his hip. They looked tired, though. All of them, even Splinter, wore expressions of mingled exhaustion and relief. And a hint of something else. Something like fear.

"Is everything okay?" he asked uncertainly.

"Sure Raph," Mike smiled at him. "I've got some soup waiting for you."

"Why do I feel so weird?" His words slurred.

"You've probably got a concussion," Don said. "Be sure to take it easy for the next few days."

"We should let him rest," Leo suggested from the back of the room, speaking for the first time. Splinter nodded in grave agreement. They left him with instructions to lie still as much as possible. Still groggy, he had no trouble falling asleep.

###

The next day, he was up and moving about, though he felt a little weaker than usual. Over a hefty breakfast, he asked, "So what did I miss?"

Don filled him in. "Not much. We trounced most of them, and the rest took off. We didn't follow because we had to get you home."

Raphael glowered and shook his head in rare consternation. "I can't believe it. I must've been sleep-fighting to get caught off guard like that." He felt the back of his head, relieved not to find any swelling or pain. No damage anywhere else either, except for some sore muscles in his abdomen. "Did anyone see how it happened?"

Mike shook his head. "It happened really fast." He shrugged, then clapped his brother on the shell. "C'mon, you know how it is. Just takes a split second of not being totally on top of things. Could've happened to any of us."

He joined his brothers in afternoon practice. Splinter's furry eyebrows rose a notch when he came into the training room. "Do not feel obligated to train today if you do not feel up for it, Raphael," the Master said.

"I'm up for it." He gave his sais a warm-up twirl. "I feel fine."

"Are you sure?" Leo asked.

"I said yeah already," Raph snapped.

He was surprised at how quickly he got winded. After a few minutes, he felt fatigue setting in and cursed under his breath. Maybe he'd been hurt a bit worse than he'd figured, but still...

To his relief, Splinter moved them into some simple drills and breathing exercises. Reluctantly, he followed the Master's order to sit out the next set of sparring matches. Just as he was regaining his energy, Splinter called an early end to the session.

They bowed their way out of the training room and Raph, his mood soured, dropped himself onto the couch in front of the TV. The remote didn't work. He took the back cover off and jiggled the batteries, but no luck. Grumbling, he went up to turn on the TV manually, but the screen remained blank.

"Don!" he hollered. "The TV's broken!"

"Yeah, I know," Donatello answered, not looking up from his book. "We discovered that yesterday."

"Can you fix it?"

"I tried already. I don't think I can without getting new parts. The bulb's blown."

"You mean we've got to get a new set?"

Don shrugged. "Probably. I'll play with it a bit more later."

"Stupid piece of garbage." Raph scowled.

Donatello glanced at his brother. "You'll live without TV, Raph," he said stiffly.

###

April came by later in the day. She hugged Raphael tightly when she saw him. "I heard about what happened," she said, sounding a little choked. "I'm glad you're okay."

"Hey, no worries," he said, patting her back awkwardly. "It wasn't a big deal."

"Yeah, but still," she said, letting go of him reluctantly, "it's good to see you." Raph was startled to see her eyes glistening. She turned away quickly and busied herself with unpacking a sack of groceries she'd brought for them.

Perhaps there was something bothering her. He looked for a chance to ask, but then decided he must have been mistaken. April stayed for dinner and seemed fine for the rest of the evening. They dined on Mike's lasagna and played Risk afterwards. She joked and laughed with them like she always did, though once he caught her looking at him thoughtfully.

###

The next couple of days passed uneventfully. "Shouldn't we be topside checking out what's going on with those Big Toe punks?" Raph asked one evening. He was surprised no one else had mentioned it.

"Well, we haven't heard any suspicious news. Maybe they're laying low right now," Leo suggested.

"Of course we haven't heard any news. Our friggin' TV is busted."

Leo looked surprised. "April would have passed on anything she heard," he said.

"Well, we can't depend on April for everything," he countered. His voice took on a challenging tone that he knew Leo hated. "We could be doing something other than just sitting on our asses."

"Like what?" Leo asked calmly.

"We should at least go out and see," Raph insisted. Other than their regular jogs through the tunnels, he hadn't left the lair for days. To be honest, he hadn't really felt up to it before today, but now he was itching to hit the streets.

"Maybe later," Leo replied, turning back to polishing his katana.

Raphael grabbed his trench coat and shrugged it on.

Leo looked up. "What are you doing?"

"Going out."

Leonardo moved abruptly into Raph's path. "I don't think that's a good idea," he said in a flat voice that made it clear that he was not just voicing opinion.

"I didn't ask you to come." Raph made a motion to shove past him.

Leonardo shifted to block his way again. A strange look has come over his face. "Raph," he said earnestly, "you really shouldn't. I mean, you're still not up to par after-"

"Bullshit."

"-and there may still be Foot soldiers, or ex-Foot-"

"You just said they were laying low," Raph refuted.

"I said they might be laying low." The familiar tone of angry authority had crept into Leo's voice.

Raph's reflexive response would have been to push his meddling sibling aside and storm through the door. He tensed, ready to do just that, but was struck by the oddness of the situation. True, he and Leonardo butted heads on all manner to things, but this was ridiculous. He stepped back, fists balling. "So what is this, Leo? I'm under house arrest, is that it?"

Leonardo stared at him. "Of course not," he said, strangely monotone. "It's just I – I don't want you getting into any scraps tonight."

The oddness gnawed at him. Something Leo wasn't telling him. "Okay," he said slowly, forcing his fists to unclench inside his pockets. "No fights. I'm just gonna go up, get some air. I'll watch a movie." A long pause. "That okay?" he asked, failing to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.

"Hey, who's going for a movie? I'm up for that!" Michelangelo piped up, suddenly and conveniently close by. Raph had the feeling that Mike had heard the whole exchange. His eyes darted to the side of the room. Donatello was standing in the doorway, just inside the kitchen. Raph had the fleeting and ridiculous suspicion that all three of them had been ready to move in unison to prevent him from leaving, by force if necessary.

Leo forced a small, placating smile. "Okay." He stepped out of the way casually. "Have a good time."

Raph brushed past him and once in the tunnels he broke into a light run. He took the first opportunity to ascend to the street and for a moment he felt tempted to drop the manhole cover into place and lose Mike. But he didn't. He let his brother catch up to him and they walked down the small, quiet streets that led to the local movie theatre – the old one that played second-run films and was always in danger of going under, but whose back entrance they could jimmy open once the lights went down.

They walked in silence for a few minutes. Then Mike said, "Don't let Leo get to you."

Raphael's mouth twisted as if tasting something bitter. "What was he so worked up about anyway?" he grumbled as much to himself as to Mike.

Mike was silent for a moment. "He just worries, you know that already."

"Yeah," Raph said. He was still puzzled. For a second, back in the lair, he'd gotten the distinct impression that there was something else his brothers had left unsaid.

###

Raphael forgot all about the incident in the following week. Leo hadn't said a word about it and they'd been busy with other activities. April invited them all over for dinner and Raph could never stay in a bad mood while at April's.

The day after, Casey had phoned. "Yo Raph, my main man!" he crowed.

"Hey," Raph said, smiling despite himself. "What'cha doin'?"

"Not much," Casey admitted.

"Wanna hit the pavement? See what's going on?"

A pause. "Well, I dunno."

"Aw, come'on."

"Man, I'm not really up for it tonight. Tell you what. Why dont'cha come on over, and we'll just chill out. I've got some beer, a couple good flicks..."

"Well... yeah, okay," he said, disappointed. He was craving some action. But the beers and Lethal Weapon movies had been alright.

Leonardo had made a surprising proposition. He suggested they visit the zoo. They hadn't been there since they were kids. Raph implied that it was dorky, but nevertheless, they went. Snuck in at night, which was really the best time to go anyway, since all the cool animals were awake. A little family outing of sorts.

There were only two things that bothered Raph.

One was Splinter. The old rat still rose early every morning, but he seemed to be pensive and moved with an air of fatigue. Raph wondered if he was the only one who noticed. Surely Leo must, though he said nothing.

One day Raphael found Splinter sitting alone in the training room, not meditating, just sitting quietly.

"Sit next to me, Raphael," Splinter said.

Raph hesitated, then sat. He wondered if he was in for some sort of lecture.

Splinter turned his luminous brown eyes on him. "Are you happy, my son?"

Raph blinked. "What do you mean?"

Splinter sighed and seemed to mull over his next words. "I have given you a hard life, Raphael. Do not think that I have never doubted myself." Splinter's long whiskers flattened back and his voice dropped. "Your brothers accept or at least make the best of it, but you've never hidden the fact that want so much more. I wish I could give you all that you deserve, Raphael, even though I know I cannot."

"Master-" Raph broke in hoarsely. Splinter silenced him with a gesture.

"Let me finish. You must believe that I always wanted what I thought was best for you. Perhaps I was mistaken in what I thought was best. If that is the case, I hope you and your brothers can forgive me."

"Why are you talking like this, Splinter?" Raph drew back, a disturbed frown pulling down the corners of his mouth. "Sure, life sucks sometimes. Sometimes it sucks a lot. But if it weren't for you, we wouldn't have a life, period." He was baffled by his Master's self-doubting melancholy. "Maybe I don't have everything I want," he admitted sullenly, "but I have what I need, and...well... I guess that makes me happy enough."

Splinter's gaze was thoughtful and tender. He smiled and patted Raphael's hand with his furry one.

The Master was getting old, Raph thought, not for the first time. It bothered him.

There was a second thing that bothered him. His training had been going pretty badly, all said. He wasn't slacking off - he trained as regularly as ever, but something felt off. It wasn't anything he could really put his finger on, it was just that the strength and speed that he' d always taken for granted were elusive. He didn't think there was anything really wrong until it hit him in the gut. Literally.

###

He'd been sparring with Leonardo. Leo looked as though he hadn't even broken a sweat. Scowling, Raph drove at him with a series of blinding sai techniques. His brother shifted out of reach and blocked the assault with unfalteringly precise countermoves. Raph fell back and reassessed. He couldn't shake the feeling that Leo was going easy on him. Which, of course, was ridiculous. He would be the last living being that Leonardo would go easy on.

"Tired?" Leo asked.

"You wish." Raph skillfully feinted his next move and crowed in triumph as Leo mistakenly compromised his position to block it. One sai neatly robbed Leonardo of his katana, the other was a blur as it drove in for the "killing" blow.

Leo's surprise didn't last longer than a half-second. He knocked aside the incoming blow with reflexive accuracy, pivoted, and planted a solid kick in Raphael's stomach.

A lance of pain, thoroughly unexpected and exquisitely fierce, shot through Raphael's lower torso. He dropped to his knees, too stunned to cry out.

Leonardo did it for him – a sharp yell of alarm as he caught Raphael rolling forward in agony. Raph made a muffled noise through gritted teeth, but the inexplicable hurt was fading quickly.

What the hell was that? He took a shaky breath and made a move to stand up. Everyone had rushed into the training room and was staring at him. He felt like an idiotic side show. He shook off Mike's attempt to help him up and walked unaided to the sofa, where he sat down heavily.

"Whatever that was, it's gone," he told them.

Splinter looked painfully concerned as he exchanged glances with Leonardo. "Take the rest of the day off, Raphael," he said.

"I'm fine," Raph insisted. "It must be some old wound that's acting up."

They accepted his statement silently, though they obviously didn't believe him.

###

He had to strain to hear what was being said, but he could still make it out. Donatello was in Leonardo's room, and the two of them were talking in deliberately low voices.

"What happened there, Leo?"

"I don't know. For a second, I just- I just forgot." Leo's voice sounded uncharacteristically vulnerable. "Don-"

"No, Leo. It's not over yet," Don said firmly.

He heard Donatello sneak down the hall to his own room. It was dark and silent. They all thought he was asleep by now, but he'd been lying awake for hours, his mind weighed down with bewilderment and turmoil. The conversation he'd just heard only added fuel to the slowly burning flame of uncertainty.

They were hiding something from him, there was no doubt of that. It should have been obvious, now that he thought about it. Small differences, signals that something was amiss. Leo and his strange insistence that Raph not leave home that night over a week ago. And lately, he hadn't been left alone much. In fact, they had made sure that someone was with him almost all the time. He hadn't noticed the perfectly innocent excuses: Mike wanting to go to a movie, April coming over for dinner, Leo wanting to go to the zoo, of all things. Leo should have been the biggest clue. He had been remarkably undemanding recently. No lectures or disapproving frowns that might drive Raph to take some time off.

They were babysitting him so that he had no opportunity to discover what they were keeping from him. What could it be? Something to cause his own brothers to lie to him. It was so unlikely that he might have dismissed the whole line of thought as unfounded paranoia, if it wasn't for what had happened today. He could not remember any old wounds that would flare up in his abdomen like a white-hot poker. Afterwards, he'd gone into the bathroom and taken a close look at the spot where Leo had kicked him. There didn't seem to be anything physically wrong, but he recalled that the muscles that joined with the bottom two panels of his plastron had been a little cramped last week. He felt along the groove where shell met tissue and found thin, pale, well-stitched scars. He had no idea where they might have come from, but they were so precise he didn't think they could be battle wounds. Someone had deliberately, discreetly cut into him and he couldn't remember such a thing ever happening.

Now, as he lay awake in the dark, he had a nightmarish vision of being vivisected, as he always imagined might happen if human scientists got a hold of him. But that wasn't the case – he was at home, alive and well. Yet his own family was going to great lengths to keep a secret from him, a secret, he was now convinced, they had discovered sometime during the day that he had been unconscious.

This was altogether too much. His silent frustration rolled off of him and beat at the walls of his small room. There was no way he would sleep tonight. He needed to get out of here, needed to roam the streets alone, as he always did when emotion threatened a stranglehold. He climbed silently out of bed. He employed every skill of silence he possessed as a ninja to slip out the door. He was sure that if someone woke, there was no way he'd be allowed to leave.

The streets, though never empty, were quieter this late at night. The air was slightly balmy, unusually warm for this time of year. Summer was coming early, it seemed. He climbed to the roof of a nearby apartment building. There was some wind up here, whipping gently at his coat and bandana. He perched at the edge of the rooftop and surveyed the city skyline capped with a half moon just above the skyscraper spires. The panoramic scene that he normally found calming did not impress him tonight. He was still too wrapped up in his disturbing thoughts.

Tomorrow he would confront them, find out exactly what was going on. The idea stung; his own family, the individuals with whom he trusted his life, were keeping him in the dark. But they couldn't evade him tomorrow. Or could they? Would they lie to his face? The thought pricked at the corners of an angry insecurity. They didn't trust him. They never had. Leo had said so bluntly enough on more than one occasion.

He ran across the rooftop. He leapt easily to another patch of roof a few feet below. Rooftop travel was an art he'd developed through long practice. He knew which rooftops he could and couldn't reach from other rooftops throughout New York. He had routes mapped out in his mind that would let him run for miles without having to set foot on the street. He thought of it as his own private track.

He realized he was taking a path that led to the spot where he and his brothers had fought the ex-Foot ninjas a couple weeks ago. He didn't question the motive. Maybe he just wanted to see the place, to confirm that he remembered those events actually happening.

He climbed down a fire escape and dropped to the pavement. He paced the length of the alley. It felt vaguely familiar. He stood in the spot he last remembered before the unseen blow had put him out of action for the rest of the night. Pivoting in place, he tried to imagine how one of those second-rate ninjas could possibly have taken him by surprise.

Something strange caught his attention. The brick wall across from him had its fair share of graffiti, but the most recent piece of urban art was a bold red circle enclosing the black silhouette of a clawed hand. Raphael stared at the painted symbol. He'd never seen it before (he could recognize the logos of almost all the major street gangs), but its slight resemblance to the Foot emblem unnerved him nevertheless. He walked up and touched it. To his surprise, the paint was wet; it stained his fingers. Whoever had put this here had done so very recently, perhaps only minutes before Raphael had arrived. Raph took a closer look. Underneath the symbol, a single Japanese character had been drawn with a thick black marker.

Raphael crouched for a moment, looking for spots of paint that had fallen to the pavement. He looked for recently disturbed gravel. Then he stood, turned determinedly in one direction, and broke into an easy loping gait.

Raphael could track the streets of New York as adeptly as a bushman could the African plains. He imagined how he might travel if he were the graffiti artist. He avoided the busier streets and came across two more of the bright emblems before he saw the man himself, aerosol cans in hand, decorating another wall a few blocks from where Raphael had begun his hunt.

Raphael moved like a fast and silent shade. Had he asked himself why he was acting as he was, he probably wouldn't have been able to exactly say. For some reason, he felt it had something to do with whatever it was that no one wanted him to discover. He plucked the spray can away from the man with casual effortlessness.

The graffiti artist whirled faster than Raph expected. A small dagger appeared in his hand. His face was a white oval of angry surprise.

Raphael tossed the can over his shoulder. It bounced off the sidewalk and rolled down the street. "You're damaging public property," he said with a sneer.

The vandal leveled a murderous gaze at Raph's trench coated figure. He was a lean Asian teenager, wearing jeans and tight black T-shirt. "Fuck you," he spat.

Raph jerked his head toward the wall. "Nice art. What does it mean?"

The teen's mouth curved into an ugly shape. "It means you're dead, motherfuc-"

Raphael caught the knife arm as it darted towards him. He twisted it adeptly, but the young man moved with the momentum, throwing a double strike towards Raph's neck that the turtle blocked instinctively. The teen slipped from Raphael's grasp and leapt aside like a cat.

So the kid was a ninja. A young and inexperienced one but ninja-trained nevertheless. It was obvious now from the way he moved. Raphael felt mild surprise muted by a rising bloodlust. Ninjas were a rare breed. In New York, ninja meant Foot. And Raphael liked the Foot only when they weren't breathing.

He sprang after the young man, who moved to meet him with a flash of his dagger blade. Raphael evaded the weapon but let his opponent get in close. In a single motion, he drew a sai, caught the dagger against its prongs and plucked the weapon from the teen's hand with a neat snap of his wrist. The kid was a lot less confident without his knife. He threw a series of rapid and unsuccessful blows at Raphael and tried to dodge past him. The turtle caught him and struck him twice in the sternum. The ninja doubled over and Raphael shoved him against the wall.

Don't kill him! Raphael's inner voice deflected the sai from the man's throat into the mortar next to it.

"Now, I'm going to ask you some simple questions," he stated in a low voice.

The young man stared into Raphael's menacing green face in disbelief and horror. "You," he breathed hoarsely. "It's impossible. It- it can't be."

"Yeah it can." He grabbed the teen's mess of black hair and forcibly turned the head toward the unfinished red and black symbol. "Tell me what that means. If you know who I am, you know it's a good idea to answer."

The young ninja's Adam's apple quivered. "It's- the- the symbol of my clan."

"Your clan is the Foot Clan," Raphael snarled.

The teen shrank into himself. "No. Not anymore."

"Then what-"

Raphael didn't have a chance to finish. He sensed movement before he saw it and whirled out of the way. Both sais flew into his hands and he found himself facing two new opponents, one on either side. That was all he could immediately distinguish –everything was a blur of motion as blades clashed, separated, and drove in again. One sai met flesh and he heard a cry. He dove past his injured assailant to gain room to fight, pivoting to face his attackers on more even footing. His eyes blazed murderously in the dim streetlight.

The two men edged back defensively. One of them clutched his bloodied arm. The graffiti artist straightened up behind his two older comrades, gasping with relief at his unexpected rescue. Three against one. Raphael liked the odds. His blood sang with the almost euphoric high of violence.

"It's him," one of the men said with a sharp intake of breath.

There was a heartbeat. Raphael began to move. The man who had spoken made a quick motion and there was a wicked hiss of lethally tipped throwing stars slashing through air.

Raph barely had time to turn. One shuriken whizzed past him and the other two struck his shell harmlessly. By the time he turned back, all three men had made a break for it in different directions, sprinting into shadow. Raphael hesitated a second too long judging which one to follow and knew immediately that he wouldn't catch any of them now.

He bruised his fist against the brick wall in silent frustration. Even so, the adrenaline was draining from his body and he felt suddenly, inexplicably exhausted. He leaned against the wall to steady a mild dizziness. His whole body ached. He wanted to rest.

After a long moment, he started walking. It was almost dawn. He thought about going home and suddenly remembered why he had stolen out of the lair, unable to sleep in the first place. He'd come out to calm himself down and accomplished the exact opposite. Should he tell Splinter about the strange and violent encounter with the ex-Foot ninjas? Why should he? They certainly didn't seem to think it necessary to tell him anything. But was there a connection here...?

He walked faster. The morning warmth was starting to seep across the city and he wanted to be off the streets before the sun came up. The night had flown by. He wondered what time it was.

And stopped.

A minute later, he was running.

###

Casey Jones groaned into his pillow and hit the snooze button on his alarm clock. It didn't turn off. He glared at it blearily. The alarm clock wasn't ringing. It was the doorbell.

"Who the hell?" he wondered aloud as he staggered out of bed. "It's not six in the morning yet."

The ringing had become an insistent pounding. "Who is it?" he yelled.

"Let me in," Raphael demanded.

He unlocked the door and let the turtle in. Raph stormed into the small apartment like a bat out of hell. He had a pale yet frenzied expression, and Casey suspected that he'd been up all night.

"Hey, what the hell is going on?" Casey asked.

"That's what I'm trying to figure out," Raph replied with a barely maintained levelness to his voice. "Give me a newspaper."

"A what?"

"A newspaper," Raphael repeated impatiently. "You have one, don't you?"

"Uh... I threw out yesterday's..."

Raph rummaged in the recycle bin. He yanked out the previous day's paper and stared at it for a good long time. Casey fidgeted in the silence. The phone rang.

Raphael threw the paper on the table and stalked into the living room. The phone continued to ring. Casey picked it up. From the other room, he heard the television turn on and the banal stream of oldies music that accompanied the listings channel.

"Yeah," Casey said into the phone. "Yeah, he's here."

Raphael appeared in the doorway of the kitchen. Icily, he said, "Tell him I'm on my way home."

"He's on his way. He'll be there in a bit." Casey hung up.

Raphael's face was locked in a smoldering expression that bordered bewilderment and anger. "You knew about this?" he asked.

"Yeah." Casey sighed in defeat.

Raphael turned on his heel and headed for the door. "You're supposed to be my friend," he said accusingly.

"I am, Raph. Really."

###

By the time he got home, he didn't know whether to be exhausted or enraged. A sense of unreality had begun to set in.

Michelangelo practically jumped in his seat when Raphael banged into the kitchen unannounced. Raph sat down in his chair and looked at the three faces around the table. Their expressions were frozen in wary expectation. He pinned his gaze on Leonardo. Underneath the table, his hands were clenched to the point of being painful.

"You want to say something to me, Leo?" he asked.

"Eat something first," Leonardo offered.

Raph was famished, but he shook his head. "Not hungry."

A long pause. Leo picked up an orange and began to peel it. "Why did you sneak out last night?" he asked.

Raph shrugged. "Couldn't sleep."

Leo bit his lip in a rare gesture of uncertainty. "We were about to go out and look for you, you know. You should have told us."

"What would you have said?" Raph shot back. "You wouldn't have let me go, would you?"

"Raph," Leo said, obviously trying to pick his words carefully. "I know this seems odd-"

"What day is it?"

Donatello started, but Raph kept his eyes on Leo. "Tuesday," Leo answered.

Raph shook his head, his lips pulled back in an awful grimace. "What date is it?"

Leo blanched. He opened his mouth and closed it again.

Mike reached for Raph's arm. "Raph, we can explain," he said desperately.

Raph jerked away from Michelangelo's hand and stood up abruptly, knocking the chair over with a loud crash. He glared at his brother, his best friend. "You know what day it is, don't you Mike? It's May seventh! I didn't get knocked out for a day, I was unconscious for three weeks!"

"Technically, I said 'over a day,'" Don volunteered weakly.

Raph wheeled on him. "That's not the same as three weeks!" he shouted. "And our TV's busted on purpose, isn't it Don?"

Don nodded his head miserably. "Believe me, we were going to tell you."

"Like hell you were!" he backed away from them, trembling with hurt and anger. "You kept me in the fuckin' dark all this time!" he raged. "You roped April and Casey into it too. I've got goddamn scars under my shell that I can't explain. What the fuck is going on?"

"If you will calmly sit down, Raphael, and allow your brothers a chance to speak, you will find out." Splinter stood in the doorway. His eyes were full of grief.