Wow! I am totally bowled over by the amount of reviews I got for part one! You guys have definitely made my week. XD

Now let's hope you continue liking it … uh … we get a little darker as we go. ::shifty look::

Thanks very much again to my wonderful betas!

Disclaimer: I sadly do not own TMNT or the NYC underground, trains or even sewer muck. …wait. Not so sad about that last part. Oh well. Enjoy!

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Underdark

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Sure, it's not a very restful sleep. But then I guess I have no right expecting one, given where we are and what's happened. My dreams are shot through with floods and falling and all the ways our luck could have run out. I fall from the pipes. Leo drowns. I have one bad flash image of Raphael being pulled under the water and when Don goes to pull him out all he gets is Raph's severed arm. I know I wake a couple of times, but Leo's still wrapped around me and I go back to sleep again.

I have a really disturbing one of being stuck on the pipes again and hearing them shudder, and I know it'll be okay because this is the bit where Leo swings in to rescue me. And he does, but he's twisted and warped the way he was in my nightmares, way back when that monster on Wall Street got the jump on us. His left side is a mess of those red tentacles and he's grinning like a maniac. So we struggle and he drops us both into the abyss, falling down, water roaring past our ears while he crushes the life out of me…

…and I'm glad I wake up at about that point, yes I am, but I can still hear the roaring. It takes me a bit, panicking in those first waking moments and trying to fight my way out of Leo's grip, for me to realise the roaring sound is not part of my dream. I can hear it, echoing down our tunnel, and while it's a lot fainter in real life than it was in the dream, I know immediately what it is I can hear.

It's a train.

I laugh at that point. Train, in earshot! Sure, the sound is echoing and bouncing all through the tunnel, and I have a suspicion it's coming from above us somewhere … but it's still loud enough to fill me with a lot of relief. We're not that far off from familiar territory after all.

Leo has moved. Actually, we both have – from curled up against the wall to lying flat along the concrete, and I probably have even more bruises now. Leo has gone from one arm over my shoulders to wrapping both of them around me like I'm a cuddly toy, and I snicker a bit – I guess that's where my last dream came from. It's kinda cute - wish I could take photos.

It takes me a bit to wake up fully, and he's dead to the world. I'm having a suspicion that we slept a helluva lot longer than two hours, that's for sure. And following that suspicion comes this horrible niggling sense that something isn't quite right. I start trying to unwrap his arms from me, and then I hesitate, my hand still on his wrist.

He was warm before. He's hot now.

I swallow, and put the back of my hand to his forehead in the dark. He's got a fever, I think. He's not burning, but he's still much hotter than he should be. And that freaks me out. I mean … what's he doing getting sick? I shake his shoulder and try to wake him up, and he curls in around me for warmth, making a faint sleepy noise. Again, it's cute, but now I just want him to wake up. I need to know what's wrong with him, and—

Oh.

I sit there for a while, my hand still on his shoulder as he sleeps. I have a bad feeling, and I'm sort of reluctant to have it confirmed. But in the end, I decide to put off trying to wake him up again for now. After all, I know once he is awake, he'll be stubborn and he won't let me check, and I can't believe I didn't pay any attention to the warning signs because he was so warm last night. This morning. Whatever.

So I lift my hand quietly and shift in the dark, working out where his leg is. There's no rude comments that come to mind this time, that's for sure. I put my palms down on his injured thigh, and I feel for myself. There's a faint stickiness. I don't think the wound is actually bleeding, but the flesh around it is really hot and … dammit, it's too dark for me to know anything else. But that has to be what it is. He's been messing around with a friggin' open wound in sewer water and filth and I'm such an idiot, I didn't even think about it. I fish around in his belt for the Shell Cell and flip it open, shaking it in the vain hope that now it's dried out the light might work again.

No dice on that one. But it's while I'm checking, shaking the Cell and swearing at it that Leo's fingers wrap around my wrist, and I yelp and nearly drop it.

"What are you doing?" he asks fuzzily.

Well, okay. I feel a little better knowing he's among the living, even if he does sound half asleep. People with fevers can still function; it's a good thing, I guess. Leo's still okay, sorta. But I'm struck speechless for a few seconds, just listening to that mild question. I mean …there is no way Leo can not know that he's sick.

So there I am gawping at him like a fish. After a second, he plucks the Cell out of my hand. "Can't make it work," he says. "Tried."

"You…" I untangle him finally, standing up. Just so I can have the moral high ground and all. Boy, it's rare that I have that. "You're sick!"

Oh, perfect. Michelangelo, also master of The Obvious. Go me.

We're both quiet for a while after that. I can hear Leo sit up, and then I hear the soft scrape as he leans against the wall and draws his knees up. "Mikey," he says finally, "I'll be fine."

Well, fine, he's still clear-headed enough to act as stubborn as always. Some of my wake-up panic starts to fade. He's not too bad. Okay, it's been … how long? I could guess maybe six or seven hours since the pipe rescue plus however long we ended up sleeping, but I don't know how long that is. I've had infected cuts before …but they took a couple of days to get infected, and even then it was just a matter of cleaning the wound out and treating it nicely until it went away. I guess chances are good that all sorts of fun icky stuff got into that gash of his. I'm wondering how much faster a wound will get nasty under far less than prime conditions.

I feel reasonably awake. Let's say we slept for around six hours in our exhaustion. Eight tops. So … probably, the whole fever thing has only just started messing him up. I hope. So that's good news. Got plenty of time for it to be treated before it gets worse.

Crud. It's going to get worse.

Then the suspicion hits me. With the absolute calm of what he's just said to me, I know.

"You knew you were gonna be in trouble," I say quietly. "Didn't you?"

"No."

"No?"

I'm remembering the fall he took. And the long time he took going up the ladder. I bet he wasn't feeling too well, then. And of course he didn't say anything. My brother, the martyr. Leo's getting up now, standing a bit awkwardly. But he doesn't fall or anything. He sighs, close enough that I feel that tuft of breath on my face.

"No, I didn't know. I just …"

"Suspected it? Considered it? Guessed?" Hell, I bet the second Leo cut his leg open, he though to himself: uh oh. He's always on our backs about our injuries – how could he not know?

How could I not realise? I'm such a moron.

"Mike," he says sharply, "Don't. There was nothing that could be done."

"You coulda warned me."

"No point in worrying you."

"Well, I'm worried now!" My voice is rising. In absence of Raph, Mikey is apparently more than willing to snarl at Leo in his place. "Did you think I wouldn't notice or something?"

He's not yelling back. Instead, I hear him rub a hand down his face. "No," he says softly. "I was hoping we'd find our way out before it became an issue."

Down here, there's nothing we can do about it. Trying to clean the wound out isn't gonna work without clean stuff and some light to work with. So Leo pushes us to try and meet Don and Raph halfway, because he knows Don will be able to help… and I make us both sleep…

No. We needed sleep. Maybe we couldn't afford to sleep so long, but I'm pretty sure we'd have been falling over in exhaustion if we'd kept going. But … no point in standing around arguing, right? I know why he didn't say anything – can't have baby brother panicking on him. That hurts a bit. I mean, did he think I was gonna go into hysterics and be totally useless to him or something?

But it's a Leo thing to do. I swear, one day he's gonna come home with a couple of swords sticking out of his shell and covered in blood, and he'll tell us he cut himself shaving. Which is an image that's both horrifying and blackly funny, and I don't wanna dwell on it too long either way.

So, what's done is done. We need to move while we can, right? "I heard a train earlier," I say, nice and calmly. "Not sure where it was, but we'll probably hear another one soon."

His voice is very quiet. "Can you remember which direction?"

"Um…" I'm not about to tell him I was freaking out at the time because I thought Leo had tentacles. But still, after thinking on it for a couple of seconds, I nod and point. "This way."

"That's great, Mikey," he says wryly. "And which way is this way?"

It takes me for a second to catch the amusement in his voice, and then I remember where I've heard that line before. Well, I guess Leo still has his sense of humour. Such as it is. So I snicker and search around in the darkness until I find his hand and then tug him after me. "Follow me."

He stumbles when I pull him. I try not to pay too much attention to that.

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We hear another train after a while. It's not soon, but it's not forever either. So probably we're nowhere near any of the busier parts of New York City. All of which doesn't help me that much when trying to work out how close to home we might be. The real disappointment is that we get no flash of light or anything when the train goes overhead – and it is above us – so we're still buried deep in the dark. We follow the walkway around, both of us now edging along the wall, hoping we might find another ladder or maybe a ramp or stairs or …something. We obviously need to go up at least one more level.

Now that I know he's all infected and stuff, I listen a lot more to the way that Leo sounds in the dark. He's quiet after my discovery – sheepish, I bet – and his hand is hot in mine. I can hear the way he's moving. It's real subtle, but he's definitely favouring his leg. Well, duh. I wonder if he was doing it yesterday and I didn't notice. It makes me feel guilty, and then I just start worrying. But I keep that to myself.

We can hear the trickle of water from somewhere; it's pretty constant, but it's not a heavy stream, so I figure whatever that is we can deal with it. I wonder if the canal we're walking along has water pooling into it? It's hard to tell. But while I'm trying to work that out, I nearly fall as the wall I'm following suddenly ceases to exist. Leo snags my arm and hauls backward as I stumble, and my left foot scrabbles at empty space. Our walkway has ended here.

I crouch down and feel along the concrete and realise the drain has a cross-section here. We can turn right or go straight, but either way we'll have to jump back down again.

"Which way, Leo?"

The moment I say it, I get a feeling of impending doom. He's still holding on to my arm, even though I'm now more in danger of falling on top of him instead of down into the canal, the way he's hanging onto it. And he says nothing.

"Leo?"

I'm a little louder that time. He straightens and tries not to tug on my arm so much. "Sorry," he says evenly. "Distracted. What did you want?"

Right this second, I'm missing the light more than ever. I really want to see his face, because all I have to go on is the heat of his skin and the sound of his voice … and while his words still sound nice and crisp and Leo-like, I can't help thinking about the only time I ever saw Leo get drunk. It was sort of accidental, and he ended up drinking with us because Raph goaded him into it, but I remember at the time that he insisted he was sober – in perfect, pure clarity, you know that every-consonant-sounded-out, kinda thing – about two minutes before he slid off the chair in a snoring heap.

Side note: Leo can't hold his liquor. Heh. But the moral of that little story is I'm not sure how far I can trust how fine he sounds. I think he was distracted because he was busy fighting off a dizzy spell … that tells me he's at least a little out of it. And on the heels of that comes the notion that maybe I shouldn't be asking him for directions, either. And that thought stirs up a bit of panic – it's not like I have any clue which way to go. Leo was the one who had all the ideas.

"Mikey?" Leo sounds a little impatient, and I wonder how long I've been standing there weighing up how lucid my brother is. He must be doing okay, because he's still doing his mind reading thing. His next words sound annoyed. "You know, I'm still fine. You don't have to worry so much."

Ohhh, yes I do, big brother. But that's not gonna get us home, is it? So I laugh a little nervously. "Sorry. Was just trying to work out …uh, where to go from here."

He's quiet for a second, and then he says something that surprises me. "Have you worked out which direction the train is traveling?"

"Not really. Why?"

He makes a small disappointed sound. "Might have to wait for the next one, try and listen to the way it runs. If we try following along under the train line, we might find an access way up. Especially if we end up beneath a station."

I'll take his word for it. Actually, I'm just happy that he's being Mr Strategy at me, because it means he can't be that bad, even if it's kind of an admission that he's not sure where to go from here. It's been a while since we heard the last train, so we'll probably get another one in a few minutes. So I sit down carefully on the concrete and dangle my legs over the side. I know it's only just over four feet, but I still don't wanna jump into complete darkness.

"How you doin', Leo?"

"I've been better," he admits. "Ribs okay?"

I haven't even thought about my ribs since I woke up. Funny, because they still hurt – I guess I've been distracted. I take a couple of breaths, and wince. Stiff and sore. Hard to tell if they're improved any – more stiff, less sore? But I shake my head. It's not too bad. So, I can't help grinning in the dark as I reply. "I've been worse."

He laughs softly at that. "Fair enough. Hang on, Mikey. It can't be far now."

I'm not sure whether to take heart from that or get paranoid … you know, someone always says something all reassuring just before everything goes to hell. But not too long after that, we hear a train. It's a little bit louder than the last one, so we're much closer to the actual tracks. The echoes bouncing around in here are hard to sort out, but I'm quiet, listening to the roar overhead and trying to focus on its point of origin. Well … its track of origin, anyway.

Straight is best. I'm pretty sure of it.

"That's a fair way up," Leo notes. His voice is flat, and he sounds a little disappointed. "Could be another floor between us and the train line."

Which means our chance of access up to the trains from down here just halved. But … if Leo doesn't know the right way anymore, then straight is as good an option as any. At least if we follow the train line where we can, we won't end up going in circles. So I'm all for it.

"I say we go straight," I say with as much authority as I can muster. "You could be right, but there's still gotta be a way up somewhere. Staying here isn't gonna help, right bro?"

"Right," he says. Then he puts a hand on my shoulder for a second. "Let's go."

I brace on the edge of the concrete and lower myself down into the canal, and I yelp as my feet land in ice cold water. I hate being right. The water's only shin deep, so I guess it's not that bad. Either the canal itself has sloped down into water, or that trickling we can hear is backwash coming in from somewhere. Either way, we're gonna have to do some minor wading. Which sucks. I'm already cold again.

It doesn't help when Leo splashes down next to me and I get icy droplets splashing up my legs. Yeah … thanks, Leo. I can hear him hiss at the shock of it though, and it makes me grin. For all of two seconds. Then I start wondering whether it's a bad thing for the Feverish One here to be wading around in icy water. I mean, I don't know – Donny used cold washcloths to try and bring my temperature down when I was sick a while ago, so maybe it's a good thing. But … I think even if that's right, this might be overdoing it a bit…

I just don't know. I'm not really medically inclined. That's Donny's department. Maybe it'll be okay if it doesn't get any deeper. And let's face it; we could be out of the water again shortly, so …I'll save the worry for later. In the meantime, I make sure I have Leo's hand firmly in mine and grit my teeth, moving through the frigid water with as little splashing as possible, free hand outstretched. The first few steps are really awkward – we have to strike out into the darkness without any guidance. Leo nudges me a little sideways at one point and so I change angle, and I'm relieved as hell when a wall finally materializes under my hand. I don't wanna be stumbling around without that guidance, especially if there's now water involved.

We've crossed the intersection and we keep traveling. The walls are damp; more than that in places. There's water running down them from somewhere above us. I'm a bit nervous about that – it's not like it's a lot of water, but the last thing we need is being forced to wade any deeper than we already are.

Leo's grip on my hand is getting tighter to the point that he's squeezing it painfully again. It's when I stop to get my bearings that I realise it's because he's freezing. I mean, I'm cold, but I can hear his teeth chattering. This is not good. I'm gonna say at this point that … no, wading through icy water is not good for the fever-ridden. But there's nothing I can do, save carry him...

…Yeah, about that. "Leo? Um …"

"You are not carrying me," he says between his teeth. Thus proving yet again that Leo is a spooky-ass mind reader with far too much pride.

"Why not?" I grin in the darkness. "Raph's not here. I won't tell him I gave you a piggy back."

"That's not the issue." He loosens his death grip on my hand and takes a half step back, as if he's afraid I'm gonna pounce on him and throw him over one shoulder. Well, I have to admit, the thought is tempting. Especially when that little half step turns into a stagger, and I end up bracing his arm to stop him from falling. My stomach is beginning to shrink on me a little. He's definitely worse than he was an hour ago.

"Sounds like the issue to me, bro. You know, you are way too proud some days."

"And you have bruised ribs," he shoots back straight off the mark. He's so fast on that one that I feel a bit guilty. He's not proud, he's worried … okay, he's proud and worried. "You can't take my weight, Mikey. It'll hurt too much. And we still have a long way to go."

"Yeah, but the water—"

"A little water isn't going to kill me." I think that's debatable, but before I can say as much he continues on more thoughtfully. "Can you hear that?"

I'm more inclined at this point to keep arguing, but the tone of his voice makes me stop. We're both silent, and once I tune out the trickling of the water down the walls, I can hear it. Off in the distance …there's splashing. A lot more heavily than just the water coming down the walls, that's for sure. It's not too far off, and for an instance I freeze because my first thought is that there's water flooding in from somewhere. But … there's hardly any disturbance to the water that's up to our shins, so …

Leo puts his other hand on my shoulder. "Take it real slow."

Yeah, well. Don't have to tell me twice. The further we travel – nice and slow – the more I can feel the faint tug of the water around our legs. There's a current. The ground is sloping downwards, but really gradually. And the water is deepening around us – up past our knees - which means there has to be some kinda blockage up ahead, shoring the water up.

We hear another train come through, and this time it's crossing directly above the tunnel. Two levels above us or not, that's loud. I stop and hug the wall while it rattles overhead. Can't think with all the noise!

And then there's a flicker of light down the tunnel, and I stare.

For one brief and awesome second, I think it's because Don and Raph have finally found us. Because it's a flicker that shines like torchlight. But the way it's moving is too fast, and it's coming from above. I get a brief impression of some kinda boarding over the tunnel – something I really hope is breakable, because otherwise we're about to hit a dead end – and then the light is gone.

So is the train, rumbling away into the distance.

Man, I could cry. I miss Don and Raph so bad right now – I need to see them, I need them to help us and for Donny to do something for Leo - and we don't even know if they're okay. If they are, shouldn't we have seen them by now? We've been traveling for ages. Maybe Leo was wrong and the tracker isn't working in his Shell Cell. Maybe—

"Mikey. It's okay." Leo might be shivering, but his hand's still hot on my shoulder. He means it to be comforting, I bet. He does know me way too well. But all I can think about is his temperature, and wondering if he'll get to the point that he can't travel any more. What do I do then?

I scrub a hand over my eyes. Think, Michelangelo. Light. Just a smidgeon, as the train went overhead. Which means there's a way up there, right? I can put the pieces together just fine with a bit of time. The boarding I saw in the light is causing the blockage in the water – we get around that, the water level will go down. I hope. And the waterfall I can hear …

I know what's up ahead. And it probably is a way up. I'm not sure if it's a way up we can use, but we have to check. It's either that or we go back. Try and find some other way out. It'll take us a while to get back to where we were …

Yeah, my stress levels are rising just a bit. I think I'll make an effort not to sound like I'm freaked out. I know if Leo thinks I'm losing it, he'll try and take charge again, and I don't think he's really up for it right now. "I think," I say carefully, "There's a shaft coming up – we might be able to climb. But the tunnel's been boarded up ahead."

My voice is a bit rough, but he doesn't call me on it. Instead, his hand squeezes my shoulder and then drops away, leaving just his other hand in mine.

"Then we'll just have to see if we can unboard it," he says, in such a mild tone of voice that I have to smile.

So we continue on. It's my feet that hit the boards first – my toes push into something decidedly squishy and I flinch back, putting my free hand out. There's wood, rotten and creaking and stinking of god knows what, crisscrossing across the tunnel. It's gotta be pretty old by the feel of it – maybe even decades old. I pluck at one of the planks and it practically snaps off in my hand.

Well, that's one problem easily dealt with. It's a barrier that isn't designed to dam up water, but so much muck and other unidentifiable icky stuff has fetched up against the bottom planks over time that it's blocked the lower part of the tunnel off completely. So we ignore that bit, breaking away the rotten wood about halfway up. I'm a little worried about the fact that it was boarded up to begin with – that means it was deliberately closed off years and years ago, and that could mean we're going into a bad place.

Which means we're going to be treading very, very carefully.

Once there's enough of a space, I squeeze through the gap we've made as gingerly as I can. I don't really wanna knock any of the other planks out. Then I help Leo through, which takes a little longer. I can feel it now – he's definitely having some balance issues. On the other side, the water drops dramatically, pooling around the soles of our feet. It's trickling through from the other side, but nothing's blocking it on this side. The sound of the water falling is closer than ever, and it's definitely falling down from here.

So I edge forward bit by bit, closer to the waterfall, until my toes meet with empty air. We've hit the shaft. They're everywhere in normal sewers, usually to collect storm water and pack it off safely to the river … I guess this is an older one. It goes down from here … but if I'm not seriously mistaken, it also goes up. All the way to the train line.

I stop, bracing for Leo as he nearly runs into me, and take a step backward to force us both away from the edge. I know he's proud, but I don't think he's stupid. So I decide just to be matter of fact about it.

"Think you can just stay back here while I scope the place out?"

He's quiet for a while. Leo hates this, I know, but he's thinking it through at least. I keep my mouth shut and let him work it through. He's light-headed by now – probably thinks he's floating three feet above the water – so he has to know that letting me deal with this is the right thing to do. Right?

He sighs in the darkness. "Just … be careful."

Man, he does love that phrase. Just for a second, I'm tempted to answer like Raph – heard you the first thousand times, Leo! – but I can tell how worn down he is. So I put a lid on it, just this once.

"Not goin' very far, anyway." I feel my way back to the edge and press up against the wall, stretching an arm out to feel around. I know the chance of some nice ladder or something just hanging in easy reach is pretty tiny, but I have to check. It would make things so much easier, wouldn't it? But the truth is, despite my ribs and Leo's leg and all these hours of being lost, we've been lucky so far. We've come a very long way without any light to see by. I'm really hoping our luck holds, because if the law of averages decides to smack us over the head we're gonna be in big trouble.

Funny thing about light, though. There's some filtering in from somewhere, because I can now at least see the shape of my hand in front of my face. I'm guessing it comes from a signal or something up where the train line is … high enough and out of reach enough that it gives me nothing else. It's a relief to have any kind of light – still can't see squat, but now I can pick shapes against shapes.

Which means when I back off a step and glance back at Leo, I can tell – just – that he's crouched down against the wall, huddling against the cold. I wonder if he knows I can see him. I'm not about to enlighten him, though. The poor guy is freezing, and I have to check the other side. So I don't say anything.

No handy, all convenient ladder on the other side either.

Well, that sucks.

So I retreat back up to where Leo is and hunker down next to him. "No easy way up."

"Fair enough," he answers, cool and even. "Then we climb."

I don't know if he'll ever realise how much hearing that tone from Leo right now is reassuring. But I'm thinking realistically here – strange, I know, but whatever. We've got one set of shuko spikes between us, and Leo … Leo is giving me some doubts about his ability to ninja his way up. I mean, he might manage to claw his way up out of sheer stubbornness, but …

A hand catches at one of mine, and I don't even realise until then that I'm clenching both of them into fists. Okay, yes, I'm still stressed. I'm expecting him to do the whole soothing big brother thing, but instead he's tugging at my fingers, easing them out until my hand is relaxed in his.

"Here."

He presses something into my palm. I can feel the leather straps before my fingers curl gingerly over something sharp, and I realise what he's given me. Leo's shuko spikes, for all those special occasion ninja climbing sprees. He's put them both in my hand, and I stare at him for a few seconds as I realise just what he expects me to do.

"Okay," Leo says calmly. "Here's the—"

"I'm not leavin' you behind!" My voice sounds real loud. I want to put it down to the fact that I have to yell over the water, but I really don't. It's just panic. Clear as day, I know what he expects me to do. Leave him, go for help, come back. Is he nuts?

Leo's quiet for a second, apparently not expecting resistance on his cunning, martyrlicious, stupid plan. Which makes him doubly an idiot in my opinion. Then he starts with a hesitant voice, "Mikey, there's only one set—"

"I don't care." I reach down with my free hand and poke him hard in the plastron. "I can't believe that's the best you can come up with! You want me to leave you just hangin' out in the—"

"Michelangelo!"

Leo's voice is a little uneven now even in his impatience, the hitch of uncontrollable shivering creeping into his voice, and I swallow. But then he surprises the hell out of me by bursting into soft laughter. I swear, that gets me to shut up far more effectively than his calling on the Power of Full Names. I just stare at him. I half think he's cracked, but he doesn't sound hysterical. And I jump when his fingers touch my face.

"You shell-for-brains," he says good-naturedly. "I appreciate the concern, Mikey, but you aren't leaving me behind. Okay?"

"But…" It's a standard response, isn't it? The wounded guy in the movies always stays behind. You know. Makes an inspirational speech, sends you on, tells you he'll catch up. Then you hear his agonized scream echoing after you … standard horror movie cliché. I know Leo will end up doing that to us all one day – I like to think that the day he does, Raph and Don and I will just look at each other and smack him over the head and drag him along behind us and then mock him about it for weeks …

Apparently that day isn't today, however.

"I have a temperature." Leo is talking patiently while I imagine random ways to mock his future attempts at melodramatic self sacrifice. Come to think of it, maybe I'm the one that's cracked here. "And that means my reflexes are a little off, sure. But if I ever decide to stay behind, I'll have much, much better reasons, Mikey."

Reflexes a little off? Whatever you say, Leo. I'm gonna put aside the debate on whether any reason would be good enough – that'd probably go into some nasty territory, and I'm not inclined to do that while lurking in a freezing tunnel in the middle of nowhere.

"Okay. But that doesn't explain how you're gonna climb if I have the spikes," I tell him. "Don't even think you can do it bare handed." I dunno, maybe The Ancient One taught him how to stick to walls like a fly, but I really doubt it.

"You're forgetting something," he says. And then I feel the rope coils of the grappling hook being put in my other hand.

Oh. Right. I start to relax a little; I know what the plan is now. "So … climb up and out, and then toss the rope down to you?"

"Got it in one," he says with approval.

It does technically mean leaving Leo behind, but not for very long. And then I can pull him up after me. Wow, Leo chose the easy way to get up; wonders never cease. But I can deal with that. I don't like the idea of leaving him sitting around in this cold water, but hopefully I won't take too long. Maybe even just a few minutes. It depends on how straightforward the climb is, I guess. So I ease the spikes over my fingers and do up the straps, flexing them to make sure they're snug.

It's only when I glance out into the shaft that I realise there is a small flaw with Leo's plan. I frown. "Uh … it's gonna be a bit hard tossing the rope to you if I can't see where you are. And what if I climb out of range?"

"The rope's over thirty feet long, Mikey. I don't think you're going up that far. On the off chance it is … we'll improvise."

Easy for him to say. And then there's the whole darkness part of the plan. I get the image in my head of trying to toss a rope down to him blindly, and sure I'll be able to aim for his voice … and Leo with his 'slightly off reflexes' making a grab for it and then falling. Uh. Not a happy image.

So I come up with an alternative. The grappling hook is designed to fold flat when it's not in use, which is just as well, because otherwise my cunning plan would involve me getting jabbed uncomfortably and repeatedly on the way up. I take the folded hook and thread it under my belt until the rope is pulling through and then tie it off in a secure knot. The hook itself is dangling down, scraping against the bottom edge of my plastron, but I can deal with that. I hand the rest of the rope to Leo.

"Hold on to it," I tell him. "Wrap an end around your wrist, whatever."

If he keeps a hold of it and just gives me enough rope to climb, we can control the distance between us. Once I get to safety, all I have to do is hook the rope to somewhere stable. Simple! And he gets the idea. Well, duh … it's Leo. I hear him measuring out enough slack for me to get a handhold on the wall.

So I guess it's show time. I edge back to the shaft and make for myself a good handhold with the shuko spikes, heaving myself out onto the wall with a good deal of nervousness. Sure, I'm in better shape to do this, but it's still way too dark.

"Mikey?"

Leo's quiet, standing just slightly away from the edge. I can't see him anymore, but I know what he wants to say. I grin. "Be careful, right?"

"Yeah."

"Well, same goes for you." Talking is good. I can concentrate on something other than the invisible climb, and I can also make sure Leo doesn't pass out when my back is turned. Not that I really expect him to – he does seem reasonably awake. But that small feeling of paranoia never quite goes away.

"I'll be fine."

"Says the infected one," I snort. "Just don't fall over from gangrene or anything."

His reply comes back amused. "Mikey, I really doubt somehow that I have gangrene."

"You could!"

"It takes longer than a day for an injury to get that bad," he says patiently. "You do know fever is just your system trying to burn out infection, right? It usually works. Stop worrying so much."

"Great." I'm up several feet now. The walls feel a little powdery, which means I'm very careful where I'm putting those spikes. Last thing I need is the wall to crumble and send me all the way down. I don't even know how far down this shaft goes. "You realise …" I'm a little short on breath. "You sound like Donatello."

Of course, the other thing I'm thinking is: Leo's been hurt enough to know that. Ouch.

"Would you prefer I sounded like Raph?"

No thanks. Been there, done that, ducked for cover. I grin in the darkness. It doesn't last, though. I can hear the shiver in his voice, and his words are starting to slur just a little. It occurs to me again that Leo probably feels worse than he's letting on. But …at least he's not delirious or anything.

"I'd rather you sound like you," I tell him with complete honesty.

"I'll take that as a compliment."

At this stage I'm hoping it doesn't matter. We could be up on the train line in the next half hour. From there it should be easy, even if we never run into Don and Raph. Though I'm really kinda hoping that we will, and very soon. It'd be so awesome if I got to the top just in time for Don to appear and give me a hand out … Leo said two days at most, and it hasn't even been one. But … unless we're somehow going the entirely wrong way, we should be halving that time. So …

I keep climbing. Hope is nice, but Leo is right. We need to look after ourselves. What worries me is the small, niggling thought that maybe they never got home.

They should be okay. If Leo says Don never fell, then—

"You okay?" Leo's voice is a fair way down now, and he sounds worried. Huh. I've been silent for a while, I guess.

"I'm fine, Leo." Something chooses to scrape across the side of my shell at that point and I flinch, pressing away from it against the wall. It's something solid and unmoving. I can't get a good look at it, which is a problem – it's too dark. But I don't hear anything. Must be a beam or something lodged in the shaft. I climb a bit further up and try reaching back with a foot, and I feel wood under my toes, heavy and solid. Yup. I'm right. It's fallen, or someone's dumped it in here. If I'd been a little further left I probably would have smacked my arm into it.

If there's one, I wonder if there's anything else dumped in here. That would explain the shaft being blocked off; old and out of use and full of stuff. Huh. Maybe it has something to do with the train line being just above us … I could see people using this as a dumping ground for leftover construction junk.

Which gives me a sinking feeling all of a sudden.

"Mikey!"

I blink in the darkness. "Sorry, Leo. Just …thinking."

"Think aloud, then."

Can't help it. I grin. "You sure you wanna be hearing what I have to think, Leo?"

"I'm sure I want to know where you are," he returns smartly. "Just talk to me."

The shuko spikes on my left hand crunch into a wall so chalky that a layer of it crumbles away, and for a second I hang just by my right hand until I manage to slam the left into a more stable area. …Yeah, so glad Leo isn't climbing this. I think he's all out of heroic stunts.

On the other hand, he's doing a wonderful mother hen impersonation. "What was that?" he demands. I'm making too much noise in my attempt to keep from falling. I mean, I'm safe now, but that won't mean anything to him.

I keep going. And ignore the question. Instead, I say, "So. Out of curiosity, how did you find me in the dark?"

"When?"

Oh, nice memory, Leo. "On the pipes. Yesterday."

"How do you think?" He sounds amused. "I followed the screams."

"Ha, ha. I meant, where were you?"

"Just a bit above you, actually. I didn't … fall as far as the pipes."

I wonder how that's possible, and then realise that Leo did come after me with a grappling hook. He's already shown a flair for casually attaching it to roofs while in freefall. Showoff. I have an image of Leo just hanging out on a rope in the middle of nowhere and wondering where the hell his baby brother has fallen. Guess it was just as well that I did scream, huh?

"Anyone ever tell you, Leo—"

I stop. Because for the second time, my head has smacked into something hard. Gah! I make a strangled sound and cling to the wall with my eyes clenched shut and wait for the sudden pain to die down a bit. I swear, the ceilings of the underground are out to get me.

"Mikey," Leo says steadily, "you are not reassuring me here."

"I'm here!" Waiting for my eyes to stop watering. "Sorry, ran into something."

"There's a ceiling?"

"Not necessarily." I finally manage to lift a hand and pat at what's above me. It feels like the wall …but there must be a way up here somewhere. Otherwise we'd never have seen light from the train.

I stretch my hand out as much as I can, and my fingers slide over an edge. There is an opening; it's just not as wide as the shaft itself. Well, that's a relief.

Or it is for as long as it takes for my exploring fingers to catch hold of metal. Heavy, thick strands of metal twined around each other. .

There's a grate laid down over the entrance.

Guess my sinking feeling is on the money. We should've thought of it well before I was halfway up the wall. A train line means regular maintenance, and there's no way they'd leave a great hole in the ground for a worker to just fall into.

It's not necessarily the end of all hope, on the other hand. It might not be bolted down. The trick is getting enough leverage to check – and right now I've only got one option, and I really doubt hanging off the grate by my hands is gonna open it.

Hmm.

I bet Leo'll be none too happy about this, but … I mean, come on. Light and familiar territory on the other side of this grate! It has to be tried!

"Okay, Leo." I carefully get my hand back to the wall and start easing down again. "Just give me a few minutes to check this out."

"What's the deal?"

Just for a second, I kinda wish Leo was feverish enough to be out of it. That question sounded awfully suspicious. "There's a grate over the top," I explain casually. "I'm just getting it loose."

I climb down very carefully; harder to go down than it is to go up. But I only want to go down to where I felt that wooden beam.

Leo gives me a good six seconds of grace before his response comes back, measured and full of big-brotherly vibes. "How are you doing that, exactly?"

"Um … carefully!"

"Mikey—"

"Trust me on this one, bro." I reach out with my foot and shove against the beam. It doesn't move an inch, although it does creak a little.

Leo doesn't say anything. I hope that's more because he's decided to trust me and not because he's fading out. I take a breath and shift my weight.

Dropping from the wall to the wedged beam.

Well, it totally fails to crack in half and dump me however far it is to the bottom. That's a good thing. But I do hear something crumble and fall away down the shaft. I just don't know what. So I stay where I am for a second, ready to leap back to the wall at a moment's notice.

Nothing else happens.

"Just be careful, Mikey." Leo sounds tired. Like he knows he can't stop me doing what I'm doing, and he's resigning himself to bailing me out of it at some stage in the very near future. I can't help feeling sheepish.

Of course, 'be careful' is fast becoming the most overused phrase of the year where Leo's concerned. But he worries about everything, I know. Which reminds me of earlier thoughts, and I grin as I climb carefully up the wedged beam.

"Hey, Leonardo …did you ever give any thought to one of those big whiteboards?"

"White…what?"

"I was just thinking, bro. You could totally clean up on all that strategy stuff you do." Edging up. I'm trying to judge where to stand. "Write it all out. Dot point format. Little maps. Flowcharts!"

While he's busy trying to work out what the hell I'm talking about, I balance on a higher part of the beam and stretch my hands up carefully. I am so relieved when I touch the grate. Give Mikey points for knowing where things are! Or as Donny would put it, 'spatial perception'. Handy for us ninja types. Man, I'm good.

I can push on the grate from here. So that's what I do. Trying to get it to budge, lift, whatever.

"Flowcharts are a waste of time."

I blink. "Come again?"

Leo speaks with the deliberation of someone giving a totally pointless subject a lot of thought just to get on your nerves. "They're too rigid for people like us. There's no point in designing a flowchart for a handful of things which might happen on a mission when the status quo tends to be that we get hit from left field by any number of random variables. Like … sewer explosions, for instance."

"Random…what?" Now he really sounds like Donny. And he's doing it on purpose.

"Care to discuss any other strategy tips?" he asks politely.

Wise guy. "Yeah. How about—"

And it's at that point that I hear another soft crumbling sound as I shove at the grate … and suddenly, the beam shifts underneath my feet.

I can't help the shriek as I stagger and then fall, reaching out to cling at the beam with both hands. It's on a much steeper angle than it was. You know, physics and Mikey aren't the best of friends, but even I know that's a bad thing. It was wedged nicely, and now it's not. That crumbling sound was the nice chalky wall; didn't like my weight, I guess.

Okay, this could be worse…

"Mikey!"

There's a very tentative tug on the rope at my waist as if he's making sure I haven't fallen, and I'm very fast to reassure. "I'm here! I'm fine!"

I'm hugging the wood with my knees, balanced in that fragile attempt to not upset the nice beam any further, and cursing my rotten luck. It won't take much to knock the beam down, and I'm not looking forward to falling. The plan was sound. It's just that the walls weren't.

It does seem to be holding now, though. After a few moments I start edging for the wall, pausing to cringe every time I hear a bit of something crumble away into the void below. It's like being back on the pipes, only Leo is below me now, and there's no way he's saving me from this one. And once my heart rate starts slowing, I realise something else that really hurts – I'm now out of reach of that grate. There's no way I can get it open.

We're gonna have to go back.

I'm chewing over that piece of bad news when I hear the train. Its heavy rumble is still a fair distance away. And wonder of wonders, its lights hit the grate above. It's blinding to begin with … too much time in the dark. But then as my vision gets used to it, I can see the heavy metal crisscrossing our escape route, and as light filters down into the shaft, I realise I can look down. So I do. It's gloomy, but it's the best vision I've had in a long time.

I can see Leo for the first time in far too long, standing near the edge of our entry tunnel with his back to the wall. He's staring up in my direction, and I can tell the exact moment when he sees where I am, because his eyes get really wide. It's too dark to pick much in the way of detail beyond that, but I can tell by the way he's leaning against the wall that he's not well. I can see the end of the rope is wrapped tightly around one wrist. And then I finally shift my gaze to look all the way down the shaft.

It's not like it's a stupidly long way, but it's long enough. If this was just a shaft with water in it, I'd probably still manage to be okay with the fall. But I can see that – although there is water down there, slowly being filled from above – there's a whole bunch of debris, too. Fallen beams. Smaller planks of wood. Even some friggin' masonry. If I fall from this height, there's no way in hell that I'm gonna land well.

My knee-jerk reaction is to cling to the beam with a small whimper. The light's getting brighter, and then I realise the train's coming awfully close. Close enough to make everything shake.

I think Leo works it out around the same time I do. He sounds desperate. "Mikey! Get out of there!"

It's an obvious call, and I'm already trying - bunching legs under me in an attempt to make a jump for the wall, hoping like mad I can catch myself with the shuko spikes. But before I can make it, the train howls past – it can't be more than a few meters away from the shaft. It's deafening, it's powerful … and it sends a mass of vibrations through the ground beneath as it goes.

I hear a crack and something gives. And then the beam is crunching down, with me still clinging to it. I jump – I have nothing else I can do. Try for the wall and come up way too short. But I'm not screaming. I'm falling, and I remember the sight of Leo there with the rope, and I know what's going to happen next. Without a doubt. I'm too terrified to scream, and my fingers are going for the knot at my waist trying madly to undo it.

I can see in my head, far too clearly, that Leo's idea could work if he wasn't already standing in water on such a slippery surface. And shell, he has to know it too, he's not that far gone, but he'll do it anyway because I'm his brother—

And in the end, I yell. It's desperate. And futile.

"Leo! Let go! "

The light's gone. The train is past. I'm left with a fleeting image of his eyes narrowed in the gloom of the tunnel and I'm not sure I even saw that or I imagined it. But there's a sudden sharp wrench on the rope and then I do scream as my belt is yanked hard against the rest of me and I feel like I'm about to be snapped in half. As it is, my ribs are suddenly a flaring mass of agony … and then I slam into the wall.

My shell hits first. If it wasn't my shell, I'm not sure if I'd stay conscious, but the sudden whiplash effect both slows my momentum enough to protect me from worse and twists me enough that my shoulder doesn't take the brunt. I'm hanging there stunned, and trying to work out why I haven't fallen all the way – there's no way Leo should've been able to keep his balance up there, right? - and as if in answer, I shudder down another six feet or so. And there's a strangled, cracked sound somewhere above me, which sounds distinctly Leo-like and fills me with more panic than the idea of just hanging in mid-air in the shaft. And then I can't hear anything more, because the beam has just crunched to earth somewhere beneath me, causing a whole mess of destruction where the rest of the debris is concerned. Not very far at all. I've fallen most of the way, and I'm not dead.

I can't hear the train any more. All I can hear is the soft grinding of things settling beneath me and the steady flow of water. Come to think of it … I reach out a hand painfully and water splashes down on it. So I know, I'm hanging beneath our tunnel. Wow … Leo actually did manage to stop me from crashing all the way down. Hurt like hell, but I'm still gonna survive. Although I think my ribs are worse.

I didn't need to warn him after all. He managed it. Leo…

I heard him cry out, didn't I? Something's happened. And I have no idea what. And I'm stuck down here—oh shell, this is all my fault—

"Mikey."

His voice is harsh and strained, and still above me, and I jerk my head up in an attempt to see anything. And of course I can't. But I swing a little on the rope, trying to get back to the wall, and I know we both regret that. My ribs set off a blinding stab of pain at the wriggling around – and I hear him scream. Short, and almost surprised, like someone just leapt out of the dark and drove a knife into his hand. I go very, very still.

The world is shrinking on me. Something bad has happened and I don't know what's going on. So my voice is a pitiful shadow of what it was, dealing with that whole pain thing and panic so thick it's practically choking me. "Leo, what happened?"

He's silent for long enough that I come very close to just screaming his name. But when he does speak, he sounds inhumanly calm. His words are slurred again. That's the fever, right? "Mikey. Are you all right?"

"Am I all right?" My voice is cracking. "What happened to you?"

"I'll be okay."

"Like hell you will!"

"Don't say that." His tone is eminently reasonable, and I'm blinking in the dark as he continues. "Swearing doesn't suit you, Mikey. Listen. Can … can you get down? Can you support yourself?"

I can't believe what I'm hearing. Swearing--? He has to be in shock. I shift as carefully as I can, ignoring the complaint from my ribs for a moment, flinching as I hear another soft sound above me. It's the rope. Something's happened – maybe he's caught in the rope –

"Leo," I whisper. Repeating myself. "What happened?"

He doesn't answer. Then again, maybe he didn't hear me. Because when he speaks again, it's still with that lunatic calm. And it's scaring me. "Mikey, please. You should only be a few feet from the bottom. Please tell me you can be safe."

He's right – I can hear the water splashing and it's only about ten or twelve feet below. I take a breath, slow and careful, trying not to hurt myself more. "Hold on, Leo. I'm gonna … I'm sorry if this hurts."

My fingers go for the knot in the rope again, but it's been pulled far too tight. I'm right near the wall, but my fingers are just out of reach – so I lash out with a foot to push off from it. I know it hurts him, but if I want to get out of the rope it's the only thing I can think of …bar cutting it, and even then sawing at it with shuko spikes is my only real option. It'll take forever. But Leo makes no sound this time as I swing on the rope, coming back to the wall. I slam both hands out, driving the shuko spikes in as far as I can.

And then I climb. The rope starts gaining slack.

"I'm sorry, Leo." My voice sounds strange to my own ears. "This is my fault. Just give me a few seconds and I'll be right up there."

I can barely hear his answer to that. He sounds half conscious. "Not your fault. Accidents happen. And I was … stupid."

"Don't pass out!"

"Are you all right?"

"Yes!" I'm practically yelling, now. "I'm fine, Leo! I'm on the wall and I'm safe and I'm coming—"

He doesn't say anything at all. He doesn't need to – I just know. Can feel it as he lets go, and it's only when he falls past me in the dark that I realise: I know what happened. He braced to try and stop my breakneck fall and the force of the rope snapping taut yanked him right off the edge. He's been hanging there—

Leo hits water, and I don't even think. I kick away from the wall, aiming for the sound of his splash below me, and the freezing water hits me so hard that I nearly inhale it in shock. I'm thanking every god I ever heard of that he landed in water and didn't bounce off the debris down here. The water's deep and full of junk, and I can't see a thing, but I don't need to. The rope that ties us together is going to save his life – I bunch it in my hands and haul upward to the surface.

I want to be gentle, but I can't afford to be. I'm almost sure he can't feel this anyway. I break the surface and take a breath, and I keep reeling the rope in until my hands snag his wrist. And then I scoop him up - get my arm around Leo's chest and make sure his head is out of the water, and I start swimming.

Well, at least he's not hot anymore. Nice icy dunking, cold skin … no, I'm not panicking, not at all. Actually, I'm on automatic. I keep treading water with my heart hammering in my ears, trying to remember where that masonry was that I saw from above. The first thing I find is a large piece of wood just jutting out of the water like it's waiting to spear someone – that woulda hurt to fall on. I move around that carefully enough, free hand flailing in the water for any kind of solid purchase.

When my fingers scrape against stone, I almost start crying in straight relief. My eyes weren't playing tricks on me - it's a big slab of masonry that's sitting with one edge of it dipped beneath water, but it's flat enough that I can get out of the water and drag my big brother with me. But I can't see what's wrong with him. I lay him out, trying to find out if he's breathing. I have no clue if he was even conscious when he hit the water, but I doubt it. He was only under for a few seconds though, right?

He helps me out a lot by coughing at that point. I can hear the wet wretched sound of it – getting rid of whatever he accidentally drank, I guess – and I get my hands around him to turn him over, half hugging him as he hacks it up. He's breathing, he's coughing, he'll be okay. Right? I should be saying something, shouldn't I? Like reassuring him, or making some joke about failing ninja class, or… no. I'm not saying a damn thing. Just holding on and waiting for him to stop sounding like his chest is tearing out.

And he does stop coughing eventually. Lying sprawled across my knees, not trying to move after that. I'm wondering if he's awake, and then I'm back to wondering what the hell happened. The rope, wasn't it? Moving it hurt—

Then I work it out. And go cold.

He speaks so abruptly that I jump, a thin whisper that I suspect he's dredged up because he knows I'm waiting to hear it. "Sorry."

Figures he'd apologise. "Why?" I'm only a little curious … we're all used to Leo's apologies by now. I'm more interested in keeping him talking as I shift my arm gingerly, looking for his left hand in the dark. I'm moving so carefully. I don't wanna hurt him more.

"Didn't think." He's not any louder. "Doesn't work like that. I should've ..switched to …something else. Wasn't thinking. Nearly killed you." He's quiet for a second, and then he mutters again, "Sorry."

"You're making no sense," I inform him, "And I don't care. I'm the one who was bouncing around on beams of wooden death."

I know what he is trying to say, though. I remember the rope being wrapped around his wrist. And I definitely wasn't too keen on the idea of accidentally dragging Leo off the ledge as I hurtled past … but he didn't fall. Not all the way, anyway

My fingers find the rope. Coiled around his wrist, pulled over his hand tightly, practically embedded in his flesh. If he'd wrapped the rope around his waist instead, his shell would have protected him from some of the force involved – but instead, he took the brunt of my weight jerking on that rope with his arm. You know. The incredible, flying, heavy Mikey, dropping on past at who knows how fast. Dragged him over the edge, too. So there's Leo, hanging by his one free hand while his baby brother tries his level best to rip his other arm clean off. Oh, shell.

I'm amazed he managed to hold on at all. Not so amazed that he actually tried …

"Leo." I sound so cheerful. That's really not right. "You're an idiot, you know that?"

"So I've been told."

And I laugh at that, and this time I can hear the hysterical edge to it, because Leo's hurt because I screwed up and then he screwed up, which is rare but hey, he's sick, right? Rare bout of bad judgment from Fearless Leader there…

"Idiot," I tell him again after a while. "You should've let me fall."

He doesn't say anything to that. I think maybe because he doesn't want to argue, and then I realise he's passed out.

So I swallow, and go about the queasy duty of getting Leo's arm out of those strangling coils of rope while he's not awake to feel it. And I wonder how bad his arm is, whether he got away with maybe just a dislocation or something much worse. I'm thinking worse, if he's passing out on me. And I wonder how we're gonna get out of here if his arm is useless, because he won't be able to climb, but maybe it's all moot anyway because he's out cold.

Horrible mess. So much for our luck holding out for us, huh?

I just settle him on my lap and curl my arms around him in an attempt to share some warmth. Right now, there's nothing else I can do.

---------

I may have screaming people after my blood at this point …uh. Trust me?

Shall return with Part 3 as soon as I can, honest. Unfortunately, Part 3 is the part I'm still writing …