I like to warn everyone: this chapter contains some death-related grossness.

Chapter 2

I hate getting knocked out…was Raphael's first thought as he struggled his way back to consciousness.

His second thought was the wordless awareness that he was about to lose his dinner.

He lurched up onto his hands and knees before he even got his eyes open, and threw up. The world seemed to shift and tilt around him in unpleasant waves, and he dug his fingers into something rocky and gritty; he fought to keep his knees anchored in the same surface. His heart pounded in his ears. He felt himself wavering in spite of his own best efforts, and snarled in between spasms. Raphael couldn't stop himself from falling –

– and then there were firm hands on his shoulders. Someone knelt next to him, spoke quietly to him, and kept him from pitching forward into the pool of his own sick. Don, his struggling consciousness supplied, and he relaxed marginally. Donatello wouldn't be so calm if there were immediate danger.

At last, the internal convulsions stopped. He was still dizzy and nauseous, but he slitted his eyes open and tried to anchor himself in the world while he let Don urge him to his feet. "Where…we…?"

"Don't know yet, but we're safe at the moment," Don coaxed him wordlessly forward, and Raphael allowed himself to be led for lack of any better idea or ability.

Bright sunlight fell on his face like a blow, and he winced away from it. Don tugged on his arm, urging him downward, and Raphael sat, grumbling. He squinted at his brother. If he couldn't get a handle on where they were, he figured, he could start getting an idea of how they were. "Y'okay?"

"Yeah. I woke up a little while ago. The nausea and dizziness goes away in about fifteen minutes, if my experience is typical."

Heh. It would be just like Don to time how long it took to be sick, Raphael thought. He didn't know how his brother did it – he still felt sick and totally disoriented. The world still seemed sharply tilted in a way that made his sense of balance into an enemy. He could barely string two thoughts together, much less actual words. "Where are…?"

"They're okay – they're back in the cave," Don jerked his thumb back over his shoulder. Raphael trusted that there really was a cave behind him, and that Don had really understood his broken question; he couldn't seem to get up the energy to turn his head and check for himself. "They'll probably be as bad off as you when they wake up. I'd like to scout around for a little bit, and see if I can come up with some fresh water or something. Can you handle things without me for a while?"

Raph focused carefully. The sunshine was less painful than it had been, but it still made Don's face look pale and washed out. The mental confusion receded enough for him to finally understand that the extreme tilt to the ground wasn't just his imagination, but an actual slope running away from where they sat to a thickly wooded area below.

Cave…woods…where'd that dippy blonde take us this time? he wondered dully. Aloud he said, "Gonna strangle Mike f'r this…when he wakes up…"

Don smiled briefly, though it didn't reach the tension around his eyes. "Here, take this," and he pressed the hilt of a sword into Raph's hand.

He looked down at it and saw without surprise that it was one of Leo's prized blades. Dirt and decaying leaves marred the bright surface.

"Leo must've still had it in his hand when we went through the portal. Keep an eye on it for him, will you? I'll be right back." And then he was gone, sliding away down the slope and vanishing into the woods before Raphael could voice an objection.

There wasn't any way he could've articulated his objections even if he weren't dizzy and confused. He couldn't pinpoint it with words, but there was something…off…about Don's face in those few moments when Raph could clearly see him. He sat in the sunlight and waited for his brain to catch up to the rest of him while he thought about it. The sun felt good on his face, and he tilted his closed eyes up to it for a minute, vaguely aware that it was a bad idea to sit there in plain view, with his eyes closed, in an unknown territory. He wondered if he should take off the winter camouflage he was still wearing, but gave the thought up after a minute – a chilly wind flowed down from the hill behind him, and it would probably be cold when night finally came…

Donnie's freaked out, he realized suddenly.

He opened his eyes and looked in the direction of the woods with alarm. The pale expression, the tight line of his mouth, the way Don didn't really meet his eyes – it all added up to a rare but significant thing in Raph's world: a freak-out by his normally calm brother. The last time he'd seen that had been in the woods on D'Hoonib…

Behind him, someone stirred and groaned. Then he heard something that made him even more uneasy: the sounds of throwing up.

He set the sword aside carefully and went to tend to whichever brother had just come back to consciousness. He made sure to kick more leaves and dirt over the vomit on his way in and out of the cave.

A few minutes later, he and Leonardo sat outside in the sun. Leo squinted around, made momentarily stupid by the lingering effects of the sickness. Raphael carefully cleaned the dirt and muck off the blade, slow because there wasn't any point in rushing it – they didn't have anywhere else to be, and he still felt watery and dizzy himself. The gleam of the blade drew his brother's attention, and Raph made sure to take even more care – the swords might not be his favorite weapon, but he knew Leo was particular about them, and there was no point in giving Leo a reason to think that Raph was careless.

"Where's…?" Leo asked suddenly.

"Mike's back there, sleeping it off," Raph answered tightly. It made him nervous that Michaelangelo was still out of it.

"…and…?"

He sighed. "Donnie's gone for a walk, to see if he can find us some water and stuff." He snuck a glance at the expression on Leo's face – the 'eldest' brother wore a look of such open confusion and wariness that Raphael could read exactly what he was thinking. "Look, I know – he shouldn't've gone alone. Okay? I know it. But he slipped outta here while I was still trying to work out which way was up, and I don't know when he'll be back, but when he gets back, I'll tear a strip offa him for doing it. You don't have to do it. Okay?" Raph felt defensive in the face of Leo's obvious disagreement with what had happened, and silently berated himself for both the defensiveness and the inability to stop Donatello's departure in the first place.

Leo dropped his head into his hands and rubbed deeply at his own temples for a minute. Raph finished up his cleaning of the blade and took advantage of Leo's pose to slip the sword into its proper sheath. Under his hand, he felt Leo mumble something. "What?"

At just that moment, Mike started hacking. Raph pulled himself to his feet with an effort and went to drag the last of his brothers out into the sunshine.

By the time he came back out, leading Mike carefully around the previous messes they'd all made, Leo was standing up and squinting off into the treeline. Mike collapsed to the ground with a groan and covered his face.

"What did you say, Fearless?" Raph patted Mike's shell roughly through the winter camo.

Leo blinked at him. "I said, if Don caught you while you felt like I do, then it's no wonder you couldn't stop him."

Raph looked away. "Yeah, well…he still shouldn't've done it."

"No, he shouldn't. Cover your ears, Mike," and Leo lifted his fingers to his mouth and blew a high, shrill whistle.

There was no answer.

Leo fidgeted. "…he's probably just out of earshot," he murmured, mostly to himself, and sank back to the ground. "I hope…"

Mike leaned on Raph and slitted his eyes at Leo. "Whr's…'net…?"

There was no answer to that, either. Raph felt the rise of panic in his chest like it was another wave of sickness, and fought it off with an effort. Renet! He'd even thought about her, briefly, to curse her actions in dropping them in this place, but hadn't followed the thought further to wonder where she was.

Finally Leo said, "Maybe Don found her." But he didn't sound convinced.

…

Mike was on his feet again, albeit shakily, and Leo was openly developing plans to track Don through the woods, when they heard the whistle.

Raph responded, a little more loudly and angrily than necessary. Donnie knows he shouldn't just wander off like that, he reminded himself. As they recovered, he'd gotten more angry about Don's abrupt departure, and quickly worked himself up into a minor fury over it. "Where the hell have you been?" he demanded as soon as Donatello appeared in view. "You know better than to just wander off like that, when we don't know where we are or what's going on – "

"We don't know when we are, either," Don cut in smoothly. "I suspect that's going to be the more important question." The tight, closed expression hadn't changed while he was gone.

"And we don't know when we are, either, especially since that tow-headed ditz has disappeared on us," Raph continued loudly, as if he'd meant to take the ass-chewing in that direction all along. "So we don't need to get separated, and we don't need you wandering around out there, getting yourself lost!"

"So Renet really is gone," Don said, almost to himself. He seemed to shrink a little at the idea.

"Yeah, she's really screwed us over this time," Raphael said bitterly. "And the last thing we need is for you to make it worse by getting yourself lost!"

"I didn't get lost, Raph," Don met his eyes at last. His jaw tightened. "I'm not an idiot. We needed some idea where we are – "

"We can get that idea together," Leo took over at last. "Don't do that again, Donatello. We can't take chances like that. It puts us all in danger."

Don looked away.

And it was so weird seeing him like that – Don never did anything to hold himself apart from the rest of them. Even his obsessive studying and tinkering happened right out in the open, where they could see and know whatever had captured his imagination. But right at that moment, Raphael could feel the isolation wrapping around his brother.

"Did you find anything?" Mike asked.

Don sighed. "There's a house – more of a hut, really – about a half-mile that way," he pointed. "There's food and water inside it. I can't tell anything from it; we could be in any time or place. Definitely no electricity or running water in the hut, though. When I was there, I could smell smoke coming from somewhere else. There was a trail leading away from the hut, but I came back here," his eyes flashed sullenly, "instead of checking it out."

"Any sign of humans?" Leo wasn't quite through with the lecture, Raph could tell – but it would wait for later.

"None. I found a couple of dead deer, but they don't appear to have been shot. They're just…dead. No other large animals that I could find," Don frowned, and his expression went thoughtful. "In fact…"

Raph hated it when he wandered off in the middle of a thought like that. "What?"

Don shook himself out of it. "Maybe it's nothing. It feels like winter, after all, so maybe that's the reason. But – it's weird that I didn't hear any birds, either."

Leonardo took charge of the situation. "We can't stay here. It's too exposed like this – let's get down there and see if we can find anything else."

"What about Renet?" Mike objected. "How'll she find us if we move out?"

"The same way she always finds us, Mike," Leo sighed. "With that damned scepter of hers."

....

The hut was just as Don had described it: primitive and deserted. While Leo and Mike kept watch, Raph and Don slipped inside and raided it for supplies. They found a tightly woven basket full of shriveled, but otherwise sound, apples; a loaf of what was probably once a good loaf of bread had gone rock-hard and stale in another basket nearby. A covered wooden bucket near the cold hearth held fresh water.

In one corner, they found a pair of large wool blankets tangled around each other. "Looks like someone was sleeping here, and left suddenly," Don murmured, assessing the blankets without touching them.

"They reek," Raph said bluntly. The whole hut, in fact, smelled strongly of unwashed bodies. There was another, even more unpleasant, smell underlying that, and he didn't want to think too much about what it might be. "Let's get out of here."

They took the basket of apples, and left the rest.

Leo surveyed the meager haul. "Well, I guess we're going to have to go scavenging," he decided. "It'll be dark soon – let's see if we can find wherever it is that the smoke is coming from. There's bound to be something there."

They fell into step without further discussion, spreading out through the woods just enough to keep each other in sight, and dropped into silent mode. They moved parallel to the trail, without actually getting on it – too much danger of being surprised that way.

Raphael looked forward to sunset. In the full dark, they'd be able to move more freely. It would be a lot easier to assess what they were up against then, and maybe make better plans. He admitted that planning wasn't necessarily his strength, but it would be good to have some idea what they needed to do. He paused to mentally curse Renet for not giving them any information at all before whisking them away –

To his left, Mike made a strangled noise.

It carried far enough to reach all three of them, and they hurried to intercept Michaelangelo, who was backing away from something. "Mike!"

He turned to meet them, his eyes wide. "Sorry. Sorry. Just…it's a dead guy. A really dead guy." As he spoke, the smell wafted out to meet them.

Dead bodies were nothing new to them. Even bodies that had been dead for a while were not exactly a surprise – the tunnels under New York were full of strays of all types, and they often encountered the bloated corpse of a dog or cat. On very rare occasions, even a human would wander into the tunnels and die, though they hadn't actually found any of those unfortunates themselves. But this one was…appalling.

The stench was incredible, once they were all close enough to smell it. "Crap, that's worse than – " Raph covered his mouth and nose, not bothering to finish the sentence. And forget all warrior stoicism! The smell alone was enough to knock a person out if they got too close.

Leo took a deep breath through his hand and walked closer to the body. Raph reached out instinctively, trying to stop him, but Leo shrugged it off. He broke a dry branch off of a nearby tree and used it to poke at the corpse. Looking for clues how he died, Raphael realized. If we know how he died, it'll tell us what we're up against…

The man lay sprawled against the base of a large oak tree. He wore a long, belted type of shirt that Raphael vaguely recalled from the art books that Splinter adored; he thought it was called a tunic. The man's legs were bare. He wore only a single boot.

"There's no marks of predation," Don said, clearly thinking out loud. "He's been here for a few days, at least, but there's no sign that anything has been at him, other than the bugs."

"I can't tell what killed him," Leo said tightly – trying not to breathe in, Raph judged. He poked at the man's torso more firmly.

The corpse lolled away from the tree at the gesture, the dead legs falling open as it did so. Raphael looked away. It seemed wrong to even accidentally look at someone so vulnerable and exposed –

Beside him, Donatello sucked in a deep, harsh breath. "Leo! Get away from him!" He darted in and grabbed their brother, dragging him forcibly away from the body. "Get away, get back!" He swung Leo around and shoved him into Mike and Raph. "Go, go!"

They fell back, unnerved by the sudden, raw panic in Don's face and voice.

"Just go!" he shouted, and pushed all three of them back the way they'd come.

They ran. Don fell in behind them, his limp coming back more pronounced than it had been back in New York.

The trail opened up in front of them. They crossed it and headed south, moving in the direction of the smoky smell without stopping. "What is it? What's wrong?" Mike called.

"It's – oh, gods, I can't believe she…" Don paused in his flight and looked back in the direction where they'd found the body. "She didn't…what was she thinking?"

They all stopped and joined him. Raphael saw that his hands were shaking. That scared him more than anything. "What is it?" he ground out, fear making his words harsher than even he intended.

Don's eyes were wild. "Did you see the marks in his groin?" he demanded. "The black lumps? Did you see?"

Raphael shook his head wordlessly. Some tiny bit of knowledge tickled in the back of his brain, something that also reminded him of Splinter's books about old Europe…something he wasn't sure he wanted to remember.

"I saw it," Leo confirmed, his voice low. "Is it…?

Don swallowed. "The plague," he whispered. "She's dropped us in the middle of an outbreak of the Black Death."