Disclaimer: I do not own TMNT.

A/N: Hey, guys, sorry it took me so long to get this up. Long story short, I just got freaking pummeled by my depression and unfortunately, it got in the way of my writing. I'm really sorry about that and hope that you can all manage to forgive me for the wait. Good news is, I've already started work on the third chapter and hope to have it up very soon. Bad news is, I'm not 100% going to put Casey in this story. I'm just not overly fond of his character series, but if you guys would like to see him in the fic, then please let me know in the reviews and I'll figure out a way to write him in.
Thanks, guys. Happy reading! :D

02

Mia lay silently in the darkness curled up into a ball, her hair and clothing weighed down by the blood she had lost. She couldn't feel anything, except for the pain. It was enough to block out all of her other worries and feelings. Sirens echoed inside her head, moving closer and then infinitely farther away as jewel-bright eyes stared down at her. She couldn't tell the color of them at first. Then they came into focus: Two perfectly round, emerald green eyes, huge with shock – and worry?

"Hey, kid – kid, are you alright?!"

The sirens were replaced by a voice and Mia knew it must have belonged to him. It was heavy with a Brooklyn accent and mirrored the emotions in his gaze. The sound of it shocked her and, for a moment, she forgot the pain she felt. This person – this boy sounded both distant and nearby, and almost familiar, but she wasn't sure how. Did they go to school together – or maybe he lived near her?

"Kid, are you alright?!"

The boy's question echoed inside of her head for what felt like hours. Each time he asked, he sounded more worried and shocked than the time before. Mia wanted to answer him. She wanted to tell him everything was fine. That she was going to be okay, but her breath was trapped inside of her lungs and she couldn't bring herself to form the words, no matter how hard she tried. Then the pain came back just the same as before – a searing, white-hot fire that spread like wildfire, starting at the base of her skull and spreading throughout her.

The green-eyed boy spoke in a sad, far-away voice. "If you ever need anything...Call us. We won't hurt you, kid..." Then his voice faded away and so did he.

Glaring, white, light shone in Mia's eyes, blinding her. Her entire body ached with searing pain. Groaning, she looked away from the light and reached up to push it out of her face. Then she paused when she saw the thin, clear tube that had crept beneath the skin of her arm at some point she couldn't remember. She looked around silently, confused. She was in a small bed in a cubicle made of sheer, plastic curtains with two chairs and a small wheeled table at the foot of it. A pale, gray cast wrapped around her right leg and reaching up, Mia felt a thick, gauze bandage at the very base of her skull. She was in the hospital, she realized.

Then before she had time to really process what was happening, she found herself being slammed back against the bed. Instantly, pain shot throughout her body and she cried out loudly. She looked down to see Clara sitting in her lap, hugging her tightly.

"Clara –" Mia started but she was cut off by the wave of emotion that hit her. She was alive, somehow, even though she wasn't entirely sure what had happened to put her here. All she could remembered was being hurt by those thugs. None of that mattered, though. All that mattered was that she got to see her sister. "Omg," she said as tears brimmed up in her eyes. "Clara, I'm so happy to see you – I'm so glad that you're safe!" She wrapped her arms around Clara and hugged her as tight as she possibly could.

Then Clara pulled away from her and Mia saw a small, green oblong object clutched in her sister's hand.

Mia frowned. "Clara," she said. "Where did you get that?" She pointed to the object.

Clara frowned at her and held out her hand, offering the thing to her.

Mia took it and turned it over in her hand. It was some sort of homemade cellphone designed to look like – like a turtle shell? Mia pushed a button and the phone chirped into life. The words TURTLE POWER blinked across the screen in neon-green lettering. Then a picture appeared: A long-shot of an oversized turtle with herculean muscles that was covered in scars. A pair of three-pronged knives hung from a frayed leather belt and two perfectly round, emerald green eyes peered up at her from behind a bright red mask.

Mia gaped at the phone's screen. "The boy from my dream –" she gasped unable to finish the thought. Suddenly, she remembered everything perfectly.

Raphael half-walked, half-ran down the steps of the sewer lair. He made a beeline for the attack dummy that stood on the outskirts of the pit. He just wanted to beat on something.

"What the heck were you thinking?"

But, of course, that wasn't going to happen.

Raph paused and turned to face Leonardo and the others. Almost an hour had passed since their run-in with the Dragons, and they had managed to collect ten canisters of mutagen. But there were more out there. Thanks to him. He had ran aimlessly ahead of the others, barely aware of the orders Leo kept barking at him or the questions the others kept repeating. The girl's voice - her sobs, her screams - was trapped inside of his brain, eating away at him, begging him to turn back. Filling him an unusual mixture of misery and anger. Then he had remembered:

"Don't touch me! D-don't, please!"

This memory kept crashing over him like a freaking tidal wave, dragging him back to reality while the sounds her screams and that gunshot kept pulling him away from it. He didn't know why. Maybe because this time it hadn't been a faceless mass of sheer panic that needed saving. Maybe because this girl had been on her own with no weapons, no skills, and no one to help her. Just alone with her fear.

Her fear of him.

Once the thought had sunk in, Raph couldn't stop himself from turning around and heading back to the lair. At least he'd have something to punch there.

"Raphael," Leonardo said angrily. "Seriously, what were you thinking?"

Raph blinked at his brother, trying to regain his train of thought and scoffed. "You're going to have to be a bit more specific, Leo."

"I think you know what I'm talking about," Leo said, crossing his arms.

"Yeah, you know," Michelangelo chimed in, waving his nunchucks over his head wildly. "When you momentarily lost your mind and pawned your T-phone off on that girl." He made the cuckoo symbol with one of his chucks.

"You can't just give out Turtle Tech to random humans, Raph," Donatello said, nodding in agreement.

"Oh, what," Raph said, looking at him. "You mean like you did with April. That's not allowed?" He raised his eyebrows at him in false surprise.

Donnie sputtered wordlessly for a moment and then spat at him angrily, "April's different! Besides," he added, gesturing to his garage laboratory. "Hasn't it occurred to you whose job it's going to be replace that tech – mine! I'm going to have to rebuild it. I have a life, you know!" He jabbed him in the chest angrily.

Without even thinking, Raphael took one of his sai off of his belt and pointed it back at him. "Back off, Donnie," he growled. He may have been playing it cool before, but he was getting real tired of this real fast. He had been pissed off ever since they had saved that girl and no matter how hard he tried to make them see he didn't want to talk to them, his brothers just wouldn't shut up. Why did he have explain everything he did to them?

"What is going on?!"

Raphael jumped at the sound of Splinter's voice. Then he turned to face him and felt his anger evaporate immediately. There was no hiding it now. "Master Splinter," he started with dread in his voice. "T-there was a girl – "

"Oh, a girl," Splinter said, smiling and feigning surprised interest. "Why am I not surprised?!" he added in an irritated growl. "Tell me what has happened now!"

Raphael shot dark glances at his brothers. Then he looked back at Splinter and began explaining the situation with the girl and the Dragons.

Mia spent about ten minutes looking through all the pictures and information on the phone, trying to figure out what was going on. The more she found on the phone, the more confused she got. The one this phone belonged to – apparently, he was called Raphael – wasn't the only walking, talking, bipedal, giant turtle in existence. There were three others tagged in his photos that were also listed in contacts along with a human girl named April and two other contacts listed as Splinter and Pulverizer. How the heck was there not one but four humanoid turtles in NYC and how had one of them managed to save her?

"Oh, Clara, look what I have!"

When she heard the sound of Janie's voice, Mia pounded what seemed to be the power button on the phone and shoved it underneath her pillow.

"Mia?"

She looked up at Janie, who was standing at her the foot of her bed carrying two trays of pancakes. "Oh, hey," Mia said, forcing herself to smile. She slid her hand slowly out from underneath the pillow, trying her best to make it look natural. There was no way she could let Janie see that phone for two reasons: First of all, she would assume that it was all Mia's fault that Clara was now obsessed with monsters and mutants just for having the stupid thing. And, second of all, Janie would think she was a complete lunatic for thinking that a giant turtle named Raphael – who easily could have been a creation of Photoshop – had actually saved her life.

Janie dropped the trays of food onto the table next to the bed where Clara had been coloring on some computer paper, and sat down in the nearest chair. "So you're awake, huh?" she asked, smiling. "Do you remember anything about last night? The doctor said you hit your head pretty hard, so we weren't sure if you'd be able to remember much."

"I remember a lot of what happened, actually," Mia told her, nodding.

"Good, good," Janie said. "Do you remember anything about how your attackers got away, though? I mean, did they just run away when they heard the sirens or –"

"It was definitely the sirens," Mia said, cutting her off and wondering if she had spoken a bit too quickly. "They just scared them off."

At that exact moment, Clara jumped to her feet, knocking the food to the floor with a splat as she began waving her drawing around silently.

"Omg, Clara!" Janie cried out, grabbing a fistful of napkins to clean up the mess with.

"It's not a big deal," Mia said reassuringly. "We can get more food. She just wants to show you her drawing."

"Would you shut up?" Janie shot at her, scowling. "That food costs ten dollars a tray. There's no way we can afford more than what I already bought and Clara hasn't even eaten breakfast yet because we've been waiting for you to wake up!"

"Well, hey, guys!"

Mia turned to see Troy standing in the doorway of the cubicle, bearing a bouquet of wilted sunflowers and what seemed to be a binder full of her homework from her first five periods of school. Great, she couldn't keep from thinking, now he had decided to be responsible.