Chapter Two: The Family

When Raph was five years old, he'd been adopted into the Jones family. They were a small, modest family who lived in a small, modest home in Midwood. On that day, Raph gained a mother and an older brother. Why Mrs. Jones, who came to be known affectionately as 'Ma', wanted another child Raphael had never asked. As for his brother, Casey was 5 years older and an incredible doofus, but he and Raph got on remarkably well. Being adopted didn't mean much to Raph; Ma and Casey were his family. Whether he'd come out of his ma's vagina or not didn't matter a whole hell of a lot. That wasn't what it meant to be a family, anyway. Whoever had pushed Raph out had left him at the hospital; he'd never even seen her after his birth, as far as he knew. What made that lady his mother over Ma? Not a damn thing.

He could still remember the first time he'd seen his ma. She was hard to forget, with her fire engine dyed hair spilling out of her rosie wrap and messy little Casey clutching her hand in his small, sticky one. The boys' home had a lot of adoption events where families would come in and look at the children like they were puppies for sale. Most of the families were prim and mild, giving the kids awkward, tight lipped smiles and pitying eyes, but not Casey and Ma. They were loud and ostentatious and honest. The children had gawked when Mrs. Jones sashayed down the corridors, teetering on her patent leather heels. Some laughed behind their hands and some laughed with open rudeness, but not Raph. Raph thought they were interesting and that Mrs. Jones, in all her animal-printed glory, looked fun. While the other kids stared and shuffled around the more presentable families, Raph had elbowed his way to the woman and her frowning son.

"Hi," he'd said, thrusting a grubby hand in her direction. "I'm Raphael."

"Well, hello there, little man," she replied with a voice sweet like melting honey, giving his hand a cursory shake. "I'm Mrs. Jones and this here is my son, Arnold."

"Hi," Raph'd said, redirecting his hand to the other child, the one she called Arnold. He'd later learn his full name was Arnold Casey Jones and Ma was the only one who could get away with calling him Arnold.

"What's wrong with his hair?" Casey had whisper-asked up at his mother, as though Raph wasn't standing right there and couldn't hear the question.

Defensively, Raph's hand went from Casey's to his head, gingerly tracing his fingers over the narrow dreadlocks lining his scalp and falling to his shoulders. Most of the time he wore them back in a thick ponytail but, for no particular reason, he hadn't today. He suddenly wished that he had.

"What's wrong with your hair?" Raph had shot back with a scowl, eyeing the greasy black tangles hanging limply by Casey's prominent ears. "Ain't cha got shampoo?"

For a moment, Casey just blinked at Raph, unsure of whether to be insulted by Raph's retort. Then a wide, toothy grin crested over Casey's face and he tilted his head back in a hearty, high laugh.

"You're funny!" Casey giggled, and Raph, unable to help it, found himself laughing too.

And so began the contentious relationship Raph had with his older brother. They teased one another often and mercilessly, but Casey was Raph's best friend and he couldn't ask for a better brother. They'd shared a room for most of their childhood, from the day Raph had went home with the Jones's until Casey moved out with his girlfriend, April.

Though his family was white as bleached cotton, Raph had never felt inferior. Ma accepted him as her own child and treated him no different than she treated Casey, for better or for worse. Honestly, with the woman's tenaciousness, Raph was surprised it had taken her as long as it did to find him in the hospital.

"Oh, Raphael!" Ma Jones cried, crossing the clinical room to hug Raph's face. She mashed his cheek into her bosom and cooed his name, raf-e-el, over and over, petting his hair like a child's.

Casey came in behind her, long tendrils of greasy black hair framing his face. He wore sweats and a tank top and the same well-defined muscles as Raphael. He too joined Raph on the bed, though he was far subtler about it than the woman.

"Oh, Raphael," she continued, stroking his face and pressing red-stained lips into his hair. "I was so worried about you! No call, nothin'!"

"Ma, the phones are down," Casey said and she cut sharp eyes to him.

"Don't you sass me, Arnold," she scolded and Casey looked down, kicking the tiled floor sheepishly.

"It took forever to find you, just fur-evah!" She continued in her heavy accent, like Raph's but lighter and more feminine. "We was so worried. Baby! My baby!"

"Okay, okay, ma," Raph said, patting her arms and attempting to peel her hands away, which were death viced into his biceps. She clutched him tighter and Raph gave up. "Ma, I'm okay. Ya can let go of me."

"I saw it all on the news," she continued, as though she had not heard Raphael at all. "I said to Casey, I said, your brother's there, Arnold, your brother!"

"She cried about four hundred times," Casey informed, clapping Raph's shoulder. "She was real worried 'bout you, man." Casey paused, looking contemplative, then shrugged his meaty shoulders. "Guess I was too. Glad you're a'ight, baby bro."

Raph patted Ma Jones's back in what he hoped was a soothing manner and nodded at Casey. Worrying his family didn't bring him any joy, but at least he had a good enough family to worry about him. And to go through the trouble of finding him, when so many systems were still non-functioning. He was luckier than most.

Luckier than Leo, maybe. Raph looked at the man as he comforted his mother. So far, no one had come to visit Leo. Maybe he didn't have family, or maybe they just hadn't found him yet. He had to have a commanding officer, but Angel hadn't made it in to see Raph yet, so maybe Leo's just hadn't either. Looking around the room, Raph frowned; there were a lot of first responders to sift through and it would probably be a while before he had a chance to talk with Angel, to let her and the rest of his company know that he was okay.

"Ma, I'm okay," Raph insisted again. With Casey's help, they pried her off and sat her on the edge of Raph's cot. Dabbing her eyes with a lace-trimmed handkerchief, she nodded absently and sniffled, mumbling under her breath about her baby and how unbelievable the situation was.

Raph agreed with her. He hadn't had a lot of opportunity to really think about what had happened and, honestly, he didn't really know. No news was on in the hospital room and no one had come in for him to ask, before his family.

"Ma, what happened?" Raph asked.

She rubbed her nose and wiped her eyes. "The news said it was terrorists."

Raph resisted the urge to sigh. He'd figured that much out on his own. Looking to Casey, Raph raised his eyebrows in question, but his brother shook his head, nodding towards their mother. Later, his expression said, and Raph reluctantly stopped his questioning.

Leonardo sat in polite silence as Raph reconciled with his family, but his mind was whirling. Terrorists. Like Raph, he'd already figured that out on his own. Karai hadn't given him any more information than Raph's mother. Who was it, and why? Those were the answers that would define the country's response, though Leo had been around long enough to know what this meant: The United States of America was going to war. Of that, he was sure.

After Raph's family had visited for a while, his mother touching his hair and face and Casey quietly berating her, the door opened. A tall, lean man with glasses perched upon his nose swept in. Dark circles ringed his chestnut eyes and his black hair was slicked into a ponytail.

"Don," Leo said, sitting up straighter in the bed. Raph looked up as well, and Leo motioned at the man. "Raph, this is Don. He's our doctor." When Raph continued to stare at him questioningly, Leo continued. "He's also my brother."

"Oh!" Ma Jones exclaimed, jumping out of the bed. "Oh, thank you for taking care of my baby, Dr. Don." Leo bit down a snicker at the expression crossing Don's face. The woman continued, asking the pertinent question. "When can Raphael come home?"

"Soon," Don replied, flipping through Raph's chart. "Now that's he's awake, it should be within a few hours. We want to keep him for observation."

Even as he spoke, Don's focus was elsewhere. Leonardo felt a bit awkward under his younger brother's gaze. Though they both knew it was against hospital policy for Leo to be Don's patient, neither cared. There was no one that Don would entrust the care of his brother to in this hospital; they were all quacks, as far as he was concerned. No way would he let one of those bozos butcher Leonardo.

Carefully, he took Leo's stump in his hands and turned it, judging the coagulation. The dressing should have been changed hours ago; where the hell were the nurses? Frowning, Don straightened up. He'd go get the supplies and do it himself, like he did everything-

Leo cleared his throat and Don paused, stopping to look at his brother. Tilting his head just a fraction, Leo motioned at the Jones family. It was only then that Don noticed how expectantly they were all staring at him.

"Oh," he said, flushing a bit. He flipped through his clipboard some more. "Raphael suffered some minor contusions and blunt force trauma to the head." Ma Jones wailed, hugging Raph to her, and Don kept going. "I'll draw up some discharge papers with more information on his condition but, really, he's fine. There's nothing to worry about."

Don looked to Leo and Leo gave a small nod of approval. "For now," Don said, sticking his hands into his coat pockets, clip board held between his arm and body, "I need you to please vacate the room. I need to attend to the other patients."

"We'll be right outside," Ma Jones promised, planting a messy kiss in the middle of Raph's forehead before sashaying out. She hugged Don too, for good measure, who patted her uncomfortably.

"Doc," Raph said after his family had left, "What about Leo?"

Blinking, Don looked from Raph to Leo. Leo shrugged. "Well," Don said, "other than the obvious, he's fine and he's a great candidate for a prosthetic. It's just a matter of time now. He'll be here for a day or two, then we'll release him."

"With his prosthetic?"

"No," Don answered, eyeing Leo suspiciously, wondering why Raphael was so concerned. "That comes later. His arm needs to heal and be properly shaped so that we can fit it with a prosthetic. It'll be a couple of months until he gets a new arm."

Done answering questions, Don left the room to gather the necessary supplies for Leo's arm, leaving Leo and Raph alone. Leo peered at his roommate, intrigued by his sudden interest in Leo's medical care.

"Don's a good doctor," Leo said. "A great doctor, actually. He'll take good care of you. And me, too."

Nodding, Raph crossed his arms over his chest and flumped back into the pillows. It was difficult not to feel a sense of comradery with Leonardo; not only had they shared a room for the last couple of hours, but Leo was one of the few people Raph had seen at the Towers, had sweated and bled with. To be roomed together like this after such an experience would have felt like fate, if Raph believed in such a thing.

"Yeah," Raph acknowledged, lolling his head to the side to look at Leo. "Pretty cool, havin' a hotshot doctor for a brother."

Leo nodded; Raph had no idea. Leo half expected Don to build him a bionic monstrosity to replace his lost arm and, honestly, Leo wouldn't have minded. The loss of his arm wasn't something he'd really thought about too much yet. Staring at his stump, Leo felt detachment, as though it wasn't his arm at all and this was happening to someone else.

That'll change, Don would say, if Leo told him how he was feeling, and Leo didn't doubt it. He just hoped he was strong enough to handle it when it did change.

My friends call me Leo, he'd told Raph, but it wasn't very true. Leo didn't have a lot of friends. As a matter of fact, there was only one person he considered such: his best friend, Usagi. There were lots of people he was friendly with or had casual relationships, but Usagi was Leo's only real friend.

Don returned and began working on Leo's arm, but he couldn't feel it. Instead, he watched Raph. He seemed like the sort of person who had lots of friends. It wasn't jealousy that Leo felt, but rather admiration. Following the curves of Raph's face with his eyes, Leo wondered what the man's life was like.

It was easy to imagine Raph having a beer with his company after a shift, laughing and shit-talking in a crappy dive bar. A thought ran through Leo like a splash of icy water; how many of that company had survived? How long would it be before they, any of them, could be that carefree again?

"Hey," Leo said, ignoring the way Don's eyes cut to him. "I was wondering, when you get out, if, well, uh," Leo faltered, feeling awkward and stupid as he attempted to give his number to Raphael. Don rolled his eyes but didn't intervene.

It took a moment for Raph to understand what Leo was asking, but when he waded through the stuttering, he chuckled. "Hey, man," Raph said, reaching into the nightstand drawer to withdraw the small memo pad and pen. "Gotta stick together."

Ripping off the paper, he sat it on the desk between them, the numbers stark against the white page.

"Finished here," Doctor Don said, his voice clipped and sharp in the quiet room. Raph decided he didn't like him; maybe Don was just high-strung or stressed out from his job, but he seemed like a douchebag to Raphael.

"Let's get you discharged, Jones," Don continued. "Your family is waiting."

The discharge process didn't take nearly as long as Raph had expected, probably because Don was all but rolling out a red carpet to rush him out the door. He barely had a chance to say goodbye to Leonardo, who promised he'd text Raph his number when cell service was available again.

In the hall, his mother and brother waited. Tears glistened in Ma Jones's eyes and Raph draped an arm over her shoulders, pulling her close as they navigated out of the hospital. Most of the gurneys had been removed from the labyrinthine halls as the less severely injured people had been shuffled out. Those who remained suffered from more serious ailments; catastrophic burns, missing limbs, and gaping, bloody gashes glared at Raph from every open doorway on their way out.

"I was so worried," Ma Jones whispered for the millionth time, staring into the rooms of those still admitted, knowing that any one of them could have been her son.

"I know, Ma," Raph replied, pressing a kiss to her temple. "I know."

Casey's old El Camino was parked in the lot, looking as shitty and defeated as it had since the day Casey bought it. Raph would never understand why Casey loved the car so much, but he'd long since just accepted the piece of shit as part of the family.

The three piled into the El Camino. Ma wanted Raph to come home with her so that she could fret over him and shovel food down his face, but Raph declined.

"Take me home, Case," Raph insisted. His brother nodded and, through the dissenting chatter of their mother, drove Raphael home.

The hospital that he'd been taken to was in Manhattan, close to the Towers. Raph lived in Brooklyn, closer to his Ma and his station. As Casey navigated the streets, Raph got his first opportunity to survey the damage. Many of the roads were closed, dingy yellow police tape roping off the worst of the wreckage. Traffic was sparser than Raph had ever seen it; the buses didn't seem to be running downtown. Uniforms stopped vehicles coming in and out of the area through a series of checkpoints, perhaps for traffic control or perhaps for security. Probably both.

"Afternoon," An officer said when Casey stopped at the checkpoint at the Williamsburg Bridge.

"Hey, officer," Casey replied, showing Raph's discharge paper. He hooked his thumb at Raph. "Takin' my brother home from the hospital. He's a fireman."

The man looked at the family over his shades, from Casey to Ma and finally to Raph. If he found something off about a black man in the car with his two white family members, he didn't say so.

"Alright," he said, handing the hospital papers back. "Go on through."

Over the bridge, the streets quickly returned to normal. Nothing seemed amiss at all, unless Raph looked over his shoulder or glanced into the rearview mirror at disappearing Manhattan. All the way to Raph's apartment, everything seemed exactly the same as it had been before.

"Call if ya need anythin'," Casey instructed as Raph climbed out of the car, waving goodbye as his family rumbled off down the pot-marked asphalt.

A stout, brick building stood before Raphael. It was an older building, built in the 1960s, so it didn't have much in the way of modern amenities. But it was sturdy and the walls were thick, so Raph didn't think he had much to complain about. Plus, it was small, just four apartments on the bottom floor and four more on the top. The idea of living in one of those mega complexes didn't hold a lot of appeal, even if they'd have a swimming pool and clubhouse.

Raph's apartment was in the bottom left corner. He let himself in; his keys had been with his belongings at the hospital, returned to him upon discharge. He'd brought his gear home rather than having Casey stop at the station to drop it off, though he hadn't worn it. Just his jeans, tank top, and boots. The boots he kicked off as soon as he came inside and he piled his gear on the ratty couch. Miniblinds hung from the windows. Raph had fitted cheap blackout curtains on even cheaper aluminum rods over some to keep out the glare of the streetlights. His kitchen was old but functional, with a white and black interior that reminded him of an old timey diner. The bathroom was much the same, with an old claw foot tub and heavy steel shower rod shoved right into the wall. The carpet had a smell of slight dust and Raph inhaled deeply as he kicked the front door shut behind him. It wasn't much to look at, but it was comfortable and it was home.

Gliding through the rooms on autopilot, Raph stripped his clothes as he went, leaving a trail of dirty laundry from the door to the bedroom. His mouth felt like it was filled with burned kitty litter, so he brushed his teeth and washed his face before flopping down onto the couple of stacked mattresses that served as his bed. He threw his keys and phone on the nightstand. What a fucking day. Or couple of days; he still wasn't sure how long he'd been in the hospital. Somehow, in all the activity of his discharge, he'd forgotten to ask.

Well, whatever. He'd find out tomorrow when he went to the station. For right now, it didn't much matter. Reaching over to his nightstand, he flipped open his phone. No service blinked at him in digital white text. No time. No date. He flipped it shut and threw it back down.

Nestling his face into the crooks of his arms, Raph yawned widely, his jaw popping. No reason he should feel so sleep, probably, but he felt exhausted, as if he could sleep for a hundred years like a modern day Rip Van Winkle. Raph didn't fight the fatigue but rather embraced it, easily slipping to sleep, eager to put the surreal experience of the attacks behind him. Maybe he'd wake up in the morning and find it had all been just a bad dream.