It started as a snort from Donatello. He clapped his hand over his mouth to repress it, but he couldn't help it - in seconds he burst into a fit of giggles. Michelangelo, try as he did not to, was quick to follow suit.

Raphael grunted as he got up from the floor, dusting himself off. "Yeah, yeah - laugh it up, guys," he said, sitting back on the bar stool he had just fallen off of. "Could'a happened to any of you."

"Yeah, but it's funny 'cause it happened to you!" Michelangelo screeched. Something about watching his self-assured brother tumble to the floor was enough to make him double over with laughter. He had to grip the kitchen counter top to keep himself from falling over the same way. Donatello was almost laying across Mike because he, too, was crippled by the humor of the situation. Raphael narrowed his eyes. He had half a mind to knock Don out of his seat, very furtively, so that he would stop laughing. But then, something in his mind told him it would only make him laugh harder. He had to satisfy himself with giving both of his brothers a rough shove.

The following indignant "Hey!" caught Leonardo's attention. He was still wrapped up in his blanket, now lying with his head on the armrest, idly watching television. He sighed at the sounds coming from the kitchen.

"Would you guys please just stop fighting for once?" he asked half-heartedly. Raphael saw the shadows on his face, illuminated only by the dull glow of the television set. His face seemed paler than usual, even considering the bad lighting. Something was definitely wrong. His eyebrows knitted briefly with concern.

Michelangelo waved Leo off. Distracted, he lifted his head quickly, his eyes bulging wide. He grabbed Donatello by the arm as though something urgent had suddenly come to his attention.

"Donnie, oh man, dude, you know what would be awesome?" he said, his words slurred half by alcohol and half by excitement. Don's eyes were just as wide in anticipation. He shook his head no.

"A hammock!" Mike gestured toward the living room couch. "How cool would that be? We could set it up here, right where that couch is. We'll string it all the way across the room; it'll be HUGE! Ah, man, that would be great. Why have we never thought of that before?"

"And what exactly would we do with a hammock?" Donatello criticized, curling his knuckles against his hip. "Sit in it and read? We're ninjas, for crying out loud - not literary college dropouts."

Mike pouted. "I just think it would be the perfect place for you to sit and read those manuals you're always up all night with. It would be sooo comfortable! Tell him, Raph."

But Raphael's thoughts were tied up in his eldest brother. He hadn't been right for months, and ever since the previous night when he fled the apartment to spend the night here, he'd seemed exceptionally off. Then again, he had spent the night in Splinter's study. None of the boys had ever spent much time there if they weren't being scolded or rewarded for something. They all knew that their sensei had long ago been a member of the Foot, and that the Foot was notorious for using black magic. Was it altogether impossible that there was still some black magic lingering in that study? Raphael shuddered to think of it.

He ignored Mike's call for help and walked over to where Leonardo was lying. While keeping watch over the brother that got under his skin the most was not his favorite way to spend an evening, he felt partially responsible for his condition. His guilty conscience kept him there more than anything else.

"Hey man, what're you watching?" he asked softly. Leo barely moved his head in response.

"Was watching CSI. Hated it, flipped the channel, watching the news."

Raphael sat in the chair nearest to Leo's feet and settled on watching the news with him. The tequila was starting to make his eyelids feel extraordinarily heavy, and he could think of worse things than falling asleep here.

"Anything good?"

"Nah," Leo replied, "it's the news, it's never good. Japan has been all over the news lately with their gang wars. It's wreaking havoc in the economy all over the world. It's funny - Karai came here to stop the gang fights once Shredder was dead and the Foot fell apart. Now she's gone too, and even the original branch can't hold itself together."

" 'A house divided against itself cannot stand '," Raph murmured, recalling an old quote that their father had said time after time after time.

Leonardo visibly stiffened. "I know that," he said sharply. "I just wonder...sometimes...if the Foot would have been different...if she..."

Raph lifted an eyebrow. It was no secret that Karai, once leader of the Foot Clan in Japan, held certain sympathies toward Leonardo. Sometimes the brothers would go so far as to tease him and call them an item. They both vehemently denied it, and Raphael was sure that, given the opportunity, Karai would have slashed Leo's throat if she'd had to. Nonetheless, they were both obsessed with the concept of old-fashioned honor and grace, and it forged an uneasy bond between them. When Leo had learned of Karai's death at the hand of a minor Foot ninja some three or four years ago, he refused to seem upset or distraught. Still, there was no hiding the fact that he thought of her more often than he had any right to. Donatello and Michelangelo had accepted it ages ago, but Raphael was still having some difficulty with it.

"It's in the past bro, don't think about it," he muttered. Leonardo sighed heavily.

"I know."

They watched a brief segment about keeping families safe during the upcoming Easter holiday.

"Hey Raph?"

"Yeah?"

"You think Audrey will be okay, traveling to Japan in a few months with all that fighting? She's not like April; I don't know if she can defend herself against a truly skilled ninja."

"You don't think so?" Raphael scoffed. "I've seen that look she gives you. She could wipe the floor with you any day of the week."

"I'm serious. I'm worried something will happen to her, and that she won't be home in time for Midsummer."

"What, this whole me-turning-human thing is all of a sudden important to you? I thought you didn't even want me to go through with it."

Leonardo sighed again, that deep-rooted sigh he gave so often. As though he held the whole world on his shoulders, and it was going to come crashing down to break him at any moment.

It was that broken sigh that Raphael hated. He gritted his teeth and gave his best effort to forget it.

"I never said that," Leo replied calmly. "If it'll make you happy, by all means, finish the mutation. It'll sure make things easier when you get caught doing something stupid on the surface."

Is he deliberately trying to piss me off? Raph thought, clenching his fist so tightly that the nails were digging into his skin. "What do you mean, 'something stupid'?"

"Like running off and being all Nightwatcher vigilante!" Donatello unknowingly cut the tension growing between the two by tossing a seat cushion from the bar stool at Raphael's head. He turned his head quickly and narrowed his eyes at his elder brother. MIchelangelo smacked him - hard.

"Way to wake the sleeping dragon, Donnie."

Raphael grinned, that same deviant grin that spread across his face when he'd pummeled Michelangelo earlier. Don swallowed and tensed, trying to brace himself for the fight. On the inside, Raph was grateful for the distraction. He and Leonardo had never gotten along particularly well. Leo just seemed to have a knack for saying and doing things that drove him mad. More than likely it wasn't intentional, but when he threw around words like "mutation", it hurt nonetheless.

"Ah, relax dude," he said, waving Donatello off. "I'm too drunk to hurt ya much, anyway."

"Yeah, we noticed that when you fell," Michelangelo said, then slapped his hand over his mouth and gasped like he knew it was a mistake.

A single sai flew through the air and struck the wall just shy of his head, singing with the vibration of the strike.