Both of the humans, after faltering attempts to talk to Raphael, had fallen into an uneasy silence. Casey shrugged to April, who only pursed her lips and shook her head in resignation. The sickly grey light of morning added no cheer, as Raphael waited in curt silence with April for Casey to bring the van from the parking deck. They were ignored by the indifferent crowds that rippled like a river around them, but Raphael was hunched and tense, his hands instinctively on his sais. April gently clapped a steadying hand on his shoulder, expecting him to shrug it off, or snarl. Raphael said nothing, but to April's shock, he clamped his own hand over hers, trembling. It was solid and tethering in this hell, and he was grateful for it. Mercifully, the van pulled up quickly, and he scrambled to the back. Raphael kept his agony clinched like a fist, and stayed quietly rigid as a hunted animal. He sat in the van's seat, peering out from the brim of his fedora with those huge, ravaged eye, his face only a sliver of dark green in its shadow.

"Raph?" Casey's voice was almost timid as Raphael just raised his eyes to stare at them both.

"I'm alright." Raph's voice was choked, as if the words were too heavy to speak. The humans exchanged troubled glances as Raphael's brittle gaze softened a bit.

"I owe ya both. Sorry for worryin' ya. Let's get movin', eh?"

April forced herself to tactfully ignore his trembling, the way he folded himself inward as if to hide. Resolutely, she tore her gaze to the front of the van, and studied indifferently the writhing of traffic. Casey reached for her wrist, let his grip linger over her hand with a sad smirk.

"Raph's gonna be alright, babe. We all will be." She gave him a mirthless, forced smile. Nobody else spoke for the rest of the short trip.

Raphael squinted at the flecks of sunlight that spilled over the seat. He found himself numbly staring numbly at the floor, flanked by Casey's bag, April's suitcase, and the laundry basket full of bedding.

The back of the van felt like a tomb, and Raphael cringed at remembering the helpless sprawl into oblivion from the Foot assault on him. He didn't remember any of that tortured path, other than Leo had kept a vigil, and all of them were so damn scared that they would lose him...

Suddenly, the world blurred, and he was hurting like hell. He ignored the embarrassing waterworks as he curled down, latched hands over his knees, and choked back the boulder that was lodged in his throat.

It was such a tedious, useless detail to be fussing over, but Donnatello found both solace and distraction in the specifics on how to transport their brother's corpse. Leo, Splinter, and Donny, scaped raw from shot nerves, lack of sleep, and wounded realization, had kept their lonely, pointless vigil through the longest night of their lives.

In the end, it would be a simple matter of hoisting their dead brother through a manhole cover, laying him down in the van, and driving him away to be buried. So simple, and so sickening.

Now, Donny found himself staring at the white sheets, idiotically pondering their color. Would Mikey want the white, or would he want his garishly colored sheets? How in the hell was he to know?

It was idiotic, fussing about sheets and ignoring the dead body that lay in front of him. Donny sighed, scrubbed away the dull ache from his temples, and stared down at Mikey. Mikey lay in repose where they had left him, on his bed.

Mikey's face, thank God, bore no marks or scars. There were no bruises, no cuts, nothing suggestive that he had suffered and died from a deadly head wound. There was nothing to see unless you lifted his head, tore away the bandana and looked for the neatly stitched line. Donny had made damn sure of that.

Mikey's face was serene, the lips curled upward into a small smirk, the eyes shut with finality, resting on the pillow that hid the rest of the damage. Donny yanked the orange sheets around his shoulders, pulled up the quilt to his chin, and then tucked the rest into a tight cacoon.

In an effort to spare Splinter and Leo from the torture of staring at their dead loved one, Donny had discretely draped the orange blanket over his brother's face. Leo had rounded on him with a whimper, as he snatched the blanket from Don's stunned fingers. Leo was crumbling into tears and he met Donny's huge, stricken eyes.

Swallowing hard, Leo stared dumbly at the blanket, then at Donny, agonized and apologetic.

" Please don't cover him up. Mikey would have hated that." It was softly spoken, barely above a whisper, and to Donny, absolutely infuriating. He yanked the blanket high, let it flail out like a banner, and tucked it over Mikey's face. He didn't acknowledge the rage, or the irritation of his fingers quaking so much. Rounding on Leo, he heaved and jammed a finger towards the body.

"That's not *him*, Leo! That's the leftovers after his murder...that *thing* laying there on that bed is not my brother!"

He fractured, then. Fell apart completely as his rationality and control over his thoughts collapsed, and he was left with nothing but one dead brother, and the living one staring at him in bewildered horror.

"Mikey would have hated it, Leo? More than he would have hated enduring a cranial fracture? More than this hell?"

His voice grew shrill, and then needle sharp as he clutched at his temples. Even breathing seemed so damn wrong, as the cold rationality came back in one cleansing flood.

"Leo, tell me something." Donny's voice was glacial, each word carefully parcelled out. "If you are responsible for each of us, how in the hell could you lapse so terribly and allow this to happen?"

Donny remembered little of that horrible conversation, only that Leo's eyes went huge with hurt shock.

"What?" It was a bewildered whisper, as Leo just stared at him, numbly.

"Maybe the damn lapse came from ya not fixin' Mikey when he was alive, Don. Eva' think of that?"

Raphael's words were like a whiplash, as he suddenly rippled into Don's blurred vision, all snarl and spit and anguish so deep it felt like rage. He shrugged off April and Casey's grip like water. Don suddenly found himself hoisted into the air, slammed into the wall, and penned by Raph's clawing fingers.

"What the - is wrong with you? Wasn't it enough that we lost Mikey, or ya want to drive Leo into doin' himself in, too?"

Donny winced, his lips pressed into a hard, white line. He just glared at Raphael, and said nothing.

"Raph..." .

"Raph, let him go. Please." Leo's strangled plea made the blind rage in Raphael's gut uncoil like a noose.

He looked at Donny with horror as he stared at his own hand that was crushing his own brother against the wall.

Raphael suddenly flung Don away as if he were an unclean thing. Donny groaned, but was silent as he brushed knuckles against his bruised throat, and gave Raphael a bitter shake of his head. His eyes were full of guilty sorrow when he saw Leo. Raphael ignored him when he saw Leo's jarring flinch, the way his breaths came as erratic as a hatchling's wingbeats.

Uncertainly, Raphael glanced at Leo, and slid an arm over him. Leo wilted into the embrace.

Leo just bowed his head into Raph's protective shoulder, buried his face into Raph's neck, clung to him like a beaten kid, and sobbed.

Donny stared at Leo's bent shell, misery and guilt warring in his guts, as he tried to think of what the hell could be said to make any of this right. And then his mouth clamped shut with the finality of a tomb door when he realized it was futile. Raphael awkwardly held Leo to his plastron and whispered something Donny could not make out. Leo recoiled at first, but let Raphael go.

Raphael sighed heavily, as he swallowed.

"Donny..." He said his brother's name, soft and broken, as he waved a hand around the Lair.

"Normally, I ain't much good at peace-keepin', and bein' nice. 's more your thing than mine, ya know that. But, Donny.." His voice faltered as his eyes swept wretchedly over all of them, and lingered longest on Mikey's corpse.

"If we keep this sort o' thing up, we may as well just let the Foot finish the job and join Mikey."

Donny stiffened at the blunt truth as April gasped behind him.
"Whatever the hell this is between us, can we let it go for now?" Donnatello heard the plea in his voice, the fear of being wounded and scorned..

Donnatello exhaled a long, drained sigh, and felt the familiar heaviness descend, of needed rationality, self-control, detached intellect. And then, he saw Raphael, hurting and only opening himself to be ravaged at Donny's answer.