Hey guys! I hope you really enjoy this chapter it really took a while to develop and there were points when I almost gave up completely, it was frustrating to write but I think I got it all down. Oh, and the scene with Alex and Talon in the beginning with her memory is supposed to be confusing so don't think to hard about how it's put together, it's supposed to be in fragments... Anyways, please let me know what you think, and I really enjoy seeing tons of reviews because honestly? who wouldn't? So get ready for the ending, hope it lives up to your guys' standards (:

Enjoy.


Chapter Nine.

"Ready?" I whisper.

"Yeah." He says as I watch his eyes fall shut, shortly mine follow and we are both encased in the world of my mind, awaiting what it's going to show us today.

Images of Casey and I in the lair flashed back to me in small segments as Casey's voice rang through my ears in jumbled sentences, this wasn't like my other memories. This one was a jumbled mess of words and images I'd have to sort through on my own.

"What's up Al." he said eyes still in his comic.

"What have you two been up to?" I said noticing Raphael had walking into the lair with him, but chose to go straight to the lab where his brothers had congregated.

"Bashing skulls like usual."

"What! We're the vigilant heroes of the big apple it's what we do Al." he said giving me a slight chuckle.

"Me and Raph, we've been sneakin out to go to this abandoned warehouse. We found this old bike and we've been fixin it up to run good in there."

"Don't worry Al, I'll protect him for you." He said smirking at me.

"Yeah, I think you need someone to protect you from each other." I laughed

"Listen Alex...Raph, he's getting really into this vigilante stuff."

"He wouldn't leave his brothers behind." I said trying to convince myself.

"We'll find out I guess."

I opened my eyes to see Talon with his eyes still closed trying to figure out what I had just showed him. "It's like your memories are sifting through themselves to find anything that is relevant to what is happening now." He said slowly opening his eyes with a questioning look on his face.

It had been three days since I found myself here with Talon by chance, and after the first day I decided it would be best if I told Talon everything that had happened since the moment I rode away of the bike in search of April with Casey. I had showed him my memories, of April, of the turtles, and even ones of Master Splinter. He was shocked at first when I had told him about everything that happened, but understood under the circumstances of the current situation. I think he was most controversial over my acclaimed love for a mutant turtle. "Humans were meant to be with humans Alex." He had said to me after opening his eyes from the world inside my memories of the red clad turtle...

"That could be true." I said tracing circles in the granite countertop with my fingernails.

"Casey took you to the bike you left here on, right? He knew exactly where it would be?"

"Well, yeah." I said feeling the headache from our session bubbling up right above my eyebrows. I ran my cool hand across my forehead to try and stop it from coming but it didn't work, it never worked.

"The bike Casey took you to is the bike Raphael and him worked on when you were living with them. The memory is putting it right out there for you...I mean it even makes the connection about how Raphael was going to eventually go solo!" Talon said clapping his hands together to award himself for, in his mind, being the smartest person in the room. It was strange watching him decipher my memories like he would his favorite television show.

I just shook my head, he was right...the bike was the same one but this got me no where closer to being able to find Raph. I sighed as I fell back onto the chestnut leather couch and closed my eyes as the smell of the texture drifted up all around me. I picked through anything Casey had said related to the bike that could've meant anything or point me to where Raphael was now. But everything he said was pretty much under his breath and something snide or sarcastic. I then realized Casey had no intention of ever helping me search for Raph. Something had happened between the two that he didn't tell me about, and now I wish I had pried into the past two years of Casey's life a little more.

"Maybe you should just give up looking for him, go find Leo, he seems cooler anyway." Talon said while he fumbled around in the kitchen with lunch, there was hardly any food here and I made a mental note that we needed to do a run for some later. Talon had developed a sort of connection to Leo through my memories and stories of him, he thought the two were alike and I couldn't help but agree that they would've probably been friends...

"You know I couldn't do that." I said leaning my head back to concentrate on something other than my fast approaching headache. It would be like finishing a puzzle only to find out that a piece had been missing this whole time, nothing would fill it's spot nor take it's place leaving the puzzle incomplete. That's what a family without Raphael would be like. Incomplete.

"You don't think he's still in love with you right?" Talon said a little too harsh for my current mood.

"I don't know. Guess we'll have to find him first." I said almost mumbling. The truth was I had been harvesting some small glimmer of hope in my heart that the mutant turtle still held feeling for me, but I knew better than to make wagers like that anymore.

"I mean, he couldn't give you a normal life even if he wanted to. Wouldn't you want regular looking kids running around and a normal looking husband to wake up to every morning? Preferably a handsome husband" He said winking at me.

Now I was beginning to become agitated and I let the feeling bubble up inside me instead of just blowing off his remarks like I used to. "Do you ever think I would be able to live a normal fucking life anyway?!" I said letting my voice raise. He just looked at me as if I was missing the point of what he said. I didn't stay long enough for an explanation though, I stormed up the clear glass stair case and slammed the double doors behind me that led to the room I had unfortunately wound up in three days ago. Why couldn't anyone understand my life, was it because it was such a jumbled mess, or were people just that ignorant.

I opened up the doors to the balcony and let the air roll in, it was almost July the time was beginning to blur as my life became more hectic by the minute. I looked to the rooftops as always in search of my masked hero, but he was never there. As the days drew on I kept looking but the rooftops remained empty as I started to get more agitated by Talon's presence rather than appreciate it. Maybe it was because he thought he had some purpose now that the clan was divided, he saw himself above me as my leader instead of the best friend I so needed right now. Which was ironic because technically I was his leader but apparently he had forgotten my status in the clan. I so wished I could've ended up with Grant, maybe even that prissy Caleb, but Talon would have to do for now.

As I closed myself in my room for was felt like the hundredth time I decided one last peek out on the balcony couldn't hurt. I had a red sundress on I had found in one of the closets and it surprisingly fit quite snug around my body, making me look like an actual girl for once since I had been out of the clan garb. I let my dress flow in the midnight air of summer, July was here.

And just as simple as that, he was too.

I saw him, perched atop a raised ledge on a roof like a bird ready for flight a few streets over. Although I had just caught sight of him, he was already looking at me. I could sense it all through my body as I felt my heart skip a beat. Suddenly I wished I hadn't changed out of my patrol garb so I could run off after him, but as soon as I was distracted by my own thoughts he was gone. I looked back to see the perch empty and for some reason my heart fell. I had lost another chance to speak to him.

I sighed and crawled up on my huge bed sitting crisscross on the plush mattress letting my body sink in. While scouting around the complex I had found a bundle of books and carried them silently back to my room before I could be questioned by Talon who had, in his head, become the new justice system and needed to know what I was doing at all hours of the day and night. But tonight he was scouting for food with a few others and I was left in peace. I opened a page of the book that sat atop the pile I had found. The hobbit, one of Don's favorites. I always told him I would get around to reading it, that and Lord of the rings, might as well start now.

As I read through the every first chapter I was pulled from Middle earth and back to New York city as I heard something out on my balcony. I sat up in my bed and peered out through the open doors, only to find the shielded figure standing there cloaked in shadows, leaning up against the railing with his arms crossed.

He looked as if he were waiting for me to join him from his body language so I reluctantly slid off my bed pulling at the hem of the sundress. As my bare feet hit the cool floor I pondered for a moment if it would be a good idea to go out there with no weapons, but my body pulled me to him anyways.

"Red was always my favorite color." He said, I could feel his eyes on me and I felt the blood heat up in my veins.

"Why did you save me from those mutants, I'm sure you would've equally enjoyed watching them tear me apart limb from limb." I said standing in the frame of the balcony keeping a guarded stance.

He just chuckled. "Well that would've been a show, but everyone deserves second chances right? And that day you were the lucky I was in the vigilante mood." His voice muffled under his helmet.

"Why are you here?" I said, my voice coming off a little bitter. "Have I peeked an interest in your life of pillaging and bashing skulls?"

His stance shifted a little and he turned to face the streets. I stayed behind him.

"You remind me of someone...Though I haven't' come to the conclusion as to why I haven't killed you yet."

"Well maybe if you got to know me a little better, we could be allies." I said with a little hesitation.

"I don't take well to other people, I work alone."

"Well then maybe it's time you let someone in."

"The last person I let in destroyed me, made me like this."

I sighed leaning up against the frame. "No, you made yourself like this." I said watching his arm twitch.

"Is that so." He said muttering.

"You had the choice of two pathways and you chose the darker, more isolated one, leading you to your ultimate demise in a world where you see every living soul as your enemy." I said smiling inwardly at my choice of words, it sounded awfully poetic.

"What do you know." He muttered through his helmet.

"I've been there before, I held a dagger up to my wrist and almost said goodbye."

"What stopped you." He spat at me, only forming a smile on my face. There it was again, that "kiss my ass attitude" and the bad boy stance. I had seen it and heard it before.

"Let me show you." I said walking up to him placing a hand on his shoulder, and before I knew it I was sucked back into my memories and he was there too.

I walked back into Raphs room and grabbed one of the daggers on his nightstand. I took the dagger in my hands and held it to my wrist looking at my reflection through the gleaming metal of the blade.. I wanted to die. I hated my life, being all alone. Something stopped me from pressing the dagger into my wrist, but I sunk to the ground and started to cry. I pushed harder on the dagger watching blood appear. "It'll be over soon" I said to myself watching blood pool on the floor beside me as I let out small whimpers of pain muffled by my own tears.

"Alex, go to be- Alex!" Raph jumped off his bed and knocked the dagger out of my hands in one quick swipe.

"Just let me do it! Please!" I cried. I kept begging and pleading to just end it all, to take me from this life but I felt strong arms wrap around me telling me to shut up.

Raph just held me as tight as he could in his arms and we sat on the ground like that until I gave up.

"Alex why would you even try that!? Are you nuts?"

"If you had seen the things I've seen you would want this too."

He picked me up and set me on his bed. He grabbed a blanket from the bed and ripped a piece off tying in around my cut. I watched him as he did this, he was so focused. He must've done this a thousand times when his brothers were injured. When he was done he looked at me with sad eyes.

"Please don't ever do that again." he said.

"Why you wouldn't want to take the blame since I'm your responsibility?" I shot at him ignoring the hot tears running down my face.

"No! just shut up Alex. You don't get it..."

I gave up trying to fight him ad let out a small sigh.

"Alex, you have a new family now whether you like it or not and you're not getting rid of us so easily." he said.

As I opened my eyes back up to the six something feet of metal and leather before me, I realized I had left the man virtually shocked. He didn't move but he turned his head to face me, and for the first time I thought I could see his eyes, green and full of pain. I leaned up on the railing next to him, I don't know why but in these past few moments of just being alone on the balcony made me more comfortable around him, I could tell he had no intention of hurting me.

It looked like he was going to say something, but before he could I heard a loud crash and Talon burst through the door with his cross bow in hand and didn't hesitate to send an arrow right in between us. Before I could protest Talon prepared to fire again but his target was already gone. Just like that he slid away into the darkness again.

"What the HELL TALON!" I screamed dislodging the arrow that had landed right next to me. "Have you gone completely insane?!" I lunged at him trying to knock the cross bow out of his arms.

"Al-Alex!" He said doing his best to dodge me. "I heard voices and though you were being attacked!" He yelled.

"What!" I yelled back at him standing there glaring daggers at him. I set him ablaze in my mind, but I'm sure from my eyes he could tell what I was thinking.

"I shouldn't have left you alone, that man is a killer, and a monster." He said simply out of breath from my previous rant of terror. I just shot him a disgusted look and told him to get out before he could explain anything else.


It was both painful and beautiful to be around someone as broken as me for once. Talon was always so full of energy and he used to be my best friend, now he was like my parole officer, making sure I didn't leave my room or hangout on my balcony after hours. I couldn't talk to him about anything anymore without being questioned or yelled at. The night watcher had been through just as much as me, but where I was dragged down the path of "This is your chance to turn your life around" unconsciously, he had been forced to make the choice himself, and being so broken and overcome with anger, chose the darkest path he could submerge himself in.

Those green eyes though, they were familiar and captivating. The very green eyes that used to send shivers down my spine and force the blood to my cheeks. The eyes that watched me as I walked down the hallways with his brother, or when it was two in the morning and I couldn't fall asleep. The green eyes that haunted my dreams and chased me away from reality, the reality that Raphael was no longer Raphael, and I didn't even notice.

I curled up in the soft bed that could easily hold four to five people and grabbed up the hobbit again and started to read from where I had left off. I hadn't gotten far before my mind started to wander and I couldn't concentrate on the words on the page in front of me anymore. So I put the book down on the page I had left off on and slid off the edge of the bed letting my feet brave the chill of the hard wood floors. I walked to the bathroom that was connected to my room and with my palms pressing up against the basin counter top I stared at my reflection in the mirror realizing how matted my hair was and how drained my face looked. I could go for a hot bath right now.

I turned to find a nicely sized tub that would have to do. I made sure to turn the heat all the way up, if the water even ran here anymore. Talon told me he and the other foot soldiers had fixed everything, so let's hope he wasn't bluffing just to make me feel more at home. I cranked the knob all the way to the right and water sputtered out, I smiled for the first time since Talon busted down my door, seconds later hot water ran across my palm. I searched the cabinets until I found a big bottle of body wash and poured some into the tub making the bathroom smell like lavender. As the water reached the brim of the tub I shut it off and slid in feeling the water scaling my body, maybe the heat could melt away everything I had ever known and I could make a fresh start. I laughed at the idea, knowing with my luck I'd never escape the hole I had dug myself into since I arrived here on a train almost two and a half years ago now.

As my body got used to the warmth of the water my mind began to wander again. I wondered what April was up to right now, maybe Don was up in his lab as the night drew on working on something that he had calculated in his head a million times, or maybe he was up in the kids rooms reading to them from Lord of the rings. I smiled little at the thought. Mikey would be making a snack right now, and April might be sitting on the couch making a list of things they were running short on, or watching the tv broadcast about the city. She had always wanted to be a journalist in the city...

I was pulled out of my trance by a clap of thunder in the distance and the sudden patter of rain against the side of the building. It was both peaceful and disarming at the same time listening to the noise and feeling the ground shake beneath you. Storms in the city have always been bad. As the water became lukewarm I drained it and pulled myself out of the tub with my good arm, and wrapped my body up in a nearby towel.

It was late, and I found a pair of flannel pajamas in the closet. This must've been a girls room because all of her clothes fit me, and looked like something someone my age would typically war in the city. It was a little unnerving though as to why all of her clothes were left behind. As I grabbed the pj's from the shelf a thought emerged in my head and it seemed to be urging me.

Not now, I told myself. It's storming out are you nuts? but the thought still did not leave my mind and I figured it had to be someone else's doing, putting this thought in my head because there was no way in hell I would actually convince myself to go out in this pouring rain and lightning. But I was, I dropped the pajams and grabbed my patrol gear getting it on as fast as I could. I opened the balcony doors to pouring rain and without looking back I slid down the fire escape not even bothering to shut the doors behind me. Surely Talon would have a heart attack when he learned I had went out in this storm against his word and also injured, but then maybe he'd learn he doesn't own me.

As my feet touched the pavement of the sidewalk I let my breath catch up to me, my hair was still sopping wet from my bath but that was the last of my inconveniences since it was pouring down rain and my entire body was soon shivering and protesting my poor choice to go out. I crossed the street finding a fire escape through the illumination of the lightning and starting my ascent for the skies. I soon reached the roof only to ask myself why I was even out here. Maybe I needed to feel the rush of the open world again after only being cooped for two weeks, or maybe I let my mind linger a little too long on who this night watcher really was, and why Talon was so quick to shoo him away.

I stood in the pouring rain until I caught the outline of a pack of mutants not far off in the distance and let my body take over. My legs ached as they hurdled roof tops and pushed me farther away from Talon and his band of puppets. I couldn't stand him anymore. What had come over him? I guess even the slightest bit of power can turn you awry. As I ran I didn't really pay attention to where I was heading, I knew I had to get far enough away from the mutants, but I also had no clue where I was exactly in the city and with no way of re-routing myself I was pretty much fucked. My only hope was to, out of some coincidence, run into the one person I was looking for. You know, the one sheathed in metal who reeked of dried blood and leather? He drew me to him like a moth to flame, an attraction I couldn't quite explain since being around him brought on an array of emotions, mostly anger towards his ignorance, but sometimes curiosity to learn more. I began to curse myself for even letting a simple thought take me over until in the illumination of the lighting I saw a figure up ahead leaning under a half beaten billboard advertising toothpaste and I felt a grin creep up onto my face.

As I drew towards him he perked up at the sound of my footsteps and drew his chain weapons and stood firm waiting for the mutants he thought were lurking in the shadows. He seemed to back off a ways when he saw me, as if terrified by my unannounced presence. It was like he was seeing a ghost...

"What are you doing out here? It's storming go home." He said a little harshly. I could hardly hear him under the thunder and patter of the down pour.

"I don't have a home anymore." I said back watching his figure come in and out of focus as the lightning struck around us. He could easily slip away without me even noticing, it was pitch black out here after all.

"Leave before you get hurt kid." He spat at me whipping his chain in his hand, but his tone was guarded and cracked at times, he hesitated when he swung the chain up and around his arms and I think I knew why. April had been right, mostly about how dark his mind had become, but the nightmares were just stories played out in my head about what could happen when I came face to face with the shadowed figure that lurked in the back of my mind. I had created a monster out of pure ignorance to the fact that he might be just as scared as I was right now, because I knew he knew.

"You wont hurt me. You saved me from the pack of mutants that day but you hardy knew me, why?"

"I already told you." He said backing away, into the comfort of the shadows.

"Tell me, night watcher, was it really because I reminded you of someone, or because I was someone." I said letting my voice reach the brink of a whisper as my sentence rolled off my tongue. I felt a knot forming at he back of my throat as the ran pelted my body. If I let the tears come now, at least it would go unnoticed. "For two years you have haunted my dreams, making you out to be a monster, tell me have you not suffered the same fate? I saw it in your eyes when I showed you the memory, you were scared." I pulled back my hood and let the force of the rain water log my hair yet again.

"You don't know anything!" He bellowed making my heart skip a beat.

"My mask slid off when you carried me back to Talon, but you didn't want to believe what you saw. You told yourself I was just another foot solider but everything about me brought you back to the girl in the sewers. Didn't it."

"STOP!" He cried stomping his way over to me, the lighting outlining his menacing stance made my body want to run for cover but I held my ground we came chest to chest. I'm sure he could hear my heart ready to thump right out of my chest at this point, but his ragged breathing told me he was just as ready to run away as I was.

"You are not alive! I watched you die!" He yelled in my face pushing me back like I was nothing but an illusion.

"I lived, I'm here!" I screamed back. "This isn't another dream, you're awake and I'm real."

"No, no, no...no.." He mumbled as his knees sank to the ground before me. In the background another pang of lightning struck lighting up the whole sky, and if it weren't for the current situation I was in I would stand in awe of it's beauty, but now I couldn't tell if I wanted to jump off the side of the building or let myself face my madness like Leo had. My life had certainly taken a few rough turns along the way.

I stood before the sunken figure before me, even on his knees he was no puny thing. Carefully I took a handle on his helmet and slowly lifted it off his head. He seemed like a mess, and I didn't even think he realized what I had done until it was too late. I could feel my heartbeat in my throat and even from the rain my palms were sweaty with a slight shake. I let the helmet drop to the ground as my mind caught up with itself.

Two tails of a mask flapped in the wind, no longer held down by the helmet, and under the brightness of the lightning I saw red.

"Please don't shut me out." I said tears welling up in my eyes from the disbelief that my assumptions were actually correct for once.

With his eyes still closed, I sank down in front of him not knowing where to go from here.

"Raphael..." I said in a choked whisper.

At the sound of his name he slowly opened his eyes and for the first time I think he actually saw me for who I really was. Green eyes dulled by the pain and suffering of two years wandering alone washed over me like tidal waves and it felt as if in this moment nothing else mattered, not Talon discovering I was gone, not my aching body shivering in the chill of the hard rain, not even the downpour that had us kneeling in an inch of water.

"Alex..." He said choking on his own tears as we sat in the lightning storm together, realizing for the fist time we wouldn't have to wander alone anymore, and that the nightmares and sleepless nights would cease to exist, and the monsters we had created and bred in our minds over the past years had been nothing more than our greatest fears festering inside of us, wanting us to run scared.

But finding the figure behind the monster in my head was only the easy part.

As I sat and cried looking at him in awe, thinking how did I ever get by without you...sudden swirls of blue, deep and glorious danced along the back of my eyelids and all through my train of thought and all I could hear was one voice speaking to me, but I knew it wasn't Raph's.

"I wont be so easy to come by." It said, and I asked God why couldn't it have only been one brother lost in the darkness of the city.

Now came the hard part.