He woke to the sound of screaming.
It took Raphael time to realize the screams were not his own. How much time - he did not know. Time felt strange. Stretched out, ambling on through a haze. Around him, someone was shouting, screaming something he could not understand. And then he realized that that was not because he couldn't hear, but because Angel was screaming in Spanish.
The turtle blinked and that small action, performed countless times before without thought or consequence, somehow felt like the most difficult thing he had ever done. A tiny, dimly lit room came into dim focus around him. He was in a hospital bed. A deflated IV bag hung just beyond the rails. The turtle attempted to flex fingers and toes in turn, and felt a crushing sense of relief when each one moved, albeit slowly; stiffly. Wherever he was, and whatever had happened to him, he still had all of his limbs.
"Just because he would die for you doesn't mean he should!" Angel was shouting in English now, her voice hoarse from screaming. From crying.
"Maybe you should let Raphael speak for himself, Angel," April's voice was a low growl, like a cornered animal.
"Maybe he could have if you hadn't almost gotten his fuckin' head blown off!" Angel roared.
She slammed her fist against the handrail on the bed, and the reverberations ran up Raphael's spine, cold as ice and ugly as coming down. The turtle's face twisted up involuntarily in agony, but he forced himself to sit up.
"Ladies, ladies," he grumbled, "can y' keep it down?"
He knew he was being patronizing, but he didn't care. They were being ridiculous. Here he was, all laid up in a hospital bed, and they were about to bite each other's heads off. Ridiculous.
"Raphael!"
She wasn't doing the thing. The thing she did with his name; annunciating every syllable in irritation. Instead she just sounded relieved. Raphael forced his eyes open, and he could see her through a haze, smiling at him. His Angel. She threw her arms around him and squeezed.
The battered turtle let out an involuntary wheeze and Angel released him from her embrace.
"Shit, I'm so sorry –" she stammered. "How do you feel?"
"Like I got hit by a goddamn bus," Raphael groaned, sinking back into his pillow. The turtle had actually been hit by a bus, once. It was late, and dark, and he crawled out of the wrong manhole at the wrong time. It was not a good night. And if he were being honest, truly honest with her, this felt so much fucking worse.
"What happened?" he asked, stubbornly attempting to blink through his hazy vision.
Angel's features hardened. "That EMP blew up in your face."
"NNEMP," April corrected, coldly.
"Whatever!" Angel snapped, whipping around to face April, obviously in no mood for any one's bullshit. Not even their Rebel Leader's.
Raphael realized that he could hear her, but he could not see her. April was somewhere in the dark. He blinked furiously, trying to focus. Trying to see. But he couldn't.
"What the hell does it matter what it's called?" Angel snapped. "It blew up and took his eye with it!"
"My eye?" Raphael's voice cracked.
Was that why he couldn't see? Slowly, he raised a hand to his face. His fingers gingerly grazed his cheek, just below his left eye, and he winced. His bandana was gone, but half of his face was wrapped in a bandage. Somehow it felt numb and raw, all at once. He blinked again, trying to focus his eye in the dark, but the room was beginning to spin.
"Fuck!" Angel whipped around around to face him, her features heavy with remorse. "Raph, I'm so sorry," she said. "We were going to tell you -"
The turtle almost scoffed. His fucking eye was gone. He knew he wasn't the smart one, but he was pretty sure he could have figured that out on his own.
"You're lucky your eye was all you lost," April said flatly, somewhere from the recesses of the recovery room. He could barely hear her. Everything sounded so fuzzy; so far away.
He knew what she was saying was true. The last thing he remembered was launching the NNEMP. He remembered his finger on the trigger. He remembered a flash of blinding light, an agonizing heat. And then everything went white. Raphael shook his head and immediately regretted it. Everything hurt.
"Did it work?" he choked out the words.
He needed to know. He had to know. It had to be worth it. All the sacrifice. All the death. All the loss. He just hurt so fuckin' bad. And he just wanted it to be over.
"No," April said, her voice grave."I'm sorry, Raphael."
Raphael had been willing to give up everything, and it hadn't even worked. He had accomplished nothing. Other than nearly blowing his own face off. The turtle's body slumped forward in the hospital bed, flopping over. Suddenly he was too heavy to hold himself up. Nausea rippled through him leaving him shuddering. Sweat beaded on his brow even though there was no warmth in the room.
Angel was shouting his name from the bedside, but she sounded as if she was miles away. Like screaming at him through a fog. "Are you okay?" she asked, her voice softer.
"Feel like I'm gonna puke." He could feel the bile rising in his throat.
"That's okay," she said, trying her best to sound reassuring. But he could hear it - the undercurrent of fear in her voice. "It's okay," she said again, trying to reassure them both.
As the turtle slumped forward, about to empty the contents of his stomach onto his lap, Raphael felt Angel's hand on his shoulder. The good one. The one that wasn't riddled with shrapnel and covered in scores of stitches. Her fingers squeezed his tricep, and her thumb grazed over the scaly skin exposed outside of his shell. When she touched him, he remembered to breathe.
Raphael's chest swelled beneath his plastron as he inhaled. The turtle closed his only remaining eye and exhaled. As he inhaled again, he was struck by a surge of pain. The agony ripped through him, white hot and lighting fast, and he gasped aloud. It knocked the wind from him, and he crumpled against the hospital bed.
Forcing his eye open, he desperately glanced around the room, trying to see - trying to orient himself. He felt like he was falling, spinning, spiraling out of control. Angel was still at his bedside, a blur of purple amidst the black closing in on both of them. He could hear her shouting.
"He needs more meds!" Her voice echoed in the darkness.
"He's just in shock," April's reply was entirely devoid of emotion. Raphael wondered if it was some bullshit power play, or if she simply did not care.
"Don't you have another syringe -" Angel began, her words almost slurring together, as if there was no way that she could possibly speak quickly enough.
He watched in a haze as the purple streak leapt up from his bedside and disappeared, swallowed up by the black. Though he could not hear April's reply, he could tell she protested. His good eye drooped closed. Angel and April fell silent, and the recovery room became quiet; though the dull, monotonous buzz humming in Raphael's ears did not abate. He wondered if he would ever know silence again.
"April," Angel's voice cut through the cloying silence like a knife. "You did this. So if you don't fix it," she paused. "I will."
If he hadn't been in agony, he might have smiled. He could just see her now, fierce brown eyes glinting in the low light, formidable as a tempest about to unleash itself. He had no idea what he'd done to deserve her, but he didn't have the time to mull it over. There was nothing but the pain.
Angel was speaking to him, trying to explain something, but he could not make out the words. Raphael felt pressure on his arm, rubbery and taut around his limp bicep. A tourniquet. Angel was trying to explain. To tell him what she was doing. To help him understand. But he didn't. The pain had suffused his entire body now, eking out through every inch of him. It was no longer a lightning strike, just a dull, blinding haze. He didn't even feel the needle slip in through his bruised, tender flesh. There was no gratitude when the pain began to fade; no relief.
Raphael just slipped into a blank, dreamless sleep.
When he woke again, the lights were so low they were barely on. He blinked back the dark and the haze of chemical induced sleep, attempting to orient himself. He realized he had no goddamn clue if it was day or night. He had no idea what time it was, much less what day. As he shifted his weight beneath the sheets, he wondered how long he had been out.
With considerable effort he was able to adjust his limbs and prop himself up, moving slowly in a futile effort to avoid the pain. Someone was sitting beside him, keeping a silent vigil over him while he slept. He searched for their face in the darkness, but he could not find it.
But he did not need to see her to know who she was. He could smell her – that familiar, comforting scent of engine oil and old baby powder. Angel. She was entirely still, with her head resting on her arms, crossed over the hospital bed mattress.
His heart ached when he realized she must have fallen asleep sitting at his bedside.
Angel's face was concealed by a curtain of her hair, falling around her face in greasy wefts. He wondered how long she had been there beside him.
His only remaining eye scanned the darkness. He told himself it was just a precaution, that he would be a shit ninja if he didn't. But really, he was looking for her. April. Though he knew better than to call out her name. Instead he reached for Angel's hand, and ran a finger softly over hers. Her skin was so warm, and so soft. He gave her hand a gentle squeeze and to his surprise, she squeezed back.
"Hey," she said sleepily.
"Hey," he cleared his throat. "Sorry. Didn't mean to wake ya."
"S'okay," her words were still slurring together in her exhaustion. Angel looked up at him, sweeping her hair back from her face. This was the first time she was close enough for him to see the dark circles beneath her eyes. "How you doin'?"
"Better," he lied.
Lines from the creases of the sheets streaked across her face, but still she smiled at him. He was glad that he could give her a reason to smile. Even if it was a lie.
Angel exhaled, thanking God in Spanish as she buried her face in her hands. And then she said something else. Something Raphael could not quite hear.
"You're, uh," he cleared his throat. "You're gonna have to speak up, Ange. I can't hear so good right now."
Her eyes met his gaze in the dark. "I thought you died," she said, her voice louder, teetering between reason and hysteria. "And she just wanted to leave you there!"
Raphael's face fell as he watched her, clawing at the scratchy sheets of his hospital bed. The fabric crumpled in her fists. She hunched over the bed, and strands of hair fell across her face in greasy streaks. She probably hadn't washed it in days. Had she been here, with him, the whole time?
"She said it was too high risk," Angel muttered, casting her gaze to the ground. "Bitch."
"But you came anyway," Raphael said somberly.
She nodded.
"That was stupid," the turtle grunted. "Didn't I tell ya not to do anythin' stupid in my note?"
Angel's eyes narrowed at him. "No," she retorted bluntly.
"Well I shoulda," Raphael said, this time a little more gently. He sighed. "C'mere."
Angel hoisted herself up and padded across the scratchy standard-issue sheets towards him. She laid down, wedging herself between him and the rails of the hospital bed. He couldn't imagine it was comfortable for her, but he was grateful that she was there. The turtle slowly raised his arm and wrapped it around her. He was slow, and sore, but he wanted her close. She rested her head gently on his chest. He could feel the weight of her on his bony armor plating, like an anchor. There was nothing more comforting. He had been free floating so long, he had forgotten what it was like to be tethered to anything anymore.
"If I'd gotten there earlier we mighta," she paused, and he thought he heard her draw a shuddering breath. "We mighta been able to save your eye."
"Don't worry 'bout it," Raphael said, trying his best to sound soothing. "I'll be okay," he said. He hoped it was true. He didn't want to lie to her anymore. "Thanks," he said, his voice quiet. He wanted to say more; to tell her he owed her everything. But that single word was all he could manage.
"Fuck you," she muttered, though she did not move from his side. "Fuck you for that bullshit letter," she stirred in irritation. She was quiet for a moment. He couldn't tell if he was still hearing the blowback from the explosion, or her sniffling beside him. "And fuck you for thinking I would just let you kill yourself like that."
"Fair enough," the turtle said, adjusting his weight, making a pointless attempt to get comfortable with the old, lumpy pillows behind his neck.
Raphael pulled Angel close, as close as he could, and he closed his eye. His one eye.
The turtle's shoulders sagged as he attempted to relax. A monotonous undercurrent of pain coursed through him. He was sure he was riddled with shrapnel; he could feel it in the sharp pain that heralded its presence whenever he shifted his weight. His entire face ached, despite whatever chemical cocktail they had him on. He took a deep breath, and his chest rose and fell beneath his plastron. Even if he was still living on borrowed time, by some miracle he had managed to sidestep his death-sentence. For now.
And she was here, with him. Now.
And that was all that mattered.
Just as Raphael's breath began to slow, falling into the rhythmic promise of sleep, he felt her shifting beside him. The turtle forced his remaining eye to open, watching as Angel rose and turned to face him. Her eyes met his. But they were not the fierce eyes he knew. They were not her eyes. In the low-light, her eyes were so dark they were almost black. Her eyes were endless black pools in the dark, and he was losing himself in them. And there was nothing to be found there but fear.
"We have to leave," her voice grave.
"We can't just leave April," the turtle replied gruffly. "She needs us." He almost said I, not we. I can't leave her. But he knew better. Angel was already furious. It would be stupid to throw gasoline on that fire.
"Yes we can," Angel said, her voice unwavering in her determination. "She almost got you killed."
"It was an accident!" Raphael snapped. "Christ, Angel. Do you really think April would try to get me killed on purpose?"
She stared back at him, seemingly unfazed by his outburst.
"Dia's sister Meg is in R and D," Angel's eyes drifted away from him to the wall, to the depths of the dark. "She said they weren't finished testing that payload, Raphael."
Raphael's brow furrowed, and a sharp pain coursed through his face. He tried not to flinch and failed. If what she was saying was true, what some woman he had never even met was saying was true, then April had sent him into battle with an untested, unstable weapon. The odds hadn't exactly been in his favor when she had first put this mission on the table, but he never thought - a ragged breath hitched in his throat. He never thought April would ever intentionally put him in harm's way. The turtle frowned. Maybe it wasn't about intention. Maybe she just thought he was her last resort.
Maybe she just wanted all of this to be over, like he did.
With every thought spiraling into every miserable possibility, his heart grew heavier. It became a weight in his chest, dragging everything else down with it. He had tried to help her. He had been willing to sacrifice everything. But she wasn't even April anymore. She hadn't been herself since Casey's death.
None of them had.
"Promise me that we're getting out of here when you're better," Angel urged him. Shadows danced across her face in the dark. "Promise."
The battered turtle closed his only remaining eye, too tired to argue. He sighed. If only Leo could see him now. That'd be real rich. Raphael exhaled. "Ange, I'm so doped up I couldn't even decide what t' have for breakfast, much less whether to leave the only safe place we got left."
She squeezed his hand in the dark. "But it isn't safe."
He could barely hear her, but he knew what she said was true. Nowhere was safe. Not anymore. The turtle put his other hand over hers. He wanted to tell her everything was going to be okay. But he didn't have the strength to lie anymore. He tried to take a deep breath, but it just sent a sharp bolt of pain through his torso. Everything hurt.
"It ain't like I didn't know the risks," Raphael said. His voice sounded hollow in his own ears; empty and tinny above the relentless buzz left behind by the blowback of the explosion that nearly took his life. "I knew the risks. It's just," he paused, knowing only that what he was about to say would make her furious. "I just didn't give a damn."
Angel glared at him. "If you weren't laid up I would slap the shit outta you," she muttered as she slumped back into the bed beside Raphael.
"Yeah, well, it's true. I didn't care until – "
"Until what?" Angel snapped back, fidgeting in agitation at his side.
"Until I fell in love with you," he opened his eye, glanced down at her through the darkness. "That's what."
Silence hung between them for a moment, suspended in could almost see it in the low-light. For the first time since they had retreated below, it didn't feel empty. Or lonely. Or sad. It just was. There was almost something comforting about sharing the silence with her.
"You're full of shit," Angel finally said. Her words were flat, but Raphael thought he felt her lips turn up in a smile against his plastron. "You loved me all along." She paused, as if she was considering her next words carefully. "Just like I loved you."
"'S that so?" Raphael asked, sleepily. Exhaustion gripped him like ice on the asphalt after a storm that had gone on for far too long.
"Yeah," Angel huffed, and he felt her breath, hot on his chest. "Your head was just too far up your own ass to see it," she finished.
The turtle chuckled then, and the low, gravelly sound rumbled from the depths of his chest. He squeezed his arm around her, just a little tighter.
Raphael's only good eye shut slowly, feeling unnaturally heavy in his sedated state. Angel shifted by his side and the warmth of her skin felt so damn good against his.
And for the first time, the darkness and the silence of below didn't feel so heavy.