He woke slowly, drifting up from the dreamless deeps of a slumber that had seemed to go on forever. He didn't really want to wake up at all; in the corners of his memory, he dimly recalled white-hot needles of pain, and the piercing cold of autumn rain. Nothing more precise than that, but it was enough to make him want to sleep.

So when his eyes opened, it was reluctant. The light burned them, forcing him to turn his face away, towards a solid wall of worn, upholstered padding that smelled vaguely of turtles.

"Leo, you awake?" a familiar voice said.

"Raph?" Leonardo said faintly.

When he forced himself to look back, a blurred green shape was leaning over him. Something warm touched his shoulder.

"You are awake. Stay with me, Leo."

"Stay with — what do you mean?" Leonardo whispered.

"Don't fall asleep again. You've been sleeping like you're waiting for a handsome prince to come along."

"I have?"

Raph's face was slowly swimming into focus; Leonardo could see a long red blotch over where his eyes should be, and the outline of his facial features. He blinked harder, trying to make his eyes focus.

"Yeah, you have," Raph said, sitting on the edge of the couch. "You don't remember that either, huh?"

"What don't I—"

His voice trailed off as his thoughts automatically flew to the last thing he remembered — Mikey annoying him with his skateboard, until he lost patience and left the lair. Some cool air and a run on nearby rooftops would clear his head, help balance his mind again.

And after that… nothing. He didn't even remember falling asleep. But there was something there — or had been, he felt. It was nothing but a stretch of emptiness now, too foggy for him to remember more than a fleeting sensation or a wordless sound. The harder he tried to remember what had been there, the more elusive it became, blowing away like dead leaves in the wind.

"Don't you fade out again," Raph said warningly.

"I'm not, I just—I can't remember how—" Leo took a deep breath. "How long?"

"Three days now. You were missin' for two of 'em."

"Missing?"

"Missing, as in lost. We were lookin' for you for days. We were hopin' you could tell us where you were, but you ain't exactly been talkative since we got you back."

Leonardo pressed his hand against the couch he was lying on, only to feel sharp, flaming pain searing in the socket of his shoulder, and the muscles of his arm suddenly weakening and trembling in response.

"Don't use that arm!" Raph said, seizing his wrist. "You dislocated it."

"How—"

"And before you ask how, we don't know. Don thinks you fell off a building or something, 'cause you also had glass and bits of gravel stuck in your skin. You broke a couple of ribs too."

Leonardo's brow furrowed at that news. Carefully, trying not to jostle any of his injuries, he slipped his left hand over the throbbing pain in his shoulder, the tightly-wrapped ache in his side, and the many smaller spots that twinged in his face and upper arm. There were a large number of them, and they seemed to flare to life at his touch, but he couldn't resist finding them all.

This made no sense. How could he have forgotten something that had left him in this state? He vividly remembered other times he had been hurt, especially that far worse time when the Foot Elite and the Shredder had beaten him nearly to death and left him battered and bleeding on April's floor. He remembered it all with painful vividity, even with his mind now blurry and only half-focused.

So why didn't he remember what had happened this time?

Leonardo looped his good arm over the back of the sofa, and grunted softly as he began heaving himself up into a sitting position. His side protested, spreading thin fingers of burning heat across his stomach and chest, but he forced himself to keep moving.

"Leo, hold on there!" Raph said.

Leo suddenly felt a pair of arms encircling him from behind, moving him almost effortlessly upright. He let out a sigh of relief as his shell touched the back of the sofa, allowing him to finally relax again.

Raph was sitting beside him, one of his legs curled up against his chest and the other one stretched out in front of him. Leonardo could see him clearly enough now that he could see the concern etched in his brother's face, the faint furrow between his eyes that crinkled his red mask. Usually that indicated that Raph was angry, and about to vent his feelings on some inanimate object, but this time he seemed more worried.

"There's one other thing," Raph said. "Don thinks you were poisoned."

"Poisoned?"

"With some kind of dart thing. He thinks they were tryin' to make you sick enough that you wouldn't be able to get away, but you pulled it out before you could get all the poison."

Leonardo allowed his head to fall back on the couch, and let his eyes close.

"What else does Don say?" he asked, almost dreading the answer.

"Nothin'. He fell asleep right after that. He wanted me to wake him up if there was any change in your condition, but I'm not doin' that. He was awake for those three days, lookin' high and low for you and then doing tests on that poison. He'll sleep till he wakes up, as far as I'm concerned."

"Good call," Leo said.

Now that he was sitting upright, he could see something over by Don's work space — a small mattress lying on the floor, and a olive-green-skinned figure huddled into itself until nothing but its shell and feet could be seen. He felt a sudden stab of guilt for his brother's exhaustion.

"Mikey, on the other hand, I'll drag right out of bed," Raph said with a wicked smile.

Leo smiled faintly, but he didn't feel much like joking.

He could feel anxiety creeping into his thoughts as he thought about what Raph had told him. Three days. Three days he had lost. Three days he didn't remember — which was alarming enough, but it was clear that something important had happened to him during that time. Important… and dangerous.

And other thoughts began to swirl through his head as he mused on that. Whatever had happened — whoever had attacked him during those two missing days — he needed to recall. He needed to know what the dangers were, if the people responsible were to come after him again — or, God forbid, his brothers. He couldn't be sure if they would or could, because he couldn't remember a thing about them.

He raised his left hand and gingerly touched his side, and was rewarded with a dull throb. Then he moved his hand up to his shoulder, probing it gently with his fingertips, feeling the pocks where glass and gravel had been dug out of his flesh. If he was careful with his movements, if he avoided aggravating his shoulder and ribs, he could be back in action in a matter of days…

"Don't." Raph's voice broke through his thoughts.

"Don't what?"

"I can see your face, Leo. I know you're thinkin' about going out there again. And I'm tellin' you, it ain't happening until you're better."

"It's not that bad," Leonardo tried to protest.

"You ain't lookin' at your own face," Raph retorted. "You look like you got in an disagreement with a prize-fighter. Now lie down and stop poking at yourself for a few minutes, and I'll get Master Splinter."