Mike jumped at the sudden thump of the lock on the door. He and his brothers automatically turned to watch, hopeful.

He sagged a moment later. Just those gun-toting jerks and their fresh box of someone's garden. They pushed the box in, grabbed the old one, and took off.

Mike turned to Leo when the door was shut.

Leo looked away from his eyes.

Don curled up against the wall again, trying to sleep.

Mike wanted to shout. He wasn't sure he could, actually - it had been a good three weeks since he had said anything, and that was a long time. His throat might not even work anymore.

Still, he wanted to speak just to force his brothers to pay attention, to acknowledge what was happening.

Raph wasn't back.

They took him while they were sleeping one day, and they hadn't brought him back. The gunmen hadn't mentioned him when they brought food. There was just…nothing.

When Mike thought about it too long, he realized that Raph was probably dead. He'd been close enough to it as it was. Well…maybe not, since most of Bishop's experiments seemed designed to keep them alive and close to whole. So, not close to death, but weak and lifeless.

Maybe he was dead. If not, after this long in Bishop's hands, he probably wished he was.

Not fair. Not fair, just bring him back. Just let him see us. He needs us. We need him.

He wanted to scream at his brothers. To get up on his cramped legs and go kick Don's shell until he stopped sleeping the days away and started acknowledging what was happening.

He wanted to hit Leo until he figured out how to get them out.

He wanted them both to hurt, the way Mike had hurt. The way Raph was hurting, wherever he was.

But he didn't want it. Not at all.

He knew he didn't. He didn't want them to hurt, or to sit there staring back at him, sharing his helplessness.

He just…God, it was an entire month in one small room! He wanted anything other than the same.

He wanted to be reminded what Leo and Don's voices sounded like, because he was pretty sure he'd forgotten.

There were thumps outside the door. Mike looked up, hopeful all over again. Answered prayers?

Please?

Don sat up at once - not sleeping, then. Leo straightened against the wall, and they all looked at the door.

Mike growled when Bishop himself came in.

Leo didn't even give him a warning look. He sat looking like he wanted to growl too.

Bishop looked around at them, eyebrows raised. "You're not eating."

Mike kicked a foot out and knocked the box onto its side.

That time Leo did give him a look.

Mike didn't care.

Bishop seemed amused. "You know if you want a different kind of meal, you only have to tell me. You are getting rather thin eating nothing but greenery."

Mike looked away from him. Smug bastard. He doubted he'd ever hated anyone so much.

"All you need to do is tell me. Ask me for whatever you normally eat. Ask for a bigger room if you want one. Ask for beds, or a real bathroom." His eyes drifted to the grate they used, and his amusement grew. "Ask and I'll bring it."

Mike was too tempted. He had to squeeze his hands into fists to keep from speaking.

"Ask me where the fourth of your group is spending his nights these days. I'll tell you freely."

Mike looked at Leo instantly.

No. Leo met his eyes.

Bastard. Mike didn't mean it, though, so his look probably didn't carry the full effect. Still. He wanted to do it so badly.

"I could spare him, you know. If you wanted to say something on his behalf, I could leave my experiments and return him to you."

Mike shut his eyes tightly. Don't listen. Don't listen.

"I'll be honest - I'll return him to you either way. I made him a promise that once he was dead I would bring him back to his companions."

Don moaned softly, turning away from them.

Bishop looked at him instantly. He moved to Don's side, speaking with soft intensity. "You'll get to watch him rot day after day, and then I'll take another of you and begin it again. Which one will be left sharing a room with three dead creatures just like him? You?"

Mike growled.

Bishop turned away from Don, as Mike had hoped. "Speak to me, you stubborn beasts. Your friend in there had sense enough to trick me into thinking he would speak in time. By now, of course, I have seen through his trick and punished him accordingly, but it's not too late for him."

Just like that, Mike didn't care what Leo thought. He didn't wait for some plan to create itself. He thought of the day that Raph had stood up and taken Mike's place in that room, and he knew he couldn't let his brother suffer anymore.

He sat up, kept his eyes off Leo, and opened his mouth to speak.

But before he could get out a sound, Raphael spoke. As loud as if he were standing right there by Bishop, glaring down at his brother.

"You do it and everything they're doing to me is for nothing, Mikey." His voice sounded strong in Mike's mind, thick with the defiant strength he always had.

Mike shut his mouth, and shut his eyes, trying to see him as clearly as he heard him.

In his mind Raph was standing with feet apart, fists at his sides. Like every time he and Leo got into one of their fights. Bristling so much that Mike imagined if he touched him little cactus thorns would stick in his fingers.

He sat back, keeping his eyes closed to memorize Raphael's features. Just in case.

When he thought to open his eyes again, Bishop was gone. Don was laying down, Leo was sitting staring at nothing.

And they'd gone one more day without giving in.

"You're starting to tire me out," Don said, voice low as always as he watched Mike pounding the bag in the corner of the dojo.

Mike glanced back, eyes narrow.

Don sighed, dropping his hands and leaning against his bo. "It's been too long. I can't even…"

"Yes, you can." Mike spoke between punches. "You remember everything, and you're strong enough. If you tell yourself you're not you're going to be useless."

Don's eyebrows rose.

Leo finished his kata, holding the katana as level and steady as he ever had. He dropped the pose and rolled his shoulders with a grimace. "Mike, take it easy. We haven't been in here like you have. Muscle memory can only do so much."

Mike glowered at the bag, punching hard enough to make the thick chain grate against the stone ceiling.

Leo held out his katana in an opening pose, but before he could get started he dropped the pose. "Are we going to talk about this?"

Mike stopped his attack, turning to them. "About what? The fact that you're both finally in here because we're going to go after Bishop and give the bastard what he deserves?"

Leo hesitated, but shrugged. "Not how I was going to phrase it, but yeah."

"Why talk about it? He's free, after what he did to us. Nobody hurts us like that and gets away."

"Mike, relax." Don spoke softly. Mike seemed ready and willing to step into Raph's absent shoes, baiting Leo and being all-around belligerent. Strange that it should be Mikey to take that role, but Don thought he understood.

He moved to the chairs against the mat and sat. He really had gotten completely out of shape. "You heard what April said. The police won't hold him. He'll pay fines, but cruelty to animals isn't one of the NYPD's top priorities."

Mike's eyes flashed.

Don spoke mildly. "It's not like we can testify to try and get worse charges pinned on him."

"What that means," Leo said, "is that we can catch him again, but the police won't hold him. He'll pay his fines and go on being a genius at whatever university is still willing to hire him."

Mike cursed and turned to the bag.

"Which means he gets away with what he did to us, and to Raph."

Don looked at Leo, brow furrowed. His brother's voice was edged strangely.

Sure enough, Leo wasn't done. "Or it means we forget the police and end things ourselves."

Mike turned to him fast enough to stumble for balance.

Don watched Leo quietly.

Leo looked from one to the other. "Don't tell me you haven't thought it."

"Hell, yeah, I've thought it." Mike moved across the mats to them, wiping sweat from his brow. "I've had a few nice dreams about it."

Leo nodded. "Bishop hurts living things. He has for years, and he'll continue. Nothing stops him. He's proven that. Even if he forgets about us, which you know he won't, he'll just go on to take more lives. But the lives he takes aren't human, so humans don't give a damn."

Don frowned, looking away from his brothers.

"There's nothing else we can do. We have to find him, and we have to stop him. For good." Mike spoke with a strange hardness, and Don nearly flinched to hear it.

He wanted his comic-reading goofball brother back.

He wanted things to go back to how they were.

Nothing would go back to how it was with Bishop out there free and clear. They would never recover. They would live in resentment and fear, and it would only make these dark changes more pronounced as time went on.

He stood up. Their eyes were on him, and he realized they were waiting for him to decide on his own. He nodded, firm.

"Okay."

Mike crowed. Leo relaxed.

"My sons."

Silence fell instantly, and they turned to the door.

Splinter stood, leaning on his cane, watching. He'd obviously been there for more than a minute.

Don swallowed.

Splinter moved in, slow, his eyes searching from one to the other of them.

Don met his gaze. They hadn't said anything he would hide. He wasn't embarrassed, going along with Leo and Mike. It felt right to him.

Splinter cleared his throat. "I am worried about Raphael. He refuses to speak, though his strength returns. He seems to have no interest in leaving his room. His spirit fades, rather than grows stronger." His voice was as solemn as Don had ever heard. "I fear he's hiding something that gnaws at him, but if we're to bring it into the open it will take all of us."

Don hesitated, glancing at the others. Bishop stood between them and Splinter, a solid presence waiting to be addressed.

Splinter gestured them towards the door. "Your plans can wait for tomorrow."

He turned and went out first, leaving the three turtles looking from his back to each other, surprised and, grimly, glad.

Splinter agreed with them.

Bishop was a dead man.

He had begun to see the white light panels in his dreams, every time he shut his eyes.

Waking and sleeping blurred together. Always he was on his back in the same position, always he was in that room. As if Bishop wasn't enough, his mind wouldn't give him reprieve even in sleep.

Raph was sure he was losing his mind. He had no sense of time anymore. There was only Alone or In Pain. That was all he could use to determine one moment from the next.

It felt like longer than usual between one Pain and the next, though. Maybe Bishop was distracted by something else - not one of them please not one of them - and wouldn't bother him for a while.

But that seemed too hopeful to think of. Alone was so much better than In Pain that Raph didn't mind the emptiness in his gut, or the parched feeling growing stronger in his mouth. How long since he last ate, or sipped from a cup held up by Sanders or Lau?

It felt like a long, long time.

Mike had smiled at first when the silence was broken by one stomach or another rumbling loud enough to carry across the cell. Their last box of greens had been depleted, down to the last blade of grass, and sat on its side by the door. But it hadn't been replaced.

Not for days.

The water bottles the gunmen had set in every couple of days were nearly empty, which Mike knew worried Leo. Worried him, too.

And the grumbling stomachs weren't funny anymore.

Sleep was hard to come by these days. Even Don lay on his shell and stared with wide-open eyes most of the days.

Once he had a nightmare, something bad, but when he was tugged awake by his brothers his mouth had rasped strange hissing sounds before he could stop himself.

And Mike realized thinking about it later - he'd been trying to speak. Jarred from a dream that him forget their situation, he had spoken.

But all that came from an unused, dry throat were those sounds.

That was fine, though. He didn't want to speak anymore. There was nothing to say, and mustering up words would take energy he didn't have.

Everything felt strange as the days kept ticking by. Mike was pretty sure he'd forgotten what Splinter looked like. The smell of pizza. The taste of anything. He couldn't remember. It was all part of his past, hazy.

Sometimes he thought he'd been born in that cell.

Sometimes he realized how stupid that was and laughed to himself about it.

Leo and Don didn't even look at him anymore when he made sounds. He laughed, sighed. They all did, and it wasn't worth notice anymore.

He glanced over at Leo one day and saw tears running down his face. But since Leo didn't even seem to notice Mike didn't bother paying it any mind.

Mike thought to himself that if the door ever opened and they ever saw the other side, the world would be too big for him to handle.