Thought I'd break up the cuteness with some violence. I've been trying not to stick so closely to Raph lately, but I couldn't really see this idea fitting any of the others. I had the realization the other day that these guys could seriously kill her. I was weighing how much they have in advantage to her physically and wondered how it would go if they were matched. So this is the perverse result. A lot of preface on this chapter because it's fairly dramatic and taking me a while to figure out. I'm trying to think back to that "This day will be over eventually" day in my life. One of those worst days of my life moments. Chapter's getting long but I don't think I can break it in half. I've also seen Raph squeezing out a yearly tear or two but I don't buy that. He can't do anything halfway, even if he is tough.
Dear Diary,
This has been the worst day of my life.
Dear Diary,
We still don't really know if Raph's okay. We don't know what's wrong with him. They're having a hard time keeping him restrained. My back and arm and face hurt.
Dear Diary,
The blood testing didn't work. Damn. Well, we can't expect Don to know how to do everything.
Dear Diary,
Raph's coming out of it now. Should go see him. Don forced me to go to the hospital to get something for the pain.
Dear Diary,
Just spent the worst hour of my life with Raph. But I don't blame him. I hope they figure out why this happened.
Dear Diary,
So me and Raph and everybody are feeling better now and I think I'll write out the details of what happened. We're still trying to figure it out. I mean, we know how it happened, but we don't know why. Probably some other person with a grudge against the Hamato Clan. Boy, am I sick to death of that. Why can't anybody leave them alone?
I was sitting at home on a Friday night watching Bridget Jones' Diary because that's what I do nowadays and Raph called me. It was about 1am and I was in my pjs and about ready for bed. I considered just not answering, but then I realized that he would just come in the window anyway.
I answered and at first I didn't hear anything but his heavy breathing. It sounded like he was running, but I couldn't hear him moving. "What's going on?" I could tell something was up.
"I don't know. I feel real funky."
"Are you sick?"
"What… fuck… that moving… no… what did you say?"
"I asked if you're sick." Maybe he'd been hit on the head.
"I don't think I'm sick. Are you at home?"
"Yeah, maybe you should come over."
There was a long pause and he just kept panting into the phone. "Shit, I feel strange. There's a loud ringing in my ears. I can barely hear you. What did you just say?"
I was getting seriously concerned. "I didn't say anything."
The sudden volume of his voice made me start. "WELL, WHY AREN'T YOU ASNWERING WHEN I ASK YOU A QUESTION?"
"You didn't ask me anything. Don't yell at me, you little turd."
Another pause to hear his heavy breathing. He said, "The street lights are real bright."
"What's wrong with you?" There was a long pause. It sounded like he was muttering to himself with the phone at his side and I could hear him moving around.
"That thing bit me," he said. Then he said in a really aggressive voice that actually scared me, "If I come over there, you won't fuck with me and lock the window."
"Why would you think I would…"
"I wasn't asking. I was telling. You're not going to do that." He hung up.
I immediately called Leo's phone and left him a voice mail message telling him that it sounded like Raph was delusional or in a fugue state in an unspecified location and he was on his way to my place, so don't tarry. I don't remember clearly what I said.
Nobody showed up for about two hours and I had just turned the light off when I heard somebody coming in the window. It's surprising how normal that seems to me now. I didn't even look at the intruder and went in the bathroom to wash the Cheeto dust off my hands.
When I left the bathroom I found Raph standing in the middle of the kitchen. He was soaking wet. Rain was falling on the open window sill. He was also cut and bruised all over and blood was dripping all over the floor. But that wasn't the problem. He was just looking around, like he had never seen the place before. It makes me sick now even thinking about this and what happened next. He was standing there heaving like a mad bull.
I made a tiny sound. I think I moved one of my feet and instantly knew that I had done the wrong thing. His head snapped around to look at me and… I've never seen that look before. It wasn't the typical Raph rage look. Just kind of an animal like glare. Gives me the creeps as I picture it.
I had this fleeting memory from back in May when he gave me the Mother's Day card and he was all blushy and said, "Well, thought I should get you something. Cost a buck." I don't know why. I think it was me trying bring up a memory of him where he didn't look blindly homicidal. You know, the Raph that we all love.
"What's wrong?" I asked, in a really shaky voice. "Something's wrong."
And then, before I could register what had happened, he had flown forward and thrown me face first into the wall with all of his weight behind me. I remember thinking, "Raph's going to kill me," and just cycling that empty thought over and over for the next thirty seconds.
After he threw me against the wall, he backed up and I fell in a heap on the floor on my face. I made a really weak attempt to move away from him, but he sat on my back. He wrenched my left arm behind my back and leaned forward, keeping me pinned.
I could feel him sitting there, breathing hard.
"Why are you doing this?" I said. I think I was crying.
He gave me a hard pound on the back and then somehow I got my arm away from him. I managed to half roll under him and we had a little scuffle as I tried to get away from him. I remember thinking that I wasn't going to get killed, even if it was my Raph killing me.
"STOP FIGHTING ME!" he screamed in a really jerky, hoarse voice. "I GOT THIS UNDER CONTROL."
He bitch slapped me on the face. I still can't believe how hard a slap that was. That's what really put me over the edge because I know that Splinter forbids them to hit each other with an open hand. It shows disrespect to your opponent. He got the better of me, but I still kept trying to get away. He flipped me over again onto my back and I could tell he was reaching up for something. I knew I was under the land line phone and even though I couldn't see it, I knew he was pulling it out of the wall with one arm. Then he tied my wrists behind my back.
He got off me then and I felt even more scared because I didn't know what he was going to do. I turned my head to look at him. He was standing there again, his body shuddering. He was letting out a quiet, low pitched growl. He looked really terrifying with the blood smeared all over him now.
"What… you…" I was crying at him really hard. "…you bastard…" Seemed like a witty and relevant retort at the moment.
He ignored me and stood there heaving and growling to himself. Then out of nowhere he reached over and pulled the fridge out from the wall and knocked it over. It crashed only about six feet away from me and I screamed.
"I can fix this," he muttered, pacing off to my bedroom. I could hear him saying, "I'll get it right… I took that guy's head off…"
Then he came back and sat down next to me. He reached around my head and gagged me with a pair of my leggings.
"This will be safer," he said. He didn't sound at all like himself.
Then he just sat there next to me for a while, watching me. His eyes were all bloodshot and he kept looking all around and then back at me. Once he said, "Why are you crying?" Then he instantly forgot and looked around again.
I was hoping that he was coming out of whatever his problem was, but then he jumped up and out of nowhere kicked me in the side. I made a lot of noise into my gag. Then he started pulling dishes out of the cupboards and letting them crash onto the floor.
He made quite a mess and there was broken glass all over the floor. He just kept walking over it back and forth and pretty soon there was a blood trail from his feet and he didn't even notice. He looked down and said, "This is typical."
Then I heard Leo's voice at the window calling for me. He was being quiet, trying not to wake me up in case I was asleep. But he figured out that something was wrong right away. I thought that Raph would try to hide from him or something, but as soon as he saw him he let out a roar and blindly charged at him.
Don climbed in the window after him. I was holding my head up at a really painful angle to see them. He got me untied and picked me up off the floor. I was pretty out of it and I remember he carried me into the bedroom and shut the door to block out the sound of Leo and Raph fighting. It didn't last too long and it got quiet. I remember me and Don exchanging a worried look, wondering what had just happened out there.
Then Leo opened the door and he didn't have any I just murdered my brother look so we both relaxed a little. "What happened here?" Leo asked.
"Is Raph okay? What's wrong with him?" I asked. I was hyperventilating and it took a while to get the sentence out.
That was Don's cue to go and see what was wrong with him. He left the room in a hurry. Within about ten seconds I heard Don yell from the living room, "Leo, his pupils are dilated. I mean, they're huge."
"And what does that mean?" Leo yelled back. He was sort of rubbing my back with one hand, but I could tell that he wanted to go out in the living room and be with his brothers.
"It could mean a lot of things, but the first thing that comes to mind is drugs."
Raph's on drugs?
"I don't mean drugs," he corrected. "I mean drugged or poisoned."
I don't need to go on about how I cried and shook all night and day, so I won't mention it anymore, but it took awhile for the pure shock of it to wear off. But I wasn't mad at Raph. I mean it wasn't like that time that he broke my nose. He did that out of negligence and it was partly my fault for waking a sleeping ninja in the first place. I could tell that something was really wrong with him and I was more worried that we would never get him back and my last memory of him would be of him slapping me as he tied me up and gagged me.
They called Mikey, who was home and in bed, and of course he didn't answer his phone. So they carried him down the stairs to the van while I limped behind them. That was probably one of the most dangerous things they've ever done, at least while I was with them. I shudder to think what would have happened if somebody had happened to be coming home from working the night shift to find the three of them going down the stairs.
I have to take a nap now. My head hurts.
Dear Diary,
I'll skip the shock and reaction and stuff from when we finally got him into the lair. When Splinter found out what happened, he insisted that Raph be securely restrained. Leo tried to argue the point. I can see why he did. It just felt so wrong. I felt really guilty seeing him tied down to the bed in the infirmary.
There was a lot of debate about what could have happened and they made me recount it all. Mikey held me on his lap while I described it and kept interrupting to call Raph names.
"Michelangelo," Splinter said. He sounded so tired and sad. "We do not know what has happened to him."
"We do too!" Mike said from behind me. "He finally lost it. I always knew he would just go crazy on us all someday."
"His pupils are so dilated that I'm pretty sure that it's pharmacological," Don said. He sounded rather depressed at the idea. "I have no idea what to do about it either."
"Take some of his blood while he's out," Leo said.
"Guess it can't hurt," Don said. "Looks like somebody beat the crap out of him too. And his feet are badly cut up. How is he the one who always ends up poisoned and stuff?"
I wondered that myself.
"Poor Raph," Leo said to himself.
"Poor Raph? Poor April," Mikey said, again from behind me. He tightened his grip around me a little.
Leo sighed an irritated little huff. "I'm sure that he wasn't in his right mind. I mean, I think somebody did this to him. How do you think he'll feel when he figures out what he did? Anybody think of that yet?"
No, but thanks for alerting me to that horrible future event, I thought.
So Don took his blood while he was out. I remember watching and thinking that he looked so young. And yet he was lying there, covered in abrasions and cuts and bruises and his feet were all bloody like John McClane in Die Hard. But with bits of glass and porcelain sticking out.
Don had to pull out the glass and complained the whole time because he doesn't like to do doctor's work. He prefers blowing things up. So I helped him do a bunch of stitches in the bottoms of his feet. He's going to be hobbling for quite a while.
Well, Raph didn't wake up for a few hours and then they had a hell of a time keeping him tied down because he was like a steaming locomotive. He was just yelling and fighting the clothesline that was tying him down and it was starting to cut into his wrists because of the force he was using to pull himself free. But Don wouldn't sedate him because he was didn't know what he'd taken or been given. So we just had to watch him struggle and scream at us and cuss us out until he was so worn out that he just lay there, staring at the ceiling. As I said. Worst day of my life.
Well, we had the blood samples and Don and I looked at it under a microscope, but it did absolutely no good because we had no clue what we were looking for. So I offered to take the sample to the university lab during open hours to run tests on it.
Well, skipping ahead. I took the first test batch in and it came back as inconclusive because the sample was contaminated. Guess that can happen when your lab is in a sewer. So we tried with some of the rest of the blood he had taken the next day.
By then Raph was sort of in this withdrawal state. Well, maybe a low after a high would be a better way to put it. He did nothing but sleep for twenty four hours.
Don told me that he had some kind of super strong stimulant, similar to cocaine only twenty times stronger. And in a pretty high dosage. There was nothing to do but wait for him to come out of it.
Gotta take my pain killers.
Dear Diary,
Back again.
Well, Raph came around the next day. He mumbled to Don that you know it's a good party when you wake up tied to a bed. He didn't seem to remember anything that happened because he just smiled benignly at me when I came in the room and seemed embarrassed to have me see him in such a poor state.
"If you took any funny pictures, I'll kill you," he said to Don as he checked his pulse.
"Pulse is a little low," Don said as he threw a bloody wad of gauze in the garbage can like a basketball. "But I guess we'll worry if it goes down. Nothing to do about it anyway."
"Hey, who beat me up?" Raph said, sounding rather annoyed. He worked his arms and grimaced. "It was Leo, wasn't it?"
I sat back in my chair and let out a little sigh. Don noticed because he has ears like a dog and notices everything. "What's up with that?" he asked as he helped lower Raph back down on the infirmary bed. "Are you hurt on your body?"
"Not really," I said, through clenched teeth.
Raph was looking at the clothesline with a sleepy and mildly curious expression and then at his bloodied wrists.
He made me take my shirt off so he could see the damage. I could see Raph craning his neck around to see better. I hadn't realized that I had a great big bruise on my side and my back. And there was a mark where'd held my arm. Plus I had a three fingered hand print developing on my face.
"What happened to you?" Raph said, full of shock. "Who did that?"
"Um… I don't know," I said as I put my shirt back on. I kind of hurt to reach my arms around to do it.
Don sent me to the hospital then to get pain meds. I think he really wanted to get rid of me for a while because they needed to help get Raph in the shower.
Dear Diary,
Went to eat dinner and now I have returned. Don cooked something with tuna in it and it smells like a dead person's feet.
Anyway, I got back from the hospital and took my meds and felt a lot better. I wish I could have said the same for Raph.
Well, he was in a shockingly good mood for his situation when I got back. He was still sitting in the infirmary, but he was arguing in vain with Leo, who was stuck to him like glue.
"I'm fine now. Just let me sleep in my own bed for a while. Tomorrow we'll spar and skip around in a field and pick daisies, if that's what you want. I'm dead beat right now." Leo had propped Raph up against the headboard. He was cleaner now and that made me a little more comfortable.
"Sleep here."
"Hey, wasn't I at your apartment last night?" Raph asked suddenly. "I was looking for somebody."
That's what he thought he was doing? "Yeah, you were there," I said, unconsciously taking a step away from him.
"Guess I found him. Where is he?"
"Well," Leo looked worriedly between us. "We don't know who you were looking for."
He shrugged it off and it was blessedly quiet for a second. "Hey, wait," Raph said. "We have to find whoever that douche bag was that beat up April. Did you get a look at him?"
I didn't answer.
"I bet it was that guy I was looking for. But… what's… you have a three-fingered hand print on your face…"
He looked from Leo to Don, who both looked away from him. "Which one of you guys did that?"
Don looked up in surprise at his conclusion. I put my hand over my face, to cover it up.
"It wasn't one of us," Leo said without thinking.
I remember thinking, Oh, this is it.
"Well, how many three-fingered people are in the world?" Raph asked, his voice rising. "It must have been one of us…" Then he figured it out.
Mikey was standing in the doorway, looking really cold and almost pleased. He said, "Last night you went over to April's apartment, slapped her around, kicked her and tied her up with a phone cord."
Raph didn't look like he'd heard him at first.
"Mikey!" That was me. I didn't like hearing it out loud yet. It still sounded too horrible.
"Oh, and you punched her in the back and smashed all her dishes and the fridge." I couldn't believe him. He was getting a real evil pleasure out of seeing the dawning comprehension on Raph's face.
The next hour was one of those hours where you just think every minute, It'll be over soon, for an hour.
For the first half an hour Raph just lay there on the infirmary bed, looking like he was dead. You know, I think I prefer it now when he just screams at us, breaks something and storms off. It's much easier to deal with. We all just yell at him and tell him he's an ass and he gets over it. I know I used to complain about what a burden his temper was before, but you know what. It isn't. Now he was totally shut down and wouldn't look at us or talk.
Splinter gave Mikey a sound telling-off for saying that to Raph, which seemed harsh to me since he was just telling him the truth. But I suppose it was the unusual malice that got the telling-off. He sat with Raph, trying to get him to talk to him, but then told us to leave him alone and he would come to when he was ready to deal with us.
I know he's almost killed Leo in the past more than once and I asked if this is how he usually deals with it. "No," Leo said. "He does that in a fit and it's always an accident. This was… I don't know what this was…"
We sat watching The Puerile and the Fidgety while we waited for him to come to again. Out of nowhere, I heard the most agonizing cry I think I've ever heard. The instant that I registered it, Leo said to himself, "That's not a good sound," and was off to the infirmary.
So now I know how Raph cries when he really cries. Not like those other two times. The first time I saw him "crying" was when he was having a fight with Leo during movie night and it turned out that he was getting the flu and had a 104 degree fever. Then he wept a little over his lost horse money. This is what happens when he really cries and I've been told he only does it every couple of years.
There was a small crash and I could hear Leo's high pitched voice saying something to Raph, but I couldn't tell what he was saying over Raph's sobbing. It wasn't like when Don was crying all day. He just had a long, dull wail that went on all day. Raph's crying is heart wrenching. I don't know if I've ever heard anybody crying that hard in my life. I was afraid he would rupture his throat. I came a little closer to see what was going on. He and Leo were sitting on the floor.
Then I ran away. I feel like such a coward. I just went home. But I wished I hadn't because the fridge was still overturned and there were broken dishes everywhere.
Dear Diary,
Well, things are better now. I made sure to spend a day with Raph to let him know that I'm not afraid of him. He has this downtrodden look lately. He came over the next day, looking like death warmed over. He was hobbling and I was mad at first that he had walked through the sewers with his feet all cut up.
"We want an infection, huh?" I asked.
"Well, what am I supposed to do? Sit around? I have important things to do. I have to clean up this mess. You shouldn't have started it yourself."
I noticed that he was holding a box behind his back.
"What's that?"
"Oh, a present." He held it out at arm's length like it might explode.
It was a morning star mace. "How cute. It'll go with my new dress."
"In case you need to beat me off again in the future."
We tried to clean up the broken glass, but we were both all stiff and looked like a couple of old people, so we gave it up and I asked if he wanted to watch Bridget Jones' Diary. I could tell that he distinctly didn't want to watch it, but he bucked up bravely and said, "Sure, I haven't seen that."
He sat at the opposite end of the couch from me, which made me sad. At about the halfway mark I said, "Come over here with me. I'm lonely."
"No, thanks."
So I went to him. I leaned against his arm and I could feel him tense up. He stayed that way through the rest of the movie.
I fell asleep and woke up in my bed. I was disappointed that he'd left because we hadn't really talked yet. But then I saw that he was lingering in the doorway.
I moved over and motioned for him to join me, which he did reluctantly.
"You're lucky I'm not Mikey, the little pee pot," he said.
"I thought he only peed on you though."
"He's a bed wetter. And Don's a talker. I hate sharing a bed at all. I can't sleep if somebody's touching me. Don lays there blabbing for hours. And Leo travels a lot. I always wake up with his feet in my face."
"Can I?" I said, motioning to him.
"I'd rather not," he said, scooting away a little.
But we were cuddled together anyway when I woke up. So I guess he changed his mind later.
Don came over and made us an awful breakfast. He said that he thinks that some new big bad decided to off either them or him or us all together by giving Raph a psychotropic drug. Don thinks the drug was designed to increase aggression.
"I remember feeling a sting when I was fighting those guys," Raph said as he drained his tea and politely picked at his burned sausage. Normally, he would have just told him that the food wasn't fit for a dog and thrown it out, but he was still too full of guilt to be rude.
"Maybe it was a syringe," I said.
"I thought it was a bee." He shivered at the idea. Bugs. Ick.
"Well, we all survived," Don said, leaning back in his chair. "I'm thinking about finding a car for the JATO."
"The JATO!" Raph said. "That's awesome. I have money. Let's get out the classifieds. We need a junker."
So, yeah. They rebounded quickly. They're all about the JATO project. Even Leo. He wants to use an old T-Bird for some reason, but Raph keeps saying that it's probably going to be launched into the East River, so it doesn't matter what model it is. Leo wants to have a special car in honor of the occasion. If he knows of the occasion, maybe he'll share it with me because I'm in the dark.
Dear Diary,
Ah, we all survived is the occasion. I see what you did there, Fearless.
