Timothy had come back around to find Luke a few minutes later, and motioned the man out to the hall so that they could take without accidentally bothering Donatello.

"Are we secure as far as everyone else is concerned?" Luke asked him.

"They're not getting out, if that's what you mean. But with the debris trail the storm left on 42, you know the emergency workers are going to get down this direction. We might have some time on our side yet, but we still need to be considering our options for where we can take these guys." Timothy told him.

"Well...Sarah's aunt's place is probably out of the picture now. I don't want the four of them stuck in a tent in their conditions, and it's a constant risk to hide them from that neighbor that comes to take care of the dogs. Then there's Sarah's house too, but it sounded like Stolle's people got in there. There could have been outward damage that would have drawn more unwanted attention. I'm not sure what to do right now." Luke said wistfully.

"We'll probably have to chance taking them back to Sarah's house. I'm not saying we need to dash off right this second, we just need to be at least planning for it, alright Doc? Timothy tried to give him a reassuring smile. "I think it's safe to say that we're through the most difficult portion here. It's okay to breathe Luke."

The man let out the breath that he'd been unintentionally holding, and his blue-eyed gaze focused hard on Tim as he tried to swallow back emotion.

"We couldn't have done this without you." Luke said quietly. "I don't know what would have happened."

"A team's made up of many parts Luke, and it'll always suffer if any of the pieces are missing. It's been a privilege working with you." Tim said a little officially, and held out his hand toward him.

Luke simply glanced at his extended hand, and shook his head. "We don't really do that around here Tim." He stated, and held out his arms to the man instead.

Tim grinned, and hugged the man briefly. "Hey, does this make me a full-fledged member, or what?"

Luke chuckled at him. "I'm pretty sure that was established awhile back."

"There's friends, and then there's family." Tim pointed out.

"The latter Tim, definitely."


Sarah and Karina had been alternating between nervously shifting in their seats in the waiting room, and pacing the halls to help drive off some of the weariness that was creeping up on them. Sarah had received some attention earlier on, before returning to the floor that Karina was waiting on.

Katherine had been admitted for dehydration and some minor burns, along other things. Greg was in intensive care on a respirator, while his lungs were still being drained of fluid. The girls couldn't be with either of them right now, and were reduced to waiting around for news, or an hour that they could actually visit with them.

Sarah threw another glance at the clock, even as her thoughts were drawn back toward Greg again. I hate hospitals. I've always hated them, but I've put this off long enough. Somebody needs to wait around closer to Greg, and Karina should be able to stay around here for her sister.

She rose from her chair, and looked over her shoulder at Karina. "I think I'm going to head over to ICU. I bet we'll get information faster if one of us is sitting around there."

"You don't have to do that." Karina spoke up.

"I want you to stay close to Kat. If she was my sister, I wouldn't want to be separated from her. Call me if you hear anything yourself, okay?" Sarah urged her, and the bronze haired woman nodded.

As she walked toward the elevator, her cell phone was already in her hand. Now wasn't really the time to call someone, and explaining what had happened that night to anyone outside of their little circle seemed like an impossibility. Regardless of that, she was feeling a strange prompting to reach someone, strong enough to make her snap open the facing of her phone.

Her best friend's face flashed through her mind, though she didn't understand why. Do I really need to talk to someone this badly? She wondered as she punched the correct button for her floor. She tried to wait out the urge for a few more seconds, but it wasn't going away, but seemed to be actually growing. As she stepped off the elevator, she was already dialing.

Her friend answered groggily on the third ring, as Sarah tried to repress how stupid she felt for waking her up.

"Erin, hey...it's me." She said apologetically. "I'm sorry for bothering you. I think I just needed to connect with someone."

"Sarah? What's the matter?" Erin asked, already sounding more awake.

The woman laughed - there was no simple answer to that question. "I wouldn't even know where to start. It's been the crazinest night of my life, and I'm still waiting for it to be over."

"Are you alright? What's going on? I've been worried about you even since we talked last!"

Sarah hesitated, not certain how much she wanted to tell her at this moment. "I'm okay, for the most part. My car's going to need some help, and the guys..."

"Your car?" Erin said cluelessly. "What about the guys?"

"Nothing, it was just a mess, but they're safe now. You don't want to know what they've been through. It was hard to see it from this perspective. I'm feeling pretty bad right now. Still waiting on Greg to come back around."

"Well...they had an out provided for them, didn't they?"

"I guess." Sarah said faintly, and then seemed to realize something. "They could be a little stuck at the moment though. They won't be able to head straight home, and we've been nervous about the possibility of exposure at my aunt's house, or even mine now."

Erin didn't say anything for a long moment on her end, and then spoke up again. "Send them my direction."

Sarah laughed nervously. "Be serious babe. I know you wanna meet them, but this is really a difficult as far as the timing is concerned."

"I am being serious. I'd totally make sure no one saw them."

"What about your sister, your roommate?"

"They're not even here, they took off for Gatlinburg. They'd taken the whole week off for camping anyway, so they decided not to waste it. It's just me and the animals Sarah. I swear, you can trust me with this."

"I'm not the one that will need to be convinced. Are you sure about doing this? The turtles are amazing, but they can be a little bit of a handful too."

"I'm sure. Why don't you call them, and then call me back?"

"Uh...alright. I'll see what they say, and I'll call you back either way."

Sarah hung up the phone, and then hesitated a moment before dialing Luke. The man answered hopefully, as if expecting some kind of news from her.

"There's nothing new to report on Greg yet, I'm sorry. The reason I'm calling is that I might um...there might be a safe house for you to retreat to." She told him.

"You make it sound like we're refugees. Does it have a secret closet for all of us to hide in?" Luke said impishly.

"No secret closets, just one of my best friends and her pets."

"You want us to expose the guys to one of your friends?" Luke said uncertainly.

"It's not like that Luke. She already knows about them, she's just never met them in the flesh. I called her a couple of minutes ago, and one thing sort of led to another. She offered for you to come, and I really believe it's the best option you have."

Luke didn't say anything right away. "I need to talk to Tim, and the guys. I sort of thought that we needed another option, but you know how we feel about letting outside people see them."

"Erin's no threat, I promise you." Sarah said quickly. "But I understand your reservations. Just call me back as soon as you can, so we can try to set something up. You don't really want to stay out there on tornado alley, do you?"

"Is that what they call it? It lived up to its' name tonight. Okay, I'll go talk to the others, and try to get a decision wrangled up. I'll call you back."


"...If Sarah says she's okay, I think we ought go." Michelangelo was the first to speak up in the circle. "We weren't gonna stay here all night anyway, were we?"

"No, we'll have to contact the authorities soon in any case. Lewis won't go unnoticed forever on 42 either." Timothy replied to the turtle.

They had opted to leave Lewis and Lilah exactly where they had fallen, under Tim's instructions not to bother with disturbing the scene.

"Yeah, but we don't know anything about this girl!" Raphael grumbled. "Are we just gonna stumble blindly into some stranger's house?"

"Mikey's right Raph - Sarah wouldn't have pushed for her, if she didn't trust her friend." Leonardo said. "I think we should just do it, unless someone has a better option they're holding out from us."

Neither his brothers, Tim, nor Luke had anything to say to that, so Leonardo threw up his hands a little helplessly.

"Well, what are we waiting for? We're all exhausted, and we won't be able to actually rest until we get out of here." Leonardo continued.

Tim opened his mouth to say something, but was distracted by his vibrating cell-phone at that instant. It was Marcus calling him - he and April had returned to the side of the building to get the Avalanche and the Battle Shell further away from the road.

"Hey Marc, wh--" Tim started, but the man on the other side of the phone immediately cut him off.

"April and I are seeing some lights Tim, definitely heading this direction! We can't really tell what they are from here, but I'm getting kind of a sinking feeling. There's plenty to distract them in the roadway, but do you think that's all they'll do?"

Tim swore under his breath. "We can't risk them seeing the vehicles and connecting them back to this place!"

"Or the more obvious." Marcus said breathlessly. "April and I were thinking of coming around the back, to that exit that the kid said Lilah used? Can you get everyone moving in that direction?"

"Yes, but that still leaves Sarah's car out there. I can't do that either, it's too easy to trace. Darn it, all we needed was another hour!"

"You'll be lucky if you get a quarter of it." Marcus said, suddenly sounding a little shaky. "They're not stopping - there's two cars coming this way!"

Timothy refrained from swearing again, there wasn't time for it. "Get the cars moved into position, I'll put a fire under these guys, and we'll grab Donnie and Jenna!"


* You have one person to blame for this, and she shall remain nameless.