They'd had to return underground a couple of hours later, and Raphael walked into the kitchen merely to get some water. He was surprised to find Donatello, trying to reach something from an upper cabinet with serious difficulty.

"Hey brother - you're not supposed to be stretching your knee that way, are you?" Raphael admonished him.

"Uh...no, not really." The turtle sheepishly admitted.

"What are you trying to get?"

"That tin box up there - one of the girls must have put it away last."

Raphael maneuvered on his tiptoes, and managed to get a hand on it. "You're up late." He remarked, as he passed the box over to him.

"I couldn't sleep." Donatello told him. "The muscle spasms seem to come on stronger at night sometimes."

"I don't get you." Raphael said. "You go to the trouble to make these drugs, and then you don't wanna use 'em? That painkiller is good stuff, I can tell you." He finished with a wry smile.

"I don't want to take anything unless I'm desperate." Donatello replied. "If you use a certain pain killer often, you run the risk of your body getting used to it. Then you have to keep taking stronger and stronger doses to get the same effect as before, until eventually it won't even make a dent in the pain anymore." Donatello paused to sift through the leaves, and glanced back at Raphael. "Can I make you some?"

"I'm not really into tea like that - but I wouldn't mind sitting with you for awhile. So this isn't just a macho thing here, you trying to prove you can handle the pain or something dumb like that?"

Donnie rolled his eyes. "I'm beyond needing to prove myself that way. You have to understand that I lived with pain for months before Marcus ever came along, and it was a lot worse than anything I'm dealing with right now."

Raphael shook his head at him. "My first impression of you couldn't have been more wrong."

"We can't all be as up-front as you are Raph." Donatello grinned, as he started to steep a couple of leaves. "How did things go anyway?"

"How'd what go?"

"Your evening with a certain human on the surface." Donatello clarified mischievously, and his brother groaned.

"Ah shell, you guys knew?"

Donatello laughed. "It's been just a tad obvious bro. You've never truly embraced subtlety."

The red-banded turtle was clearly a little flustered, and didn't meet his gaze right away.

"She's gotta be the most gorgeous thing I ever laid eyes on." He murmured half to himself.

"And?" Donatello pushed.

"She's not a bad kisser either."

Donnie couldn't keep from laughing again, pounding one fist excitedly on the counter top.

"You're not gonna make me regret telling you, are you?" Raphael said with exasperation.

"I'm just happy for you. She's an incredible woman Raph, and I think you suit each other really well."

"I don't know what to think about all of it right now Donnie...I'm still trying to come back down to earth."


It had been fourteen hours, and Raphael still couldn't get rid of the new sensation in his stomach. Every time he saw her, he felt himself grinning like an idiot, no matter how he tried to stop. Even the daily exercises that Leo had been running him through weren't sufficiently taking up his attention today. Leonardo didn't bother scolding him for how distracted he was. Everyone deserved a break from time to time, and his brother had a good reason for being slightly preoccupied.

Leonardo finally motioned for him to sit down on the mat, and they both backed up against the wall for support.

"How are you feeling today?" Leo asked him with a hint of a smile.

"Brother, I don't even know. I'm still waiting to wake up."

Leonardo tried hard to maintain a serious expression for him, as Raphael seemed to be thinking over his words.

"I tell ya, it was honestly like...like it wasn't even me doing it. Weirdest thing ever." He continued, before getting quiet again.

Leonardo could read the nerves coming off of him, in the background of the exhilaration he was experiencing.

"She's a rare girl Raph. I think you've really got something there."

"Yeah, but what next Leo? This has all happened so fast. I don't know where you're supposed to go from here. Should I ask her to stay indefinitely? Or even that could be jumping the gun. I'm afraid of comin' on too strong here, making her think I expect something out of her. Last night was amazing, but it coulda just been something that happens when two...people are together like we've been."

"You're afraid it was a fluke?"

Raphael shrugged uncertainly.

"Don't forget that she doesn't have to be here Raph. She chose to stay, and she chose to be with you last night." Leonardo said slowly. "I'm not going to pretend that I know how you feel. But if you could take a page out of Donatello's history book, I'd say you should try and let this ride out. Don't shut it down before it has a chance to go somewhere." Leonardo finished, with a somewhat sad smile.

The look mystified Raphael. "What is it Leo? What's that face for?"

"I just wish Sensei could talk to you, that's all. He'd be a lot more help than I am."

Raphael gave him a light shove in the shoulder. "You're doin' fine."

The look in his troubled dark eyes didn't really falter, something Raphael had found himself gradually becoming more sensitive to.

"You take a lot on yourself, don't you Leo?" Raphael asked him. "Everything falls on you?"

"I don't try to." The blue-banded turtle answered. "But too often...that's how it ends up."

"You really can't control everything that happens," Raphael pointed out to him. "What's the point in takin' the blame for all of it?"

"I know I shouldn't. It just always seems like there's something more that I could do."

"We've been okay, haven't we?" Raphael asked. "No falling out since we've been on our own? Everybody gets along and all that junk?"

Leonardo nodded. "Better than ever actually."

"So why don't you ease up on yourself? You ain't gotta be your worst critic, that's what brothers are for." He finished sardonically.

"How do you see that?"

"I've been living here Leonardo. Being lost doesn't mean I'm blind."


Raphael was sitting in the Lounge a couple of hours later, when Karina found him there. He almost dropped his guitar when she walked in, immediately fighting to steady his grip on it.

"Hey. Are you getting anywhere?" She asked with a smile.

"Don't know about specific songs...I'm just playing with notes, seeing what works together." He replied.

"Donnie says you're amazing on that thing."

The turtle set it back down carefully on the stand. "It's probably something I'll 'remember' in time, like fighting."

"Just don't get impatient with it." She advised him.

"Me, impatient? Where would you get an idea like that?" He said sarcastically, his heart beating a little faster when she rested a hand on his shoulder. "Um...so last night. What was that?" He went on.

"What did it feel like?"

"Sort of...like you might kinda dig me after all."

She laughed. "Really? Whatever gave you that idea?"

He was a bit flustered, searching for words that might not completely embarrass himself. "Did it...did that just happen, or does it mean something else? What I'm trying to say is, do you want something out of this?"

"Uh huh." She said pointedly, his skin tingling as she lowered herself to his leg. "I'm not that impulsive Raph. I tend to think things to death, contemplate before I act, that sort of thing."

"I'm not really like that. Usually." The turtle clarified.

"Thinking is overrated." She told him, leaning closer to his plastron so that she could kiss him.

He raised a hand to cup her under the cheek as he kissed her back. Her skin felt so warm and alive under his touch, bringing back a sense of reality in the midst of what still felt like a dream. Raphael pulled slightly away so that he could look her in the eyes, though his hand never left her face.

"Do you wanna make a go of this Karina? For real?"

She pressed more firmly against his hand, nodding at the same moment. "Yes...I do."

"Even with the way everything is?"

"Raph, I'm not going to tell you that I know what I'm doing, any more than you do. But I'm not about to walk out that door."

"Then you wanna stay?"

"You know it's been my choice all along Raphael." She answered him, leaning close to his chest again.

She closed her eyes for a long instant as she kissed him again, and then focused back on his amber set. "There's no point in fighting it, is there Raphael? We both want it, don't we?"

Wordlessly, he nodded.