It was a little after 2 in the morning by the time Jenna was pulling the Battle Shell back into the sleepy Kettering neighborhood, and searching for the street number that Sarah had relayed to her over the phone. When she found the right one, she hopped out of the van and circled around to the back, where she knocked firmly on the doors.

"Come with me Luke." She told the man when he popped his head out. "I want to get a feel for this girl before she lays one eye on them."

Both humans walked up to the door of the quiet looking house, and Jenna knocked three times, before taking one step backward.

After a few seconds the door opened to partially reveal a young woman in glasses. Luke was about to say something to her, when she inexplicably shut the door, and both he and Jenna heard what sounded like a serious scuffle on the other side of it.

"What the heck?" Jenna almost exploded. "Luke, maybe we should just get out of here."

"Wait." He commanded her.

Roughly a minute passed before the door opened again, wider this time.

"I'm sorry." The young woman stated a little breathlessly. "I forgot to put up the dogs."

"Dogs, as in more than one?" Jenna repeated. "Oh, Mike's gonna love that. You are Erin, aren't you?"

The woman nodded her head, dark pony-tail bouncing along with it. "Yeah, but if we're going to meet, we should probably do it inside."

"We agree with that whole-heartedly, but you won't mind if we have a look around first?" Luke asked evenly. "You'll forgive our suspicions, but you know who we're protecting."

The woman nodded a second time, and stepped aside to let the humans into the house. Erin normally would have showed them around herself, but at this moment she was too transfixed over by the door, staring at the Battle Shell as if to convince herself that it was actually there, sitting in her driveway. Luke and Jenna were thorough in their search, taking their time to look through every room and closet before returning to the front door.

"Alright - would you mind giving us a hand?" Jenna asked her. "Luke and I have got to help a couple of them, and it'd be great if you could just help keep an eye out for anyone else."

"Yeah, sure." Erin agreed with a small swallow, tingling slightly with excitement as she followed them outside to the van.

Luke performed the signal on the back door, and Leonardo tentatively stuck his head out.

"We're clear?" The blue-banded turtle asked.

"Hence the knock Leo. C'mon out, so we can go ahead and deal with your brothers." Luke encouraged him.

Leonardo cast a dark-eyed glance at Erin, who'd wisely managed to withhold the squeal that was dying to get out. Now probably wasn't the best time for it.

Michelangelo appeared next, taking a deep breath of the fresh air as he emerged from the van. "Ah, the suburbs. I can almost hear the ice cream trucks and the--"

Jenna shot him a warning look. "Get in the house Mikey."

Raphael shrugged off their hands the moment that he was on his own two feet in the driveway. "I'm cool you guys. Just worry about Donnie, alright?"

His amber gaze pierced through Erin for a moment, before he took a couple of shuffling steps in the direction of the house. As he crossed under the door frame into the living room, a small shadow darted across his path, flying up the staircase in front of him. He caught himself grinning at the retreating cat, as it made him think about Tiger back at home.

Donatello groaned softly, but never once opened his eyes as the humans got him into the house. As Erin shut and locked the door behind them, it cued another round of barking from one of the back bedrooms.

Michelangelo's head shot up from the couch cushion he'd been leaning against instantly. "What's that? Nobody said anything about dogs."

"Well, we have a Jack Russell--" Erin started, only to be instantly cut off by the turtle.

"Is the thing on steroids?"

"No, that's the German Shepherd." Erin explained to him, and the turtle's blue eyed gaze immediately fell on Luke.

"Know what? I'm good, I think I'm just gonna go sleep in the van."


Tim was dozing on the cot in the holding cell, when the seriously peeved officer entered the room.

"Hey Long, get on your feet!" Grant called to him.

The man opened one eye, and sat up very slightly on his side. "No. No more talking - I told you I've got nothing to say to you."

"We got that message loud and clear 007. Your ride is here." Grant replied sarcastically.

"My what?"

"You're out of here. Now get on your feet, and stop wasting my time." The man's frustration was glaringly obvious.

Timothy rose off the cot a little lazily, stretching a long moment for effect. "You mean we won't get to share any more scintillating chats? That's a crying shame."

"Shut your mouth, and get out of there before I drag you out myself."

"You'd like to try, wouldn't you?" Tim smirked a little at the man.

"Come on." The man commanded again, and Timothy still took his time a little bit sauntering out of the cell.

"You really think you're a big shot, don't you?" Grant challenged.

"What I am is my own business." Tim stated amiably. "Where's my stuff?"

"It's waiting for you, if you could ever actually get your legs moving."


Marcus was waiting for him nearby, and released a sigh of pent-up anxiety when he saw the man.

"So I'm ready, are you ready?" Timothy asked him casually, as the doctor shook his head at him.

"More than ready. Are you alright?"

Tim shrugged. "Sure, what'd you expect? I told you, they're cops - not the enemy."

But he couldn't resist flashing another teasing smile in Grant's direction before they walked out the door.

"Buh-bye." Tim called with a wave of one hand.

Marcus gave him a weird look the moment they were outside. "I think you enjoyed that too much." He chided him.

"Aw, what's the use of having powerful friends if you can't gloat about them every now and then?" Timothy chuckled. "But seriously, what happened? Where do we stand at this moment?"

Marcus motioned for him to keep moving toward the Avalanche, and fell into step beside him. "Kat just made a deal, that's all. She and Greg will keep quiet about the security breach, turn over all the evidence to the Air Force, and in return, the whole situation becomes classified. Meaning of course, they won't even be required or allowed to give a true explanation of events to the FBI." Marcus finished with a grin.

"So...no investigating us, nothing like that?"

"Nope. You never existed as far as they're concerned. Did you end up telling the police anything at all?"

"No, I figured it was better to stay silent, and let Kat provide the explanation."

"You're a wise man Captain Long, even if you do have a sacrificial streak."


At her sister's and April's prompting, Katherine agreed to return to a room to resume the treatment that had been started. She was feeling incredibly sore, aching from practically everywhere at once. The fresh burns she'd acquired from the last round of the energy rifle had been throbbing painfully ever since she'd been back on her feet, making her long for rest even more. It didn't take a true fight from the others to get her to return to bed.

Karina accompanied her back to the room, and none of the staff said a single word about it, leaving the two to finish up after Katherine had been hooked up to an IV again.

"So you never...um...Brandon doesn't know that I ever went missing, does he?" Katherine asked her.

Karina shook her head. "No. I was ready to call him if I needed to, but..."

"We can't keep this up Kari. Somehow or another, we have to tell him. We have to. This isn't fair to him." Katherine said softly.

"I know it isn't." Karina agreed. "But I'm scared too. I feel so guilty for hiding from him this way, but how is he going to react to all of this Kat? Will he even be able to understand about Raph and me? I'm not ashamed of him, I'm not. But I'm afraid that Brandon won't get it, that the protective big brother is going to come charging out of him."

"I don't know how he'll take it Kari. But I do know that we have to stop hiding eventually. This is the wrong thing to do. We're the only family he has." Katherine finished.


Sarah was asleep with her own head on her shoulder, among about half a dozen other people lounging around the semi-darkness of the waiting room outside ICU. She'd been praying intermittently, until the words had started jumbling together into weary nonsense.

"Ma'am?" Someone's light hand on her shoulder roused her with a small jerk.

"Yeah, I'm here." Sarah sat up further immediately.

"You're the one waiting for Greg Heffernan?" The slightly familiar charge nurse asked her.

"Yeah." Sarah repeated, feeling more awake at once. "Do you have information for me?"

"He's come around a little, and his oxygen levels have improved. Not enough to be taken off the respirator yet, but his prognosis is looking better from since he first arrived."

"Can anyone see him?" She decided to try and ask.

"Not now." The woman answered. "I just wanted to let you know that he seems to finding his way out of the woods. Hopefully, he'll be at Grandma's house by tomorrow." The nurse added a little impishly, getting a smile out of Sarah.

"Alright, thank you." Sarah replied to her, and watched the nurse silently as she walked away.

The young woman tugged her zippered sweat-shirt a little tighter around her shoulders, as she caught herself smiling a second time.

I knew I liked him too much to let him go, she thought ironically, as she withdrew her cell-phone from her pocket. It wasn't much, but at least it was something she could share with the others.