CHAPTER TWELVE

PROBLEM CHILD

Raphael walked through the dark tunnels, lost in thought. The sais were stuck in his belt, replacing the gun that he'd left at Casey's. He wasn't entirely comfortable with these weapons, but he didn't dare show up at the lair again without getting rid of that gun. Leo would take his head off without a second thought. He doubted he could do much with the sais, though. He'd never really run from the martial arts, but he certainly didn't train like he once had.

The scenery was eerily familiar. It was like walking through a former life. He couldn't identify all that he was feeling, but he knew that he was different. He knew that there was no way in hell he could go back to Las Vegas without first finding his brother, dead or alive.

He paused at the entrance to the lair and wondered for a moment if he should knock. He decided against it and pushed it open just in time to hear the phone ring. He glanced around. "Leo?"

Nothing moved and he knew he was alone. He walked to the phone and picked it up. Had to be a wrong number. "Hello?"

"Hello, is this Casey Jones?"

He was dumbstruck for a moment. "Uh, who's this?"

"Is this Mica Jones' residence?"

He hesitated for a moment. He didn't even want to think of how that worked. "Casey's not here," he answered. "But I'm her uncle. Is she in some kind of trouble?" It was obvious that this was not a social call.

"We have her down here at the police station," he informed. "We need a guardian to come and pick her up. We've been trying to contact someone for the past several hours."

Raphael's eyes closed slowly. "What'd she do?"

"She was in a car with a drunk driver."

"Was she drunk?"

"Yes. Her blood alcohol level was point oh-nine."

"Alright," Raph sighed. "I'll be up there in a minute."

***

She looked up as he walked into the station. It didn't take him long to notice the angry glare, or the small dog on her lap. She looked away. Raphael didn't speak to her. He watched her for a minute, then walked up to the police officer who'd been supervising her for the past four hours. They talked in hushed tones and she glared at the tile floor, angry tears burning her eyes. She didn't even do anything this time.

The cop took Raphael aside, into an adjoining room where she could still hear them talking. She clenched her teeth at the patronizing tone he used. "We found her well after curfew. The car she was riding in contained stolen property, and open intoxicants."

I didn't know that, dammit! she yelled silently. It's not like we were drinking in the car!

"All of the people in the car were legally drunk, including the driver. Her life was in very real danger."

"I understand that," Raphael answered seriously. "I'll... make sure and talk to her."

"Mr. Collins, this is the fourth time this has happened. Simply talking to her doesn't seem to be working."

She hid her eyes with her hand, but pulled away quickly. She didn't want to smear the damned makeup. Raphael didn't know what to say. Four times. It made her sound like such a rebellious, dangerous kid. It wasn't her fault! "It begs the question of how many times she's been driven home by someone who's not sober, and we haven't caught her. Drunk driving is a very dangerous thing."

"Yes, I know," Raphael mumbled. "I'm a Vegas cop, I see it a lot."

"Then I hope you you understand the seriousness of this situation," he sighed. "Because we don't seem to be getting any cooperation from her or from her father."

Mica stood up and walked to the desk, carrying the small dog. She was tired of listening to them talk about her. "I've been sitting here for four hours and my dog needs to go outside," she informed. "Unless you want a puddle on your floor, I need to step outside for a minute."

"Go ahead," the officer granted, not looking up. "But come right back."

She turned and walked out the door. Raphael saw her go out the corner of his eye, but didn't say anything. "I appreciate your concern, Detective," he answered, to a lecture he hardly heard. "I'll certainly talk to her, and to her father and..." His voice trailed off as he ran out of things to say. He knew what the guy wanted to hear, but he couldn't really say it. He wasn't her father and he couldn't do anything.

"If this happens again, I'm going to be forced to write out a ticket," he mumbled.

Raph nodded. He was ready to get out of here. He stood up. "I understand."

The man continued to talk at him as he walked out into the lobby. Then he stopped as he looked around. "Aaron, where's the girl who was sitting right there?"

"She had to take the dog out."

"She what!" he cried.

Raphael walked to the door and opened it, followed closely by the officer. She was long gone. Probably hailed a cab. Either that or she was in the sewers already. Either way, he wasn't going to find her until she wanted to be found. The officer was apologizing profusely. Raph sighed. "Don't worry about it," he mumbled. "I'll find her. Thank you for all your help."

"If we find her, do you want us to..."

"Yeah, give me a call," he interrupted. "Thanks."

***

"What are you doing here?" Leonardo demanded.

Raphael stepped inside and closed the door behind him. "Looking for Mica," he answered.

Leo eyed him suspiciously. "Why?" he asked. "What'd she do?"

"I didn't say she did anything," Raphael mumbled. "She come home yet?"

"I haven't seen her since yesterday afternoon," he retorted. "When was the last time you saw her?"

"About eight this morning. Where were you?"

Leo sat down on the edge of the couch and hid his face in his hands. "She has a midnight curfew," he mumbled. "She was out with her boyfriend. I went looking for her at about two thirty."

So that's why he hadn't been home to hear the phone ring. "Well, I came by at seven and you weren't home yet," Raph mumbled. "Phone rang and I answered it. She was up at the police station and they couldn't get ahold of you."

Leo sighed deeply and hid his face in his hands. "What'd she do this time?"

"She was in a car with a drunk driver," he mumbled. "Past curfew. Didn't help that she was carrying a set of 'chucks on her."

He tossed the leather carrying case - only slightly larger than a cell phone case - at Leonardo. It rattled as the metal nunchakus that extended to their full length knocked against each other. Leo caught it out of the air and stared at it for a moment, his eyes clouding over. For a moment, it was silent. "I don't know what it is with these new friends of hers. I mean, she's not normally like this. But all of a sudden with these people... And then she takes off an hitchhikes across the country without telling me where she's going and I'm here thinking she's dead."

"When did it start?"

"About two weeks ago."

"After Donny disappeared?"

He looked up. "She went out before, but she never went out of her way to break the rules like this. I mean, she's been picked up four times in the past two weeks. And never before that."

"She got in with the wrong crowd," Raphael concluded.

"And they're gonna get her killed."

Raph shrugged. "It's the ultimate test of her training. And her integrity, for that matter."

Leo glared at him. "So if you went and picked her up at the station, how is it that...?"

The door opened and they both turned. Mica stepped inside and her eyes immediately hit the floor. Shit, they were waiting for her. Both of them. Raphael found his voice first. "Where'd you go?" he asked casually.

"Hitched," she answered quietly.

"Where?"

"Nowhere."

He nodded slowly. "Where's the dog?"

She shrugged.

"You could've been killed," Leo interrupted.

She looked up. "Yeah. That would just break your heart, wouldn't it?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" he cried.

"Do you wanna punish me or can I just go to my room?"

"You're grounded."

"Whatever," she mumbled quietly.

She walked to her room and shut the door behind her. "Now she'll sleep all day and she'll sneak out again tonight," Leo sighed. "Like a female version of you."

"No," Raphael mumbled, staring at the closed door. "What I did was done consistantly. I wasn't lashing out at anyone in particular. I was just being myself and hating the world."

"And she's not?"

Raphael chuckled as he glanced back at Leo. "She's angry. At you. For something. And I'd be willing to bet it has something directly to do with Donatello."

"What, you run off to Vegas and come back with a PhD in psychology?"

He smiled. "I'm a cop, Leo, remember? I see this all the time."

"So what am I supposed to do about it?" Leo asked sarcastically. "Let her go out there and screw around until she gets herself killed?"

"Live and let learn," Raph mumbled, walking to Mica's door. "She needs a way to vent."

The knock startled her. She looked up toward the closed door. "What do you want?" she demanded.

The doorknob rattled. "Wanna unlock the door?" Raphael's voice asked.

"No."

"I could break it down if you'd prefer," he replied casually.

She growled in frustration as she pushed herself off of her bed and threw the door open. Raphael was leaning against the frame. "Good morning, sunshine."

She glared at him. "What the hell do you want?"

"Wanna talk to you."

"I don't feel much like talking right now."

He pushed past her into the room. "Well, that's too bad, because we're gonna do it anyways."

She crossed her arms over her chest as he sat down on the edge of her bed. "You know, you come all the way out to Vegas to find me and then when I come back here with you, you cop an attitude and decide... what? That it's not worth it to you anymore? That you want me to go back?"

She glared at him. "I never said that."

"Well, maybe you'd like to translate for me. I mean, I thought you had an agenda here. How does getting picked up by the police fit into your plan?"

"What the hell do you care?" she demanded. "You're going back anyways. This has nothing to do with you."

He pointed at her. "Hey, you brought me into it when you showed up on my door. And I didn't come all the way out here to turn around and go home 'cause Leo ain't happy to see me." She stared at him, confused. "I said I'd try, and I mean it. Leo ain't gonna change that by bitchin' at me. But you might change it if you keep this shit up. I'm not gonna get in the middle of a goddamn family feud."

"You're not leaving?" she asked, not sure if that was what he was saying.

"I'm true to my word, Mica. What I said, I meant it."

She felt her defenses slipping away. She'd thought for sure he'd walked out of their lives forever when he left last night. "Why would you even think that?" he asked, reading the look on her face.

"Because it's what sensei told me," she informed. "And I heard you two yelling at each other in Japanese."

"You don't know Japanese?"

"Leo-sensei only talks in Japanese when he doesn't want me to know what he's saying."

He took that as a no, and sighed deeply. "I'm not going anywhere."

"He said you were. And he got really mad at me for bringing you here."

"No, he got mad because you didn't tell him where you were going, and he thought you were in trouble."

"That's what he told me, too. But it's not true."

"How do you know?"

"Because I know him. And I know how much he hates you."

The words struck Raphael. For a moment, he didn't know how to respond. Mica turned to her desk and found a file folder. She pulled out a photocopy of a newspaper article. She handed it to him. "This is the only documentation that exists from the experiments," she sighed. "First hand accounts from Dr. Matthew Richardson. With a few changes. He was never specific as to exactly what race he was talking about, only that there were very few of them alive and that one of them had volunteered himself and his brothers to undergo some tests, in the name of science."

His jaw dropped as he stared at the article, skimming it quickly. "They wanted to find a cure for this long list of diseases," Mica continued. "That's what initally leaked to the press. Mention a cure for AIDS, and they were banging down his door. But he was very careful about how he worded things. And how much information he gave them. They called it Operation V-C, whatever that means."

He looked up slowly. "You think I volunteered?" he asked in disbelief. "That I went with them willingly?"

"Didn't you?" she replied, her voice tinted with cynicism.

He stood up, taking the paper with him. He paused at the door. "Leo know you have this?"

"Yes," she answered. "Why?"

"Just don't wanna get you in trouble," he mumbled as he walked out of the room.

Leonardo was in the dojo. He felt Raph enter and immediately stopped the exercise. "Do you need something?"

"You think I went with them willingly," he stated, still lost. He'd never even considered that they would think that.

Leo studied him for a minute. "With who?"

"The scientists." There was a long pause. "Do you believe that?"

Leonardo wasn't sure he wanted to get into this conversation. "I didn't want to. But you certainly didn't give me any reason to believe otherwise."

Raphael stared at him, dumbfounded. He couldn't have been more shocked if Leo had just hit him in the face. "You run away," Leo continued, "don't even let us know that you're alive. How are we supposed to feel about the fact that you don't want to face us? Or, for that matter, to face your brother who's dying."

It took Raph a moment more to find his voice. "I didn't think he was going to die," he finally managed. "I lived through it. I thought he would, too."

"If you thought that, why did you leave him for dead?"

"Leave him for dead?" Raph cried. "Leo, what the hell are you talking about?"

"You left him in the sewers and you ran off to the other side of the country. If you didn't know he was dying, how'd you ever find out?"

Raphael hung his head, his eyes closing slowly. "I left him in the best care that I knew of," he whispered.

"You left him. You left him to die and wouldn't even be with him while he did it."

"There were other things I needed to do."

"Like killing the scientists?"

Raph looked up reluctantly. "So you know about that?"

Leo crossed his arms over his chest. "Took me a while to figure it out, since you didn't kill Richardson and he was the one ultimately responsible. The one who's probably back now."

Raphael clenched his teeth. "And that's my fault?"

"You have no business here anymore, Raphael," Leonardo said coldly. "You left us, and I'm not even gonna tell you how hard it was to accept that."

"I did everything I could for him."

"So why the hell are you back?"

"Because this isn't about Michaelangelo right now!" Raphael yelled. "I did all I could for him and it wasn't enough! So does that mean I shouldn't even try to help Donny?"

"We don't need your help," Leo said coldly.

"Fuck your pride, Leo!" Raph screamed, furious. "There's no way in hell you're gonna get him back unharmed unless I help you. I don't care how good you are! We're talking about a high-security federal building, here. It'd be like trying to break into CIA Headquarters and break a wanted criminal out while he's being interrogated. And yeah, you're ninja. And yeah, you might be able to get in. You might even be able to get to him. But there's no way in hell you're gonna manage to get back out carrying him with you!"

He didn't give Leonardo a chance to speak, even though he tried to. "You're thinkin' all you gotta do is turn a key on a door and he'll walk out and be fine," Raph continued loudly. "But you're wrong! If he's alive and if he's conscious, he's probably not even going to be able to walk, much less fight his way out of that goddamn building! You haven't seen what they do, Leo. I lived through it!

"You hate me, and that's fine. I don't give a shit what you think! Stand there and tell me you don't need me, because you can't bring yourself to admit that you need my help when you hate me so damn much. But you know you need me on this one. Is it more important to make your point or to save your brother, Leo?"

Leonardo stared at him icily. "You have no right," he answered, "to come in my house and say those things."

"You're right," Raphael answered. "If you want to ignore the truth, your house is the only place you can do it and I have no right to interfere with that. But this isn't about you, Leo. It's about Donny. And they're gonna kill him if you don't do something about it, oh Fearless Leader."

Leonardo contemplated attacking this intruder, but kept his feet planted on the mat. "Get. Out," he ordered.

"Fine," Raph shot back. "But let me ask you this: How are you gonna feel when I go back to Vegas and you find out Donny's dead? And then you get to spend the rest of your life as the last of your kind."

Raphael knew he was hitting below the belt. Leo knew he was nearing the end of his control. "I said get the hell out of my house!"

Raphael spun and walked away.

Leo watched him go, staring after him with ice cold eyes. He was wrong. He was so wrong, it was painful. Leonardo walked into his room and slammed the door behind him. He sat down near the bed on the floor, and closed his eyes. He tried to clear his thoughts, but it required far too much patience for his present state. So he let his mind go. He let it run over the conversation over and over again until he'd managed to totally exhaust himself. He was so wrong.

Leo didn't hate him. He hated what he'd become. He hated what he'd done. But he loved his brother so fiercely it brought tears to his eyes. And that's what made it hurt all the more. Because he knew that if Raphael had ever loved him that much, or any of his brothers, he never would've left. How could he just walk out on everything and everyone he'd always known? Let them all think he was dead; let them mourn him and struggle to piece together a family that didn't exist anymore?

If not for Michaelangelo, they would've thought he was dead. Mike's last wish was for them to find Raphael. Even on his deathbed, he loved him. And Raph was ice cold. He'd walked away and he'd never looked back. Through the years of confusion and pain, Leo never once heard from his brother. He lived his life the way he'd always wanted to: part of a society that he'd always envied. He forgot his family, forgot his origins, and walked out on them when they needed him.

How would Mica's life have been different? he wondered. If they could've left New York; if they hadn't needed to stay close to Casey? What could she have done? What could she have been with a little support from somebody who could've made a difference in her life? Rei sure didn't give a damn about her, and Casey was just a name on a paper. He didn't want to be a part of her life. He just stood in where her mother had walked out, but he didn't really want her. She couldn't even point him out in a crowd. But what if Raph had been there? What could "Ryan Collins" have done for her that Leonardo couldn't? He would've made it so much easier, he knew that much. He would've changed her life.

He still could.

Leonardo pushed the thought away quickly. When this was over, he'd be on a plane back to Vegas. Probably without even saying goodbye. Because he didn't care. He didn't care about anything anymore, except for himself. He wouldn't even care about Donny if it weren't a matter of staying true to his word to Mica and bettering his self-image. And that hurt. Because as much as Leo hated to admit it, he still loved him. He just didn't trust him. And he doubted he ever could again.