Notes: Thank you for all the kind reviews – they were really encouraging! I'd been struggling a little with writing a long story (curse my lack of attention span!) but I'll persevere, definitely.


Chapter Two

In the small hours of the morning, Raphael awoke to the hum of the flickering television. He was alone in the living room, having evidently fallen asleep on the couch. He sat up and rubbed his eyes before they focused on the aquamarine numbers on the VCR clock, clearly showing the time at a quarter to two in the morning. "Jeez," Raphael murmured to himself.

He stood up, and was about to advance to his room when he noticed that Mikey's door was slightly ajar. He frowned. If Mikey had spent the entire evening in his room, without even leaving to eat dinner, then after Mikey fell asleep, either someone went in or he went out.

Raphael crept over to the door, peeked through the crack and saw by the slit of light shining over the empty bed that it was his latter consideration. "Peachy," he growled to himself.

The red-banded turtle quietly searched the lair before he gave up and concluded that his brother had snuck outside their home. Raphael had absolutely no idea where to start looking, or whether Mikey would be somewhere in the sewers or if he would have gone up to street level. As much as he hated to ask for help, he knew that he had to call in reinforcements. He braced himself for the two rude awakenings that he was about to make.


Casey Jones, hockey-masked vigilante, had spent the night doing what he usually did; picking fights with the Purple Dragons. By half past two that morning, he was cold, tired and wet from the night-time rainshower. He shook his head, sending droplets of water flying from the tips of his shoulder-length hair, and decided to call it a night. He was on his way back to his apartment when he heard a noise over the patter of the rain. He stopped dead still and listened, trying to determine what the noise was. He heard it again, and frowned when he couldn't determine what it was.

He drew his chosen weapon, which was at that time a baseball bat, and slipped into stealth mode. He followed the noise to a deserted alley with several dumpsters and piles of trash lining it. Picking his way past a grubby, sopping newspaper, Casey reached the silhouette of the source of the noise. With his pat poised, he neared the silhouette. He took one last step behind the figure, and was ready to strike when suddenly the figure heard the noise, turned his head and his eyes met with Casey's. Suddenly Casey gasped and retreated a few steps.

"What the..."


"...Shell is it with this kid? Why does he decide to take a midnight stroll without telling anyone first?" Raphael muttered as he trudged through the tunnel. He was cranky from lack of sleep, especially when he remembered the reason why he was awake in the small hours of the morning.

"Cool it, Raph," Leo said in a warning tone. The last thing anyone needed at that moment was Raphael in a mood.

"I know, I know," Raph said, 'cooling' for a moment as Leonardo had instructed. "But Jeez, what'd he have to go out for? He knows better than that. Well, then again, this is Mikey we're talking about," he added dryly, more to himself than anyone else. In all honesty, Raphael thought to himself, even though Mikey did not take everything (or sometimes anything) seriously, surely he had more sense than to go wandering off in the middle of the night without telling anyone?

The reasons behind Raphael's bad mood lay deeper than being tired. He felt responsible for Mikey running off. If he had apologised earlier, he could have stop it, he thought to himself. In fact, if he had listened to Leo and not teased him at all, he could have prevented Mikey's sudden departure. Raphael mentally cursed himself for being so pig-headed.

"He's not exactly been himself recently," Donny mused, thinking about his brother's behaviour over the past couple of days. He had gone from party animal to anti-social in the space of just over twenty-four hours, and the change in him was sudden and staggering. "Where do you think he could have gone?" He asked in a quiet voice.

Leo sighed. "He could be anywhere," he admitted. "We'll all split up. Raph, you take the sewers, Donny can hit the streets and I'll..."

Leonardo was cut off by noises rumbling and echoing through the tunnel. He put his finger to his lips to motion the others to hush, and slowly took the kantana blades from where they were strapped to the back of his shell. Both Raph and Donny also removed their weapons from their holds, poised and ready for a possible battle.

They turned a corner, and the noises became louder. Donatello stopped with realisation and said, "I know one of those voices."

Leo also stopped, listened, and added, "and I know the other one."

A few steps later, and the source of the noise passed under a grate with a yellow streetlight above it. Droplets of water ran through the holes as the last of the rain ran through them. The streetlight cast slits of eerie shadows over Casey, who was struggling to help support Mikey. The orange-banded turtle's arm was slung over one of Casey's shoulders, and he was focusing hard on the ground as he tried to stagger along.

"Geez, Mike, you put on weight or something?" Casey grunted, eyes narrow with the effort of holding the almost-dead weight.

Mikey mumbled something incoherent, and let out an uncontrolled chortle at the comment that only he could hear.

Leonardo recognised the party of two, and replaced his blades in their holds as he ran towards them. Casey looked up and stopped when he saw the leader and the two other brothers not far behind. "Man, am I glad to see you guys," he panted, relaxing as Leo took his brother's weight from him. "It wasn't so bad until I had to carry him down the ladder into the sewers."

"Casey, what happened?" Leonardo asked, adding, "How long have you been out – you're soaking!"

"Leo!" Mikey slurred in a raised voice, a smile appearing on his face. "W-watcha doing here, huh?" He paused for a moment. "Uh, where is here anyhow-way?" He looked around, trying to get his bearings as his brothers watched him with wide eyes. "Oh," he said as realisation dawned, "I'm in the sewer, got it now."

"I found him like this," Casey explained, gesturing to Mikey's present form. "I don't know what happened – I couldn't get anything rational out of him, I'm sorry."

Raphael had approached his brother and for the first time noticed the bleeding cut on his head and the swollen mark on his shoulder. "Mikey, who the Shell did this to you?" He demanded, drawing his weapons, thinking that the culprits would still be nearby. No one hurt his brother and got away with it, not before they answered to Raphael, that is.

"Did what to me?" Mikey mumbled in confusion, looking past Raphael with unfocused eyes.

Donatello also moved towards Michelangelo as well, but he stopped short. He stood still, as though looking at the big picture and trying to assess the situation. He quickly did so, and when he came up with a conclusion, he wished he hadn't.

"He must have got the cut when he fell over," Donny murmured quietly, but loud enough for his brothers to hear.

"What do you mean, Don?" Leonardo asked, frowning.

"No one did this to Mikey, he did it to himself," Donny explained, fumbling for the right words. Eventually, he gave up and opted for the direct approach. "Mikey's drunk."

Two pairs of eyes widened in surprise as Casey clarified this. "That's how I found him, drunk in a Dumpster. He was alone when I found him, there was no one else in the area. There was no sign of any alcohol either, but still–"

"All the indicators are there," Donatello nodded gravely. As much as he hated to admit it, Mikey showed the signs of someone having just completed a bar crawl. His speech was loud and slurred, he was disorientated and unable to focus, and he had considerable trouble standing up. He added, "He even smells of drink."

For a moment, no one said anything, and so Casey took advantage of the uncomfortable moment of silence and said, "Look guys, I gotta be getting back now, can you get him home okay?"

"We'll be fine from here," Leo mumbled. "Thanks for bringing him back, Casey."

"No trouble," Casey replied quietly, before turning and heading back down the tunnel towards the nearest manhole.

Leonardo paused a moment to gather himself before he addressed his brother. He took the logical approach. "Mike, can you remember where you went, or how much you had?"

"When? What'd I do?" Mikey said loudly, looking around the tunnel as if searching for the person who had spoken to him.

"I'll tell you what you did, Mikey, you just went and made the biggest mistake of your freakin' life!" Raphael boomed. He was having trouble seeing why his brother decided to go out and get drunk. Or, more to the point, how he could have done it without being spotted. "You've just blown the lid clean off our cover. The cops'll be out looking for a big, plastered turtle. How are we gonna stop the Shredder with the topside world breathing down our necks?"

"Raph, there's no point..." Leo said, but he was cut off by Raphael's fury.

"Sometimes, pal, you gotta take things seriously, and being a ninja is one of those things. We're not just here to party, you know! We do have some kind of purpose apart from reading comic books, watching TV and fighting the occasional bad guy. You can't mix alcohol with that – I mean are you crazy? You could have done anything with your weapons in your state and not remember it in the morning, and by the looks of it you got into some kind of fight anyway," he said, pointing with a sai to the wound on his brother's head. "There are plenty of things to do down here, why'd you have to go out and get drunk to find your fun, huh?" He turned to Leo and Donny and said, "Splinter's gonna have a few words to say about this little party, and I'm thinking he's not gonna be jumping for joy when you guys bring him home. I'm not having nothing to do with it – you two can explain it, I've had it with him." With that, he bounded down the tunnel and back to where his bed awaited him.

After taking a moment to soak up all that Raphael had just said, Donny turned to Leo and said, "I don't think there are any words left for Master Splinter to say after that."

Mikey, his reactions slower than normal, said in a loud voice, "Uh-oh, I think I got in trouble."

"You think?!" Came an angry voice echoing through the tunnels.

"He's probably mad because it was Mikey that got drunk, and not him," Leo said quietly, sighing. "Come on, let's get him back before he causes any more damage." The turtles slowly began to escort Mikey down to the sewer in the direction of their lair. "Man, Mikey, when you go out to do something, you sure do it in style."

"Uh, what'd I do?" Mikey asked in a thick, slurred voice. His feet clumsily danced over each other as his brothers, with one arm each, led him down the tunnel and back towards their home.

"You're sure gonna have a sore head in the morning," Leonardo muttered.

None of the turtles had drunk alcohol before, as Master Splinter had forbidden it, but they knew the effects of it. They had seen the representations on the television, but now they were experiencing it first hand. Leonardo sniffed at that moment, and said, "Casey wasn't wrong when he said he found you in a Dumpster. You sure reek, Mikey."

"Yeah, it stinks in here, dark too," Mikey rambled, swaying from side to side as he walked.

"You've got no idea what you're talking about," Leo muttered, shaking his head slightly. "What did you go and have to do that for, huh? Raph's right, you didn't need to go to the surface to have fun. I bet you won't even remember what you did the in the morning."

"Uh, Leo, I'm really tired," Mikey moaned, dragging his feet.

"You can go to sleep soon," Leo said, sighing. Of all his brothers, it was accepted that Raphael was the one to get himself into trouble, not Mikey. Mikey may have been a dreamer, a party animal, maybe even a goof-off at times, but he never went out of his way to get himself into trouble, certainly not to this degree. Not a lot got to Mikey, but when something did he would usually end up doing something irrational on a large scale, and this was a great example of that. But, it took a lot to get to Mikey, and Leo wondered what exactly had caused this great upset. Perhaps the past few days of poor performance had frustrated Mikey more than anyone had known.

After a few more minutes of struggling to half walk, half drag the talkative and hyperactive Mikey through the sewers, they eventually came to the lair, where they knew that their Sensei would undoubtedly be waiting. He would have either woken up to find no one there, or would have heard Raph stomping in and would have questioned the nature of the night-time excursion. So it was no surprise to Leo and Donny when they saw the Master standing just to one side of the doorway, his arms folded with his staff in one hand.

Splinter need ask no question, his eyes said it all. They were dark, filled with all kinds of emotions from anger to anxiety, but the strongest, deepest one was disappointment. He was disappointed in Raphael, Donatello and Leonardo for not telling him that their brother was missing, and he was disappointed in Michelangelo for going out and doing what he did. Those eyes demanded an explanation and they demanded it now.

Leo was the first to dare to speak. "Mikey was missing, so we went out to look for him," he said, gesturing to Mikey, who was at that moment having a problem trying to remain vertical. Leonardo tried to remain calm but it was not easy - he had never seen his Master looking so angry.

Splinter nodded, having an idea that this would be the case. He wondered how exactly Michelangelo was discovered to be missing in the middle of the night, but those questions would be answered later. At that moment, there was more pressing business to attend to.

"Leonardo, Donatello, please leave so I can speak with your brother, alone," Splinter said coolly, stressing the last word. Leo and Donny nodded and quietly left the room. They shut the door to the living area and literally bumped into Raphael, who had been listening at the door.

Donny smiled wryly at his brother. "Thought you weren't having anything to do with it?"

Raphael shrugged. "I'm not. But I'm still not missing it."

"Whatever, just be quiet," Leo hushed them, opening the door a crack to be able to hear.

Splinter had guided Mikey to sit in the armchair, since it was clear that he would not be able to stand up on his own for long. He stood solidly before him, his back to the door where Mikey's three brothers were intently listening.

"Michelangelo," Splinter growled. "I fear you will not recall much of this conversation in the morning, but perhaps the great headache you shall have will be something for you to remember. You have disappointed me tonight, by going out alone, without informing anyone, and by your actions on the topside world.

"I have taught you of this drink the humans call alcohol, and of it's dangers. You have lost all awareness of yourself, and in doing so you forget what you are, and what you are to the human world. I have explained to you countless times that you must not be seen, and the reasons why. How can you possibly expect to keep a low profile if you are under the influence of alcohol? You could have done anything during your time in the city, and you will have little or no recollection of it in the morning, due to your current state. You could have spoken to anyone about anything; you could have even attacked someone! Do you understand me, Michelangelo?"

Mikey swallowed, he knew that something was very wrong but he was not quite aware enough to work out what. He looked past Splinter to the couch, somewhere he wanted to crawl onto right at that moment. The room swayed, and he blinked a few times to try and regain his senses.

"Look at me, Michelangelo!" Splinter snapped, taking hold of Mikey's chin with his furry, sharp-clawed hand and moving it so that their eyes locked. Splinter's, deep with anger, faced Mikey's bloodshot, glassy eyes with pupils that would not quite focus.

"Go to your room," Splinter commanded, looking away in disgust. He knew that talking to Mikey at that time would be of no use to anyone, and in order to get any sense out of the turtle he should wait until morning, when one and all would have clearer (and in Mikey's case, heavier) heads.

Mikey stood up unsteadily, and took three stumbling steps before he fell to the floor in a heap.

Not blinking, with his back still to the door, Splinter called out, "Leonardo, please escort your brother to his bedroom."

Donatello almost smiled. "Boy, he doesn't miss anything."

Both Leo and Donny returned to the living room, leaving Raphael to quietly slip away to his room. They each picked up one of Mikey's arms and led him down the hallway to his bedroom. As they laid their brother on his bed, Donny suggested, "Lay him face down, in case he decides to throw up in the night, or morning, or whatever time it is now."

Mikey was now unconscious, and although this made him a dead weight, at least now he had stopped fidgeting. Once they had tucked him in, both Leo and Donny stood back, watching their brother as he slept.

"Master Splinter is not going to be in a good mood for a while," Leo remarked quietly, remembering that look in his master's eyes when they had brought Mikey back home. It was like a thunderstorm of grey rumblings and flashes of lightning occupied those angry eyes, and put Leo ill at ease. He could not remember seeing Splinter quite so angry, and during their younger days the four turtles had tried and tested his patience to the limits and beyond. "But he's right, you know. Mikey could have done anything up there and not remember in the morning. He could have told every New Yorker about us, where our lair is, anything about the Shredder, because he didn't know what he was doing. I think we'll have to keep a low profile for a while, just to be safe."

"But we promised to go up to April's tomorrow, to clean out her basement. Besides, what if the Foot strike?"

Leo sighed, knowing that his brother was right. "As long as we're not spotted, we'll be all right. We'll go, but in the shadows and not on the streets. If we think that we're in trouble of being spotted, we bail, got it?"

"Got it."