Farewell Dear Friend

Disclaimer: The TMNT and all related characters belong to Mirage

Special thanks to Reibeauchaser for editing.

Chapter 5 The Visitors

Casey smiled at the florist as she handed him the bouquet. "Thanks, he said." He left the flower wagon and walked three blocks before he felt the pebble on the small of his back. Casey smiled knowingly and made the left turn into a nearby alley. He didn't even flinch when Raphael appeared out of the darkness.

"Did you get them?" Raphael asked eagerly.

"One rainbow of roses right here." Casey displayed the multicolored bouquet proudly.

"Cool!" Raphael said. He snatched up the flowers. "I owe you for this one, Case."

"Nahh, it's for Maggie, so your off the hook." Casey said cheerfully. Then with a sly grin, he added, "of course if you and Donnie could come over to my place later this week and fix my cable TV setup."

Raphael laughed. If it moved, Casey could fix it, but fine electronics usually ended up confetti in his hands. "I think I could talk Don into it. You got it pal."

Casey smiled broadly. "Hey, I could take you over on my bike," he offered.

Raphael shook his head amused. "No way, moron. I've seen what happens to flowers on your trips. I'll carry them myself."

Casey didn't take offense at the teasing. "I'll see you later then. Say hi to Maggie for me." With that, Casey straddled his bike and roared off into the night.

Raphael chuckled and scaled the fire escape to keep above the city goers. Once on the rooftops, he raced for Maggie's brownstone.

Raphael pulled the key out of his wrist pad feeling a surge of pride. He had been surprised at how easily Splinter had handed over the key, but as he turned it in the lock, he realized that it basically meant that, punishment or not, Master Splinter trusted him to take care of Maggie.

He opened the door and went inside. Mindful of what Leonardo and Splinter said about others coming to visit Maggie, Raphael listened intently for any voices in the house. When he was certain that the house was devoid of visitors, he moved over to Maggie's bedroom.

The door was open, so Raphael looked in. In her bed as usual sat Maggie. She had her blue robe on and her nose buried in a magazine. He didn't want to startle her, so Raphael politely tapped on the open door.

Maggie looked up and her face broke into a delighted smile. "Raphael! I'm so glad to see you! Are you feeling better dear?"

Raphael felt his face warm slightly with a blush, as he smiled back at her. He wondered what excuse Michelangelo and Donatello gave Maggie yesterday. Splinter did say that he heard Raphael inside the house yesterday. Looking very shy and embarrassed, Raphael said, "Um yeah, a little. Maggie, about yesterday, I'm sorry I started fighting with Leo up on your roof. It was just something he was telling you that connected with some stuff that's been bugging me for a while."

Instantly Maggie's expression took on one of concern. She reached out and took Raphael's hand. "Oh you poor dear,"

Raphael felt his flush strengthen. Apologies were never easy for him. "So . . . so anyway I got you these to say I'm sorry." He thrust the flowers from behind his back to in front of him.

Maggie was delighted, just like Raphael planned. "Oh Raphael, they're beautiful!"

"I'm also under orders to be your personal slave for most of the night," Raphael said with a small bow.

Maggie laughed at that. "Well then, my first command to you is to put these in a vase. Now make sure you cut the stems before you put them in water."

Raphael nodded and gave her a quick little salute. "Yes ma'am," he said. He took the flowers into the kitchen, cut them the way April showed all of them way back in North Hampton, and placed them in a bright blue vase. When he came back into the bedroom Maggie's smile told him, the flowers were the right idea.

"They're lovely, Raphael. Put them right over there on the dresser." While Raphael did so, Maggie said, "And perhaps you'll tell me what Leonardo said yesterday that upset you so."

There was a tone in Maggie's voice that told Raphael there were no strings attached to that offer. She wouldn't lecture, and she wouldn't judge him, she would just listen. Raphael sat down and gave her a detailed account of his experiences at the Battle Nexus, including when he had to go up against Michelangelo.

"Mikey knows how to get under my skin like no one can. He knows that if he gets me steamed enough he can distract me and beat me. So he starts driving me crazy waiting for the right moment when he knows he can nail me. The worst part is throughout of it, all I could swear I heard Leo talking to someone about exactly what was going on. Even then, with Leo's words ringing in my ears, hearing him laugh at me, I still lost it to the point where Mikey could beat me. For the longest time I thought I just imagined hearing Leo in my head, but then I heard him talking to you yesterday."

"Oh dear," Maggie said.

Raphael got up and began to pace around the room. None of this was Maggie's fault, and he didn't want to bring his problems to her, but he had to talk to someone about it. "I'm not even sure what bothers me more, that Mikey beat me, that Leo saw Mikey beat me, or that I could hear him, even when he wasn't really there, or maybe he was there, I don't even know anymore! Everything he told you yesterday is word for word what I only thought I imagined before"

"You poor dear," Maggie said. "Everything Leo told me yesterday to help me out simply sent you into a tizzy."

"I guess," Raphael, a little ashamed. "As much as I hate to admit it, Leo was right. I was better off not knowing what he went through"

"I don't think so," Maggie said. "There is one thing you should have learned that will help you, no matter what"

She sounded so firm and confidant about this that it sparked Raphael's curiosity. "There is? What?"

"What was the one thing Leonardo wanted to do both times he was out of his body?" Maggie asked.

Raphael was trying very hard to forget what he heard, and now Maggie wanted him to think about both incidents. With a sigh, Raphael tried to think. "I don't know," he said in defeat. "I didn't even know about the time at the Battle Nexus. I knew how badly hurt he was when the Shredder nearly killed him, but Mikey and I didn't know about the poison or anything until we were back home, but Leo didn't even tell you about all that. All Leo told you about was how he was watching us."

"Exactly," Maggie said. "The only thing Leonard wanted to do, even when he didn't know his situation, was to return to you and your brothers. He didn't want to leave you. Think, Raphael, it would have been far easier for him to let go and die, but he didn't. He didn't want to. He wanted to go back to you all."

That actually made Raphael to stop and think. Leo's story of his first experience filtered through his mind. "You know, Maggie, I never thought about it that way before. Even when I couldn't hear him, he was watching us, and he told me he was coming back." Raphael dropped into deep thought. "Maybe . . . Nahh" He shook his head at the thought.

"What is it Raphael?" Maggie asked.

Raphael sighed; this was something he wasn't comfortable talking about at all. "Well it's kinda of complicated. For the last year or so, I've kinda picked up this trick of hearing when ghosts are around. That's why I could hear Leo at the Battle Nexus."

"It must have been frightening," Maggie said.

Raphael smiled as he thought of that very first encounter. "It was, at first. I've got it to a point now where I don't hear ghosts all the time, only when I want to, but maybe I should work on trying to understand them more. Then maybe I'd understand what Leo was trying to tell you."

"Maybe," Maggie said. "Just remember that your brother loves you very much, and he never wanted to upset you."

"I know," Raphael said. He wanted to say more, but then he realized that Maggie didn't have dinner yet. "Oh man, here I am spilling my guts to you, and I haven't even fed you yet. Let me get you dinner."

He managed to escape to the kitchen for a while, but even with keeping himself distracted with work, he couldn't get the idea out of his head that maybe hearing Leonardo back at the Battle Nexus was supposed to teach him something. He never told the others that ability he gained when at the veterinary clinic had never gone away. He decided he was going to take care of it himself. After a few months of working on controlling his mind, he stopped hearing voices, but often he would get the feeling that there were spirits in the sewers who were trapped there, in the way Master Yoshi used to be trapped in the apartment above the vet clinic. He wondered what he should do about if, if anything.

Suddenly he thought he heard something in the kitchen with him. He paused and turned around fully trying to figure out what he thought he heard. Suddenly he felt his blood run cold. He realized that it was the same buzzing sounds he used to hear in the vet clinic over a year ago.

"No way," he said. "This can't be happening again." This time, however, he knew how to deal with what he couldn't understand. He closed his eyes and relaxed, concentrating on what he learned before.

He heard a pair of male voices talking quietly in the corner of the kitchen. The conversation seemed to be about world war two. That didn't make any sense at all to Raphael, until he heard a familiar voice say, "I am glad, Peter, that you realized that not all Japanese were responsible for the war. Oroku Saki had much to do with the Japanese involvement in the war. My employers and my colleagues tried to stop them."

"Oh I knew all about that, friend. Otherwise, I would not have let my Maggie work for you."

Raphael couldn't believe what he heard. "No way," he said to himself. "It can't be. We . . . we freed you from the vet clinic! That freaking dream we all had said so!"

Oh dear, can he hear us? The second voice asked.

Raphael felt some unseen movement in the room. Suddenly he felt a gentle hand on his plastron. He would have jumped five feet in the air but the next thing he knew he felt a familiar voice inside of his mind.

"Raphael, it is all right. Do not be afraid. Peter and I were just looking in on Maggie for ourselves. You need not trouble yourself over us."

With the voice came a calming sensation that hit Raphael right in his core. He knew that Master Yoshi liked Maggie and he would never do anything to harm Maggie. Before Raphael knew what he was doing, he simply accepted what he was being told. Then Raphael felt something, or a pair of somethings, pass by him. And then they were gone.

"What the shell?" Raphael asked the empty air quietly. He firmly shook his head, trying to get the tranquil feeling out of his mind. He succeeded for the most part, but he couldn't shake the feeling that they didn't mean any harm, and they were just watching for Maggie. He tried to sense the spirits again, but he got nothing. "That was weird," he muttered to himself. He shook off his uneasiness and brought Maggie her dinner.

Maggie somehow knew that Raphael felt unsettled about something, because for the rest of the night she kept him distracted with stories about Master Yoshi. When Splinter came in at ten o'clock, Raphael had almost forgotten the unsettling conversation. It was when he got up on the roof that he began to think about the incident in the kitchen again.

I wish I knew what that was all about. What were they doing there in the kitchen? Were they watching us? Why? He was stewing about this when he got to the lair. He found Leonardo in the dojo alone, in lotus position, and with his eyes closed.

Okay now this is just creepy. I just heard our invisible friend again, and Leo's got his mental 'out to lunch sign' on. He was about to move on, when Leonardo said, "It's okay Raph, I didn't go anywhere, I was waiting for you to get back. I got this strange feeling a couple of hours ago that when you got back here you'd want to talk to me. "

Now, Raphael could not ignore the cold chill that ran down the inside of his shell. "How did you know? Did you see him too?"

That puzzled Leonardo. "See who?"

"Our invisible friend from last year," Raphael said, wondering how much did Leonardo know. "I just heard him talking to someone else invisible over in Maggie's house."

"Wait," Leonardo looked at Raphael sternly. "Are you saying our invisible friend from the vet clinic?"

"So you didn't know!" Raphael said eagerly. "Like I said, I could hear him talking in the kitchen with someone. You didn't know he was around?"

"I wondered," Leonardo admitted. "That first night in Maggie's house while I was holding those dashio, I thought I felt that someone was watching us. I would have worried more about it but the feeling I got was a good feeling so I didn't worry too much about it. Then last night, Maggie mentioned always feeling her husband Peter nearby. Maybe that was truer than she knew."

"Wait, her late husband was named Peter? That's who our friend was talking to!" Raphael said excited.

"It makes sense," Leonardo said with a smile. "Maggie's told me a few things about her late husband. I wouldn't worry too much about it, Raph. Ever since the vet clinic, did you ever get the feeling in the dojo that you were being watched?"

Raphael bit his lip and stared back at Leonardo in shock. There had been times in the dojo where he did get that exact feeling, but it always came with a "don't worry" feeling and he found the sensation easy to ignore. Leonardo caught his reaction. He smiled and said, "I thought so. Mikey says he gets it, too, sometimes, but Don has never sensed anything. Then again, he never sensed our friend in the clinic. I'm guessing he just watches out for us. You already know he doesn't want us to worry about him. I'd guess that they're just keeping an eye on Maggie too."

Suddenly, an uncomfortable thought came to Raphael. "What if it's more than that Leo?"

Leonardo wondered at Raphael's change of mood. "What do you mean Raph?"

Raphael sighed sadly. "You said in those . . . experiences, of yours that someone was with you all the time." When Leonardo nodded, Raphael continued. "What if they was hanging around because . . . because . . . well you know."

"Because Maggie is going to die soon?" Leonardo asked. He sighed and rose to his feet. "Raph, we both know that Maggie's dying is inevitable. Whether their waiting for her or not is not our business, but remember, you just confirmed to me that we haven't been alone here in the lair either, and I don't think any of us are dying anytime soon. Besides, wouldn't you want Maggie surrounded by friends and family? You wouldn't want her to be alone when she dies, do you?"

"I don't want her to die!" Raphael said angrily. "It's not fair Leo! She's never done anything to hurt anyone. Why can't she go to the doctor, why can't she-" Raphael broke off not daring to say anything else because he knew he was getting too close to his bad temper.

"She doesn't want to go to the hospital," Leonardo reminded him. "And even if she did, it would only last another year or so, and be in a lot more pain than she is now." When Raphael didn't say anything else Leonardo, Leonardo said, "Maggie wants to die by her rules, not some doctor. The best thing we can do is support her decision, and make her as comfortable as possible." Leonardo put a sympathetic hand on Raphael's shoulder. "Raph, whether or not we like it, Maggie is going to die. Do you really want to spend most of the time being angry about it?"

Raphael sighed, he was still angry, but he knew that Leonardo was right. He let out a frustrated sigh, and said, "no."

Leonardo drew closer and said as comfortingly as he could, "It will be all right, Raph. Let Maggie enjoy our company for as long as she can. Our duty is to make her passing as easy and as stress-free as possible."

Leonardo was right. For the rest of the night, Raphael kept his unhappy mood to himself, promising himself that he was going to make Maggie as happy as possible and for as long as possible.

As 'long as possible' was only going to last three more weeks.