A/N: Didn't take me as long this time, did it? I wasn't really sure if I should post this or not. I'm not really pleased with how this chapter turned out, but no matter how I twist and turn I still end up with the same thing. So I'm posting. Hope ya like it. I wanna thank those of you who reviewed. I was so happy. As things are now, they really do keep my muse breathing. I'll post my responses to them later, at Stealthy Stories. But now I have to have dinner. Actually, I'm already running late but I just had to post this before anything else.Till next time!

Chapter 6

"You're doing great. I'm right here, bro. Just relax... You're doing great."

I didn't know for how long I'd been repeating these words to him, but it felt like it had been a while; softly rocking him back and forth, occasionally caressing his cheek with my thumb, protectively cradling his sapless form in my aching embrace. His head felt so heavy in my arms, especially with one of them weakened by the bullet wound, but I needed him close; I needed to feel my own cheek pressed down against his temple.

I needed him. More than anything, I needed him.

Everything was quiet now... so quiet. The panic was gone, and peace had settled. Even my tears had gone mute. They were still there, constantly trailing down my swollen face, but none of them made a sound. In fact, the only thing accompanying me in the blackness was the sound of my own voice, and even though it was aimed at Mike, I think it calmed me, too. I knew they were just words, but saying them enough number of times almost made me believe them. At least we were still together. His hallucinations had long since ceased, and he'd even stopped shaking. He lay so peacefully in my arms as I rocked him, my little brother, back and forth... back and forth.

So quiet.

I carefully lifted my face from his head to have a look at him, my tears sticking my itchy skin to his. It was only proof that we'd been locked in this position for quite some time. Grimacing when using my left arm, I realized some of the blood around my wound had dried, as it appeared stuck to Mikey's left shoulder.

Indeed, we must have been like this for a while.

The sore joints in my legs and back resisted hurtfully to my movement and I couldn't help but grunt in pain, but I tried my best to ignore that and worked on adjusting a surprisingly heavy Michelangelo into a position where his shell was lying in my lap, and he was facing up. His head was completely limp, where it hung lifelessly over my lower right arm, and even in the darkness I could tell that his face was clean of any emotion. The mask of anguish that had been dressing his features ever since all of this began was finally gone; if anything, he looked peaceful.

"Mikey..." I weakly spoke up, trying to lift him into a sitting position so I could get a closer look at him. He was heavy, and every muscle in my body burned in protest, but I needed to feel him against my plastron. I needed to cradle him in my arms, no matter how much it hurt. Having finally moved him into an upright position, I watched his head powerlessly loll to one shoulder, his face almost burying itself into my chest.

"Mike?" I gently called his name a second time, letting go of him with my left hand so I could use it to have him face me. It hurt like hell using that arm, but Mikey never even moved a muscle; he still had that neutral look on his face, and it was honestly starting to unnerve me.

He was shot in both his leg and shoulder. Movement should have harmed him; even while unconscious it should've pained him.

"Mikey," I tried speaking up louder, carefully studying his features for any reaction.His lips were sealed and his eyes remained closed, and I couldn't help but respond to the unfamiliar image of his face being stripped of his trademark orange mask, but there was no movement, not so much as a twitch. "Mikey," I called again, this time more demanding, my left hand hesitantly cupping his cheek.

I tried gently shaking him, but his head only rolled over to rest on his left shoulder again. Then, looking at his chest, I suddenly realized it wasn't moving, and I felt my left hand starting to shake.

No...

"Mikey!" I shook him a second time, only now more violent than before, desperate. His head only moved flaccidly at the action, and as soon as I stopped, it once again fell face first onto my chest.

I felt my throat clamming up, and it was getting harder to breathe, almost to the point where I felt like I would choke on my own tears. The panic seemed to travel with the speed of light throughout the rest of my body, my chest in particular where it felt as though my heart was trying to pound its way right through the plates of my plastron. If I hadn't known any better, I would have almost thought I was having a heart attack.

But I knew.

I didn't want to believe it, because I could not take sitting here alone, but he'd been quiet for so long. I had thought he was finally rid of that horrible dream, but now...

Oh, god. Please no.

"...Mikey?" I desperately managed to utter, my tears strangling my vocal chords so hard I could barely even whisper his name. But my little brother remained unchanged and I couldn't help but suck in a loud sob in despair, feeling my chest swell up with stinging air that seemed made especially for me, especially for this moment.

Everything about anything was painful.

I didn't want to do it. I didn't want find out, but deep inside I knew it was the only way to be sure, and so I apprehensively lifted my left hand from where it rested on his plastron. It was still shaking, even more so now than it had before, and even as I pressed the tip of my fingers to his throat it wouldn't stop.

Holding my breath, I waited for something I knew would never come; yet I kept my fingers pressed to his skin, as if stubbornness would somehow magically summon a pulse. But my fingertips remained untouched, and in the time of not blinking my eyes quickly welled up with tears till I could barely see anything at all.

Finally, I was forced to let go, and as soon as my fingers left the clammy texture of his skin, the tears I had trapped all came tumbling at once. My sobs took over my body completely, where I felt both my stomach and lungs cramping in hysteria, and with desperate arms gathering the limp body, I held him longingly to my chest. I buried my heated face in soft dent of his neck, which was soon flooded with my tears, the salty taste of them invading my mouth. Then, grabbing a tighter hold around his shell with my left arm, I brokenheartedly started rocking him back and forth, just like I had when he'd been hallucinating.

It was as if the very last shard of my heart had been smashed, and I couldn't believe the cruelty of it.

The only damn thing I had left in this world was gone.

I wasn't really sure when it had happened; I'd kept myself busy talking to him, rocking him back and forth in an attempt to calm him, but I knew it had.

Somewhere between then and now, he'd just... let go.

I felt his heavy body in my arms, weighing down on legs I could barely even acknowledge, and I could still smell his blood and sweat, but my brother wasn't there anymore. The person I was holding was nothing but a body, a broken body he'd left behind for me to cry over. Like the rest of them, he was gone. Dead. He'd just passed away in my arms – without my knowledge – and it didn't matter how many tears I'd shed on him, he wasn't coming back. But even in spite of this, I just couldn't bring myself to let go of him. Alive or not, he was still my little brother.

I'd grown up with him. I'd been there to put band-aids on his scratches whenever he got hurt, and I'd always been the one to comfort him whenever Raph said something he hadn't really meant. I'd been there to fall victim for several of his cheap pranks, and I hadn't even paid him back once for it. And I could still hear his senseless, nonstop talking at night, back when the two of us shared a room as kids. The things he said were completely random and utterly pointless, but I always kept myself awake to listen to him, no matter how tired I was. It wasn't that he had anything important to say; he just wanted to talk.

He just wanted company.

I knew holding onto his dead body didn't qualify as company, but I still loved him... and I couldn't bear the thought of leaving him. Sadly, it was the only thing I had left of my family. It was just me now. The only remaining member of my family – of my kind. What would I do? Where would I go? Even if I could gather enough strength to get up and walk out of here, was I supposed to just leave him? Alone in the sewers, utterly abandoned to be found by god knows what. What if those bastards found him? What would they do to him? They didn't carry that camera for nothing.

No. No, I couldn't leave him. I didn't want to. They were all gone now, and, pathetic as it may have been, I just didn't have the strength to go on without them. I'd told him I wouldn't go anywhere, and I wasn't planning on breaking that promise. Besides, I was way too tired to leave. I didn't know if it was because of the crying, the running, or what, but I was completely exhausted. I sat with my head leaned back against the cold wall behind me, yet it still felt heavy. Even the act of keeping my eyes open was a challenge. Not that it mattered, because I couldn't see anything in these pitch-black tunnels anyway.

Every single fiber of my being was tired. My legs were tired from running, my heart was tired from loss, my head was tired from crying, and perhaps most of all my body was tired from bleeding. I hadn't done a single thing to treat my wound. For all I knew it could have rotted a hole right through my flesh. Although, strange as it was, it didn't hurt as much anymore. Not that I couldn't feel the pain, it was very much still there, open and bleeding, but it was different now. It was dull. Just like the feeling in my head – dull.

As I sat there in the darkness, my back up against the unmerciful tunnel wall, holding my brother's corpse curled up in my lap, I realized how much colder things had gotten. My arms and legs lay stiff on the cold, wet ground – utterly useless, and everything around me was quiet. My tears had stopped, and even the ever-present sound coming from the pipes seemed fainter somehow. It was as if the entire world had stopped functioning with his death.

Time and place didn't really seem to exist at all anymore; it was as though everything had floated together into this big, consuming essence of unimportantness. Who knew? Perhaps night had already come and gone while I'd been sitting here? Perhaps those psychopaths had killed each other in a random fit of insanity? They sure seemed capable of it. They would have even been doing the world a favor.

I honestly had no idea.

The only thing I had been certain of had been taken from me, and not suddenly like with the rest of my family. No, it had been a slow, detailed process, just so I wouldn't miss anything. But even in spite of that, I still couldn't believe he was gone. It felt like it had only been a minute ago when he'd been complaining about that no good flashlight of his. I had told him it was kid's toy, and that he shouldn't have such big expectations, but he'd only insisted it should've done better.

'I expected more from Batman,' he'd said.

God, I would have given anything to hear his voice again. Of course, I missed the others, too, but with Mikey...

With Mikey I'd been given a chance to at least fight for his life. I had literally pushed him out the window of our bathroom carriage, dragged him through the cold tunnels and forced him to keep walking on a leg that couldn't. I'd tied his wounds and cradled his feverish body, only to lose him in the end.

It felt so futile, so pointless, so... unfair.

What was the point of it all? Were we all just meant to die? Was I meant to sit here in the darkness and slowly bleed to death like he had?

I honestly didn't care anymore. I was too tired to even attempt it.