Breathing hard, Raphael ducked into a room and closed the door behind him.
He wasn't feeling well. After being shot, he had turned and sped off with all of the speed he had been given, catapulting past Bishop's men and even Bishop himself. He was in a bad spot, and he wasn't about to let himself be captured so that the rest of the "cure" could be administered. Especially now that Allison depended on him.
He lowered himself down to the ground, laying the still-unconscious girl across his lap. A glimpse at her made him choke up. Her fur gone, he could now see the face that he had remembered from so many months ago. She was back in her human form, which also meant that she was naked. Even with his predicament, Raphael could still feel a mild blush at his cheeks.
Setting Allison aside, he stumbled to his feet and looked about. From the looks of the well-lit room, he had staggered into some sort of large storeroom. There were lockers lining one end of the white wall, and a series of crates were at the other end.
Raphael walked over to the boxes. They were loaded with some kind of artillery. He would normally have looked through them and go about utilizing his findings, but he knew that he was in no position to follow his normal hotheaded tactics. Instead, he dragged the heavy crate over to the door, and used it to help barricade himself and Allison within. He went back and slowly picked up another box, hoping to make it impossible for someone to burst in. And if they tried to blast in with their lasers, hopefully they'd set off an explosion that would allow him to slip past them.
Though exhausted after the third box, he stooped down to pick Allison up and take her to the other side of the room. If those punks did try to blast their way in, he didn't want Allison to be caught in the crossfire. Being more aware of her nakedness now that she was in his arms again, Raphael moved to the lockers and tested them. The first two were locked. On the third, he decided to pull it with all of his might. The door came off in his hand, and he almost fell backwards.
Placing Allison back on the floor, he looked inside the locker. There was a spare set of black clothes inside, which was better than he had hoped, despite the fact that they looked big enough to be loose on the Shredder. Kneeling down besides Allison, he gently began to dress her. Even in his wavering state, he didn't want Allison to feel vulnerable upon her awakening.
Looking at her now as he dressed her, Raphael was tentatively relieved. She was back. Her thick dark brown hair had grown since he had last seen her, and it looked as though she had put on some weight. It looked good on her, though. As he adjusted her arms within the far-too-large sleeves, he marveled over Allison's muscular structure. She had clearly been working out. Heh, he thought. She could probably give Bishop 'n his goons a run for their money.
The thought made him somewhat somber. He had succeeded in turning her back into a human, but not in saving her. They were trapped deep within Bishop's base, practically waiting for the agent and his men to come and pick them up. And Raphael had to go and get himself shot.
He tried to tell himself that only half of the serum had managed to get into his system, and so he shouldn't worry. But the false optimism made him cringe, especially when he could already feel the medication working on him. After he finished adjusting a pair of pants on Allison, he leaned back against the lockers and looked down at her. His stillness only seemed to amplify whatever was going on inside of him.
It seemed to him like he was being compressed, shrinking. Could it be that he was already growing smaller? Was he… was he really on his way to becoming just another turtle? Maybe Allison can take me under her arm and stick me in her tank with her other turtle. A sudden thought struck Raphael. Would he even remember Allison? Would he know anything about his brothers, about Splinter, about Casey and April, about his life?
The thought terrified him. He tried to think of life before his mutation. Nothing came to him but hazy, dim memories. He didn't know if that was because he was so young or because animals just… don't remember. They don't think. They don't rationalize. What if Bishop was right, and he turned into just another animal?
A deep depression befell Raphael. He glanced at Allison, who now seemed to be only sleeping. He felt tempted to try and wake her up. He needed someone to talk to, needed someone to tell him to quit being irrational, someone with Leonardo's level-headedness that could draw him out of his tempestuous emotions. And yet, he couldn't bring himself to wake her up. After everything she had been through, what would be the point in waking her up while her body was trying to reenergize, just so she could share in his anxiety?
Raphael knew what the point was. And as immature as it made him feel, he couldn't deny it. He would get a hug. He would be held. He knew that Allison was a nurturing person, knew it from the moment she had brought him his medical supplies and food when he had been shot when they first met. And as much as he begrudged it, he realized that he needed that. The focus and dedication along with the occasional needling that Leonardo and Splinter had always provided him with had been wrapped up in this girl… this one girl that he met on a dark night and could hardly stop thinking about since.
Raphael felt disgusted with himself. He wasn't averse to romance or love, so long as it didn't bother him in his little sphere in the world. And now he's realizing that he hadn't sacrificed all that he did for Allison because she was a friend, but because… no. No, he was not going to bring himself to think it.
A sudden wave of pain came to Raphael's hands. He grunted, clenching his fists. In a few minutes, he may not have fists anymore. More pain came, this time at his back. This is it, he realized as he fell upon his hands. I can't… this is… ugh. He moaned loudly, mindless of the possibility of broadcasting his location.
He wrapped an arm around his stomach, as though he were about to retch. His mind clouding, Raphael looked back up to Allison. Even then, even in that pain, he couldn't bring himself back to that thought that almost crossed his mind. Why should he? There was no possibility of anything ever coming from thoughts like that.
She shifted in her sleep, turning over to her stomach, an arm cradling her head. In that one movement, so simple and spontaneous,… Raphael realized that she was beautiful. Her hair fell over her sleeping face, and even the ridiculously large clothes he had found for her couldn't hide her feminine form. And Raphael began to do something that he hadn't done in a very long time.
He cried. He cried for what was, and what could have been, and what would be. He cried because he was never more certain of never seeing his family again, of never wrestling with Casey, of never going to April's apartment to watch television. He cried because Allison was the only girl he had ever really cared about as anything other than a friend, and it wasn't fair, it wasn't fair.
If they hadn't met, she would probably still be living in New York, living her simple life, hiding the secret of her lonely past and painful present from everyone she knew. But no, they met, and they connected, and in only a few days, she told him everything she had never been able to tell another living soul. In only a few days, she had managed to actually "get" him, to understand him so well that she wrote a screenplay inspired by him. He was good for her. For once, he was actually good for someone.
Raphael still remembered the lines that the character based on him said to a human girl in The Sewer Dwellers: "Just find out who you are, and you'll see who I am." And Allison found out who she was in those few days with Raphael, enabling her to also see who he was.
Had she thought about him? Raphael could still remember the days when he kept expecting April to come to the lair with a letter or for Donatello to announce that she had sent an e-mail. The long stretches of silence that passed by so steadily that he had almost forgotten that he had been waiting for something. Almost. He knew he was waiting, and he had resented it so much that he grew sick of it, never daring to mention Allison in front of Michelangelo lest he be ridiculed. Now he wondered if she ever expected some form of communication herself, if she had ever wondered how he was doing. A sense of unfamiliar shame flooded through Raphael.
What was happening to him? His emotions usually led him towards animated, angry outbursts. Now… now everything simply became another reason for melancholy. Every teardrop was its own tragedy. Why? Was it a side effect of the medication? Was this what going insane felt like?
Raphael hardly noticed that in his angst-ridden daze, he had been slowly crawling towards Allison. With extraordinary effort, he pushed himself up so that he could peer over her shoulder and look down at her face. The sight of her mouth slightly open made him want to cry again, but he suddenly felt too dry. I don't get it, he thought hazily. What's with the waterworks? Make it stop. Please… just… make it stop.
His strength gone, Raphael's arms failed beneath him. He lay on his side behind Allison, one arm beneath his head. Exhausted and dizzy, Raphael gingerly rested his forehead on Allison's back. Somehow, this seemed to get him somewhat grounded.
He felt as though he should have been aghast by the fact that he wanted to sleep. But why? If he should not wake up as a sentient being, he had at least left Allison in a room loaded with weaponry for defense. And who knows; maybe his brothers were on their trail and will be able to save her. Maybe she really will keep him with her, and he'll be able to stay with her, in a nice little tank in her bedroom.
His resignation nauseated him, but that could just have easily been the work of the serum. There was nothing left for him to do. Any activity would probably just speed up the transformation, and he didn't have the strength for any activity to begin with. He only hoped that he had truly done all he could to protect Allison.
As though in a final gesture to guard her, Raphael draped an arm around Allison as he drifted out of consciousness.
-----------------------------------
Allison awoke with a sense of stiffness.
Her arm was sore, as it had been folded under her head when she slept. When she tried to move her other arm to wipe the sleep out of her eyes, she realized that she was somewhat pinned down. Suddenly remembering everything that had happened between Bishop and Raphael and their escape, Allison became aware of a person lying besides her, an arm over her.
She smiled, a single thankful tear falling down her cheek. From the corner of her eye, she could see her hand, not a paw but a hand, with her short nails and normal olive complexion. She sighed, knowing that, though she had been in a bad spot, Raphael had come through. He managed to pull her away from the danger. He had saved her.
Allison shifted slightly, trying to get her free arm out from under her. Once it was released, she put a hand on what she gathered to be Raphael's arm. How many times had this happened? How many times had she been knocked out and woken up to find him next to her? How many times-
Allison stopped suddenly. Her hand had drifted down to the one that lay limply at her side. Her initial grogginess gone now, she felt the hand… and it was actually a hand. Large, but not inhumanly so, and with five fingers. This wasn't a turtle.
Shocked, Allison pushed the arm away from her and rolled away. She was wearing unfamiliar baggy clothes and had to hold them against her lest they fall away. If she had been lying next to Bishop….
But no. She didn't know who this person that was slowly grunting his way into wakefulness was. He was a short but muscular man with a bald head and a wide face. Allison was disgusted when she realized he was nude except for a few accessories, as though he hadn't completely undressed. He had something over his eyes, which he adjusted as he slowly made it up to his elbows. Allison realized that it was a bandanna.
Confused, Allison jumped to her feet and assumed a defensive position, which was difficult to do since the pants that she was wearing kept trying to fall down. When the stranger opened his impossibly large brown eyes, she realized that he was young, possibly high school-aged.
Having to squint through the eye mask, the boy decided to take it off completely as he looked up at the scared girl. "Allison?" Allison relaxed her defensive mannerism somewhat, but something in the back of her mind told her that this wasn't right. The stranger made it up to his knees, something of a relieved smile on his face. "Kid, you're okay! Ya almost had me worried."
Noting her even more shocked expression, the boy frowned inquiringly. Not getting an answer from her, he looked down and then stopped, catching sight of his own hand. He lifted his hand closer to his face. As though he had never seen it before, he moved the fingers in front of his face, then looked at his other hand and did the same. Lightly touching his face, he looked down at himself and looked almost aghast as he caught an eyeful of his own nude body. "What the shell?"
Allison backed up against a wall, sliding herself down to the floor. It was impossible. This couldn't be happening. The boy looked up at her, as though beseeching her to tell him so. But Allison couldn't bring herself to speak.
Though he had the body of a human, he had the voice of Raphael.