A/N: Thanks again to Amonraphoenix and Darkunderworld for beta-ing for me. You guys are awesome.
Disclaimer: see chapter one
The next morning Raphael woke up, the lair eerily silent. He rolled over onto his side, and glanced at his alarm clock, almost falling to the floor when he saw that it was 8:16 am. He toppled out of his hammock and picked himself up off the floor, running to the bathroom quickly before he hurried downstairs to the dojo. He skidded to a stop just inside the doorway; surprised to find it to be empty.
Raphael frowned in confusion as he listened to the sounds of the lair. The fridge hummed in the kitchen, the computers whirled in Donatello's lab, and pipes dripped from somewhere within the sewers; but there was no sound that indicated that any of his brothers were in the lair.
Raphael turned and slowly left the dojo. He walked into the kitchen, and finding it empty, checked the living room, meditation room, and Donatello's lab. He was beginning to get an uneasy feeling, and it was a sensation that he didn't like having.
He decided to check his brother's bedrooms, in case by some miracle, they had all decided to sleep in. He checked Michelangelo's room first, and apart from the usual clutter of comic books and action figures that littered the floor, the room was empty. Frowning deeply, Raphael made his way slowly down the hall to see if Leonardo and Donatello were in their rooms. Opening each door in turn, he encountered only empty bedrooms.
Raphael slowly turned and walked back down the stairs to the main level. The lair was empty. He paused at the bottom of the stairs, placed a hand to his head, and leaned back against the wall.
Surely my outburst from the night before hadn't been that bad, he thought to himself in sullen disbelief that his brothers would just take off without telling him.
Not knowing what else to do, Raphael went to the kitchen to get some breakfast. He grabbed a bowl, a spoon, a box of cereal and opened the fridge, grabbing a jug of milk, before sitting down at the kitchen table. He poured the cereal and milk into his bowl, but made no move to start eating it. He glanced at the clock: 8:21 am. A growl was emitted from deep within his throat. They had probably been so angry with him that they had probably decided to spend the night at April and Casey's apartment. Since they were both out of town, and they had a key to get in, they wouldn't be intruding.
He would have gone out to go and talk to them, maybe even apologize for the way he acted; though knowing himself, this possibility was very remote. But besides the risk of being spotted during the daylight hours, he knew that if he went to April's, all that would happen would be he would receive a lengthy, droning lecture by Leonardo, with both Donatello and Michelangelo silently nodding in agreement at his perceived bad behaviour.
Sighing, Raphael managed to eat half a bowl of cereal before the guilt of his angry words towards Leonardo made him too nauseous to eat anymore. He knew he shouldn't have said what he had said to Leonardo, especially because Raphael knew how injured Leonardo still was, and he especially knew his older brother's tendency to overexert and push himself in his training, even when he was not up for the task.
He cleaned up his breakfast dishes and went to the dojo to pound his frustrations out on his punching bag. It was way too quiet; he could hear himself think, which was never a good thing. He abandoned the punching bag a half hour later and went to the garage to see if there was any work that needed to be done on the Shell Cycle.
He wanted something- anything- to happen. He half expected the elevator doors to open, and for his brothers to walk in. But another hour slipped by and no one came back to the lair, nor did he receive a single phone call telling him where they were and for him not to worry about them. He stomped back into the dojo, taking his anger and frustration out on his punching bag, just to give himself something to do.
Each punch became more savage as he reviewed his actions of the night before. Yes he could admit that he had acted like a jerk, but so had Leonardo. If his brother would have just admitted that he wasn't ready for such a long patrol, Raphael could have accepted that. Instead his older brother had hid behind the lame excuse of there not being anything going on last night; which had been completely wrong, because after Raphael had stormed off he had managed to stop four muggings and one attempted robbery, all on his own.
He had been looking forward to rubbing this fact in his proud, infuriating and perfect, older brother's face. A twinge of guilt shot through him at the realization that Leonardo was only acting like Raphael would if he were in the same situation. "Heck if it were me, I woulda been outta bed two weeks earlier," he admitted to himself out loud. Though this may have been part of the problem. He hated it when Leonardo acted like him. It was like all of his imperfections and hang ups were thrown right back in his face, and it grated on his nerves because, "Leo actin' like me pisses me off."
He growled the thought under his breath. He couldn't stand his older brother when he acted exactly like Raphael would, mostly because he didn't actually like Leonardo, and it always made him secretly wonder how his family even managed to like him, let alone love him. He was angry, violent and argumentative, and those were his good qualities. He was vengeful, arrogant, rude, sarcastic, surly and a liar. Most of his thoughts, feelings and emotions were locked behind a barrier of anger; that was really just a shield that protected him from his own self-loathing.
Raphael slammed his fist into the heavy bag one final time, his anger reaching a fever pitch as he struggled against giving into worry. "Fine you don't want to talk to me, then I don't wanna talk to you either. Good riddance. I got the lair to myself. I can do whatever the heck I want, whenever I want. There's no one hoggin' the TV and tellin' me I gotta train, over and over; the same old stuff repeated like a broken record!" He roared into the emptiness of the lair.
He stomped into the living room and threw himself onto the couch, flicking on the TV and channel surfing for a little over forty-five minutes before boredom and restlessness took hold of him once again.
Raphael slid from the couch and looked around the lair. He decided to do some chores just to keep him active. That took up a good part of the morning which continued over into the afternoon. He took a break and made himself a late lunch around 2:30pm, but for some reason his stomach was still too upset to eat very much. He continued with his chores and then decided to practice some of his techniques, which took him into the early evening. He made himself a bowl of cereal for dinner, still not very hungry. He knew that if he actually tried to cook anything he would probably burn the house down; or at least the kitchen. He was a horrible cook and they usually left most of the cooking to Michelangelo, who actually seemed to enjoy it. If Michelangelo didn't actually love cooking all the time, he at the very least seemed to know what he was doing, and that was good enough for Raphael.
Raphael sat at the empty kitchen table and tried to push down the feeling of unease that had been clawing at his gut for a good portion of the day. He was just unable to admit to himself that he was beginning to worry. Even if Donatello and Leonardo were still furious with him, Michelangelo would have forgiven him by now and called him, just to tell him that they were alright.
Raphael pushed himself away from the table and cleaned up his dinner dishes. He then spent the rest of the evening practicing his katas and looking after his sais.
He was so wrapped up in what he was doing, that he jumped when his shell cell rang at 7 pm. Raphael calmed his frayed nerves as he pulled the phone out of his belt. He opened it and looked at the caller ID. His older brother's name was written across the small screen. He pushed "talk" and put the device up to his ear.
"It's about time, Fearless. Where the heck are ya guys?" he demanded angrily.
All of his worry instantly turning to anger at the realization that his brothers were fine, and had just been ignoring him all day. Probably trying to teach him a "lesson". There was nothing but silence on the other end of the line. Raphael pulled the phone away and looked at the ID again before placing the phone back up against his ear.
"Leo?" he asked in confusion.
"I'm sorry, Leonardo is unavailable to take your call right now," a hauntingly familiar voice answered.
Raphael felt his heart drop into the pit of his stomach as terror crawled up his throat and choked him. "No," he breathed out in horror. "Not you. You...You're supposed to be locked up." He stammered out in denial.
"Well, you didn't do a very good job of leaving me for the police to find," Alfredson replied, a smug smirk could be heard in his voice.
"Where's Leo?" Raphael demanded.
There was a pause for a brief moment before Alfredson decided to answer his question. "He's safe...for now," Alfredson answered coyly. "As are Donatello and Michelangelo."
Adrenalin sparked to life within him, his mind and body going numb as he realized that for the entire day, while he had ranted and railed against his siblings, they had been in the nefarious, and sadistic clutches of the Grim Reaper. It was then that he understood that they had never made it home in the first place. Raphael's fingers tightened around the phone, which creaked ominously in his steel-like grip.
"Where are my brothers?" he snarled threateningly.
He could almost picture in his mind the Grim Reaper's gloating grin. "Well now, if I just told you that, it wouldn't be much fun, now would it?" he questioned infuriatingly.
Raphael's arm tensed as he fought back the urge to scream and throw the phone up against the wall. "Where are they?!" he roared, the fury in his voice underscored by the fear that was dancing up and down his spine in torturous waves.
"Turn the TV to channel ten and you'll find out," Alfredson told him cryptically.
Still keeping the phone held up to his ear, Raphael hurried out and into the living room, grabbing the remote from where he had carelessly thrown it on the couch several hours earlier. He turned the TV to channel ten and watched in confusion as a news report came on. He frowned deeply, not able to understand what the importance of the news story was.
"Twelve hours before you become an only child," Alfredson said in a low, haunting voice, as the line went horrifyingly dead.
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