YAY NEXT CHAPTER! I actually updated a lot sooner than I thought. Probably because I spent today writing this chapter when I should have been studying. I'm going to pay for it in my exam tomorrow but oh well. A bit of time passes in this chapter so sorry if it gets a little weird. Don't own the turtles or the song that Mona sings. The song is called "Without You" from RENT. Hope that you like this.

...

They trekked silently through the sewers, guiding Mona Lisa through the unfamiliar tunnels. It was dark and in her opinion it smelt absolutely disgusting, but the turtles didn't seem to mind it.

"Are we there yet?" She had no idea why she was whispering, something about being in the sewers scared her. Brilliant Mona. She thought to herself. You just spent 24 hours with giant turtles and your afraid of sewer water.

"Almost." Donnie told her. The sewer was dark and what little light they had came from the moonlight that seeped through the grates and manholes. Mona couldn't see a thing but she figured the guys had been down here so many times they had memorized every tunnel in the city. They took another right turn and walked for another 5 minutes until Leonardo stopped dead in his tracks, causing Mona to walk straight into him.

"Ow."

"Sorry." he pointed towards the manhole directly above them. "We're here."

Leo went first, opening the manhole on his way up, then Donnie and Raph. Mikey went after Mona to help her out of the sewer. They were in an alley. They alley next to her apartment. Her alley. She looked around. Her eyes searching for one thing in particular.

"Where's my bike?"

Mikey scratched his head. "Uh, what?"

"You know, my bike. It's a black Ducati 848. I usually park it right over here" She pointed to a spot hidden behind a dumpster."So I can see it it from my window but nobody else can. Oh my God I can't believe this. Where is it?"

"Umm....you mean the big black shiny one that was parked across the street from the TGRI building?" Mikey asked nervously.

"Yes! That's where I left it. God, I hope it's OK. C'mon we gotta go get it."

"Yeah, well we can't really do that. You see, the foot ninja left in a hurry and when they did they kinda...ranoveryourbike." He muttered quckly.

"WHAT?! Oh it's gone for sure now. Even if it was salvageable those stupid street punks would've taken it and sold it for parts! Oh, my baby. You were to precious to be scrap metal!"

"Oh please, you keep a bike like that in an alleyway like this and it's bound to end up as scrap metal." Raphael snorted.

"My poor bike. Oh Nyx what have I done to you?" She exclaimed as she climbed up the fire escape.

"Can you keep it down?" Raph shushed her. "Ya gonna get us seen."

"Nyx?" Mikey questioned climbing up after Mona.

Mona nodded solemnly. "It's what I named my bike."

"Uh-huh." Mikey leaned over to Donnie. "Don what's a Nyx?"

"The Greek goddess of the night." He informed his little brother.

"Oh. Cool."

Mona slid open her apartment window and climbed through. She leaned out the window to face the four turtles. "So am I ever going to see you guys again?"

"I don't see why not. You work for April don't you?"Leo told her.

"Oh yeah April. Red's got some serious explaining to do next time I see her." Mona shook her head."Hey wait here a second."

Mona left her window and disappeared inside her came back a few moments later holding a folded piece of paper. Mona leaned out the window and handed the paper to Michelangelo. "Here, you guys call me any time or just show up here. Don't come to my school though. they think a weirdo as it is, I don't need giant turtles showing up and adding to that theory."

"See you Mona." Donatello called as he jumped off the edge of the fire escape. Raph and Leo followed suit while Mikey came slowly down the stairs, never taking his eyes off the piece of paper.

"You coming Mikey?" Leo asked before he climbed down the manhole.

"Guys....She gave me her Number!"

...

ON CAMPUS:

Mona walked across campus, clutching her books to her chest. She was on her way to her next class when her phone went off. Shifting her all books into one arm, she reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone.

"Talk to me."

"Hey Mona, it's Donnie."

"Donnie!" Her mood brightened. "I knew I'd hear from you in my first week of college. what's up? Let me guess, you wanna hear how my classes are going?"

"Well no actually, that's not why I'm calling. Mikey wants to know if your able to come cook dinner for us tonight."

"Again?"

"It's Leo's turn to cook." Donnie told her.

"Ah." In the few months she had known the turtles she had learned everything about them. Including Leo's unfortunate cooking skills. She came over one night while Leo was cooking and seeing the catastrophe that was their meal, offered to cook for them instead. Ever since then, Michelangelo would always find an excuse to invite Mona over whenever it was Leo's turn to cook. "Sorry Donnie I can't come over tonight. I've got some school work to do."

"Please Mona? Please Please Pleaseee?" She heard Mikey's voice yell through the reciever.

Mona laughed. "Sorry Mikey. But I've really got work to do."

"Aww Mona.."

"Mikey go away" Donnie pushed his brother away from the phone. "Sorry Mona."

"No problem. I'll see you later this week right?"

"Of course. Bye."

"See you." She hung up and checked the time. "Oh crap I'm late." and with that she shoved her cell in her pocket and ran to her next class.

...

THE LAIR:

Mikey dragged himself over to the couch and threw himself down on the cushions next to one of his brothers.

"Whats wrong wit you?" Raphael asked, not that he actually cared.

"Mona Lisa isn't coming over." Mikey sulked.

"And?"

"It's Leo's turn to cook."

"Oh"

"This isn't Fair!" He said childishly.

"She's got a life out of us Mikey." Raph flicked through the TV channels. Nothing good on.

"Yeah but it's Leo's cooking Raph. Leo!!"

"What about my cooking?" Their oldest brother asked as he left the dojo and joined them.

"Oh nothing." Mike said quickly.

Raphael turned on the couch to face Leo. "Mikey thinks your a lousy cook."

"Mikey!"

"what you complaining about? You know your a bad cook." The red turtle told him.

"Well at least I help out around here Raph."

"Whatever fearless." He turned the TV off and rose from his seat. Raph had been through this enough times to know where it would end. They'd start out having a conversation, which would turn into a disagreement, which would turn into an argument, which would end in Raphael leaving the lair to cool off. Raph thought he'd save himself some time by skipping straight to the last step.

"Where are you going?"

He grabbed his trench coat and fedora off the rack near the door."Out."

...

AT MONA'S:

"C'mon girl, you can do this. You know all this, all you've got to do is put it on paper." She told her self. Mona stared at the piece of paper in front of her. It had been in that same position for an hour and so far only held one sentence. She focused on the paper, staring at it til her head began to hurt. "Man girl, you are so overworked."

Mona glanced around her apartment, happy to look at anything besides that annoying piece of paper in front of her. Her eyes trailed to her apartment window where she noticed her guitar leaning against the wall next to it. "Time for a break."

Jumping up from her chair, she grabbed her guitar and headed up the fire escape to the roof. Making it to the top of the building, she walked over to her favorite ledge and sat down. The ledge over looked the entire city, from it she saw everything. Mona sat for a moment and watched the world go by. She lifted her guitar into it's position on her lap. The instrument was old and battered. It had been through a lot, just like she had. She sat for a while, plucking some familiar chords until a song formed.

"Without you
The hand gropes
The ear hears
The pulse beats

Life goes on
But I'm gone
Cause I die without you
I die without you
I die without you-"

Mona was cut short when a huge mass came flying out of nowhere and landed in front of her. She screamed and almost fell off the roof. Putting down the guitar, she moved forward slowly but cautiously. When she was inches away from it she finally realized what it was. Or rather, who it was.

"Raphael?"

The pile groaned. It was him alright. Battered and bruised, but him none the less. He was covered in cuts and his green skin was stain with black and blue bruises. His trench coat was badly torn in several different places and blood was seeping through the left arm. On closer inspection, Mona noticed the bullet hole through the sleeve.

"Jesus Christ Raphael what happened to you?" He groaned again. That seemed to be the only thing he could do. "Come on. We've got to get you to a hospital."

This woke him up somewhat. "Can't...Giant Turtle....remember?" He managed to say.

"well I can't just let you bleed to death. We've got to get you inside." How Mona was able to get a semi-conscious Raphael down the fire escape and into her apartment she didn't know, but they made it inside and he collapsed on the disappeared into the bathroom for a few minutes and returned with a first Aid kit that rivaled the one Donatello had.

"take this off." she pointed to the trench coat.

"Sorry babe...don't undress on the first date."

"Just do it." She ordered, opening the First aid kit and taking out the tool she needed. Raph did as he was told and shrugged off his trench coat.

"Where's my hat?" Raph mumbled.

"What?" Mona wasn't paying attention, she was busy with swabs and a disgusting brown liquid that Raphael had grown familiar with through his past trips to the emergency room (AKA: Donnie's lab). Mona moved next to him and position herself in a way that allowed her enough to work and still be comfortable. She cleaned the open wound on Raph's shoulder and the steady flow of blood that had been stopped by the small clot of dried blood that had formed there started up again. She picked up a large pair of tweezers and stared at the wound for a moment. "hold still. This is going to hurt a bit."

"Whu? No, what are you doing?" He pulled his arm away from her and looked at her like she was crazy.

"OK." She shrugged. "The way see it, you have 2 options if I don't remove that thing: 1. you can either bleed to death, or 2. you can leave that bullet in there until it clots. Either way your screwed. But if your such a princess that you can't take a teensy bit of pain then-"

"Who you callin' princess? I aint no princess."

"You kinda are Doll face. Don't hate it, own it." She said with sass.

He sighed. "Fine. But don't butcher my arm." He held out his arm as an offering.

Mona pulled out a weird, white, plastic stick and handed it to him. "Here. Bite this."

"Why?"

"So I don't have to listen to your complaining."

"You don't have pain killers in there?"

Raph bit down on the stick and Mona Lisa got to work. she removed the bullet and placed it in a small bowl on the coffee table. She did all the usual stuff that Don or April did whenever they patched him up, except this time Leo wasn't here to lecture him. when it was time to stitch him up Mona pulled out a needle and thread from her kit. "Don't worry." She told him. "It's sterilized."

"Where da hell did you get all dis stuff?" He asked. He still had the stick in his mouth and he wasn't sure if Mona would understand him, but she did.

"I told you my sister wants to be a cardiologist. She gave them to me. She's got tonnes of medical supplies. where she got them from, I have no idea."

"Your family is so weird."

"This coming from a 5 ft. tall talking turtle that lives in a sewer with other talking turtles and a giant rat."

"Good point." he said, taking the weird biting stick thingy out of his mouth so he could talk properly.

"OK that should do it." She said cutting the thread with a tiny pair of scissors. "Now these are dissolving stitches so they should be gone by the time the wound heals."She bandaged the wound and pat Raphael on the shoulder. "There. That wasn't so hard, was it doll face?"

Raph examined the bandage on his arm and smiled. "Thanks Mona."

"No problem doll face."

"Do ya have to calll me that?"

"Why not Raphael?"

He looked up at her. "You know, you can call me Raph."

"OK...Raph." She said, trying out the word. "Raph. Raph. You know what, I don't like it. I'm going to stick with calling you doll face."

he rolled his eyes at her. Mona ignored him and went on with packing up the mess that was made while she was playing doctor.

"So.. you gonna tell me how this happened?" She picked up the large kit and tool it back to the bathroom.

"I had a fight with Leo."

"And he shot you?!"

"What? No. It wasn't really a fight, he started bugging me so I left. Got to the rooftops, saw some hoodlums breaking into this place so went down to bust some heads. Turns out the hoodlums had friends...and guns."

"And this is a regular occurrence?"

"In my family? yeah" Raph put his feet up on the coffee table and Mona walked past and pushed them off again.

"You just going to sit there or are you going to help me clean up?" She put her hands on her hips and stared down at him.

"Injured." He said, pointing at his arm. Mona glared at him. "Oh fine I'll help."

She smiled."Thank you."

The apartment was silent for a while as the two of them cleaned. It didn't take long to get everything back to the way it was.

"your pretty good you know"

"At what?"

"At singing."

Mona stood up right. "You heard me?"

"Yeah"

"Huh" She said. "Didn't think you'd be able to hear anything. You know, with all that blood building up in your ears and all."

"Oh ha ha ha." He laughed sarcastically. He picked up the last of the used swabs and threw it in the waste bin Mona was holding. Silently, Raph turned and headed to the fire escape.

"So you leaving now?" She asked him. Raph could have sworn she sounded upset but he had no idea why.

"Well I don't have to. I mean I got nuthin' better to do. What about you?"

"Well I have to write an essay but that's getting nowhere. You want to stay for a while? we could order pizza."

"Sure, why not." He walked back over and sat beside Mona on the couch.

"Does this mean we're friends now?"

Raph thought for a moment. "I guess so."

....

AT THE LAIR:

The table was set and dinner was ready when Leo called them in. Each member of the family slowly crept into the kitchen and took their normal place at the table. The dread of the coming meal was evident on their face.

"I hope you guys like it." Leo said, placing their plates down in front of them. What "it" was they weren't quite sure. The food (if you could call it that) had lost all distinguishable color and shape and the smell, well, the smell was something that couldn't be described.

"Thank you, my son, for cooking us this...uh, meal." Master splinter poked at the food with a pair of chopsticks.

"Hey where's Raph?" Donnie looked around for his angry brother.

"I don't know" Leo said. "But if he doesn't come home soon, He'll miss out on dinner."

"lucky guy" Michelangelo mumbled.

...

TA DA! I shall be taking your opinions now. If you have any ;). oh BTW, Mona and the turtles have known each other for about 3 months but during that time she and Raph weren't that close. This chapter just shows how they became friends. Next chapter involves the foot ninja. Hopefully. Wish me luck with my exams. XD

xoxo