Disclaimer: I do not own TMNT

07

Raphael dragged Mia down the street to the nearest manhole cover silently. The skin of her palm felt both clammy and cold, and yet somehow it was burning with warmth. She'd let him touch her. She didn't even cringe. That was good, right – it meant she wasn't afraid of him, right? Did it mean they were friends?

Raph threw Mia's bag on the ground, and pulled aside the manhole cover. Mia stared at him as though he were insane when he grabbed her bag and started down the ladder that led to the darkness below. "You live in a sewer?" she sniffed at him in disbelief.

Raphael grimaced up at her. "Where else would you expect a monster to live?" he asked her, half-jokingly. He wanted to make her laugh if only to stop her crying for more than a seconds.

But she didn't laugh. She frowned down at him with tears, streaming down her cheeks and said quietly to him in a matter-of-factly voice, "You're not a monster, Raphael."

"Look, Master Splinter," Raphael said pleadingly to his master, who stood frowning at him apathetically. Waiting to hear the reason why a young, human girl that wasn't named April O'Neil was sitting in the pit, crying and shivering. And Raph knew it had better be a damn good one, too. "She left home because her sister was beating on her after their mom came around. I don't really know what the deal is with the mom – I guess she's, like, abusive or something. But Mia didn't have anywhere else to go, and I offered to bring her down here cause I didn't want to put her back in that situation again." He sighed, casting a glance over at Mia who was using her backpack as a shield, guarding herself against his brothers. Then he turned back to Splinter and added, "It'd only be for a day or two. Just until her sister's all chilled out, that's all. Just for the weekend. Please?"

Splinter shook his head and sighed. "Raphael, this girl is a stranger to our world. How do we know we can trust her with our secrets?"

Raphael frowned. "She hasn't blabbed yet."

And if she did, who would believe her?

Splinter looked down at him. "There are many things you have yet to understand, Raphael," he told him. "If this girl were to become the target of our foes –"

Raphael cut him off. "Isn't that even more of a reason for her to stay?!" he demanded suddenly defensive. He gestured to Mia. "What are you saying – you want to send her out there by herself with the Purple Dragons out there?!" He scowled up at his master.

Splinter stared down at him for a moment. Then he smiled, "You have learned well, my son. Your friend may stay until she is ready to return home." He turned and started to walk away. Then he looked over his shoulder and added sternly, "Which had better be by the end of this weekend."

"Oh, uh, hai," Raphael said, bowing after him quickly. All traces of anger were gone from his voice now. "Hai. Sensei, arigatogozaimashita." He watched his master go silently.

"Hey, uh, Raph?"

Raphael looked over his shoulder to see Michelangelo and Donatello standing behind him, frowning. "Yeah?" he asked them. "What's up?"

"Well," Mikey said, "I hate to be a downer, but your new girlfriend Mina –"

"Her name is Mia," Raphael corrected him, scowling, ignoring the girlfriend comment. He slammed his hand into the pillar directly behind Mikey, pinning him. "What's wrong with her – what did you guys do?" He looked from one brother to another expectantly.

"Chill out, Raph," Donnie said, knocking Raph's hand away from their youngest brother. "We didn't do anything to her. It's just that we can't figure out how to make her calm down –"

Mikey cut him off, waving his hands excitedly. "She doesn't want pizza, she won't laugh at my jokes – all she does is sit there and cry. This chick's a total downer, man!"

"Well, thank you, Dr. Mikey," Raphael said, rolling his eyes at them. He started to leave. "You guys are unbelievable. You're supposed to be ninja, and you completely freaking out over a girl crying."

"Actually, I texted April and she'll be here to try and talk to her any minute now," Donatello informed him, following after him with Mikey close behind. "But since she was so upset, we figured she might want to be alone, so Leo took her back to your room –"

"He what?!" Raphael shot, spinning around to face his brothers. "And you guys didn't try to stop him?!"

Donnie frowned at him as Michelangelo ducked behind him, using him as a shield. "Well, I said it probably wasn't a great idea, but Leo said that since she was your guest she could hang out in your room if she wanted to be alone, a-and it's like we said. Nothing we were doing was helping any, so..." His voice trailed off.

Raphael shoved the two of them out of his way, causing them to fall to the ground as he took off running towards his room. "Man, you guys are useless!" he snarled at them.

Mia sat in the semi-darkness of Raphael's bedroom, sniffing quietly and wiping tears out of her eyes. The room was bathed in the colors black and red. Rock-and-roll posters covered all the walls, and a small stereo from the late 90s made by a company that no longer existed stood on the saddest example of an entertainment center she had ever seen. For a moment, she forgot about her mom being back in her apartment and was suddenly glad she had an apartment at all.

Mia looked up as the door to the room swung open and jumped to her feet when she saw Raphael standing in the doorway.

"No, no, no, no," Raphael said quickly, gesturing in protest. "No, it's fine. You can sit there. It's fine. You like music, right?" He went over to his stereo and grabbed a pile of CDs Donnie had made for him on various occasions. He tossed them on the bed beside Mia. "There – pick something out."

Mia sat down silently, slowly and set her bag down on the floor. She handed him a CD without looking at it. She never looked up at him.

Raphael took the CD from her and stared at her. She didn't look angry or even upset anymore. Her expression was completely blank. "So, look," he said, putting the disk in the stereo after a long moment of silence. "I know this must all be weird for you –"

"It's not weird," Mia said, looking up at him. "You're only trying to help. That's why I'm here, and I really appreciate that, Raphael." She smiled sadly at him before she buried her face in her hands, and started sobbing again. "I'm just really worried about my little sister. She hasn't seen our mom in years, Raphael, and I have no idea what this is going to do to her." She looked up at him again. "And Janie isn't even thinking about that. It's, like, she doesn't give a damn about what happens to Clara!"

Raphael stared at her, frowning. "And why are you supposed to stay with her?" he asked her. "I mean, your older sister doesn't really sound like a loving guardian, so why do you bother sticking around? Can't you go live with your dad or something?"

Mia shook her head. "My dad's in prison," she said. "He's the reason my sisters and I are so messed up, Raphael." She looked down at her hands and began examining her fingertips. "He did something so horrible to my sisters, I can't even tell you what it is. Janie hates me because he treated me differently from them. He said he had no interest in me because I looked too much like him –"

"We're done talking about this." Raphael stared down at his hands, scowling, that were now wrapped tightly around his sai. A thin red stream ran the length of his palm. He couldn't believe what he was hearing. How the hell did one person end up going through so much garbage in their life? "You're not anywhere near any of them right now. So just stop worrying, okay?" His voice was shaking with the effort he using not throw something. He thought back to the moment at the manhole cover. When she said he wasn't a monster. He never wanted her to think of him as one again. He knew couldn't have one of his outbursts in front of her. Not right now. It would only make things worse.

She'd be afraid of him again.

Before Mia had a chance to respond, Raphael grabbed the remote to his stereo and flipped the CD player on. He threw the remote across the room where it collided with the wall and smashed into tiny pieces. He couldn't help it. He just wanted to destroy something. He'd have to have Donnie build another. Then he stormed out of the room and went to go train.

Raphael woke up the next morning with a ringing in his ears, and looked up to see Mia asleep on the bench right in front of him. He didn't remember much after his last conversation with her. He just remembered attacking the punching bag over and over and over again. He'd lost control again.

"Hey, Raph!"

Raphael got to his feet, and saw his brothers and April all huddled around a box of pizza at the kitchen island. "What's with her?" he said, walking over to them. He nodded at Mia. "I thought she was staying in my room?"

"Guess she just couldn't stand to be away from her, Raphy-poo," Michelangelo cooed at him, giggling.

"Shut up, Mikey," April said, looking like she was trying not to smile.

Raphael reached across the table and yanked Mikey's pepperoni pizza away from him. He sat down on a stool, and looked up at April. "Did you talk to her?"

"Hey!" Michelangelo protested.

April shook her head, ignoring Mikey's outburst. "Nuh-uh. When I got here, she was in your room, yelling at someone on the phone. She seemed really upset, so I kinda figured it might be best if I just stayed out of it."

Raph took a bite of pizza and shook his head. "Unbelievable," he muttered. "So much for not worrying."

Just then a loud, high-pitched, trilling filled the air, and they all turned to see Mia jump up from the couch. She stood tussle haired and clueless for a moment. Then she grabbed her bag off the floor, and pulled a regular cellphone out of it. "Omg!" she cried, examining the screen. "Just shut up already!" She threw the back into her bag.

Raphael looked back at April. "Yelling like that?" he asked her.

"Yeah, just like that," April sighed, nodding.

"Awesome," Raphael said, throwing his half-eaten pizza back in the box and getting to his feet. He walked over to where Mia was. "Hey, who was that?" he asked her as she rifled through her bag, and pulled out a hair brush. "On the phone?"

"Just some idiot from my school," Mia said, dragging the brush through her hair.

Raphael stared at her as the others wandered over with their pizza in hand. Her eyes were red and puffy, and her fat lip had gone down overnight. She was scowling and looked like she might throw something, but she seemed fine otherwise. Or, at least, she wasn't sobbing into her book bag, which was progress.

"Is that who you were arguing with last night, too?" April asked her. "I was on my way to come talk to you, and overheard," she added quickly, smiling when she saw the expression on her face. "I'm April, by the way."

Mia jumped at the sound of April's voice. She looked up at her, taking in the lanky redhead's appearance. Then her eyes fell on the others. Her eyes traveled over each of Raphael's brothers slowly, methodically like she was memorizing something important. Raph had introduced Mia to them the night before, but she'd been so upset he wasn't sure how much she of the info she had actually taken in. "Yeah," Mia said, turning back to April."Yeah. He won't stop calling me."

Raphael felt some of the tension in the room evaporate. This was good. If she was talking to April, then maybe she wouldn't mind talking to the others.

As if on cue Leonardo asked Mia, "Why is he calling you so much then if he knows you don't want to talk to him?"

"Yeah, who is this guy?" Raphael added. "Is he like a boyfriend or something?" He surprised himself with the amount of venom in his voice when he said those words. He wandered across the pit and sat down as from Mia as he could get while still being part of the conversation.

Mia sat silently staring at her fingertips for a moment before she finally looked up at Raphael and sighed heavily. "Sort of. I mean, I told him I don't want to be with him, but he won't leave me alone. He keeps calling me and coming to my house. He even follows me around school, keeping tabs on me –"

"And your sister knows about this?" Raphael shot at her. The more he heard about Mia's home life, the more he felt like throwing something. "Why the hell doesn't she do anything to stop him?"

Donnie nodded. "Yeah, this doesn't exactly sound like the epitome of a healthy relationship. Not that I'd know," he added quickly when he saw the look on April's face.

"Dude sounds like a total creeper," Michelangelo agreed. "Like in this horror movie I watched where the villain was completely obsessed with this girl until he followed her home one night with a giant knife and went after her husband and –" He was cut off by the throw pillow that hit him square in the face.

"Would you shut up?" Raphael spat at him, scowling. "You're gonna totally freak her out."

Leonardo smiled apologetically at Mia. "Mikey has no filter," he explained.

"Right," Mia said, looking only slightly terrified. "Anyway," she went on, "Janie is the one that keeps inviting him over and asking him to walk me to school. She thinks he's, like, perfect even though he drinks and smokes and is just a horrible, immature person –"

"Does she know he does all that stuff?" Raphael asked, cutting her off. He clenched and unclenched his fists silently around the throw pillow nearest to him in case he needed to throw another one. "I mean, you'd think after everything you told me – "

Mia cut him off this time. "I freaking know, right?" she said, sounding just as outraged as he felt. "You'd think she would more worried about how someone like him might influence Clara, but she just doesn't care. It's like she's hoping that he'll get me hooked marijuana or whatever again, so I'll get sent to a freaking group home!" She ran her hands through her hair, and tossed her brush in her bag angrily.

Raphael stared at her silently his anger suddenly replaced by a sense of shocked disbelief. The word "again" echoed inside his head. It wasn't the sort of thing he'd expected to ever hear from Mia. She just didn't seem the type to be wrapped up in that sort of stuff. Then again, he hadn't expected her family to sound like something out of a bad Lifetime drama, either.

Or for her to ever trust him. To say he wasn't a monster.

"Who is Clara?" Michelangelo asked suddenly, pulling him of his reverie and breaking the silence that had fallen over them.

A/N: Hey, guys, I hope you're enjoying the chapters I've been putting up. I'm sorry it took me so long to update. I'm not gonna lie. I encountered some bullying online, and it really took a toll on my confidence as a writer cause of my social anxiety. Then my depression just took over from there. I'm doing better now, though, and I've learned to be less sensitive to that sort of thing, and I'm updating again. Yay!
Anyway, I hope you guys love the chapters. I'll have the next one up soon. Please, R&R, guys! :)