Firstly I'd like to thank Liz and Drusilla52 for their wonderful reveiws! They totally keep me going!=) Also for anyone wanting a happy chapter next...I apologize in advance...Also this chapter contains some violence. Please enjoy!

Chapter 12

Raphael nodded to Michelangelo who walked quietly past him to get a little sleep in one of the guest rooms before it was his turn to watch over Donatello. Leonardo was looking after Donatello at the moment, who, acorrding to Michelangelo, was sleeping soundly.

Raphael was furious and frightened. He was pissed off at Leonardo and scared to death for Katherine. It worried him that she had collapsed for the second time within the same day.

He must have dozed off sitting in the chair outside Katherine's door, because a noise woke him up. He looked down the darkened hallway and didn't hear anything. He stood up and walked to Donatello's room. He opened the door. Leonardo was sleeping in his chair half of his body leaning on Donatello's bed. He frowned, closing the door gently behind him. Then he heard it again a noise that was almost a scream but more a whimper, and it was coming from Katherine's room. He felt a cold finger of dread slide down his back. He opened the door to her room. Katherine lay pale and unmoving on the bed. He gently closed the door behind him as he walked to the bed.

"I don't want to see." She whimpered in her sleep.

He sat at the edge of her bed. "Hey Kitten, wake up, you're having a nightmare." He said as he touched her. He felt his body fall over Katherine's.

Raphael looked around him in shock. He was in some sort of tent. There was blood and dirt and wounded laying on the ground. A young girl stood up wiping the back of a bloody fist across her dirty sweating brow. She looked to be about 13 or 14 with reddish brown hair and clear, pale complexion.

"What the...?" Raphael questioned as he looked more closely at the girl. Moss green eyes looked up at a girl who was kneeling at her side.

"Your father has need of you my Lady." The girl said to her. Raphael felt himself pale. He looked at the young girl and knew he was looking at Katherine. She looked exactly what he would have imagined Katherine to look like when she was younger. But here she wore strange clothes and she was talking in a language he had never heard before, but seemed to understand anyway. He watched as she stood shaking out dirty, blood covered skirts. "Aye Ada, I'm coming, these wounded will'nae tend themselves tho."

"They say your father, Óengushas managed to forge a peace treaty with the Alt Clut." She said excitedly.

"Yes, but what is the price?" Katherine asked her. The young girl shook her head.

The scene changed pulling Raphael along with it. "It does not feel right father!" Katherine yelled at a strong looking man with long dark hair and beard in his early to mid 50's.

"Kaethryn, I will not have you talking like this. You will be wed to Teudebur of the Alt Clut, nine days hence. He is to sup with us this night and we will ride tomorrow. You shall be married from his home." Her father said to her.

"Father, it feels all wrong." She pleaded with him.

"I shall have none of your starts Kaethryn, I will not have Teudebur believin' my daughter to be fey, or worse a witch"

The scene switched again to a dining hall. The long wooden table filled with men. Kaethryn's father sat on the end with her to his right and who he supposed was Teudebur, sat on his left.

Kaethryn's father stood raising a glass. "May this union between our two Kingdoms be as fruitful as the marriage between this man and this woman." He toasted cheerfully.

'You've got to be kidding me!" Raphael shouted at the King. "Kaethryn's like 14 at the most, she's still just a kid! And this guy." He pointed at Teudebur. "Is like 50! He's older than you are!" He roared at the King.

Kaethryn sat pale and silent.

The scene shifted. He was now standing outside a room, Teudebur was looming over Kaethryn who was looking back defiantly at him.

"Your father says you are yet pure." He said as he leered down at her. Kaethryn glared back at him. "I should check just to make sure."

Raphael felt the bile rise up in his throat. He wondered if he would be able to puke in a dream because if he could, he was about to. He lunged at Teudebur as the older man roughly pushed Kaethryn against the wall, but he passed straight through him.

She glared at him defiantly. "I am not yours yet."

"You shall make a good wife for me I think. I like them feisty. It shall give me great pleasure to break more than just your spirit." He said with a laugh as he walked away.

"You are a dead man." Raphael yelled at the retreating back of Teudebur. He took two steps but found himself being dragged along after Kaethryn who was mounted upon a horse. Her face was chalk white and there were dark circles beneath her eyes. Her father rode ahead with Teudebur. There were wagons filled with supplies as well as soldiers to guard the King and princess. There were other women as well, probably her maids or something, including the girl who had fetched her from the tent.

He watched as night fell. They were passing through a forest, a half moon hung overhead, and yet they pressed on.

An arrow struck the chest of a soldier and then more arrows rained down from the sky.

"We have been betrayed!" Kaethryn's father yelled as he pulled a sword from his hip. Men rushed out from the forest hacking and slicing at all who were in their path.

Raphael searched, trying to find Kaethryn in the chaos. Her horse was struck in the chest with an arrow. The horse reared in surprise and pain as it bolted. Kaethryn clutched the reins of her horse tightly as it bolted away from the chaos and fighting.

Raphael was pulled along. No one seemed to be in pursuit of her. The horse finally collapsed throwing Kaethryn from its back. She tumbled and lay still.

"Katherine!" He yelled at her. She slowly got up. Raphael could hear then, the thunder of approaching hooves. She turned and ran. Raphael could hear more and more horses behind them as they ran.

She was panting hard, trying to run through the night aided only by the moonlight. Several times she fell and each time she pulled herself up. The trees finally gave way. Raphael could hear the crashing of waves upon rock. She looked at the rocky cliff in front of her. She turned around to run back the way she had come, but a horse and rider peeled itself from the very shadows.

"Katherine look out!" Raphael screamed as the rider reached down and grabbed her by the throat.

"You gave me a merry chase, I was almost too late, but I found you. We can't have your bright light sullied now can we?" He asked as he plunged a sword through her stomach.

"No!" Raphael screamed as Kaethryn looked at the man in shock. The man pulled his blade from her belly walked his horse to the cliff and threw her over the edge.

Raphael rushed to the edge of the cliff and watched in horror as her body struck the cliff face several times before she was finally swallowed up by blackness of the rolling sea.

"You monster!" Raphael yelled as he faced the man on horseback, only he wasn't a man. A cruel, red skinned face with jutting black horns looked down the cliff face. Black membranous wings stretched wide. He patted the neck of his pitch black horse, it's eyes blazed red as smoke gently drifted up from flaring red nostrils.

Donatello's eyes snapped open. He panted as he looked around his room. Leonardo was half laying on his bed, slumped over in sleep. He felt like he couldn't breathe and his heart hurt.

Leonardo's head rose up off the bed and he looked at him. "Donny are you okay?" He asked in concern.

Donatello shook his head. There was something wrong but he didn't know what it was. His flesh began to crawl with goosebumps. There was something clawing at the back of his mind, trying to tell him something, trying to get him to do something, but he didn't know what. He felt as if he were close to panic. He finally managed to take one breath and then another.

"Donny?" Leonardo asked again.

Raphael gasped as he sat up. He managed to stumble to the bathroom before his stomach rebelled. When he had finished puking up everything that was left in his stomach plus some, he ran the tap and splashed cold water on his face.

He stumbled back into the room. Katherine lay unmoving on the bed. She was drenched with sweat, and pale.

"Jeez Donny, what did you do to her?" He asked in horror. Katherine had complained of nightmares, but that was no nightmare. It was too real, too vivid, too detailed. He could still smell the scent of the ocean, the smell of sweat and blood and horses.

Raphael frowned. He could actually smell it. He leaned closer to Katherine. She wasn't drenched in sweat. "Shit." He said. She was covered in sea water. "What the hell are you doing to yourself?"He asked her in panic.

His first instinct was to go and get Leonardo. He was way better at the whole spiritual dream crap than he was, but he was still pissed off at him, and he felt reluctant to tell his brother what had happened. Katherine had managed to pull him into her dream with her, and it had been a horrifying experience, one he was reluctant to share with his brother. Hell, he wanted to scrub his brain clean of the images that were now lodged there, but he knew he couldn't. He knew he had glimpsed something that was as painful as it had been private.

He was reluctant to touch her again in case she dragged him into another living nightmare, but he knew he had to wake her. She was drenched in sea water, and the smell of horses, blood and the sea had soaked into the bed sheets.

He closed his eyes and shook her. He opened an eye.

Relief flooded through him. He was still in the bedroom. He grabbed her by both shoulders and shook her hard. "Katherine wake up." He hissed. But she didn't wake. He frowned. He reached out and touched her cool cheek.

"Think Raphael, think, think, think." He urged himself. He had paid attention to what Master Splinter had said, he had just never had an interest or aptitude for it. Then it hit him. He had been kicked out of the dream, but what if she were still in it? "You aren't Kaethryn, understand me. You aren't her!" He hissed in her ear. "So you had better wake the hell up right now!"

She lay unmoving, as still as death. It was then that he noticed that her lips had turned blue. He leaned in to listen to her heart. The beating of her heart was too slow, and she wasn't breathing. "Shit,shitshitshitshit." He said in panic. "Katherine, don't you dare leave me, you understand!" He roared at her. He tipped her head back and blew a puff of air into her mouth. He put his hands on her chest and pumped. "Come on Katherine, stay with me!" He growled at her.

He repeated the process until she began choking up seawater. She sat up and took a breath, coughing the rest of the water out of her lungs.

She looked at him blankly as if for a minute she wasn't sure who he was.

"Raphael?" She questioned.

He looked down at her in relief. "Don't you ever do that to me again!" He growled as he clutched her close to him.

He looked at her, he didn't know what to do with her. Her body was ice cold. He looked at the bathroom. "Come on." He said as he pulled her from the bed. She tried to stand but she nearly fell. He swung her up into his arms. He looked at her face. Her eyes had closed again. "Come on Katherine, stay with me." He pleaded. He bumped the door closed. He put her down against the wall and quickly turned on the shower. Steam quickly began filling the lavish bathroom. The shower was oversized for which he was grateful.

He looked down at her. He had to get her in the shower, wash the damn brine and sea and horse out of her hair and off her body, find something for her to wear and move bedrooms because the sheets had to be stripped off that bed.

He closed his eyes. He didn't know how the hell he was going to do it. He knelt down in front of her, willing her to wake up and do everything that needed to be done herself because he didn't think he had the strength of will required to strip her naked and not touch her, especially not after he had almost lost her.

She opened her eyes and looked at him, her eyes devoid of any emotion.

She held out a hand and he helped her to her feet. She wavered as she clutched him. She stood back and began to undress. He turned away. He sat on the edge of the tub, closed his eyes and waited until she was done. He pulled his shirt over his head and held it out for her. He felt her take it from his grasp. She gently touched him on the shoulder. He looked at her. She was pale, exhausted and his shirt barely covered everything. She did not speak and neither did he. They didn't need to. They had been through something that was so horrible and terrifying, that it was beyond words.

Donatello looked at his big brother who was looking at him with worried eyes.

"Donny, I'm getting Kitten." Leonardo said with concern.

Donatello shook his head and grabbed his brother's wrist. "I'm okay." He said softly. He could breathe easily again. The scratching at the back of his brain had stopped and his flesh no longer felt as if it were crawling.

"I just..." He shook his head. "Bad dream maybe." He said as his brother helped him to lay back down.

Michelangelo popped his head into the room. "Hey Leo, is Donny okay?" He asked in concern.

"I'm fine Mikey." He said to his baby brother as he closed his eyes.

"I'm going to stay with him Mikey, get some more rest." Leonardo said softly.

Donatello didn't even hear his brother leave the room.

Raphael took her up in his arms and strode through the bathroom and into the bedroom. He opened the door looking down the hallway. He strode into the room next door to the one she had been in. Luckily for them there were so many extra bedrooms.

He looked down at Katherine who was already sleeping. He placed her gently in the bed. He stroked her face. "No wonder you hate nightmares so much. Yours are way too real." He leaned down and gently kissed her cheek. He walked from the room closing the door gently behind him. He went back into Katherine's old room, grabbed her clothes from the floor and stripped the bed of all the sheets. Luckily for him he had already done laundry that day so he knew where everything was.

He opened the door and ran into Michelangelo.

Michelangelo looked at him in confusion. He put his fingers to his lips. Michelangelo nodded as he shoved some of the sheets into his surprised brother's arms. Raphael went back into the room to grab the rest of the bedding.

They walked down the hall in silence, threw the first load of laundry in and went to the library.

Raphael closed the doors behind him. Raphael scanned the room and found what he was looking for. He grabbed the liquor decanter and poured himself a glass of something brown, scotch, whiskey, he wasn't sure, didn't care, he downed it in a single gulp. It burned all the way down, but he knew it would do nothing to dispel the images or the experience from his head. He closed his eyes. She had died. He could feel his lungs constrict with horror.

"Are you going to tell me what's going on?" Michelangelo asked him with worried eyes as Raphael reached for the decanter again. He poured and downed the second glass before answering his brother.

"No." He said shaking his head. 'Maybe later, maybe never. Kitten's asleep, I had to move her."

"But..." Raphael cut Michelangelo off.

"I don't want to talk about it okay Mikey. Let's just say I'm getting tired of all this spiritual, supernatural shit okay."

Michelangelo looked like he was going to protest but gave a curt nod instead. "You okay Raph?" He asked.

He walked over to a chair that was sitting in front of the fireplace. He sat down heavily. "Right now...no. Later...maybe."

Phew, that was rough. I enjoyed how this chapter turned out though.=) Please tell me what you think!