A giant thank you to Amonraphoenix for Beta reading this chapter for me!

Also a big thank you to I love kittens too, mela989898 and Forgottenforever for your lovely reviews.

Also I apologize for the short chapter, but it seemed like a good place to end it.:)

Please enjoy!

Chapter 6

Donatello watched the storm rage outside. The winds had to be going somewhere in the range of about 100km/h, which wasn't quite a hurricane, but a really violent tropical storm.

"Stupid storm." He growled in frustration, his cell phone pressed close to his ear as it rang and rang, voicemail finally kicking in. He left a brief message and snapped his cell phone closed in irritation. He had left Leonardo his fifth message, and Michelangelo his fourth. Donatello wasn't sure if he was unable to get a hold of his two brother's because they were camping in a place that had no signal, or if it was because of the ferocious storm that raged outside. His signal had been tentative at best, so if the messages on the other end didn't record as a static mess, Donatello would be very surprised.

Donatello shoved his useless phone into his pocket and dipped a cloth into a cool basin of water to dab at his brother's sweat laden brow.

"Come on, Raph, wake up, please." He begged his brother softly as his brother continued to lay on his bed, unresponsive. His brother had been in a coma since last night, and Donatello was no closer to discovering why, his brother had experienced a violent seizure and slipped into a coma; though he could acknowledge to himself that the 106˚ temperature Raphael had may have played a large part in both.

Donatello felt his shoulder slump slightly as he stood, taking the water basin with him to the bathroom. He dumped out the warm water and refilled the basin with cool water. He walked back into the bedroom and placed a cool cloth on Raphael's sweat beaded forehead.

Donatello didn't resume his seat, and instead left his brother's bedside in search of Katherine. He hadn't seen her since they had dragged Raphael's comatose body back into the bedroom and lay him gently on the bed. Donatello hadn't followed her when she had left the room. He hadn't known what to say to her, what words of assurance he could give her, because she had been right. His brother didn't have cirrhosis, which meant that Donatello had no idea what the hell was wrong with his brother.

He searched the entire house finally finding Katherine in the massive library, sitting on the floor surrounded by teetering piles of books. Donatello wasn't sure if she had been to bed yet or if she had spent the entire night, reading. Though he vaguely recalled that she had been reading a book earlier.

He walked up to Katherine and if she was aware of his presence she didn't acknowledge him until she tossed her book on top of another pile and picked up a different book. She looked up at him as he bent down picking up one of the discarded books and frowned at it in confusion.

"How is he, Donatello?" Katherine questioned softly.

Donatello looked at her and felt his heart clench in grief. Her face was pale; so pale that the delicate lines of her veins were faintly visible. Dark smudges of purple lay beneath her tired eyes and her hair fell out from its ponytail in a mass of tangled, curly tendrils.

"No change." He managed to say as she nodded slightly; her face filled with worry and fear.

He picked up another book and examined the title. The Rake's Reluctant Lover. He felt his lips pull into more of a frown as his eyes scanned the piles of nearby books. The Devil's Bride, The Nabob, The Kissing Bough, The Rake's Folly and The Lion's Mistress, were only a few of the titles in the piles of paperbacks that lined the floor.

Donatello blinked in confusion as he looked at the piles of romance books. Katherine was a reader and a fast one. She would, at times, be reading several different books at the same time. Donatello found this odd, but her love of books he found relaxing.

She could sit and read while he tinkered and they would both spend several hours in a comfortable silence. Her interests seemed to vary, she liked fantasy and some science fiction, but she would read almost anything as long as it sounded interesting, though she tended to stay away from non-fictions and biographies. But he had never once seen her read a romance, and the fact that she had been reading so many in such a short amount of time sent a shot of worry and panic through him, that he was hard pressed to ignore.

"What are you doing?" He asked her quietly, a slight waver in his voice. He realized then that he needed to sleep. His nerves were completely shot and he was starting to jump to conclusions like Katherine needed to read romance books because she was unhappy with their current relationship. He had always thought that she was happy, with him, but maybe he was wrong. Maybe he had been fooling himself. He tried to remember if there were any times where he had ignored her, or forgotten something important.

"Do you have any idea what could have caused Raphael to become so sick?" She asked instead of answering his question.

"No." He said miserably. The problem was it could be one of many different possible diseases or infections, but he was unable to test his brother properly to confirm any of his suspicions.

"I'm looking for something." Katherine muttered, finally answering his question . She tossed another book onto a quickly growing pile, grabbed another book, and quickly read the back before opening the book and scanning its contents.

"What are you looking for?" He wondered.

"Something." She answered vaguely before continuing. "I remember reading something years ago in one of these books. But I don't quite know what I'm looking for."

He wondered briefly if she were trying to find a solution to a messy love triangle involving two brothers, one of whom was extremely sick. Instead he observed, "I didn't know you read romance books, Katherine."

That seemed to get her attention again as she looked up at him, he cheeks reddening slightly in embarrassment.

"I actually enjoy romances." She answered, her cheeks growing redder. "But I only like the Regency ones." Donatello felt himself frown in confusion as she clarified. "It was a brief time in British history the early 1800's, when Prince George IV took over as Regent for his father who had gone mad. So this was just before Queen Victoria's reign. Anyway the characters inhabit a world of decadence, elegance, manners, restrictions , rules, high society, seductions." She halted her words at what must have been a shocked, confused and possibly disgusted look on his face. "And adventure and the war with Napoleon Bonaparte." She finished quietly. She waved this away and continued. "Anyway, I used to read them all the time because they were pretty brainless, they satisfied the hopeless romantic in me, and the part of myself that craved the adventure of a different world." She paused for a moment before adding. "And they are hilarious." She said with an impish smile. "If you ever want to sit and laugh your ass off for a few hours, read a romance, well this kind anyway. They actually have a plot besides seeing how fast both main characters can end up in the sack together."

He fingered one of the romances, feeling confused. Katherine quickly snatched the book he held in his grasp and looked at the title.

"The Nabob." Katherine said thoughtfully. "The society of the time used to call rich men, usually younger sons, but sometimes men without any peerage who came back to England from India, Nabobs. But during this period this term seemed to include other rich men coming from say the Caribbean where the English had turned Jamaica into one of the world's top sugar producing countries of that time." Katherine's eyes furiously scanned the pages, flipping through them rapidly.

Donatello was still unsure of what Katherine was looking for in the romance book. Sometimes, he admitted to himself, he did not understand how Katherine's mind actually worked. He frowned as he thought about what Katherine had just told him, a thought blooming in his mind as Katherine's eyes looked at him wide eyed.

"The Caribbean." He said in shock as his mind spun furiously.

"Yellow Fever." Katherine said quickly showing him the passage in the book where a male character was talking about a friend of his who had died during a yellow fever epidemic and the symptoms they had suffered before their death.

He looked at Katherine in shock but she was already standing at a bookshelf scanning the books and tearing one form the shelves and flipping it to the back before turning it to the appropriate page and shoving the book into his hands.

He quickly read the title of the book. The Documentation and Treatment of Tropical Diseases by Dr. Conrad Everly 1726. He turned it back to the page that she had indicated that he should read. The cramped blue ink, slightly slanted and written with what looked like a quill tipped pen listed the symptoms of Yellow Fever, but Donatello didn't need the book. He already knew what the symptoms of Yellow fever were. He closed the delicate book and handed it back to Katherine, resisting the urge to palm slap his forehead.

They were on a tropical island. There were numerous tropical diseases that he normally wouldn't have to worry about because they had never before traveled to a tropical destination. "I am such an idiot!" Donatello snarled, suddenly angry with himself for completely disregarding the possibility of environmental factors contributing to Raphael's sudden sickness.

"Donatello." Katherine said gently, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder. He pulled his shoulder away angrily.

"I should have figured this out sooner." He snapped . He began to pace furiously as he double checked Katherine's surprise diagnosis from what he knew about the disease. His mind also ran over the signs and symptoms of other tropical diseases that were active in the area and quickly discarded, Malaria, Dengue Fever, Leptospirosis and a host of others before finally settling on Yellow fever as being what his brother had contracted.

"Donatello, the important part is that we know what he has now." Katherine insisted with a relieved smile. "So maybe I can go to Saint Luca and get Raphael some medicine...

Donatello felt his shoulders slump and he shook his head cutting her off. "Katherine, there is no cure for Yellow Fever." His words left her stunned, and if possible, she paled even further.

"But...he'll get better...right?" She asked him in a soft voice.

Donatello paused wondering how much to tell Katherine until his pause caused her eyes to take on a steely glint of determination that made him decide to tell her everything he knew about Yellow Fever. "After being bitten by an infected mosquito, most people come down with flu like symptoms for a few days and then recover." Donatello explained. Katherine nodded because Raphael had gotten sick and then had gotten better.

"But...?" Katherine asked him when he failed to continue immediately.

Donatello continued, his voice shaking slightly."Raphael has slipped into stage three of Yellow Fever. The first two stages are infection and then recovery, but stage three is intoxication. Stage three sufferers can experience liver and kidney failure, bleeding disorders, seizures, coma, and delirium. Other symptoms include, fever, headaches, yellow skin, muscle aches and vomiting."

"So what do we do?" She asked, following him from the library as he strode out, intent upon seeing his brother and praying for a miraculous improvement.

"Nothing." He ground out. "There is nothing we can do!" He snarled angrily. "All we can do is make him comfortable and hope the disease doesn't kill him."

Katherine grabbed his arm pulling him to a halt, one foot poised on the stairs. He looked down at her angrily, a snarl already on his lips.

"Why are you so angry?" She asked him.

"Because I should have figured this out sooner!" He snapped, gesturing with his hand. "Why didn't you tell me what you were looking for?" He asked most of his anger directed at himself, but a slight amount was directed towards Katherine. "If you knew it could have been a tropical disease, why didn't you just tell me?"

"I didn't know it was a tropical disease!" She defended. "Besides, I wasn't sure if I would even be able to find the book I was looking for. I read it nearly five years ago and I remembered that some of the symptoms sounded kind of like what Raphael had, but I wasn't sure. And you never told me what Raphael could have to begin with! You seemed to think that I was what, unable to handle what Raphael could be sick with? You decided to keep everything to yourself, and didn't trust me enough to be able to handle your theories." Katherine accused.

Donatello glared down at her, his temper completely snapping. "My brother is upstairs dying, and all you seem to care about is that I didn't tell you a bunch of wrong diagnosis'."

Katherine's voice seemed to have deserted her as she stared at him in shock, her mouth opening and closing a few times before she closed her mouth with a snap, her green eyes lightening to near white with rage. He turned and felt Katherine tug his arm back. She stepped onto the step he occupied.

"I have never before felt like slapping you, but right now, I think you would deserve it. Come and talk to me when you decide to stop acting like a child just because I figured out something that you didn't." She walked past him making her way up the stairs throwing over her shoulder. "And if there is nothing we can do for Raphael, then an earlier diagnosis would not have changed the present outcome." She reached the landing and disappeared down the hallway, most likely to his brother's room.

Donatello dragged tired fingers down his face and resisted the urge to go and kick something, preferably something that would make a satisfying, smashing sound when he hit it. He wondered briefly if this was the way Raphael felt all of the time and was in awe of his brother's new found self control. Thought of his brother turned his attention back to Katherine's words.

He slowly made his way up the stairs, knowing that Katherine was completely right in her accusations. He hadn't wanted to tell her of his diagnosis because he didn't want to worry her if he was wrong. But because he had withheld the information he hadn't allowed Katherine to help him. Donatello was just so used to working on every problem alone, that he hadn't actually believed that Katherine would be able to help him. And then he had acted like a child when she diagnosed his brother correctly before him.

He reached the landing and slowly walked into his brother's room. Katherine was bathing his brother's fevered brow with the same cloth he had been using earlier, though the water in the basin was probably fresh.

"I'm sorry." He apologized. Katherine looked at him over his shoulder. There were tears in her eyes that she was fiercely trying to blink back.

She stood and walked around to the other side of the bed that lay close to the window. She stared at the storm that raged outside for a few moments before speaking. " I managed to get a brief internet signal and I found out that there is a severe tropical storm making its way through the area, no hurricane warning yet though." She told him softly. She turned and face him then, seeming to have gotten herself under some sort of control. "Just because I am not as smart as you, Donatello does not mean I can't help you. And just because I am a girl and Raphael is my ex, it doesn't mean I am unable to handle..." She took a shaky breath and continued. "To handle what's happening to him." She finished quietly.

Donatello nodded. "I know." He said as he took another step into the room. He wanted to rush to her side and pull her into him and forget every hurtful word he had said, but knew that Katherine was still too angry, and would not welcome him doing that until she had forgiven him. And judging from her eye color, she was still angry, and upset. She took a step nearer to Raphael's bed.

"Is he really dying?" She asked him softly.

Donatello shot a glance at his brother, who had not moved since they had entered the room. "I don't know." Donatello replied truthfully. "He's in a very bad way, that's all I know for certain."

Katherine gave a slight nod of understanding as she walked to the bed, brushing her hand tenderly across his brother's unresponsive cheek.

Donatello sighed as he felt the ever present surge of jealousy roll through him. He ignored it and took another step towards the bed, hoping that Katherine's anger would have abated by now.

It was then that Donatello's world shattered into a chaotic cacophony, filled with the sound of shattering glass, snapping beams of wood and Katherine's high pitched scream of terror as the ceiling suddenly caved in. Donatello launched himself forward, hoping to protect his brother and his girlfriend before his world went terrifyingly black, and unconsciousness dragged him forcefully down.

See I am evil:)

Thoughts and opinions are always welcome!