My original plan had been to go straight home, and not return to the sewers for a long, long time. My cheeks were burning red from Raphael's rejection - although, I guess it was silly to feel that way. He hadn't rejected me, not really. He'd just shut me out of his life completely.

However, as I hurried down the hallway, I passed by the open door to Mikey's bedroom. He was playing a video game, so lost in it that he didn't even notice me lurking behind him. I figured that Splinter was probably speaking with Leonardo and Donatello privately, leaving Mikey to deal with the events of today all by himself. As frustrated as I was with Raphael, my heart wouldn't let me leave the youngest brother to sit all alone.

"Hey." I finally greeted him.

He turned around quickly, and his blue eyes widened when he saw that it was me.

"Oh, hey." Mikey replied, sitting up on his bed.

"I just wanted to make sure you were alright." I said as I went over and sat down next to him.

He smiled slightly. "I appreciate your concern, Lil. I'm okay. I mean, I'm worried, you know? But this will all blow over."

"I'm glad you're staying positive," I said. "And I know that it will blow over. It has to."

My voice cracked a bit at the end. I cleared my throat, hoping to cover it up.

"Lil, are you okay?" Mikey questioned, his bright eyes locking onto mine. "Leo told me all about what happened... What you did for us. I'm sure Raph was pretty hard on you. Am I right?"

I sighed. He was the exact opposite of Raphael; Mikey wanted to let me in. I got up and went over to the bedroom door, closed it, and then returned to my spot beside him. He was looking at me even more curiosity now.

"Can I ask you something?" I began slowly. "It's a bit... personal."

I wasn't sure if I was crossing a line by what I was about to say, but Mikey was the only one who I felt comfortable enough to talk to about how I was feeling.

"You have my attention."

"Do you think... It would be possible for Raphael to ever... I mean would it be weird if we... If I... Liked him?" I sputtered, feeling completely embarrassed with each word that I spoke. But, to my surprise, all Mikey did was look at me thoughtfully.

"You mean, like him, as in, more than a friend, right?" Mikey clarified. I nodded.

"Well. It's a bit of a shock." He started and my face fell into a frown. He noticed my expression and then immediately began to back track. "Not shocking in a bad way, Lil. Shocking as in, you like Raph. Raph. Out of all of us, I never thought anyone could possibly like Raph. Besides the whole, you know, shell thing, he is also a major asshole. I'm just shocked you somehow see something... likable."

I let out an exasperated sigh. "Mikey," I scolded. "I'm being serious."

"Me too!" He exclaimed. "I mean, Leo is the leader. I can get how chicks might dig that enough to see past the shell. Donnie is a genius. And well, I'm hilarious. But Raph... We never thought any girl would ever like him. Even Raph agrees with us, so don't blame me for saying that."

"You guys have talked about this before? Relationships, I mean?" I asked hopefully.

"Duh. We might be mutants, but we're still guys, Lil." Mikey said giving me a look that hinted at many, many things they might have talked about.

Oh. I felt my face flush.

"So," he continued. "Yeah. We talked about it a lot growing up. And, Raph always believed no girl would ever love him. To be fair, he also believed no girl would ever love any of us, but in the slight chance that he was wrong, he said he figured they would probably like one of us more than him."

"But, you have talked about it before? I'm not crazy for thinking that he could find me... likable?"

Mikey touched my shoulder, giving me a very serious look. "It's not crazy. I think the only part any of us would find crazy is that you like him. Not the other way around."

"I just wasn't sure if... It was possible." I said awkwardly. "I don't know. I'm sorry. This is way too weird."

Mikey just laughed at me. "Lil, I think you'd be surprised at just how possible many things are with Raph." He smirked, a devilish twinkle in his blue eyes.

Oh my god, is he saying what I think he is saying? I felt completely mortified, even though he looked totally un-bothered by this topic.

"Thanks for talking to me, Mikey." I said, trying to cover up the awkwardness that I felt. "I really appreciate it."

"Anytime, Angelface." He grinned back at me.

"I should probably go... Will you... Keep me updated on things? I'm not sure when I'll be back." I replied, getting to my feet.

He nodded. But, just as I reached the door, he said one last thing:

"Uh. I can't believe I'm about to say this, because I love nothing more than giving Raph a hard time, but you might wanna go easy on him, you know? He's really not all that bad. He just has like, no communication skills. At all. But, he'll come around. You just gotta understand that even if you're not freaked out by him, he's freaked out by you."

Mikey's words repeated in my mind for the rest of the day.

He was right, after all. Here I was, only focusing on how I felt about Raphael being a mutant, but never stopping to think that my being a human might be causing him some turmoil as well. It was a strange concept, that my humanity might be the thing that would keep us apart. Normally, it was a lack of humanity that tore people away from each other.

I was listening to one of my favorite songs as I laid in bed. The music was probably far too loud for the hour, and I wondered if I would get in trouble with my neighbors tomorrow. It was only when the track ended that I heard the loud knocking on my window. It was raining heavily, but this sound was definitely not from the storm.

Great, was I imagining things now?

I paused my CD before going over to unlock the window. My hopes were already up - I knew who I wanted to be out there waiting to come in.

I flipped the latch and sat back on the edge of my bed, staring at the wet glass intently. And then I saw it: a large hand reaching down to slide the window up. I pinched my arm, wondering if I had dozed off while I had been laying down. If this really was Raphael, there was no telling where the conversation was going to lead this time.

It was him.

He lowered his bulk into my room, a sight that I didn't think I'd ever get tired of seeing. The hard work that the brothers spent practicing every day was visible on every inch of of their bodies, Raphael's especially. He was soaking wet as he stood before me, dripping water every where.

I sighed. "Hold on."

I left the room and went to grab a towel from the bathroom. I returned and gave it to him quickly. I watched as he dried off about half of his body. There was too much muscle and not enough fabric to get him completely dry.

"What are you doing here?" I asked, finally breaking the tense silence.

"I've been thinking." Raphael replied. "The things you said today. You were right. I just wanted you to know that."

I stared back at him. "Okay..."

Raphael reached out for my hand hesitantly. I could see the conflict in his expression as he did this. I could see that there was an inner battle raging inside of his mind over if this was the right thing to do or not. I wanted nothing more than to reach out for him too, but I knew that this was something he needed to do on his own. I couldn't rush him - he needed to come to me for once.

When he finally did take my hand, I would have been lying if I said that the sight of his much larger, three-fingered one enclosing mine wasn't strange. It was, but the feeling that ran through me at his touch, was not strange. Carefully, he pulled me closer to him, and I felt all of my confidence start to fade away.

I felt like any other typical girl who was about to find out if the guy she was interested in liked her too.

I peeked up at him through my eyelashes, suddenly very aware of how real this was. This was no dream, no figment of my imagination. I reached up with my free hand and touched his chest lightly. Raphael flinched, but didn't move away from me. He slowly reached up and ran one of his fingers along my cheek bone. Now it was my turn to shiver. I'd never been touched so gently before. I'd never had someone treat me like I was breakable.

The overwhelming urge to kiss him over took me. I found myself raising up onto my toes and reaching both of my arms around his broad shoulders. There was no way he was going to initiate this particular interaction - I knew that it had to come from me.

I kissed him lightly, careful to not fall too deeply into my desires and, as Mikey had put it earlier, freak him out. Raphael returned the kiss with more force than I had expected. It caught me off guard, his eagerness, and I made myself pull away before I got too sucked in.

Even though the kiss had ended, I wasn't ready to let go of him just yet. I let myself sink into his chest, my heart beating wildly, and my skin on fire. He held me for a long time, both of us getting used to the feeling of touching each other, of being connected to each other.

"My favorite color is red."

I looked up at him and smiled. It wasn't a very big first step, but at least it was something.

Raphael backed away from me, squeezing my hand tightly before he let it go and left.