When he awoke, the first thing he saw was his father. Splinter was sitting in a chair that hadn't been there earlier. Someone must have brought it for him, so he could sit comfortably without moving the metal bowl from the stool.
He tried to say something, but his mouth was sticky and all that came out was a grunt. He realized he'd been sleeping upright.
"How do you feel?" Master Splinter asked.
He reached for the bowl, worked his tongue around, and spat out the gunk that had congealed in his throat while he slept. "Not as bad as earlier." He checked his internal clock. "Did I really sleep for six hours?"
"It is almost four-thirty," Master Splinter said, by way of reply.
Yeah. He flicked his gaze to the desk. Don's coffee cup was gone, presumably to accompany its owner about his business. The book and the glass of water - refilled, he noticed - were still there. He wasn't thirsty.
"Raphael," said his father, and his attention returned automatically. "Is there something you wish to talk about?"
His thoughts darted in all directions, like a school of fish trying to confuse a predator. Could he possibly be in trouble? Was his father going to take him to task for failing to defend himself?
"Why did you believe there was an intruder in the lair?" Master Splinter prompted him.
Oh. That. He wasn't sure he did want to talk about it. He didn't want to know if he was insane.
His father's gaze was burrowing into his head. When Master Splinter asked him if he wanted to talk, he was never able to say no, no matter how much his mind screamed for him to remain silent.
His mouth had given in before he even finished that thought.
"There was a guy," he was saying. "I saw a guy. Here. Talking to me."
"When was this?" Master Splinter asked.
"Last night." He drew up a corner of the blanket, played with it. "I don't even know if he was real. It might have been a dream."
"Dreams can tell us much." Master Splinter shifted his weight, orienting himself fully towards his son. "What was this person like?"
"He has this voice." His eyes unfocused, seeing what he had seen then. "He says these things, and they don't make sense, but I believe him anyway." He snapped back, returning his father's gaze. "Am I crazy, Sensei? What's wrong with me?"
"I do not think you are crazy," Master Splinter said, and Raphael heard echoes of that other voice. "What does this person say to you?"
"He says..." I am the angel. No. He was not going to say that. He needed to believe that his father believed he was sane. He couldn't hold it together without that validation. "He made me drink something."
Master Splinter looked alarmed. No. Please. I can't be crazy.
"No," he corrected himself. "He didn't make me. He told me to. And the bottle - it was empty. It didn't make any sense, I didn't want to, I -" He squeezed his eyes shut, turned his head away. "I drank it. Sensei, why...?"
"Something about this person makes you trust him," Master Splinter surmised. Raphael could only nod. "Have you seen this person before?"
"Yes. Once." He crossed his arms, unconsciously curling in on himself. "In the alley, after I was attacked. He told me help was coming. I thought that was real, but - maybe I was already unconscious." He felt his insides twisting up. More words came spilling out. "I told Don but he said no one was there."
The question he couldn't bear to ask again hung between them. Master Splinter answered it anyway.
"I do not think you are crazy," he said. "I also do not believe that such a person has come into our home. But," he held up a finger when Raphael looked at him with a sick expression, "I do believe that you have experienced something. Perhaps your subconscious is -"
Another feeling was rapidly growing in Raphael's guts. "Master Splinter," he interrupted. "I'm sorry, but I really have to go to the bathroom."
Master Splinter was out of his chair immediately, moving the stool out of the way and bringing the crutch to the bedside. "Of course," he said.
Raphael threw the covers off and levered himself out of the bed as fast as he dared. His ankle was in agony in spite of his best efforts to keep his weight off it. He collapsed onto the crutch, onto his father's shoulder, and hobbled from the infirmary with all the speed he could manage.
"Do you need assistance?" his father asked when they reached the bathroom.
"No," he said, grabbing the doorframe and dragging himself inside. "Thanks. I got it from here."
When he came out, feeling infinitely better, Master Splinter was waiting for him, putting a hand on his back and turning him towards the infirmary.
"No," he said, casting a desperate glance out across the living room. Leonardo was ensconced in the surveillance station, completely focused on the monitor screens. Donatello was on the far side of the room, attacking the training post with an angry energy he rarely displayed during practice. "I don't want to stay there anymore. Let me sit on the couch?"
His father's gaze pierced him, and he tried to look healthy. "Very well," said Master Splinter. "For a little while."
He kept his weight centered, not moving forward. "I don't want to go in there again." Reasons far beyond simple hatred of the infirmary unspooled in his head. "I don't want to sleep there. I don't want to see him. I - I'm afraid of what I'll do."
"I will not let anyone come," Master Splinter said. Raphael didn't know if that was a promise his father could keep. He didn't know how to express what he was really afraid of.
"Please, Father... stay with me tonight?"
He felt his father breathing against him, the familiar warmth and softness of his fur. "Yes, my son. I will watch over you."
A tenseness he didn't know he was holding flowed out of him. "Thank you."
Master Splinter steered him to the couch, balanced him while he sat down. Leonardo paid no attention, but Donatello finished his routine - a vicious thrust to a wooden paddle, a hard reverse block - leaned his bo staff against the wall, and crossed the room. He dropped onto the middle cushion of the couch, next to Raphael. Master Splinter padded away.
"How are you feeling?" Donatello asked, without preamble.
"All right," he said. "Ankle hurts."
"You should be keeping it elevated."
As if on cue, Splinter returned with a cushion from his room, which he placed on the coffee table. Groaning, Raphael raised his foot and rested it on the pillow. "Thanks," he said again. Master Splinter disappeared in another direction.
"Let me look under these other bandages," Donatello said. Raphael offered his left arm, and Don began to unwrap the cloth.
Splinter returned again, deposited the metal bowl, the glass of water, and a roll of clean bandages on the table, and went away in a third direction.
"What's with the weapons training?" Raphael asked. It was too awkward to say nothing while his brother picked at his arm. "Nothing to fix?"
"No." Don didn't lift his eyes from his work. "Needed to think."
"You never practice to think." Raphael watched his forearm emerge from the linen. "You work. You clean things."
"Nothing to clean." Don set the re-rolled bandage on the couch next to him. "This arm looks okay too." He slid to the floor to start on Raphael's left thigh. "Mike's been taking care of the cleaning."
Raphael stared at the top of his brother's head in shock. Absently, he noticed that Don had put his bandana on. "Mike cleaned something?"
"Mike cleaned everything," Donatello said, working the bandage around Raphael's knee.
"And he made this too?" Raphael tapped the back of his finger against the crutch. Don glanced up and made an affirmative noise. "Do I want to know what he made it out of?"
"As far as I know, spare piping, various gauges; some fabric of unknown origin; and what appears to be duct tape."
"Duct tape?" he spluttered.
"Don't worry," Don said, his fingers now working nimbly around Raphael's ankle. "He soldered the weight-bearing joints." He leaned back, flicking the used bandage onto the table. "Raph, you have got to tell me about this new miracle cure you've discovered."
"Didn't you know?" Raphael shifted his weight so Don could unwrap his other leg. "Blood-letting and mystery chemicals are good for you."
"How do you feel about blood-letting and a band-aid?" Don asked.
Disinclined. "What for?"
Don paused in his work. "Just because I don't have everything I want, doesn't mean I shouldn't use what I have. I'm at least going to have a look in the microscope."
"And in relevant-to-me words, that would be...?"
"A poke in the finger."
"Thought so." He shifted again, accidentally put too much weight on his injured ankle, and yelped.
Don sighed. "Hold this," he said. Raphael pinned the half-unwrapped bandage with his finger, holding it in place on his lower thigh. Don scooted around and propped his shoulder under Raphael's knee, helping to keep the weight off his ankle, and began unwrapping the separate bandage for the more serious injury.
The outburst had roused Leonardo from his hyperfocused state in front of the monitors and brought him out into the main room. "What's going on?" he asked.
"Just Raph re-injuring himself," Donatello replied. "You'll be lucky if this isn't broken now," he said over his shoulder, "and you," he glanced sideways, "look awful. I told you, not more than four hours."
"What?" Leo rubbed his bloodshot eyes. "What time is it?"
"It's five," Raphael said.
"It's time for Mike to take a turn," Donatello said firmly.
"Yeah, okay." Leo went to stand under the railing closest to Mike's room, tilted his head back and raised his voice. "Mikey! It's your turn to watch!"
Michelangelo shouted something back, but Raphael couldn't catch it.
"Yes!" Leo replied. "Yes, he did. ... No, I don't care." He listed to what was apparently a very long complaint. "Now, Mikey." He returned to the couch and leaned over Raphael's foot. "How does it look?"
"Well, it isn't worse," Don said. "But it isn't better." He reached for the clean bandages and began tightly rebinding the injury. Leo folded himself onto the floor. "Go to bed, Leo."
"In a minute. I need to talk to Raph."
They exchanged a look. "Fine," said Don, tying off the bandage. "But then, straight to bed." He slid out from under Raphael's knee and stood up. "And finish taking off that other bandage." He looked at both of them, shook his head, and left.
"What's up?" Raphael asked immediately. It was often a good idea, with Leonardo, to act as though you were in control of the conversation.
"How are you doing?" Leo asked, sliding a bit closer and picking up the bandage where Raphael was still holding it.
"Okay," Raphael answered guardedly. Leonardo was obviously warming up to extract fathoms of unintended information from whatever answer he gave. "How are you doing?"
"Tired," Leo said, and Raphael could tell that he was maneuvering for control via the Holy Power of Honesty. "We can't stay on high alert indefinitely, Raph. I need to know it's safe to come down. I need to know what happened in the alley." He lowered his voice. "Do you think the Foot were staking the place out? Waiting for us?"
"Maybe," Raphael said softly. Then: "Why are we whispering?"
Leo flicked his eyes to the side, indicating something over his shoulder. "I don't want him to hear. He doesn't need to know."
Raphael looked. Somehow Michelangelo had snuck into the surveillance center without his noticing. "Why are you asking me? Why don't you just go out and get the guys who did this?"
Leo finished unwrapping the bandage and squeezed the roll tightly in his hand. "Believe me, Raphael, there is nothing I want more than to conduct a lesson in what happens to ninjas who gang up on other ninjas who are minding their own business. But I need to know that's how it happened."
"Yeah, pretty much."
Leo was staring at him. There was something desperate in his eyes. "I need you to tell me."
"Yes." A flash of sudden swords, shadows surrounding. "They jumped me out of nowhere. I couldn't fight them."
"Okay." Leo straightened himself out and stood up. "Thank you." He started to move towards the staircase, and bed.
"Leo?"
"Yeah?"
"One more thing." Raphael felt his brother pause beside him. "If we're going to wear clothes... we have got to practice fighting in them."
The look of surprise on Leo's face was quickly obscured by a hand. "You're right," he said. "You're right, Raph. I'm an idiot."
He rested his head on the back of the couch. "No, Leo. We're all idiots. It's not like we don't see our sensei wearing clothes every day."
"Yeah." Leo wiped the hand down and off his face. "I'll talk to him." He made as if to do it right then.
"Go to bed, Leo," he said. He hated telling his older brother what to do, but sometimes someone had to.
"I just -"
"Leo."
A long pause. "Okay."
He listened to Leo walk up the stairs. Then he turned his attention to the TV remote, lying just out of reach on the far end of the coffee table.
He had just about determined that he was going to go for the remote, screw his ankle, when Don came back.
"Good going, Raph," he said bitterly. "We're still on high alert, and now we have to search the alley."
"Says who?" he demanded, pretending he hadn't just been about to do something likely to cause him further injury.
"Says Leo." Don leaned over the back of the couch by Raphael's shoulder. "He said that you said that the Foot are staking out the places we like to go."
"What?" He rapidly replayed the conversation in his head. "How did he get that from maybe?"
"You have to ask? We're talking about Leo."
"Damn, Donnie, I didn't -"
"Too late now." Don's weight left the cushion. "Time for your blood-letting. I'm going to go find a really dull knife." He headed towards the kitchen, passing Splinter, who was coming in the opposite direction. Splinter came around in front of Raphael and held out a spoon full of a mysterious, multi-colored powder.
"You must take this," he said, and again Raphael heard echoes of another voice.
"What is it?" Raphael asked, taking the spoon.
"Donatello told me that you may have been poisoned," Master Splinter said. "And you say you are having visions." He pointed to the spoon. "This reacts with many hallucinogens. If your visions are artificially induced, this will remove the cause." He watched his son's face carefully. "It is safe."
Raphael looked at the powder. Long experience had taught him that while Splinter's remedies generally worked, it was almost always better to avoid tasting them. He closed his eyes, stuck the spoon in his mouth, and forced the dry stuff down in one swallow.
When he opened his eyes, Master Splinter was offering him the glass of water. He took it and drank half without pausing. "Also," Master Splinter said while he drank, "there will be... evidence."
"Hmm?" He balanced the glass on the arm of the couch. "Evidence of what?"
"If there is poison." Master Splinter took the spoon back.
"I don't get it," he said. "What kind of evidence?"
Master Splinter shifted awkwardly. "It will be obvious," he said, and used Donatello's return as an excuse to leave quickly.
Donatello had brought a knife - which was, in fact, quite sharp - a smooth rectangle of glass, and, as promised, a band-aid. "Hand," he said.
Raphael held out his arm and looked determinedly in the opposite direction. Michelangelo was still silently watching the flickering monitors. He felt a prick in his finger, the press of something wide and flat, and then the stickiness of the band-aid.
"Have you been coughing?" Donatello asked.
"No."
"You should." Don inserted the metal bowl into his still-outstretched hand. "Otherwise, that garden hose thing is still on the table."
He didn't feel like coughing, but he made his diaphragm jump and spat out the slime that bounced into his mouth. "Happy?"
"Delighted," Don deadpanned. "Are you hungry?"
He tilted the bowl, watching the slime ooze across the metal. "I could eat."
"I'll get something." Don took the knife and the bloody glass and disappeared into his lab.
Raphael put the bowl down next to him and looked forlornly at the remote. Whenever Don expressed a vague intention to do something, corresponding action often didn't materialize until weeks later. He could starve to death before his brother came out of the lab. He was determined to at least be nominally entertained while he wasted away.
He had just calculated the optimum trajectory for launching himself towards the remote while causing minimum damage to his ankle, when suddenly the desired object was right in front of his face.
Mike was standing at the other end of it.
"Thanks," he said, closing his hand around the plastic. Mike was gone before he could say anything else, silently reinserting himself into the surveillance center. Damn that kid is fast.
He turned the TV on and stuffed the remote under his thigh - a defensive habit he'd picked up at some point. The program was something vapid about humans living in suburbia and hating their neighbors. Images and dialogue arrowed into his brain and went just as quickly out the other side.
Dinner came eventually, in the form of a bowl of soup. Donatello sat and ate with him, though his mind was clearly elsewhere.
Raphael attempted conversation. "Thought you would have chained yourself to the microscope by now."
"Can't," Don said. "If I started, I wouldn't stop, and I have other things to do tonight."
"You guys are all gonna go have fun without me?"
Don poked at a floating bit of celery. "Just me and Leo. Mike's going to stay and keep watch."
Raphael drank the rest of his broth. "Nah, let him go. I'll watch. I'm not too sick for that."
"You should be resting," Don said, finishing his own soup. "He doesn't want to go anyway."
Raphael looked at Michelangelo's back. "He's still pretty freaked out, huh."
Don sighed heavily. Isn't it obvious? "You should talk to him. He's waiting for you."
"He's waiting?" Raphael exploded. He didn't care that Mike could hear him. "What the hell for? A map and a push in the right direction?"
"You're not the only one who got hurt, Raph," Don said. He stacked up the bowls and spoons. "Talk to him." He went away into the kitchen. A moment later, before Raphael could decide anything, Don had come out again and crossed the room, leaning over Michelangelo's shoulder and talking quietly to him. Whatever was said resulted in Mike going directly upstairs, and Don taking his place in the chair.
He contemplated the stairs briefly. His ankle felt swollen and he had extremely little faith in his lungs' ability to support any kind of physical effort. Forget it. I'm not gonna chase him all around the freakin' lair.
He watched television.
He floated in a kind of low-oxygen haze, not comprehending any of what he was seeing. A hand on his shoulder brought him out of it.
Leo was there, looking completely refreshed. "Raph? You awake?"
He reached up to rub his eyes, letting go of the glass he'd forgotten was still in his hand. Leo caught it before it could slide to the floor. "Barely. What's up?"
"Rumor has it you're sleeping upstairs tonight."
He groaned. "Don vetoed it, didn't he."
"I don't think he knows yet. And," Leo moved the glass to the table, "what Don doesn't know, he can't complain about." He looked over to the surveillance center, where Don was still watching, though perhaps not as alertly as one would have liked. Raphael knew that Leo knew that Donatello was virtually asleep. He also knew that Leo knew that Donatello was virtually unwakeable.
"Master Splinter..." he began, and stopped himself. He didn't know if Leo knew what he had asked his father to do, and wasn't sure he wanted him to know.
"Is coming," Leo said, and Raphael still didn't know whether Leo knew.
"Okay." He flexed his toes to see whether it would set off an explosion of pain in his ankle. It did. "I'll wait for him. I'll never make it up the stairs by myself."
"I'll help," Leo said. "It'll be easier with someone your own height."
He snorted. "Guess we're gonna have to tell Donnie, then."
Leo looked miffed. "I'm not that short."
"Give it up, Leo." He pushed himself into a more upright position on the couch. "You're a midget."
"Yeah," Leo said, reaching down and pulling him to his feet, "but I'm the midget who can kick your butt seven ways from Sunday whenever I feel like it."
"In your dreams, maybe." He reached for his crutch, and began the arduous trek towards his room.
He had to stop halfway up and concentrate on breathing. It felt like his lungs were getting worse. After a moment he made himself move on. They reached the upper level and he leaned heavily on the crutch, temporarily forgetting its dubious construction. When he was ready to face the last few yards, Leo brought him to the door of his room.
"No, wait," Raphael said, turning his head towards the next door along the wall. "There's something I gotta do first." He shifted all his weight to the crutch and limped forward. He knocked on the further door. "Mikey?"
No answer.
He knocked again. "Mike, can I come in?"
A muffled reply he could barely make out. "Yeah."
He pushed the door open, stumped in, closed it behind him. "Hi."
Michelangelo was in his bed, wrapped up in every blanket he possessed. They hunched over his shoulders like folded wings. His gaze was elsewhere. He didn't say anything.
"I'm sorry I yelled at you this morning," Raphael said. "I didn't mean to."
"'S'okay," Mike mumbled. Raphael couldn't tell if he was doing anything, or if he was just sitting.
"Thanks for the crutch," he tried. "It's a good job."
It was a good job, too. It had been meticulously sized for Raphael's height and length of arm. It had a scrap of fabric taped around the foot, to provide traction, and what might have once been a curtain wrapped around the uppermost part, for padding. The soldering was sturdy without being overdone.
"And for the remote," he prompted, when Mike didn't answer. "Would've hurt myself trying to get it," he joked. Still no answer. He tilted sideways, trying to bring himself into Mike's field of vision. In response, Mike also tilted, falling over onto his side. He pulled the blankets over his head.
"Can't look at you now," he said in a strained voice. It was the first thing he had said with any meaning.
"Why, Mike?" He limped two steps closer. "What's happening with us?"
The ball of blankets contracted. "Don't make me!"
He wanted a lot of things, in that moment. He wanted to threaten, to force. He wanted his brother to look him in the eye and say "Glad you're okay, Raph." He wanted to breathe without hurting. He wanted things to make sense. He wanted things to be the way they always were.
He decided to do what he always did before going to bed. "Good night, 'Gelo-mold," he said.
"Good night, Giraffe," Mike said, possibly on automatic.
He backed up out of the room.
Leo was waiting, his back against the wall, his hands tucked under the curve of his shell. "Get anywhere?" he asked.
"No." He lifted his arm, and Leonardo slid under it. Together they went back to the other door, to Raphael's room. Raphael was relieved to see his familiar hammock. He didn't intend to move from it for some time.
He tumbled into it, gracelessly, gratefully, and Leo helped him get his legs up. There was no wall within arm's reach of the hammock, so Leo took the crutch and propped it against the low bookcase where Raphael kept his few possessions.
"I'll be right back," Leo said, and went out.
He rested for a moment, then rolled onto his side and reached down. His gear, as Don had promised, was stacked neatly on one of the crazily mismatched cushions that seemed to collect, of their own volition, on his floor. He traced his fingers along his mask and sai, assuring himself that they were real, were here. Then he moved them aside and picked up the shirt he'd been wearing. As he lifted it, it flopped in ways he wasn't expecting. Someone had laid it open from collar to waist.
"Holy shit," he said, mostly to himself, though Leo had just come back, carrying the extra chair from the infirmary. "How am I still walking around?"
"That wasn't the Foot," Leo said, kicking a cushion aside and setting the chair down. "That's where Donnie cut you out of your clothes."
He whistled backwards, a trick that none of his brothers could manage. It infuriated them. "Was it that bad?" His eyes traveled over the destroyed shirt. There were slashes all over the body and sleeves. Miraculously, the hood was intact.
"You were already unconscious from blood loss," Leo said. "We weren't about to waste time finding out where it was coming from." He went out again.
Raphael dropped the shirt and picked up the pants. They were similarly riddled with holes. He was definitely going to need new clothes. He threw the pants in the general direction of his garbage can and lay back down. Leo came in with the metal bowl and the glass of water, and put them on top of the bookcase. "Splinter will be right up," he said. "Do you need anything else?"
Raphael shifted, pulling the blanket over himself. "No. Thanks. I'm good."
"Okay," Leo crossed to the doorway and flicked off the light. "I'll see you in the morning."
He yawned. He wasn't in the habit of wasting time between wakefulness and sleep. "Night, Midget." He was asleep before the door closed.