Next Chapter is eagrly awaiting your reviews!

Still don't belong to me.

Thanks to raph's no. 1 girl for beta reading!


Casey swore under his breath as soon as he had hung up from talking with Leo. It wasn't that he didn't respect Splinter (he did in every way), it's just that he didn't agree with the way he handled things. Splinter tended to be calmer and let fate (or something) deal with life.

Casey tended to take things into his own hands, or let his hockey-stick deal with it. If there was one thing he hated more than when other guys flirted with his April, it was waiting.

And waiting.

And waiting.

Casey hated waiting. He hated it with a passion.

With a yell, he slammed his fist into the coffee table. A large crack formed at the point of contact.

April poked her head in, her green eyes wide with concern. "Are you alright Casey?" she asked as she stepped fully into the room.

Casey reached out, needing to throw something. The thing closet to him was a porcelain vase. Right as his fingers reached towards it, a blur of a hand snatched it from him.

April hugged it protectively to her chest. "Not this one." She shook her head as she handed the enraged man a pillow. "Beat the crap out of this if you must."

Casey flashed April a grin. "Thanks babe. AHHH!" he screamed as he threw the pillow to the floor and started jumping on it, screaming like a child throwing a tantrum in a store for not getting the toy he wanted.

April just stood by, amused as she watched her boyfriend throw a fit. Casey was a man of action, if he couldn't take his anger out on the problem; he tended to take it out on the nearest thing he could grasp. It tended to be a vase or something breakable, much to April's objection.

She found that by having something cheap and unbreakable, a pillow preferably, at hand, then fewer things were broken and the less April had to throw him out of the house.

April chuckled to herself as she remembered throwing Casey out of the house on Christmas for breaking a vase. He had gotten so excited about a present, a new baseball bat, he'd waved it around in the air and started giving it a few test swings. It hit a home run all right – right on a very pricey vase. He spent the next few hours alone outside, pondering his actions.

"AHHH!" Casey gave one last scream before he stopped as abruptly as he started. Smoothing his hair with one hand, he reached down and grabbed the pillow. Giving it back to April, he gave her a kiss on the cheek. "Thanks hon."

April took it with a role of her eyes. "Mind telling me what the problem is now?"

Casey gave a quick grunt of annoyance. "Raph ran away…again."

April giggled as she kissed her boyfriend. "Kinda like you, hmm?" she snuggled against him. Like Splinter, she understood the big picture. It was no surprise to her that he had run away again, injured or not. "I recall a certain man in a hospital claiming he couldn't stay because a fat nurse was out to get him. As I remember, you somehow snuck past the front desk and out of the hospital and made it back home.

Casey chuckled when he remembered April's face when she had woken up to find herself in Casey's arms. It was half terrified, half amused once she'd realized who it was.

"Ya looked beautiful that night." Casey murmured in her ear. He tried to kiss her again.

April ducked out of his arms, hands on hips. "You looked like crap." She started.

"Well nobody would look that good if they just got socked with a bat." Casey complained.

April just shook her head. "So, about Raph…"

Casey's eyes narrowed. "When I find that Suri girl I swear I'm gonna -"

"Not finish that thought Casey Jones." April snapped as she cut in. "Suri is just trying to be a friend to Raph, that's all. She is not to blame for this mess."

"But Raph told her things that he'd kept bottled up for so long." Casey shut his eyes, trying to rid himself of that night. He'd been more hurt by it than even he realized.

April put her hand on his arm. "Shh," she whispered. "I know Raph is your best friend and friends are supposed to tell each other things. But with boys, it's a little different." At his look, she grinned. "Hey, I know boys too. Anyway, with you boys, admitting things like that is seen as a sign of weakness and we all know how Raph is anything but weak. He tries to be strong for his brothers; Casey, to Raph, admitting he was weak, even the slightest, was like admitting that our President was a serial killer. It just doesn't happen."

"That'd be weird."

"I know. Raph just wants to be strong; we all know how he is. What he thinks and where he hurts doesn't matter. He'd kept so many things bottled up for so long…" April lowered her voice. "I'd say Suri saved him, if nothing else. Raph found someone to talk to, someone who would listen to him and not judge him from past experiences. Suri was what he needed, Casey."

Casey was listening. He understood what she said. But that didn't make the hurt go away.

He brushed her off. "Yeah, yeah…I'm…I'm going out." He grabbed his heavy winter coat and put it on. He started to reach for his bag of hockey sticks and baseball bats but a stare from April made him leave it there.

Stomping outside, he breathed in the fresh, (or at least, as fresh as New York air could get) and started down the sidewalk. Fresh snow covered the sidewalk and he kinda felt bad for having to ruin it by walking through it. One of the things he enjoyed most about winter was looking out onto the fresh snow, with no tire tracks, slush or footprints ruining it. It looked so perfect.

A sudden burst of cold air shot in his direction. The vigilante wrapped his dark coat tighter around him to ward off the chilling breeze.

I wonder how Raph is doing in this weather, being cold blooded an' all, Casey thought as he trudged along. He had no idea where he was going. Just wherever my feet take me, he told himself, with no obvious destination in mind.

Lost in thought, he unaware of the direction he was heading. As he started to walk past an old warehouse, he took notice of its broken windows and worn down appearance. Nobody's been here in ages, he thought. Even as he thought this, his eyes, viewing the scene before him, noticed multiple faint footprints in the snow leading up to a hole where a door had been.

"What the…?" Casey stopped and starred at the tracks. "That's weird. This place has been abandoned for years…no kids will come round here; they think it's haunted." Curious, he started forward.

When he reached the door, he peered inside.

The first thing he heard was people coughing and quiet chatter. Then he saw fires made in old barrels and people huddled around them. A few faces snapped up to stare at Casey, as he looked in. Murmuring spread through the place like a fire and people stared at the man.

Casey saw a familiar man walk towards him, though he couldn't place him. He had shaggy brown hair and weary brown eyes.

"Hello stranger," the brown-haired man greeted Casey. His eyes enviously took in the large, wool coat and the gloves and heavy boots. "I can see you're not homeless," he motioned to the gear. "What can I do for ya?"

Casey was about to open his mouth to reply when a deep voice, tinted with a Brooklyn accent, spoke up from the shadows.

"I'll deal with him, Shaun."

"Raph?" Casey gaped as his friend stepped forward, supported by Suri. He was leaning heavily on the girl, old bandages still covering his wounds, blood obvious on the used-to-be white wrappings. His eyes were sunken in and he was shivering slightly. A dirty, thin sheet covered his now small shoulders.

"Whatcha doing here, Case?"

Casey heard strain behind his raspy tone. He stepped forward, not sure what to make of this. "I…I…" he shook his head. "Jeez Raph."

"What?" Raph raised an eyebrow as he shrugged off Suri. He sat on a wooden crate, motioning for Casey to do the same. Casey sunk down, still shaking his head in disbelief.

When Casey looked up, he noticed Raph was shivering a little more than slightly. His whole body was jerking back and forth in small, quick motions and the red clad turtle wrapped the sheet firm around himself.

Casey cursed under his breath as he started to shrug off his coat. He started to wrap it around his friend's shoulders. "Here man, take it. I got more."

Raph shook his head. "No Case, Sammy-girl needs it more than I do." He waved to a small girl and she timidly stepped forward.

Casey cursed under his breath when he saw the small child. She could be no more than six, with wide innocent eyes and wild curls. She walked straight to Raph and the turtle picked her up, rocking her small shivering body against his plastron. He wrapped the large coat around her tightly and she sighed as new warmth seeped into her frozen body.

Raph set her down and she ran off, giving the man a small smile, to share with the other smaller kids.

"How old is she?" Casey choked out when she left.

"Five." Raph looked at his friend. "I'll ask again – what are you doing here?"

"I wasn't looking for ya if that's what ya meant," Casey rolled his eyes. "I saw the warehouse was empty."

"Casey, there's tons of empty warehouses." Raph gave him a look. "And ya just happened to choose the exact one I happened to be in, hmm?"

"I saw this one had footprints around it though." Casey shot back. He lowered his voice. "I was kinda thinking maybe somebody saw you though."

"So you were looking for me."

"No, I – man." Casey rubbed a hand down his face. "I didn't come out here to search for you, no. But when I saw the footprints, Leo had told me about you being with the homeless, and I thought if I saw one I could ask how you were doing. That make sense?"

"So you came out here to check on me?" Raph asked with a somewhat straight face.

"NO!" Casey shouted. "The idea occurred to me when I saw the footprints!"

"Oh." Raph stayed quiet and the two friends sat there, lost in their own thought. His head suddenly snapped up. "Ya can't tell Leo or any of the others." He hissed. "If they know where I live…shell."

Casey hadn't really thought about what his discovery meant. It meant he knew something that the other turtles would kill, literally, to know. "I won't tell." He promised. His eyes narrowed as Raph started coughing violently. "Ya alright, pal?" he asked, genuine concern in his voice.

Raph waved his off. "Ya, I'm fine. Just a cold."

"I think it's a bit more than a cold, Raph." Casey smirked.

"Whatever." Raph drew his knees to his chest, wrapping his arms around them trying to gather heat from his own body. "So how's April?"

"Don't try to change the subject, Raph." He narrowed his eyes at the turtle. "You're not fine. Why don't you just go home and stop this? You're hurting yourself."

Raph's amber eyes blazed. "Home?" he growled. He waved his hand at the people around them. "This is my home now. Besides, ya think these people here can just 'go home'? No." he spat out angrily. "I won't just abandon these people when it gets rough. They took me in and showed me how to really live."

"This is living?" Casey asked in disbelief.

"I'm more alive here than I ever was before, Casey." Raph's fury increased with every word. "At home it was just training and listening to Master Leo all day. I could rarely do anything without somebody asking me where I was going or what I was doing!" he threw up his hands. "I couldn't even leave the lair without an excuse."

Casey's voice got quiet. "They miss ya Raph. They don't know what to do without you."

"Good." Raph sneered. "Maybe then they'll see the truth."

"The truth? Raph, they need you." Casey couldn't believe the pleading tone in his voice.

"They don't need me. I was told to leave."

Casey got quiet at the words. He'd only known Raph had left, never for what. "What did they say?"

Raph calmed down. Yelling was not going to get anything accomplished. "I got into another fight with Leo. Splinter, as usual, took his side. Splinter told me to leave and not to come back till I'd changed." His voice turned bitter. "Didn't want me to ruin his perfect home with his perfect sons."

"But, that's who you are," Casey couldn't believe Master Splinter would ever tell his sons that. Telling Raph not to get angry was like telling Leo not to practice ninjitsu.

"Yeah. He also went off into some kind of dream state and told me that he doubted his decision to train me. He thinks he's created some kind of monster." Raph growled. He slammed his fist on a crate top. Normally a large crack would form or his fist would go straight through. Now it just left the wood a few splinters less.

Casey was silent as the red turtle spoke. He could detect hurt and anger in his voice, but also pain at the words of his father and brothers. No wonder he no longer wanted to go back. The deeper Raph got into the story, the more choked up he got.

For once in his life, Casey did something he'd never done with any of this other friends before.

He cried.