Okay I know I should update Unbelievable True sometime but I'm terribly stuck on that one and I couldn't get myself to think of someone dear dying for the last couple of weeks. So I'm sorry alright. Just take a cookie and enjoy this new chapter ;)

And I really wanna thank some people too for being my fateful reviewers. Thank you Athese, my sweet baby sister, .7, Raigon, MissCookiiie, Zelgadis55, mikeysgirl228, TJHECTOR, 6suzy7, Bluestar-TMNT-Warriors, bookworm563, Pimino (why haven't I heard from you for so long, I miss you), Lil PriNCeSs Me, , HowToBeCreative (who just joined the gang) and last but not least my nameless guest reviewer who of course is not less appreciated. And please all get easier names like Penny or Leah or whatever because typing this all out is a pain in the ass XD.

For everyone who doesn't review but still reads, why don't you review? *pouts* Just kidding, you're all amazing!

Chapter 11: always

"What do you mean?" I mutter and can't help but yawn, the tiredness finally hitting me. The adrenaline that had me going during all of this has finally left my system and with that the bliss of moving painlessly. I hiss harshly when Donnie brushes my shoulder and it sends him in a frenzy immediately.

The woman, Linda, also looks up with a twinkle of fright in her eyes when she scans me over.

"I had almost forgotten," she says, obviously talking to Donnie but keeping her gaze on me. "Raphael has dislocated his shoulder."

Donnie immediately starts probing the swollen area, mumbling to himself, probably about how he should've noticed I was hurt and sending himself in a guilt trip. He's the doctor sure, so he thinks it's his job. But I'm too drained to fight the treatment of his fast fingers or comfort him for that matter. I just can't. I feel fuzzy all over.

"Don't call me Raphael," I suddenly say, only half aware because my younger brother is now wrapping up my arm and it hurts worse than I expected. Man, I really am tired. "It's Raph. Raphael's a monster."

She merely nods but doesn't reply. It annoys me. I don't know this woman, I only know she's working for the psycho that almost killed my baby bro. And now she should be his savior? It doesn't matter right now. If she's here she can better give me some answers. At least it might distract me from the pain.

"Now what did ya mean?"

She shakes her head slightly, her ponytail falling over first the right shoulder and then the left. Only now I realize she is, in fact, beautiful. Her dark hair and fair skin, her almond shaped eyes. She's definitely from Japanese descent, she has to.

"You're not ready for that," she answers me simply. Taking out a needle, back and two strange bottles. She places the back next to her and lines up a needle first. Mikey's hand is gently taken out of the gel and I almost gag at the mangled skin hanging from his wrist and fingers. It's awful what they've done to him. She probes the area a bit and lays the hand back down. She moves towards the other wrist and does the same, only to find that his left wrist can't be worked with either.

"I'm going to line the IV up in his neck, if that's alright with you. The left side of his face is still largely intact."

Donnie's face scrunches up painfully and I can see the tears lingering in his eyes, ready to fall. And they do eventually. He doesn't make a sound though. He grieves in silence, afraid to lose the hope before he has the right to let go of it completely. He still wants to give Mikey a chance. How do I know he feels that way? Because the same emotions course through my brain at this moment, making me feel numb again, safe for the painful throbs in my shoulder.

I place my head on my brother's shoulder and he immediately puts his own on mine. Somewhere during the trip we both fall asleep that way. Exhaustion from the pain, physical and mental, making itself master and putting us under in a dreamless sleep.

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When I wake up Mikey's already being loaded out of the van at top speed by Linda. Donnie follows her immediately, leaving me behind with my only older brother. Said brother carefully wraps an arm around me, being careful of my injured shoulder now hanging in a sling. He steers me towards my room, claiming that I need sleep but I refuse. I don't want to get into small spaces now. I don't want to be alone. And most importantly, I don't want any sleep.

So Leo lays me down on the couch instead, insisting on my at least lying so I take my rest. He leaves for a little while and comes back with a shitload of pills and a breathing mask. Before I can ask anything, he starts explaining.

"It's for the kidney failure. Don says I still got some poisoning going around because my kidneys didn't function and these pills are supposed to stimulate them to clean it up. It's not like we got any dialysis machines like they do in hospitals. It's the second best thing."

I nod slightly, wincing at the movement as it hurts my shoulder's muscles. It's quite scary to think of Leo almost dying. A little hard to imagine too. I mean, he just rescued us. He just killed a man. He doesn't look sick to me at all. But I know what Leo can do. He'd do anything for us, even if it means putting himself at risk or suffering because of it. That's the way it's always been.

"What's the mask for?" I ask, still bothered by how weak my voice sounds.

"My lungs don't function properly yet, I need some extra oxygen intake just so I won't have a too low blood count. I blacked out a couple of times because of that. According to Don I'll only need this thing for another week or so."

A burning feeling spreads from my throat to my stomach. He's really put himself at risk for coming. All the time I've been stuck in that cell the only one I could think about was Mikey. I needed to make sure he would get out alive and well. At the last part I failed though. But what really has me worried is that there had been a chance that neither one of us would even return to two brothers home. I'm not even sure if we could've returned to Donnie. He's been a wreck, I can see it in his eyes, in his skinny posture and the creases in his face. If Leo had died Don would've given up as well. And just like that it hits me. We were so close of losing our family; our entire family.

"Hey Raph," Leo suddenly whispers. I look up at him and he gives me a small smile before taking another breath in the oxygen mask. When he takes it away he says: "We're all here now. All of us and we're alive. Mikey's gonna live Raph and if you're worried, so am I."

I can't keep the shock from my face when I stare at him. I know Leo has everyone figured out but this is just insane. How'd he do that?

Leo chuckles a little. "You're easy to read Raph. Your face is like an open book. Your mind too."

He stops for a while and breathes deeply into the mask a few times. I can see he wants to tell me something. Something important. But he hesitates. Leo is all about procrastination when he finds it difficult to say something. Not with the lectures, no he has them prepared. But when he hasn't had the time to think about it, meditate on it or something, my brother is as lost for words as Donnie is when being around April, or Mikey when someone finally managed to pull a joke at his expense.

"Do you remember hearing me?"

I almost fail of the couch when he says that, startling me with the words as much as with the tone. He sounds really insecure. As if there's some dirty secret he's been hiding and actually doesn't want me to know.

"What do ya mean, Leo? When should I have heard you?"

He shrugs his shoulders unhappily and looks at me with guilt written all over his features. His eyes seem a little darker blue, almost like a wet autumn sky because of the small tears lingering in the corners. I make no remark of them though. Leo and I don't cry. That's an unspoken agreement between us and we're both very keen on keeping it that way.

"I think I need to begin at the beginning," he says, taking another few breaths, keeping himself occupied with the machine for a few seconds.

I almost huff at the response though. Since when does everyone need to announce that it is indeed a perfectly sane thing to begin at the very beginning.

"When I got into that coma and all. Well, first I still could hear Donnie and Master Splinter around me. I was into this black space and there wasn't anything else there. I was just floating. But I drifted away, farther and farther and then there was this other place. It was beautiful there, Raph, I know you would've loved it. There was so much nature, so much freedom. It's kinda hard to explain but everything looked a lot more like it should be. Master Splinter later explained me it was the Spiritual Plane. That because of my decreasing brain activity, my soul could detach itself and venture into the spiritual realms hidden away from earth."

I keep listening and don't interrupt for once. I'm not very sure where this is going to but it is obvious Leo needs to tell me this, to get it of his chest. I guess I can understand it's hard for him to tell what has happened when he was comatose. He almost died, drifted of never to wake up again.

"It was in that place I could hear you Raph. You and Mikey, I could hear the both of you. At least when you were asleep. I sometimes tried to contact you guys but you never seemed to hear me. I once did slip into your dream world though. That was an accident."

I shoot my head up from where I'm lying, staring directly into Leo's dark blue eyes. He was there, he was really there. I remember, it was just after Mikey got stabbed in his shoulder. I had a nightmare, a bad one. But instead of me sliding Mikey's throat or doing another gruesome thing like most of my nightmares consisted of at that time, Leo appeared and snatched the knife away. He had held me in that dream. It was the best one I had during that time and the day after I had managed to get a smile on Mikey's lips too. One of the better days.

"I see you remember that," Leo softly says. I quietly nod and motion for him to continue. He does. He speeds up a bit too. If that is because he knows he now has my full attention or just because he wants to get this over with, I don't know.

"Ever since that I felt that connection between us. I couldn't contact you anymore but I heard your voice far more clearly on the Spiritual Plane. Even when you were awake. I thought it had broken when Donnie brought me back though. No matter how long I would meditate, how deep I would curl into my own mind, I couldn't find you and neither could I hear Mikey."

He takes a deep sigh and I know what he actually is afraid of telling, is coming now. I sit up, not minding the annoyed glare he is giving me, and scuffle over a little. Sometimes even the Fearless Leader needs some support.

"It was only when we were driving the Shellraiser on our way to rescue you that I heard you again. You… You screamed really bad. You were in so much pain Raph. So much anger."

His voice is thick with emotion and I'm sure mine won't sound any better if I even would try to speak up. I remain quiet though, trying not to relive that awful moment when I saw Mikey in the blazes of fire, screaming for a bliss that only came with his imminent death.

"I was glad you remembered the memory. I was glad you calmed down a little. Maybe you didn't see what you were doing but in some strange way I could. I saw the glass room, I knew who was in there and I knew his time was ticking away. And I was so relieved when you got back to yourself again."

I collapse into my older brother's hold, not minding that I do. I need my brother's reassurance right now, like I needed Donnie's when we were moments of our rescue. He wraps his arms around me and presses me towards his plastron. I refuse to let tears fall but I know I'm close. And that Leo is too. But we were always too stubborn for our own good.

"I can't believe you were there. I just can't believe it," I say, not feeling like myself at all. I feel like floating, as if it is not me who is speaking. It's the emotions, I would later rationalize, that were speaking for me. And the reason why that feeling was unfamiliar is because I always repressed them our would release them into anger.

"You saved Mikey."

And Leo holds me tighter, a force and a strength I rely on at this moment. I cherish it with everything I have. Building myself up out of the power my older brother supplies. Just like he apparently did not that long ago.

"You saved Mikey, Raph. I merely got you out of that trance. Out of that anger."

I nod against his plastron, taking comfort in our closeness. We've always been close but in a different way. More in a team-like way. It was always me and Leo, the big brothers who needed to work together for the well-being of our younger ones. But now it's different. Now I'm the little brother. And for the first time in my life, I do not mind it at all.

"You saved me," I mutter, letting another yawn escape my lips. It will be the second time I fall asleep against a brother. Probably the second time in my life too. Like this then. Not when my brothers were the ones that needed my comfort. Then the nights I've shared with them couldn't be counted, especially the ones with Mikey.

The last thing I hear before drifting off into a sound sleep is a promise I know I can always hang on to. A reassurance I never knew I would need. But after everything that happened, all the insecurities I went through, this is what I truly will need whenever a situation like this might come around again. Why do I know that? Because that's what's been promised.

"Always."

Awww I felt like tearing up after writing this! Like it, don't like it, sent a review either way. I know at least I'm glad I've written it this way. Raph's experiencing a major mental breakdown right now and I thought he could totally use a big brother, no matter how often he exclaims he can take care of himself. He's been tortured bad, mentally sure, but still tortured. I think this gave him some peace of mind. Well, maybe. I'm gonna do some evil things with this muhahahaa.

Bye!