Hey guuuuuuyssss. Back again and definitely better than before. This will be the second-to-last chapter if I have anything to say about it. I'd like to take this time to thank all of my faithful readers (especially AbbessMarie, you rock!) who have helped me get through this thing that I thought I had to do. It has taken a lot of blood, sweat, and tears, but here it is. The almost-final chapter. I hope you enjoy it!

Summary: Raph is sure he can't take Leo's almighty attitude any longer. He channels his rage through the Nightwatcher, a mask he puts on to beat down criminals of all kinds. However, when Raph (as the Nightwatcher) is captured by desperate criminals, he begins to realize how much he really needs a leader. He also might have found love in the process. RaphxOC, M/M SLASH! Don't like, don't read.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything or make mu-lah.

Flame paced his cell restlessly. He couldn't tell how many hours he had been caged like a madman; didn't know how much of Raph's precious little time had passed. His brow wrinkled in concentration as he turned sharply on his heel, narrowly avoiding walking straight into the wall that was now behind him.

His cell was all sharp corners, no windows. A miserable cot beckoned to his tired body in one corner. Unforgiving concrete walls closed in on all sides. A single metal door, heavy and padlocked, served as the only way in or out. There were no bars to reach through on the door, either. He thought cells were supposed to have iron bars, spaced evenly and utterly removable.

Seven paces. Turn. Seven paces. Turn. Seven paces wide, seven long. The room was as perfect a square as Flame could measure, deep within the heart of New York City's police department. It was designed to hold dangerous criminals. A cold, judgmental camera watched him pace from its perch.

Turn.

He knew it couldn't be midnight yet. He had slept so little-only for minutes at a time, his dreams plagued by twisted visions. Night had gone and today was the day of the execution. The policemen hadn't allowed him a phone call, and he hadn't asked for one. There was no one to call for help. Mikey and Splinter would never be able to risk being seen.

You will kill your love trying to save it.

Turn. He spied a suspicious spot on the floor where some hardened killer had probably thrown up, sick with poison drugs.

I can sleep on the floor.

He had to find a way out. If only he hadn't blown up at Raph.. Voices floated toward him on the eddies of memory, or perhaps it was his own throat rasping so hoarsely.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry...

He'd always wanted to be a book; that much was true. He had never cared what genre until now. He didn't want to be a tragedy. He didn't want to be alone again. So high above everyone else, stricken with leadership, always some ethereal being separate from the others. Never a real person. Flame: head of a band of thieves, calculated, cold, criminal, strategist, monster.

He wasn't that person anymore. Not within, at least. At his core, he was no longer cruel, even as he thought of all the ways he would make Nathan suffer if he could only get out of this damn cell.

Turn. He wondered how Raphael was faring. How badly would Nathan have tortured him by now? How much blood would Raph have lost? Flame knew Nathan was tactical enough to recognize the merits of triggering an extreme emotional response in the enemy. He had been trained to think that way, incidentally, by Flame himself.

Now Flame was "the enemy." He wished he hadn't been so thorough in his earlier years, now. It was too late to worry about that now. The past couldn't be undone, just as the look of hurt he had caused to cross Raph's face couldn't be unseen. The picture was seared into his brain.

Turn. Seven paces. Turn.

If he couldn't get out of here, Raph would die tonight.

Seven paces.

He felt a strong urge to claw at the walls, to rake his fingers until they were nothing but red, dying stubs across the rough surface of his cell. At least then he could say he'd tried, he'd tried until he had smeared everything with his own blood to match Raph's.

Turn. He wasn't that desperate yet, but he was getting there fast.

Five paces, and then a huge boom shook the world. Flame threw up his arms to shield himself as clouds of oppressive dust and debris billowed around him. He inhaled it, it was everywhere. In his mouth, in his nose, in his lungs, he choked it down and coughed it out at the same time until he could do neither and a dust-covered floor was rushing toward him. All that remained was ignorance.

xxx

They were shivering together, he and his brothers. Raph couldn't remember another time when he had been this cold, even in the depths of a northern winter. He had always been careful around the cold, as his reptilian skin couldn't handle low temperatures very well. During winter months, even he had stayed inside more often than not, retreating only to his room after each fight with Leo.

Thinking of life back when things were normal, before Flame had arrived and created a disturbance, Raph couldn't help but think of his family. He hoped Mikey and Splinter were alright, that they had somehow avoided this fate. He didn't believe they could handle it. Didn't even know if HE could handle it. Not for much longer.

Donny had explained how, from what he could tell, they were being held in the chill store of an old fish freezing factory, which explained both the temperature and the smell. It was an effective way of neutralizing them, Raph had to admit. He felt like an old man, slowly but surely being drained of the last dregs of his energy.

"Raph, you're like a furnace," he heard Leo murmur appreciatively, his older brother snuggling a little closer to his side.

"Probably has a fever," Donny diagnosed from his position on the far side of Leo, even if he seemed too tired to even be speaking. "Not a good thing."

Then Raph laughed weakly, because Donatello was not normally one to understate the facts.

Only Leo struggled a little when six burly men entered the storage unit to drag them away. Two grabbed Raph roughly by his arms and hauled him to his feet. He could hardly walk, so his legs slid on the floor behind him as the guards pulled.

They dragged him past tons of rusty machinery, even a dusty conveyor belt. Even though this part of the factory was currently empty, something in the air buzzed. As the guards dragged Raph and his brothers along, the buzzing seemed to grow steadily louder.

The guards hauled their charges around a corner, and Raph heard Donny gasp. He looked up, dazzled for a moment by the heavy-duty lights that crowded what could only be described as a makeshift stadium. Once his eyes adjusted, he could discern more of it.

People were everywhere, jeering at Raph as he was dragged amongst them. They hung off of the decaying remains of machines, situated around the space in some sort of circle that looked more like a writhing amoeba. They were gathered around so as to provide an explicit view of a raised, rectangular platform in the center of the action. The platform had obviously been hastily assembled from scraps of old metal and newly-purchased plywood, contrasting and ugly.

The most disturbing addition, though, was located on a separate platform a few feet behind the centered rectangle. This one was smaller in size, yet much more sinister in context. Three sets of manacles that looked as though they had been welded in place fairly recently hung from a wall of sheet metal that formed a backdrop for the tiny stage. People did not sit behind the wall, so as to be able to see the manacled side.

Raph took all of this in for approximately two seconds, then began to fight as fiercely as he could manage in the hold of his captors. Fear raced in his veins but the guards held on tight, continued to pull him toward the chains.

They were dragging him up the steps, he didn't have any control, he couldn't let them clamp those things over him like before, only somehow this was also different. Evil. His breathing quickened.

His guards outworked his weak muscles, pushing first one wrist then the other high above his head to be confined to the metal wall, stretched upright on a stage for all those gruesome people to observe. Raph turned his head to watch Leonardo fight his own losing battle, then Donny.

"Freaks!"

"Disgusting!"

"Look at those creatures, what are they?"

The crowd mocked them, but Raph kept his eyes trained on Leo, who held his head high with such austerity that it was impossible for his brother to appear anything but severely unattached. Leader-mode, Raph realized, and his heart clenched as his thoughts immediately strayed to Flame, who had betrayed him. Only Raph could pick out the faint wavering of Leo's imposing frame, the worry in his eyes as he counted too many, too many.

Without warning, the noise in the stadium came to a halt, and this was much worse than the hateful words Raph had not entirely managed to tune out earlier. Worse because something was about to happen, and the horrible silence was pregnant with frankly terrifying possibilities when Nathan sauntered into the circle of bright light in all of his regalia.

If nothing else, Nathan certainly seemed to take his new-found position as the head of a monarchy seriously. He wore traditional-looking robes made up of thousands of strands of rich fibers, all in a pale gold color that clashed horribly with his excessive tattoos. Numerous rings adorned each of his fingers, fat precious metals, and a simple band of gold inset with rubies waited on a pillow in the hands of Demetri, just to officially crown the new king. The haggard old man limped behind Nathan like a lost puppy, clutching the crown's plush throne.

Raph cast a quick glance at his brothers. Leo's eyes were narrowed in a fury Raph only saw when he pushed his brother too far, while Donny was simply appalled.

Nathan ascended the large rectangular platform, holding up his arms to a suddenly cheering audience. He turned dramatically, the golden robes swishing slightly as he did so, until he faced Raph in particular. He waited until the crowd had quieted, and then spoke in a sickly sweet voice.

"Demetri, what time is it?"

The servant made a show of checking his watch before reporting, his voice crisp. "It is 11:55 pm, sir."

"Mmm, it seems our dear brother Flame isn't planning on making an appearance, after all."

Nathan looked Raph dead in the eye as he spoke this time, a smirk playing on his lips. Raph burst out before he could think better of it.

"What do you mean?"

Nathan's grin was feral, Leo shot him a look, and Raph discovered too late that he had walked right into some kind of verbal trap.

"Well, since I am such a generous and fair king," Nathan sneered, "I told Flame exactly when I had planned your execution at the hands of the people in terms he would certainly understand. I even offered him a chance to prevent your deaths; all he would have to do is show up here by midnight."

"Liar," Raph growled, because he couldn't fathom that Flame wouldn't try to do something, even if what they had wasn't love in the end. It couldn't be true. He would break if it was.

A gasp went through the room at Raph's preposterous accusation, even as Nathan grinned again. "I'm afraid not. Unfortunately for you, the monster-lover seems to have finally come to his senses. You need look no further than the simple lack of his presence; that alone proves that he consents to your removal at my hands. After this business is taken care of, I will allow my coronation to commence."

The crowd once again unleashed an uproar, screaming and beating on machinery with their personal weapons. To Raph, they looked enough like a mob with pitchforks and torches to fit his worst nightmares. He was going to be executed. Flame had known, and he hadn't even come to watch.

Nathan laughed as the crowd eventually settled, though he managed to choke out a clipped, "Time, Demetri?"

"11:59, my lord."

Out of the blackness, a voice as full of power as it was sarcasm pierced the crowd. He spoke coolly, like he had planned everything this way all along. "It's 11:58, actually."

With the demeanor of a aristocrat moving amongst business associates at a dinner party, Flame strolled leisurely into the circle of light. He even had the audacity to wink in Raph's direction.

Like I said, next chapter will be the last! I hope y'all are ready for it!

Reviews for the poor writer's soul?

-DauntlessAdrenaline