I followed Morales out onto the deck, where she paused to speak with her crew. They were a motley mix of men and women. They all regarded me impassively. TMNT agents don't exactly make a habit of getting to know each other; it causes too much trouble, but this was more than that. They weren't the typical, detached stares of an agent doing a job. They were almost cold. I nearly shuddered, but managed to catch myself in time.

I'd been on a couple of bad missions. There were things, things, that could mess you up, mess with your head. Maybe the thing in Cuba was bad, worse than Morales let on. I nodded at the crew as I descended the ladder onto a short pier. They didn't acknowledge my departure. Morales continued down after me, and with a wave of her hand, sent her crew away.

I watched the boat speed away for a moment before following Morales. She led me down an overgrown path. We walked for a while. There was still daylight, but the trees here were tall and blocked out a lot of the direct sunlight. Instead, everything was cast in greens and shadows. A rustling overhead caused me to jump and glance around. "Spooky," I muttered. The air was still muggy and clingy, but ever since my exit from the boat, I'd felt a constant chill settled against my spine. It was making me jumpy. Morales didn't even flinch at the sound, merely continuing along the path.

"Uh, Captain Morales," I jogged a few steps to walk along next to her, "are you sure this leads to an airfield?"

She looked over at me, an odd glint in her eyes, "Why don't you see for yourself?" She pushed through the last of the foliage and exposed a small lagoon. There was a minute dock, with a plane gently bobbing in the water. Next to the plane, there stood a small shack, with one tiny window.

I made to walk over, but Morales put a hand on my chest. "Wait. The last plane was being watched."

I nodded and settled back into the bushes, adopting a surveillance stance. A good agent could sit still for hours. Leo, for example, had once spent eight hours crouched on a rooftop in New York, observing some smugglers. I could usually last about, oh I don't know, about eight seconds. I smiled, thinking of the constant head slaps I got for fidgeting during meditation, fidgeting during stealth training, just for fidgeting in general, really. Leo was such a stickler about those things. My smile faded as I thought of my brother. I really hoped they were all right.

"So is this some kind of secret TMNT station?" I asked Morales softly, tired of the oppressive quiet.

She shrugged, almost imperceptibly and somehow managed to answer me without moving her lips. "Not exactly. It's more of a weigh station for any of a number of undercover operations that work out of this area. TMNT doesn't have exclusive rights to its use." With that, she faded back into the shadows and left me to assume the conversation was over.

Morales and I stayed hidden for the better part of an hour, before she decided it was safe to walk over to the plane. She told me to get in while she talked to the pilot. I unlatched the door, pulled it open, and hopped up into the passenger seat. Morales stayed in the shack for a minute before coming out, without the pilot.

"Pilot not in or something?" I asked.

Morales shook her head, "He's there, but unable to fly the plane. I'll have to fly us there myself."

"Uh, what do you mean 'unable to fly the plane?'" That didn't sound ominous at all.

She grinned at the worry in my voice. "Relax. He's currently barfing into a bucket. It's just the flu. From the tone of your voice, you'd think he'd been killed or something."

I laughed, letting the nervousness flow out of me. "Ha, yeah, I guess I'm gettin' a little paranoid. What TMNT agent isn't?" I laughed again, but let it trail off as Morales started the plane and got us moving. I watched the water flash under the plane as we sped up. I was happy to be so close to home, but I still couldn't get rid of that chill.

I knew Raph was trying to be gentle, but running around with a stab wound was never comfortable at the best of times. I winced and felt my legs go out from under me. Raph staggered under my sudden deadweight, and we both landed on our knees in the dirt. Leo, from his position ahead of us, stopped and came back. He looked down at me, worry dancing across his features.

"Donny…" he began, but I didn't give him a chance to finish.

"It's fine, Leo," I said through gritted teeth. "You're not leaving us behind to go get help. We're not splitting up again."

I heard Leo sigh in frustration. He turned around and took a few steps, hands on his head. I breathed deep, trying to control the sharp pain just over my hip. I knew I was supposed to be the smart one. I should know that letting Leo go ahead to get help was our best option, but for some inexplicable reason, I didn't want to be separated. I wanted, no needed, my brothers to stay together. It was childish, but I just…I couldn't explain it.

I wondered if that was how Mikey felt. He felt things so much differently than the rest of us. He saw things in pictures and colors. I could tell you which way north was based on the position of the stars, but Mikey could find it because he said he felt which way north was. I didn't feel things. I knew things and did research to know things that I didn't already. Mikey went with feelings. He knew things because they felt right to him. It may not be the same way other people knew things, but it amounted to the same thing.

"I don't know what it is," I said softly. "I just want the three of us to stay together."

Leo turned around, "All right," he replied. "No splitting up. We'll take it slow. You set the pace, Donny."

Raph and I heaved ourselves back up, and we kept going. I kept my head down and listened to my brothers talk quietly.

"I studied the maps of the islands around our own," Leo was explaining, "and if I remember correctly, there should be a TMNT emergency facility somewhere around here."

"Can they get a message to Splinter?" Raph asked.

"Should be able to. Usually, it's not very heavily armed, two or three agents at most. They should have a communications bank, though, and with luck, some kind of transportation.

Raph grunted in acknowledgement and was silent for a few minutes. "What do you think happened to Mikey?" Raph asked Leo eventually, uncharacteristic worry slipping into his voice.

Leo glanced back at us over his shoulder. "I wish I knew. He must've gotten away. I mean, from what you said, it shouldn't have been a problem for him. Dr. Morris obviously didn't have him, or we would have found him in the house. I'm sure he's gotten in contact with TMNT already, and we'll find him eating pizza at headquarters asking us what took us so long."

"Yeah," I could hear the smile in Raph's voice. "That'd be just like Mikey. He better save us some. I'll have to kick his shell if he doesn't."

Leo laughed, before pausing abruptly. "Woah, woah, guys. There's a road up here."

We paused, just inside the tree line. "Must be an airstrip, too," Raph added, pointing with his chin at a plane slowly sinking to the ground."

Leo grinned. "If they've got a plane, they can get us back to New York. We're almost there guys."

I led the way up to the runway, crossing behind the plane, and up to the building. It was squat, gray cinderblock, but it looked beautiful to me after the past day. Raph and Donny followed closely behind me. Before we reached the door, a woman stepped out and leveled a gun at us.

"Just hold it right there, boys," she ordered in a Southern drawl, "you best identify yourselves before I give you a few more holes than God did originally."

I stopped and held my hands up in a placating gesture, "I'm Agent Leonardo Hamato, leader of team Renaissance, and these are Agents Raphael and Donatello Hamato, also of team Renaissance."

The woman lowered the gun. "I thought I recognized you, Leo," she grinned, "You were top of your class in tactics."

I smiled in relief, too. I didn't think she'd remembered me. Agent Greta Fields had taught tactics when I'd gone through training. She'd rotated out that same year, though, and been reassigned to a field post. She walked forward and pumped my hand, nodding to Raph and Donny.

"How'd you three get here?" She looked us up and down, taking in our battered clothing, lack of weapons, and general dishevelment no doubt. "Lordy, honey, you look like you're 'bout to fall down. Come inside." She urged us through the door and had Donny sit down in one of three chairs in the room. There were two sets of bunk beds off to the side and a small kitchenette in the corner. Another door led to what I assumed was the bathroom. Donny sat down with a soft exhalation and curled in on himself. Raph crouched next to him and ran a hand up and down his back, talking to him softly.

"It's a long story," I answered Fields' earlier question, "but right now it's urgent that we get a message to Splinter. Can you contact him for us?"

"Of course, hon, let me just get ol' Bessie up and running. We ain't exactly gotten our technology upgrade yet; it may take a minute. What can you expect, though, livin' down here in the boonies?" She went over to the transceiver and started setting it up.

I was just about to sit down myself, when I heard a thump from behind the door. I leapt back out of my seat and drew my katanas before I could stop myself.

"Oh, that's no bother," Fields said, flapping a hand, "Those are just a couple of guys we caught snooping around earlier. They were spying on us, watching from the bushes. We're sending them up to New York to be dealt with by the proper authorities. That's what the plane's for, in case you were wonderin'."

I slowly sank back down into the chair. "Do you keep all your prisoners in the bathroom?"

"That's where all the unwanted waste goes, hon," Fields replied absently, fiddling with some dials.

I snorted. She had a point. I looked over at Raph and Donny. They were still in the same positions. "How ya doing, Donny?"

"Peachy," he replied. He unfolded himself enough to look up at me, and I could see a sheen of sweat on his red face. That could have been from the exertion from earlier, but somehow I doubted it.

"Why don't you two get some rest? I'll talk to Splinter and explain everything that happened."

Donny returned to his original position, with his face pressed into his thighs. "Okay," he replied, voice muffled by his shorts. "I'm ok, Raph. You don't have to sit with me."

Raph ruffled his hair, before getting up and flopping onto one of the bunk beds. He was out as soon as his head hit the pillow.

I looked at my brothers, noting the bruises and the dirt. "We'll be home soon, guys," I said softly, "I promise."