Chapter 22

It wasn't the first time he'd woken up totally confused, feeling like shit. By this point in his life, Raphael had a short list of go-to questions for such occasions.

Was he close to death, moderately injured, or merely hung over? He moved each limb very slightly and, encouraged by his ability to do so, lifted his head, his cheek peeling off the ribbed fabric that had imprinted its pattern on his skin through a thin film of drool. He turned over slowly, and a dozen protesting aches flared up like a mountainside of wildfires across his body. Moderately injured, then.

Was he safely underground, or somewhere vulnerable? There was deep red light on his eyelids; not at all a good sign. He lifted them to see long orange shafts of late evening sunlight falling through the blinds and across the lumpy sofa he was lying on. It seemed to take his brain longer than usually necessary to recognize Casey's living room.

Final question: what was the last thing he could clearly remember?

The answer to that made him jolt to his feet, furious at himself for having slept so long, even though his body immediately informed him that it could do with another thirty-six straight hours of unconsciousness.

He had staggered in the door just before dawn, the unrelenting stranglehold of his emotions having propelled him well past the point when physical collapse would have been sensible. Barely managing to answer any of Casey's shaving cream-flecked, obscenity-punctuated demands for an explanation, he'd exchanged a frenzied phone conversation with Mike and Don, during which, he recalled, he'd done a lot of fevered cursing of the Foot, Kan, Doshida, and Leonardo, before one of his brothers, he couldn't remember which, managed to convince him to hold tight at Casey's for the day and meet them as soon as the sun was down.

"Casey!" he hollered. "Casey! Casey!" He thrust his head into the kitchen, the bedroom and the bathroom before he heard the front door opening.

"Christ Almighty, the whole street can hear you. I was just in the garage, alright?" Casey threw his coat and keys on the table with an uncharitable glare. He was still sore over Raphael taking off with his motorcycle last week, leaving him for forty-eight hours under the impression that it had been stolen. Raph thought the fact that he'd been in life-or-death combat twice during that time ought to count towards forgiveness, but the man was funny about his bike that way.

Casey reached into the fridge for a can of soda, and looking at his friend, relented and offered him one. "You just wake up? You look like crap."

"Thanks a lot. Why'd you let me sleep that long? What time is it?"

"Chill out, the sun's barely gone down, you couldn't have left much earlier. 'Sides, you looked like you needed it, bad."

Raphael downed the can in three gulps and began rummaging on the coffee table. He found a pen and tore the back off of a junk mail envelope. As he scrawled a note on the paper, he said, "I gotta go, but I need a favor."

"Sure, show up at God-awful times, crash all day, and split. You're welcome and 'course I'll do you a favor." He made a disgusted noise through his nose. "What is it?"

Raph handed Casey the note he'd written. "Can you take it to Splinter tonight?" He added, "Please."

"You're kidding me. You haven't told him, have you?" Casey brandished the torn paper between them in disbelief. "And you're gonna get me to do it, with this?"

"I didn't have time to go back, and I don't now," he retorted. That wasn't true. Last night, he'd gone right past the junction that would have taken him to the lair, and had come here instead. Going home meant looking Splinter in the face and explaining that he'd abandoned his father's favorite son to the Foot. Even to Casey, he didn't want to admit he couldn't do it. "I'll owe you," he pressed. "I'll friggin' wax your bike with a toothbrush."

Either his face betrayed him or Casey wasn't his friend for nothing because he grumbled, "I'll do it, but you know it's not right." Then, looking at him with firm reassurance, "You'll get him back."

Raphael threw a brief look of gratitude over his shoulder as he opened Casey's window and dropped out into the dusk. He felt ashamed, knowing how little information and even less comfort his hastily scribbled words would give his sensei, but he'd had nothing else to say.

Sensei,

The Foot have Leo.

I'll bring them Doshida and get him back. Don't worry, I won't come back without him.

Raphael

###

Donatello watched his brother pace back and forth, back and forth, agitatedly, like a lion in a circus cage. He's going to wear a rut in the carpet, Don thought. He exchanged glances with Michelangelo, who was leaning, arms folded, against the wall, and who lifted his eye ridges in a nervous, 'now what?'

"Raph, are you listening?" Don asked.

With his teeth, Raphael ripped off a hunk of the bagel he had in his hand (the only thing he'd eaten since yesterday, Don figured) and said, between chews, "Yeah. So? What does all this mean?" He made an encompassing gesture at the computer, the papers, and presumably, the entire situation Don had been trying to explain to him.

"It means," Don said patiently, "We might be able to save Holly, and deal a major blow to Agete's business, if we can expose the fact that Doshida's been selling dangerous performance-enhancing drugs to a government military contractor."

Raphael stopped his pacing and pinned Don with an expectant 'and?' tilt of his head. "Did you hear what I said? Leo is in the Foot compound."

Donatello's stomach knotted at the words, but he said evenly, "I heard you. Several times."

"Who knows what they're doing to him," Raph muttered, pacing again, a vein starting to bulge on his neck.

"They're not going to kill him, not right away," Don said. "And I may be wrong, but Kan doesn't strike me as a sadist. Presuming he has control over his soldiers, they'll wait and see what we do, whether we deliver on what you promised."

Raphael choked on a pained laugh. "Look, I ran my mouth off for all it was worth, and then some. I don't have a clue where Doshida is. So are you gonna tell me how all this sleuthing of yours is gonna help gift wrap and deliver him?"

"I don't know yet," Don admitted. "But if the heat gets turned up on his business, Doshida's bound to show himself."

"We can't wait for that." Raphael swallowed the rest of the bagel in two chews and grabbed his sai, giving them a quick visual inspection before holstering them on his belt. "Leo saw the car that left Agete's building head into Hell's Kitchen. We might as well start there."

"Now?" Mike asked.

"No, next week. What do you think? C'mon, grab your gear." Seeing Mike and Don exchanging a look, he demanded, "What is it?"

"We can't leave Holly unprotected," Mike said. "She's the reason we're even camped out in this place."

Raphael blinked, then burst out with, "Well, we're sure as hell not sitting on our asses in here all night, waiting. Not with Leo in-"

"What did Leo say?"

"What?"

Donatello walked up to Raphael, facing him with a calm, steady gaze. "What did Leo say?" When Raph didn't answer immediately, Don continued, "He must have said something to you, about what to do after you got out. He wants us to keep protecting Chambers. Doesn't he?"

He could see he was right. Raphael averted his gaze, resentful shame flashing briefly across his face, like a lightning storm. "Fine, then. You stay." He shot a challenge to Michelangelo as he headed for the door. "Are you coming?"

"Yeah. I am." Mike put a hand on Donatello's shoulder as he passed him. The pressure of the squeeze he gave it, supportive, reassuring, lingered after he'd followed Raphael out into the night and the dark apartment was silent.