Slowly, Raph worked his way down the fire escape to April's window. He was about to knock when he heard a voice from inside that was not April's. He bristled at the thought of an intruder. In full stealth mode, he hit the floor of the fire escape noiselessly, listening carefully.

"Stop it, Irma," April said. Her voice sounded totally relaxed, if not a bit annoyed. "I'm not telling you about my alleged 'secret friends,' and if I did have any, and they were secret, why would I tell you?"

Irma. Right, Raph thought. That's her friend that Casey doesn't like.

Of course April had to have company the one night that he needed her to be alone with her dad. The way this day had gone, why would Raph have expected anything different? Rolling his eyes, he pulled out his phone to send a text to her. She could at least excuse herself from the conversation long enough to tell her dad – and from the sound of the conversation, he would be doing April a favor by allowing her to change the subject. He started typing in his text when Irma spoke loudly.

"Okay, you won't tell me about your secret friends. Will you at least tell me why the heck you're dating Casey Jones?"

Raph stopped texting and strained his hearing, waiting for April's answer. This was actually perfect. He could find out what April thought of Casey without having to deal with the awkward task of asking her.

"I'm not dating him," April said. Raph wished he could peek through the window to see her face, because he couldn't get a read on the tone of her voice. "He's just a friend."

Ooh, friend-zoned, Raph thought, cringing on his friend's behalf. Still, he felt some small relief on Donnie's account. If April was talking to a friend about this, chances were that she was being totally honest.

"So why do you hang out with him so much?"

"He's a cool guy," April said, her tone suggesting a shrug.

Raph smirked. Well, Case, I guess you'll have to settle for being a 'cool guy.'

"Okay, but you can't tell me there isn't some guy in your life that you're not telling me about," Irma snapped.

Oh, for Pete's sake, Raph thought, returning to his text message. You have your answer, Irma. Shut up and stop pestering her already. More to the point, he wanted Irma to leave so that April could bail him out of his predicament. It was already 10:10.

"What makes you so gosh-darn convinced that I'm so madly in love with somebody?"

"For heaven's sake, you drew hearts all over your printout of the periodic table!"

April laughed nervously. "I just like to draw hearts."

Raphael's brow shot up. He stopped typing in his message. Hearts all over something science-y?

"You're a terrible liar! Who is he?"

"Fine. He, uh, goes to private school. I met him at this martial arts class."

Donnie, you sly dog, Raph thought, cracking a huge grin. You actually managed to get April to like you, you stupid dork. Being a few minutes late was worth discovering this information. As frustrating as everything had been today, it felt good to have some positive news to take home to his brother.

"What?" squealed Irma. "What's his name? Is he hot? Tell me everything!"

"Well, he's not exactly conventionally good-looking."

You got that right, sister, Raph thought, suppressing a snort. He went back to working on his text message, keeping part of his focus dedicated to their conversation.

As she continued, April's voice suggested that she was grinning. "But…he's pretty hot in his own weird way. He's seriously buff."

Seriously buff? Raph rolled his eyes. It must have been true that love was blind. It wasn't as though Donnie was a weakling, but seriously buff?

"What's his name?"

"I can't say," April said, her voice sounding embarrassed.

"You don't have secret friends, huh? You do! You have secret friends, and one of them is a guy you have the hots for! At least tell me about him, will you? You don't have to tell me his name."

"Okay. Well, he's really stubborn, and a little thick-headed. Okay, a lot thick headed."

Taken aback, Raph paused his typing. While Donnie was stubborn, he was anything but thick-headed. Well, maybe not, he could get so fixated on tech that he ignored everything else. But thick-headed? Raph could think of any number of words to describe Donnie's various character flaws, but thick-headed was not one that came to mind.

"He's got a really bad temper, too. But underneath all of that, there's a heart of gold. He really cares about family, even when he's acting like a total jerk."

Huh? Again, Donnie was a lot of things, but he wasn't a jerk. Who the heck was April talking about?

"The worst part is, he doesn't know that I like him at all," April continued, a dramatic flair entering her voice. "I may as well not exist. I mean, sure, he's my friend and everything, but he probably doesn't see me the way I see him. I'm forced to spend every encounter knowing those gorgeous, brilliant green eyes won't ever look on me in the same light I see him!"

Raph's stomach somersaulted. Buff. Stubborn. Thick-headed. Bad-tempered, a jerk sometimes, but really cares about family.

Green eyes.

April was talking about him. Not Donnie.

Him, Raphael.

His heart started pounding. What the heck, what the heck, what the heck…

He deleted the text message immediately, put his phone back on his belt, and retreated back to the roof. There was no way he was going to talk to her right after hearing that. She wasn't supposed to like him. She was supposed to like Donnie. Or Casey. Or heck, even some dude at her school would be fine. Somebody – anybody – not him.

April wore a triumphant smirk in response to Irma's dark scowl. Maybe that load of nonsense would finally get Irma to stop pestering her about boys.

Irma folded her arms across her chest. "April, you just described Montgomery from that stupid teen romance novel your aunt gave me! Replace 'martial arts class' with 'art class', and it's all the same."

Did I say martial arts? April thought. She shrugged. She had gotten so used to the word 'art' as part of that phrase that it just happened naturally. "Well, you know what they say – torture is unreliable, because at some point, people will just tell you whatever they think you want them to say."

"So seriously – do you have a guy you like or not?"

April slapped a palm to her forehead. What was it with Irma and boys? What was it with her aunt and boys? All of the pressure from Donnie and Casey fighting over her was bad enough – why was it so ridiculously important to everyone that she have a boyfriend? Why did drawing hearts have to mean she was in love with somebody? They had a certain symmetry she had always liked – and it was a fun challenge to get it just so when drawing them freehand.

"Honestly, no," April said, throwing her hands up in the air. "I don't have a guy I like. I don't have time in my life for a boyfriend. Why is that so hard for you to get? I just like drawing hearts!"

Sitting on the roof, Raphael's head spun. April liked him. April liked him.

She was right. He didn't see her as anything more than a friend. He had no idea that she liked him so much. How could he have not noticed? He saw her almost every day.

She thought he was seriously buff.

A tiny smile crept onto his lips. April thought he was hot. April thought he was hot! Chew on that, Casey!

Suddenly, Raph's stomach went cold again. What exactly was he supposed to tell Casey? Even more importantly, what would he tell Donnie? April meant the world to Donnie. Donnie might not ever speak to him again if he found out. There was no way he could do that to Donnie – it was always turtles first.

But Raph couldn't help but feel strangely elated by the fact that April liked him, that a girl actually thought he was hot. It was more than he had ever even dreamed of. Love was for saps like Donnie or Leo or Mikey, saps who were dumb enough to hope that any girl in the world would ever do anything but scream in terror at the sight of them. April wasn't an exception to that – she had screamed when she first saw them. If it hadn't been for the Kraang, she wouldn't have wanted anything to do with them at all.

No. No, there was no way that she really liked him. There was no way she actually thought that he was hot. She must have seen him, and was goofing off for his benefit. Or punishing him for snooping, or something like that. The next time she dropped by the lair, she would scold him for eavesdropping, they would all have a good laugh, and things would go back to normal.

He'd never thought of April as anything but a friend, and that wasn't about to change now. Even if she was serious, she would just have to learn to deal with the fact that he didn't feel the same way. If she really thought that turtles were good-looking, maybe Donnie would eventually succeed in catching her eye. He was tall. Girls were supposed to think that tall was handsome and dreamy, right?

Turtles first. Raph would never allow something to come between him and his brothers, least of all a girl. Nevertheless, as he worked his way back to the lair, Raph felt strangely lighter, and the sharp pain in his leg had receded into a dull ache, almost forgotten.

When he walked through the turnstiles, Raph groaned to see Splinter sitting on the sofa, reading a book. Splinter calmly put a bookmark between the pages and closed the book. "11:25. Fifty-five minutes late. Only eleven days without television."

Raph bit back a string of expletives. "Where's everyone else?"

"In bed, as they should be. We have training at five tomorrow."

"Hai, Sensei." Raph balled his fists tightly, clenched his jaw, and headed for his room.

"A moment, Raphael?"

Gaah! He could not catch a break today! "Hai, Sensei?"

Splinter gestured to the sofa. "Please: come and sit with me."

Oh, no. What could it possibly be now? "Hai, Sensei." Raph walked over and sat down.

Splinter leaned over and picked something up from beside his end of the sofa. Raph bit his lip, wondering what it was.

It was an icepack, wrapped in a towel. Splinter handed it to him. "How is your leg? Leonardo mentioned that you pulled a muscle."

Begrudgingly, Raph took the icepack and positioned it on the back of his thigh. The cold was soothing against the hot ache. "I walked it off, for the most part." Not that you care.

"Good," Splinter said. He leaned over again, this time producing a water glass and a bottle of ibuprofen. "Normally, I would prefer that you meditate through the pain – and I still encourage you to do so – but I suspect you may have some difficulty doing so tonight."

"Ya think?" The words were out of Raph's mouth before he could stop himself.

"As a matter of fact, I do. Take two of those."

Raph knocked back two of the small dull red tablets; Splinter reached over the side of the couch again. Wondering what it would be this time, Raph was startled to see Splinter's good teapot and a teacup. Splinter poured a cup of tea and handed it to Raph, then retrieved a second cup from beside the couch and poured himself a cup.

"Jasmine," Splinter said. "To calm the senses."

Raph had never much liked tea, but he knew enough about etiquette to know that turning this down would be inexcusable. He took a small sip – to his surprise, it was sweet. "You put sugar in this?"

"In your cup, yes. I do not prefer it myself."

Wow. With the sugar in it, and the fragrance of jasmine flowers drifting up from the steamy cup, Raph found that he actually liked it. It was soothing – and in spite of everything, he started to feel himself calming down. He mentally kicked himself for being rude as he remembered social protocol. Even though Splinter was his father and they were in a casual setting, this was rather big deal, especially considering that Splinter only pulled out his good teapot for formal occasions. Something about that teapot always had made Raph feel like he ought to be on his best behavior, or else. "Sensei, dōmo arigatō gozaimashita."

Splinter smiled broadly. "You are quite welcome, my son." The two of them finished their tea in silence; Splinter took Raph's empty cup and set it back down beside the couch near the teapot. "Fifteen minutes have passed. You should remove the ice."

Raph sighed and took the icepack away from the back of his leg. He had always hated the off of the fifteen minutes on, fifteen minutes off rule.

Splinter ran his hand along the length of his beard several times before speaking. "I understand why you had so much difficulty today."

A small amount of anger – greatly diminished from the effects of the tea – leapt up inside Raph's mind. "Why's that?"

"Because, Raphael, as much as you would like to deny it, you have great compassion and heart. You care enough for your fellow living creatures to see killing – when avoidable – as morally deplorable. Yet you also know that to allow another being to suffer is morally deplorable. If you had no ethical bearings whatsoever, no compassion in your heart, this decision would have been easy for you. I am proud that you struggled with the decision."

Raph's mouth fell open. "Then what was with you chewing me out earlier?"

Splinter cocked an eyebrow. "I 'chewed you out' not because of your struggle, but because you chose to avoid it rather than address it. You have created an image of yourself – an image where you are only a fighter – that does not reflect your true self. I know that you see compassion in yourself as a weakness, but it is your greatest strength. This is why I want you to step outside of your comfort zone – outside of the self-imposed limits of who you think you are – and discover who you truly are."

Raph nodded. He picked up his water glass and drained it. As he stared at the bottom of the glass for several minutes, he thought he might have figured out what Splinter would have done in that situation. "You would have put the Kraang out of its misery."

"Incorrect."

Raph jerked up his head in disbelief. "Then what would you have done?"

"Decisions like that can only be made by the person in that situation. I cannot know what I would have done, because I did not live it. When the line between right and wrong becomes blurred, there are no hard and fast rules. It is never simple. However, your answer has told me one thing: you now know that the best choice for you in that situation would have been to end the Kraang's suffering. If you had reached the other conclusion, thinking that life is not yours to take, that would have been right also. The problem was that you did not make a decision, and avoided it until it was too late. Fifteen minutes have passed."

Raph blinked in amazement, not just by Splinter's response, but by the fact that he so casually switched subjects. Raph repositioned the icepack, sighing in relief at the cold.

"How do you feel?"

"It doesn't hurt as bad as it did."

"I mean, how do you feel about yourself?"

Raph rolled his eyes. Feelings? Other people might have feelings – he had attitudes. Feelings were soft and squishy and messy, and Raph just wasn't that kind of…

Step outside of the self-imposed limits of who you think you are – and discover who you truly are.

He drew a deep breath, and allowed one feeling besides anger to slip up to the surface of his mind. "Ashamed." It startled him even as he said it.

"Acknowledge this, and work past it. Shame teaches us to learn and become stronger, but to cling to it tethers us down. The next time you are faced with a dilemma, Raphael, you will know what to do."

Surprisingly, Raph actually felt a little lighter. "Hai, Sensei."

Splinter stood up from the couch. "Know that I am always proud of you. Now – it is late. You should go to bed. Take the ice with you for now, but do not fall asleep with it. You may take another dose of that" – he gestured to the ibuprofen – "before training in the morning."

Raph also rose, and bowed to Splinter. "Hai, Sensei. Thanks."

Splinter smiled fondly and replied with a far shallower bow. "Of course. Rest well."

As Raph limped to his room, he realized that he was already faced with another dilemma – the issue of April's affection for him. It was another dilemma he simply couldn't ignore until it was too late, but he certainly had time to think about it. In the morning, when his head was somewhat clearer, he would be ready to face the issue. For now, he was exhausted. After a few more minutes with the icepack, he pulled up his covers and fell asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow.