Summary: Takes place during the 2007 CGI movie. Leo finds out who the Night Watcher is in a completely different way...

Disclaimer: I do not own the turtles. *Images what it would be like if I did and grins evilly*

A/n: Finally updating this. Sorry for the wait guys, had a new idea for this chapter, which my mazing beta readers, Amonrpheonix and DarkUnderworld. Thank you so much for our great ideas and your use of medical terms. I'd be lost without you :)And the beautiful cover was made by the amazing TheThirdAetas. Thank you so much for your lovely artwork :D

-Redemption-

~Normal POV~

Casey looked up from where he was pacing around the living room, hearing Don's lab door open. Michelangelo emerged; looking more bedraggled and despaired then when he was waiting to actually see Raphael.

"What happened?" Casey demanded, following the forlorn turtle through the living room and into the kitchen. "Is Raph okay?"

"Why don't you just go in and see for yourself?" Michelangelo muttered quietly, leaning with his hands against the counter, his shoulders slumped in defeat, head bowed.

Casey shifted anxiously from foot to foot, unsure of what to say or do. He wanted to go and see Raph; really wanted to see his friend again, even if he was grievously injured to the point where he might die. But from both Mikey's and Leo's reactions, a tiny worm of dread had crawled into Casey's stomach, making him ask himself if he really did want to go and see Raph for himself.

Yes, Casey thought sternly to himself with a nod of his head. I have to go see Raph. He's my best bud. Casey didn't add to himself that once he had seen Raphael for himself, he'd know for sure if his friend was going to be okay...or not.

No one was in the living room as he strode past. Leo was still in his room, Master Splinter was meditating, April had gone out shopping for supplies and Don...well, hopefully Don was finally getting some much needed sleep.

Opening the door to Don's lab as quietly as he could, Casey stuck his head around the door and looked around the darkened room. There was no one in there apart from Raphael's slumped form on the table, wrapped nearly from head-to-toe in bandages and cords that hooked him up to various machines.

Stepping into the room and closing the door softly behind him, Casey swallowed down the nerves that had risen inside of him and carefully picked his way over to his best friend's side. An old blanket covered his legs from view, but exposed the rest of him. Casey winced at the colourful bruises that adorned Raphael's skin, and the stark whiteness of the bandages that stood out against his once, bright and vivid emerald green skin, which was now pale and tinted a sickly yellowish-green.

Casey could just see his chest rising and falling with the barest of breaths, not much, but reassuring none-the-less. Because Casey knew that as long as Raphael was breathing, he had a chance to pull through, no matter how slim or how many odds lay stacked against him.

Slumping into the vacant chair by Raph's bedside, Casey only just realized how utterly exhausted he was. He couldn't remember the last time he had slept properly. He knew he had caught one or two hours on the couch the other night, but that was all. Rubbing his heavy, tired eyes, Casey picked up Raph's calloused, motionless hand in his own and squeezed it gently.

Casey stared at Raph's hand, his mind beginning to wander. Raphael always used his hands; he was much like Casey in the same way, never being able to keep still. Those hands would always be in motion; curled in angry fists, white knuckles slamming into his punching bag, or a Purple Dragon's face; hands moving with an unusual amount of grace and precision whenever he twirled his sai; hands clapping his brothers on the back, or hitting Mikey on the back of the head; hands curled lightly around a beer bottle as he sat back and relaxed with Casey...

His hands were calloused and battle scared, rough from many years of punching walls, fighting for survival and manipulating various weapons. The hand Casey held in his own now didn't look like Raph's, it was clammy and cold, limp and fragile looking.

"Come on Raph, you gotta pull through buddy," Casey whispered, leaning forward and clasping Raph's wilted hand more tightly in his own. "Raph, ya' just got to get better."

Raphael remained silent, motionless, and unresponsive; the faint rise and fall of his chest and the slow beeping of the heart monitor were the only indications to Casey that his best friend was still fighting to stay alive.

"Remember...remember the first time we met?" Casey asked, talking more to himself than to Raph. "At first I just thought you were some dude in a costume. I remember we were fighin' in an alley. You were tryin' to knock some sense into me...but I was too stubborn to listen. I'm...I'm glad you followed me to the park that night, Raph. You saved my sorry ass, but...you also became the best friend a guy could ever have. And... And I don't want to lose that, Raph...

"You have to recover; we gotta keep bustin' heads and fighting dirty scumbags. We'll find the people who did this to ya,' Raph, and make em' pay.

"Please, Raph...I need my best bud," Casey trailed off with a soft sob as memories of the accident washed back into his mind.

He could see what was left of Raph's beloved bike, now a twisted bit of smoking, dented metal. He could remember carrying Raph back up the slope to the waiting car. He could remember how heavy he was, and could remember that with every step he took, Raphael might not be breathing. He could remember the horror of having to hold his thrashing body down as April attempted to set his leg; the horror and fear that had consumed him and gripped him like a vice when Raphael had stopped breathing. He could remember the hopelessness as he tried to force air past cold, blood stained lips, down Raph's throat, and into his unresponsive lungs; and the moment of pure relief when Raphael managed to take a shuddering, gasping breath of precious air.

"Oh God," Casey choked as his body was wracked with sobs, a single tear slipping down his cheek and falling onto Raphael's own cheek.

He wanted Raphael to wake up, but knew that he couldn't, and wouldn't until Donatello decided that Raphael should be awake. Donatello had informed all of them that he would be in a medically induced coma for at least a month, if not longer, depending on how his injuries healed.

"Just...you'll get better. Soon you will be walkin' around and bustin' heads again. But you have ta bounce back first. So you fight. Ya 'hear me, Raph. You fight, cause you gotta. We'll never find out who did this to ya if you die on us, and then you'll be real pissed that you didn't get your revenge. So you'd better keep breathin'!" He hissed vehemently.

Casey sat silently for how long he wasn't sure. He had probably managed to even fall asleep, at least he believed he had, because a soft, but firm hand on his shoulder made him start awake in surprise.

He looked up into the tired, drawn face of Donatello who removed his hand and walked to Raphael, adjusting the blanket so that it covered his body again.

"Any change?" Casey asked hopefully, even though he knew there would be no change. The only change that could happen at the moment was if Raphael stopped breathing, or if his heart finally ceased beating. So technically, any change at this moment in time was something he would not wish for.

Donatello, of course, took his question in the way Casey had intended to ask it, and so just shook his head negative. "As long as there is no change, it's a good thing right now." Donatello's words echoed Casey's own grim thoughts, and so he just nodded in understanding as Donatello continued his thought. "Raphael's heart rate looks stable, the ventilator is breathing for him without problems, and most of his wounds have stopped bleeding through the bandages. All we can do now is wait and hope that he continues to improve."

Casey watched the bright green line jump its way across the heart monitor screen. He took a deep breath and sighed. It was not a comforted sigh, but it was also not a sigh of irritation; it was a sigh of bitter acceptance. There was nothing that he could do, but hope and pray that Raphael recovered.

Donatello looked at Raphael's heart monitor in horror. His heart rate was much, much too high. Donatello could feel the worried eyes of his friends and family boring into him as he swore vehemently.

It had been three days since Raphael had been dragged into his infirmary a bloody, broken mess of mangled flesh and broken bones. Donatello had been terrified that Raphael would not live through the night; but he miraculously had. He had survived the long hours of surgery required to piece him back together again, but Donatello had known that even though the surgery had been a success, that his brother could still slip away from them into the haunting, chilling, oh-so-tempting arms of death.

Donatello had watched with some amount of relief as Raphael had improved slightly every day. Wounds began to heal, bruises had begun to fade, but these small improvements had slowly begun to be overshadowed by, larger more frightening concerns. Raphael's skin had not returned to its healthy emerald green; instead it remained a sickly disturbing shade of yellow-green which denoted sickness or infection. And now this same yellow-green skin-usually cool to the touch- now burned with intense fever.

"Donny?" Leonardo's shaking voice called him for the third time as Donatello ignored his oldest brother yet again. His mind was furiously trying to understand what was going on with Raphael, and he couldn't take the time to answer his oldest brother, because time was something he strongly believed he was short on.

Donatello looked at Raphael's yellow-green skin, his fevered body drenched in sweat, but shaking with cold; his too fast heartbeat and low blood pressure. "His kidney's are failing, his body is shutting down." Donatello said quickly rushing across the room tearing open a drawer and yanking out a fresh needle, ripping open the packaging before running back to Raphael's bedside.

"Donny?" Leonardo tried again, fear breaking through the usually calm tone of his voice.

"Leo, stop talking to me!" He snapped irritable; unable to completely calm his own fear that bubbled up within him, trying to overtake his mind, and numbing his shaking hands from performing the task at hand. Which was getting a blood sample as quickly as he could before his brother succumbed to what Donatello believed was septic shock.

He managed to find a vein, and with shaking hands pulled a sample of blood from his brother's arm. "Raph's kidneys are deteriorating, probably his liver and his lungs as well." He spoke quickly, not even bothering to keep the fear and panic from his voice as he rushed over to the blood analyser that he custom built and was placed in a corner of his lab. He just needed a positive reading. If he knew what was causing the shock, then he could administer the correct antibiotics to treat the infection that was causing Raphael's body to go into septic shock.

He ran Raphael's blood, the sudden long, drawn out tone from the heart monitor slicing through all of his thoughts. His head snapped around, his eyes confirming what his ears were already telling him.

"Get the defibrillator!" He yelled as he ran back to Raphael's side, his eyes frantically searching the steady, motionless green line that sped across the screen of the heart monitor. He adjusted the table so that Raphael now lay flat, deathly pale, and unmoving on the flat surface.

Someone -he didn't look, nor did he care who- placed the needles of the machine in his hands. The high pitched wine of the machine broke the deadly silence of the room. "Clear!" He shouted as he slammed the needles through his brother's plastron, hoping to drive the electrical charge through to his brother's heart more efficiently than a set of paddles would have done.

Raphael's body jumped from the table, only to settle back, the whine of the flat-line on the monitor only interrupted by the anguish sobs of horror and grief that came from his family.

"Don't you DARE die on me, Raphael!" Donatello snarled fiercely as he pulled the needles from his brother's body waiting for the machine to charge again. The whine reached its pitch and he tried again, the needles entering as they had before, jolting his brother's body upright before slamming back down onto the table, one arm hung loosely and swung back in forth the only way the dead can do.

Donatello looked at the monitor desperately and noticed no change, just the steady continuous tone of the flat-line filling his ears with the clamouring of his own failure.

Leonardo's hand gripped his shoulder, his brother's fingers like icy claws digging into his flesh. "He...it's okay, Donny, you did... everything that...you could… He's in a better place… without pain." Leonardo whispered comfortingly, as if accepting Raphael's death as an option.

A numb disbelief settled around his shoulders, and he shook his head back and forth in denial. He was not giving up, not yet. He couldn't. He couldn't accept Raphael's death, not yet, not until he felt that all hope was truly lost. He twisted the dial on the machine to the highest setting, shrugging off Leonardo's comforting grip. "Charging," He barked firmly.

"Donny…" Leonardo tried softly.

"I said charging." Donatello snapped, his sole focus on his hot-headed brother who had always fought to live, no matter the odds stacked against him; Raph would want him to keep fighting for him.

One final time he plunged the needles through Raphael's hard, protective plastron and shot the pulse of electricity through his already abused body. His body jumped and lay unmoving, but this time there was a small, weak beep of the monitor that was followed by a stronger beep. But Donatello knew it wasn't good enough. Raphael's body was still shutting down, and he did not have the time to figure out what type of bacterial infection had permeated his brother's system, setting off the chain reaction that caused the sepsis to occur.

Donatello powered off the defibrillator and threw down the needles as he ran towards his fridge. He pulled open the door, his eyes frantically searching the names of the antibiotics that were scrawled across each bag. It was like a hellish game of Russian Roulette. His hand darted out snatching up a bag, slamming the door of the fridge closed he ran back to Raphael's bedside. His shaking fingers managed to place the bag on the metal stand. He quickly hooked up the bag to the IV that was already dripping into Raphael's arm.

He took a step back and tried not to break into tears, but felt the salty wetness slip down his cheeks anyway.

"My, Son?" His father inquired in a voice that shook with stress and grief.

"He... I...I..." Donatello whispered wretchedly. "I may have just killed him." He said as he watched the clear liquid drip down and run into Raphael's arm. Each drop could be salvation, or poison.

"Donny?" Leonardo's voice was thready and faint. Donatello's eyes shot to his oldest brother who looked to be hanging on by the thinnest threads of hope. Damp tears had already streaked their way across Leonardo's cheeks, his cerulean mask now stained a dark indigo with grief.

"Raphael has an infection, his body is trying to... to fight that infection, but this response has turned into sepsis, which causing dangerously low blood pressure. Not enough oxygenated blood is getting to Raph's organs so they are shutting down." He whispered miserably. "I didn't have enough time to get the results of the blood test I am performing, Raphael needed antibiotics now. Which means that I...if the antibiotics are the wrong type, they could kill him."

The still silence of the infirmary was painful. April's and Mikey's continued sobs and the heart monitor's steady weak blip of life, the only sounds that seemed to echo painfully around them; like a cacophonic dance of eternal slumber, fluttering around, teasing and taunting them with its thick, cloying, deadly presence.

"How long?" Leonardo's soft, grim voice broke the numbing trance that seemed to have enveloped everyone in the room.

Donatello bit his lip, hanging his head as if unable to quite grasp the finite concept of time. "We will know within the next few hours." His reply was forced out through a jaw too tightly clenched. "If...if I gave him the wrong antibiotics...there will be nothing I can do to bring him back this time," he whispered miserably.

At this moment in time, either the sepsis was killing Raphael or the antibiotics were, or -and this possibility was remote- he had managed to choose the right kind of antibiotics, in which case Raphael may be able to fight and pull through...

"But just... just in case... you...it may be a good idea to... to say goodbye," Donatello informed his family with a heavy, grief filled heart.

Somehow his words seemed to stun his family and their friends. It was as if he had placed the final nail upon Raphael's coffin and had his hammer was poised to strike the nail into the tender flesh of the wooden lid, ripping away all hope with brutal finality.

Leonardo was the first to recover, nodding grimly, his face pale but determined. He walked to their father and gently helped him over to the chair that was still pulled up next to Raphael's bedside.

Their father shook with grief, his fur damp with tears; he tried to stay as strong as he possibly could for his sons and their dear family friends.

Master Splinter talked softly to Raphael, clutching his frail, parchment tinged hand in his own, thin, fragile grip. Whatever his father said it was heartfelt but brief, as if he could feel heavy weight of the eyes that all watched him, waiting for their turn to say words that would tumble choke, and bite from their unwilling lips.

Master Splinter stood and waved away Leonardo's offer of assistance. Leonardo took up the abandoned seat, taking Raphael's hand delicately in his own; as if afraid his hand would shatter like precious china.

"Hey, Raph-"

The rest of Leonardo's words were drowned out by the blood that was suddenly rushing through his ears, and his heart which hammered too painfully in his chest. He felt as if his lungs had been put in a vice and someone was slowly crushing the air from these delicate organs. He couldn't catch his breath.

If Raphael died it was his fault, and now he was forcing his family and friends, one by one to march up to Raphael's slickly body, and tell him their final goodbyes. And yet he knew that he had no choice. Raphael might not be able to hear them, but if this one last goodbye gave his family and their friends comfort, it was something that he could at least give them.

He blinked when he realized that everyone was looking at him. Their eyes were red, cheeks wet, and shoulders hung in defeat, disbelief or some in bitter anger.

Donatello moved slowly towards Raphael's side. His feet like leaden weights he made it the short distance to his side. Donatello's eyes watched the heart monitor for a moment, and listened to the ventilator pushing air in and out of his brother's body, keeping him alive. He finally turned his attention to his brother's sickly yellow tinged face. He did not sit, would not allow himself that small luxury. He bent forward, not wanting to share his words of grief with anyone but the recipient.

"Raphie," his voice was faint, filled with regret and heavily laden with guilt. "I'm so sorry that... that I couldn't do more. And if...if the antibiotics were the wrong ones...I tried, Raphie. I did everything I could and I can only hope you don't...that you don't hate me," he whispered wretchedly. "I love you, Big Bro." He gently brushed his fingers across his brother's sweat slick forehead and stepped back.

He dashed the tears from his eyes, not sure how long it had taken them all to say goodbye -half an hour, an hour, two? - or how long he alone had spent bent over Raphael, pleading with his brother not to die, and begging whatever gods, or beings that controlled such things as fate, destiny and chance, that he had chosen the correct antibiotic.

The sound of his printer firing to life pulled him from his mind numbing thoughts. He looked over his shoulder and stared at the crisp, white sheet of paper that held the answer to the very question that tormented him.

He walked slowly to the printer, frightened to read the results, too frightened not to. He reached out a trembling hand taking up the sheet. He couldn't breathe, he couldn't think, and his stomach churned with icy dread. His eyes scanned the results and he felt the paper slip through numb fingers, where it fluttered unheeded to the floor.

A/n: Next chapter is written and nearly ready to upload. I just have to go back over it first and make sure there aren't any mistakes ;)

Let me know what you guys thought!

Till next time,

~Cat