March 14th, 1:03am.

"Your city smells like filth," Usagi says.

We heard you the first three times, Raph thinks, keeping his eyes forward. If he turns his head, he'll see Usagi's smug little face, and he'll see how Usagi's nose is twitching at the smell of filth, and then Raph is going to have to punch him. More than once.

At least the rain's stopped. For the past week, it's been nothing but rain, and as soon as Mikey and Donnie plug one leak in the ceiling, two more show up. Usagi could be thankful for that, but no, he's got to complain about how much the city stinks. With everything they've got going on, he's got to bitch about the smell.

Raph's more glad than he can ever say that Usagi decided to stick around and try to help them keep their shit together, when no one would have argued if he just wanted to peace out back to his dimension, but he wishes like hell that Usagi would shut his mouth. So New York stinks. It's not like Usagi is stuck here, or has to live in the sewer for the rest of his life. He's got somewhere better to go, whenever he wants. So if he doesn't like it, he can leave, and they'll deal with the smell on their own. It's what they've always done.

Usagi sighs, sniffs, and that's it. Raph's going to punch him. He can't help it; he managed to last two hours into patrol without saying shit, but he's hit his limit.

As he turns, already clenching his fists — just one punch, on the shoulder, he'll even pull it at the last second and pretend it was a joke — he catches Mikey's eye.

Mikey shakes his head. Just once, but Raph deflates completely.

If the first rule of the turtles is don't fuck with family, and the first rule of Casey Jones is don't fuck with April, then the first rule for dealing with Usagi is don't be a dick to Leo's best friend.

Leo's mancrush, Raph thinks, and glares back at Mikey. How the hell am I gonna get through four more hours of this?

Leo swings back up to the roof, without the grim set to his mouth that means he found trouble. "We're clear for the next two blocks," he says, sheathing his katana. "Let's move."

For the next hour, they dart over rooftops, one member of the team ranging ahead to count the next few blocks before doubling back to the group so they can all move on together. It's nothing like the rhythm Raph perfected with his brothers over the last decade and a half; Raph can't help feeling like they're not getting anywhere, even when he can look over his shoulder and see how far they've traveled. He wants to sprint off in one direction, and to know that Leo understands he's not just taking off for no reason, but to cover as much ground as possible. But he's stuck either waiting or circling back before he can run, and he feels jittery, impatient, like he's gotten into Donnie's coffee and then been forced to watch TV with Master Splinter, instead of working the caffeine off in the dojo.

With Usagi as the fourth member of the patrol, he can't run. They have to be patient, work Usagi into their routine, adjust to fit his skill set. It's not that much of a challenge — what do ninjas do? They adapt — but Raph doesn't want to adapt. He wants to fight, and he wants Donnie here, rambling about some new tech masterpiece. He wants Casey and April working the perimeters, watching for attacks on their flanks.

He wants it all back to normal.

Normal. Right. He lets Mikey pass him before the next jump, then crouches, relishing the gravel scraping under his feet as he pushes off, then springs into the air. There's always that one, stomach-flipping second when he wonders if this is the jump he judges wrong, and he'll slam into the side of a building, but he lands on his feet, already running. Leo and Usagi are at the other end of the roof, pointing and talking with their heads close, and Raph hopes that they've finally caught sight of someone worth pounding. It's been too quiet this past week, since the peach in the kitchen and Leo screaming and Donnie staring at them like he had no idea who they were.

Nothing good ever comes out of this much quiet.

Normal, he thinks again, as he catches up to the rest. When we just had random goons to worry about, not some mystical asshole. I hate my life.

March 6th, 9:30am.

Over Anna's cinnamon rolls — she sent enough to feed an army of teenagers, or four mutant turtles and their friends — Leo starts to talk.

Raph ignores him; he never has anything to add to the first part of planning, and most of the time, Leo doesn't include him or Mikey. He'll come up with his plan, then he hauls Donnie in to say "But what about this? Or what if there are butt cannons? And here's my latest weird invention that's totally going to save our shells if you let me use it". Once they've hashed all that out, that's when Raph and Mikey join the fun, and figure out where they'll be able to make the most noise, and break the most stuff.

That part's still a long time coming, so Raph zones out and focuses on his third helping of lasagna, making sure Casey stays upright and awake long enough to get some soup into him.

"No! No! Why is this even a question?"

Raph glances up, already scowling, because April only sounds like that when she's getting ready to cut someone off at the knees. Sure enough, she's glaring at Leo, her hand clenched around her fork like she's about to plant it between his eyes. It wouldn't be the first time she's tried. Ninety percent of the time, Leo and April agree on everything, but it gets ugly when April thinks Leo's being an idiot. And since both of them are too stubborn to ever admit when they're wrong, this argument could go on for hours.

"We have no idea what we're going up against," Leo says, in the exact tone of voice he keeps for when he wants to sound like he's listening to you and telling you you're an idiot at once. Raph rolls his eyes. "We need all the allies we can get."

"So hauling Martin and Timothy into this — whatever this is — is an option? You're fucking kidding me." She throws her fork on the table and turns to Donnie. "Oh my god, you're not considering it too, are you?"

Donnie pushes his plate away, and Raph has two seconds to process Donnie's thoughtful, distracted frown before April explodes.

"They're not soldiers!" she yells. On the edges of his vision, Raph sees Casey grabbing for April's arm, wincing, and Usagi flinching away from the noise with a wrinkled nose, like he's just stepped in dogshit. "I can't believe you two would even think this is okay."

"Leo might have a point," says Donnie, still thoughtful. "There are too many variables to be sure, but…"

"Oh, that smells like bullshit and you know it." April shoves away from the table, yanking her arm out of Casey's grip and sending him falling back against Raph's side. "Has there been some massive brain damage recently that I missed, or have you guys forgotten what happened the last time Timothy got involved? And Martin thinks it's all a game. He'll do it if you guys ask, but he won't get it. Fuck you, Leo, for even considering this."

Raph looks at Leo in time to see the first flash of real anger in his brother's eyes. Leo's gotten so much better about not taking criticism personally, but this isn't criticism, and Leo's about to say something he'll regret. Before he can, April keeps going, practically spitting.

"You want me to see if Kurtzman's free, Leo? You want to haul in an old man to fight some — some god with us?"

Leo stands up, his hands balled into fists. "We're down to half our strength, April. What choice do we have?"

"Anything but this!"

"Is he free?" Mikey asks, spearing a forkful of noodles and twirling them in midair. "We haven't seen him in a while."

April blinks, Leo blinks. Raph snorts, and covers it by coughing and pretending to check Casey's bandages.

"Who?" April and Leo say in unison.

Mikey takes his time replying, chewing and swallowing the noodles first, then licking his fork clean. "Kurtzman. Cool guy, for an old dude."

"Uh." April blinks again, shaking her head. "No, he's at some chess thing. He'll be gone for another month." She takes a deep breath, rolling her bad shoulder, then inches back toward the table. She's apologetic now, and Leo is deflated — just the way Mikey planned, Raph knows, and glances across the table at Mikey.

Mikey grins at him, sauce smeared at the corner of his mouth, and keeps eating.

March 14th, 2:57am.

On one of Mikey's turns scouting ahead, Raph finally says what's been on his mind for a week.

"You know, I agree with April. About not bringing in anyone else."

Usagi cocks his head at Raph, a frown twisting the scar over his eye, but Leo doesn't react. He faces Mikey's direction, head lifted high.

"Do you?" he says finally, still not looking at Raph. "You didn't have much of a problem telling me to send in Timothy before."

Raph winces, even though he expected that, but he's got a response all ready. "Yeah, I know. But you remember how much it messed Donnie up. He's still blaming himself for all of that."

"Timothy let himself get mutated." Leo jumps down from the ledge, landing so softly the gravel under his feet barely stirs. "None of us were going to stop him. It wasn't Donnie's fault."

"That's not my point." Raph inhales, the cold air stinging in his throat — and yeah, Usagi wasn't kidding, the city stinks. "My point is, Donnie's already got enough to worry about. This Champion shit? We don't know what it means. He's got to fight the Boar, but how? And you know he's all creased up over April and Casey too. Why give him anything else to worry about?"

"So the moral question does not trouble you," says Usagi. "It is the personal complications that do."

"Yeah, however you want to say it." Raph shrugs. "Look, Leo, I get why you want to do this, but maybe…maybe not now? Table it for a while."

Leo narrows his eyes, and the old impulse to push into Leo's space takes hold in Raph's chest. He still doesn't quite have the trick of not trying to bait Leo whenever he gets the chance, but he can resist. Most of the time.

"Can't use up everything we got at once," he says, and gives another shrug. "Just saying."

"It's not about a pre-emptive strike." Leo runs his hand over his head. "It's about having contingency plans. We're still down by three, Raph, and even if Donnie'll be back on his feet in another week or two, we've lost our eyes and ears. April can't exactly go home, and Casey's not going to be fighting any time soon. We're —"

"Hamstrung," says Usagi, when Leo hesitates over the words. "It is a good strategy," he adds, with only a wave of his hand when Raph glares at him. "Respect for one's enemy is a good strategy as well, Raphael."

"Whatever we're up against tried to eat Donnie and Casey. I'm not respecting shit." Raph shakes his head, and turns back to Leo. "We keep a little in reserve, just in case. And that means Donnie can focus on — whatever it is he's got to do."

Leo nods, not really agreeing, but not shooting Raph down either. Raph knows when to shut up — most of the time, he knows — so he backs off, and walks to the edge of the roof and looks out over the city.

He really hates to admit it, but Usagi's right. The city does smell, but not like filth. More like what stunk up April's apartment a week ago, rotted meat and —

Oh, shit. He backs away from the edge, ice creeping through his chest, but the moment he opens his mouth to call Leo and Usagi, he sees a flicker of movement on a rooftop two buildings away.

Raph tenses, his hands moving to the hilts of his sai, and crouches down, out of sight. The movement is gone, but he knows he saw something — no, he saw someone, because it sure as hell had two legs and two arms.

"You got something, Raph?" says Leo, from just over his shoulder. Raph jumps — it's never not going to be freaky, the way Leo manages to be absolutely silent — and squints back at the roof.

If anything or anyone was there, it's gone now. But that smell still lingers, clinging to the back of his throat whenever he inhales.

Probably just my brain messing around, since nothing's happened all night, he decides, and shakes his head.

"Nothing. Nobody," he says, standing and turning to Leo seconds before Mikey leaps back to the roof, out of breath and pointing at the sky.

A flash of jade-green light blinds them all as it erupts over the city.

March 13th, 3:38am.

Her leg and shoulder aren't aching, but April stands up to stretch her muscles anyways. She's felt fine for the past week, even with the lair cold and damp from the rain, but she doesn't want to risk a cramp by staying in one position too long. Besides, it's time to check on Casey, then to run the tests again, and see if she gets any new data.

The moment her chair scrapes against the floor, Donnie looks up from his microscope, eyes wide and unreadable.

"Everything's fine," she says. "Just going to look in on Sleeping Beauty."

That earns her a soft ha, but no smile, no easing of the tension lines on either side of Donnie's mouth. His shoulders are still stiff, begging for her hands to soothe the muscles under his skin, but April contents herself with one pat, one squeeze, and heads toward the common room. She hears Donnie turn back to his microscope before she's three feet away from the desk, but she knows he's aware of where she is, every step of the way.

He's said ten words to her at most since they started working in the lab at nine o'clock the night before, two variations on could you pass me that, but not wanting to talk doesn't seem to mean he wants her out of his sight. As soon as she moves, his gaze is on her, still a little stunned, a little frightened.

What did you see? April doesn't ask. The only thing crueler than not listening to Donnie when he needs to talk is forcing him to talk when he doesn't have the words yet. April isn't stupid; she knows whatever happened to Donnie between him slipping into the lab to talk to Jenny and coming back to the room with his head full of ice had to do with her, and she knows that he'll tell her when she's ready.

With the Boar's shadow looming over all of them, and the new weight of being the Champion weighing on his shoulders, April knows they don't have much time for Donnie to figure out how he wants to tell the story. She won't push, she won't press — but she wants to. He's dragged so much behind him all these years, and now she's ready to carry it for him, but he won't let her.

Give him time, she tells herself, and focuses on her test: what are her powers' perimeters, now that the Boar's done its work on her? Related: are her limitations based on proximity alone, or does staying within sight help? And is she still able to feel the turtles' and Casey's minds because she's felt them for so long?

How far can she go before she can't feel Donnie at all?

April know his mind so well; she's spent the last ten years being caught by surprise by its few jagged edges, being soothed by its calm weight. She can still sense him when she reaches the lab doors, warm, grey misery like goosedown in a dim room. Heavy as bags of sand, a taste like seawater on a cold day, broken only by the spear-tip of Donnie's intelligence. Yes, there it is.

With another step, it's gone.

She pauses midstep, trying to reorient herself. Fifteen feet. That's all she has before the gates come down and she's alone in her head.

Good to know. She rests her head against the cool doorframe and closes her eyes. It's ridiculous to feel like she's trapped when it's just her inside her skull now, without five other minds jostling hers, but she never felt hemmed in or caged before. Feeling their minds was an expansion, not an intrusion.

There are five steps between the outer edges of Donnie and Casey's minds. April wants to comfort herself by saying the walk feels like it goes on for centuries, or that every step she takes is harder than the last, but it takes barely any time at all, and each step follows the last without any extra exertion. It's normal to be the sole occupant of your mind, not the other way around, and trying to imagine anomalous qualities where none exist will do nothing but frighten her.

And really, April has enough to be frightened of, just as she is.

Casey's mind washes over her, like the sunlit water of the lake up by the farmhouse. Even sleeping, Casey's mind is never still, always roaming, questing for new space to fill with noise and light. It feels like well-worn flannel as April gets closer, and by the time she kneels next to the couch, she feels like she's wrapped in a heavy blanket.

"Hey, Casey," she says, not loud enough to wake him, and brushes the hair off his forehead. He's warm, though Casey always runs hot, especially compared to her and the turtles. It's not a fever, but April decides to wake up him in an hour and force some soup and aspirin into him, just to be safe. By then, Raph should be home, and can help if Casey decides he'd rather tough it out. Which, knowing Casey, he probably will; when Casey gets hurt, he tries to power his way through to the other side, like he can magically heal himself by being too stubborn for pain and medicine, and he's always furious when he ends up stuck in bed for twice as long. Like the time he got shot in the ass by some over-eager Kraang, then tried to go to hockey practice, and ended up with a blood infection.

Good times, April thinks, letting her head fall to the couch. My ex-boyfriend's an idiot. She rubs Casey's back, lifting his shirt to check his bandage. The gauze is snow-white, clean as it was when Raph changed the dressing before patrol. His breathing is steady, with a slight whistle as it passes through his teeth, and April finds herself relaxing, drifting into a doze as she listens to him dreaming. Maybe he's dreaming of Raph, and whatever passes for romance between the two of them — beer and rug burn and slinging arms over each other's shoulders when they think no one is looking.

She laughs sleepily. Her last two cups of coffee were an hour ago, and now her exhaustion is settling deep into her bones. Falling asleep in this position means she'll wake up with a wicked crick in her neck, but she's warm. Down in the lair, that's an unexpected blessing, and she should grab a few minutes of rest before the rest of the guys come home and the lair is full of noise again. Before her head is crowded again.

Smiling at the thought, April reaches up to snag one of Casey's blankets for herself, and hears him groan.

"Casey? You awake?" she whispers, inanely, more startled than she expected. "You need me to get something —"

"Pretty," says Casey, his tongue lolling in his open mouth. The word is thick, clotted, like his throat is full of mud, but he works his jaw, swallows, and tries again. "Pretty, pretty girl."

April shoves herself away from the couch, nearly falling on her back as she does, barely feeling the protesting twinge in her thigh and shoulder. She doesn't know why the words terrifies her so much, but something in her shrivels at their sound.

"No." Her voice is so small, as fragile as an insect husk, and every instinct she has tells her to run, but her muscles aren't listening. She can't even stand. All she can do is watch Casey's mouth as it opens and closes, panting the same words again and again. His eyes roll under his lids, but don't open.

He's asleep, he has to be, she thinks, her heart pounding. He doesn't know what he's saying.

But I do.

There was a woman, a woman all in white on the train, with a crooked smile and a smell like jasmine, and she did something, touched April, planted something in her, something that took ever so long to grow, but it found fertile soil in April's body and now it's growing, it's grown so huge.

Now it's in Casey.

"Pretty," says Casey, his eyes still closed. "Pretty, pretty, pretty."

"No!" April tries to shout, but her voice is lost. Instead, she raises her hand, her five fingers spread wide, and snaps them closed into a fist.

She doesn't know why she does it; there's no instinct or silent instruction telling her what to do, but as soon as she feels her hand clench, Casey's mouth snaps shut, and the words are gone.

"Dammit," he mutters a moment later. His eyes open a moment later, filled with his usual bleary annoyance at being awakened. "Bit my tongue." He grimaces as he swallows, and keep grimacing as he rolls onto his back.

He's asleep again within minutes, snoring the way he always does when he sleeps on his back. April lowers her hand slowly, uncurling her fingers as she does. A faint smear of color catches her attention; there, in the palm of her right hand is a tiny, perfect crescent of frostbite-black skin.

"That's — that's new," she says to fill the silence.

Just for the sake of argument, she lifts her left hand, palm-up.

A slash, white as whale bone, bisects her palm from wrist to knuckle.

"Oh, Jesus," she mutters. "You've got to be kidding me."

March 13th, 8:12am.

She's gotten a hell of a lot better at tracking over the past few months, but the freaks almost had her this time. Thank God that weird flash — whatever the hell that was — had distracted them, or she'd be in the shit for sure. The short one in red saw her, no mistake, but she got away before he could get a good look.

Next time, she'd get close enough to hear them talking. No way they were gonna run around her neighborhood without her doing something about it.

She stashes her sticks down in the laundry room of her grandmother's building. If Gran sees her with them, she'll have to deal with head smacks and hollering and just — no. She's too tired for that this morning, and she's got class in five hours. Just enough time to grab a nap and a shower, then to watch the news to see if someone's figured out what that flash was.

Not like New York doesn't already have enough shit to deal with. Aliens, mutant freaks, and now lights in the sky. And there was that smell, too, thick as maple syrup and twice as nasty as the dumpster out back of the butcher shop.

Too much weird shit. She can't let herself get distracted; she's gotta look out for her neighborhood first, for Gran and all her friends. And that means figuring out what those green freaks are up to, and leaving that light to the brainiacs.

Gotta be more careful. Might not be so lucky next time, she warns herself, kicking off her boots outside Gran's apartment door and toeing into her house slippers. "I'm home!" she calls softly as she opens the door, Gran's already in the kitchen, making breakfast. "Did you see that flash? What the hell do you think it — ow! Gran!"

Her grandmother backs away, hand still in prime head-smacking position. "Angel, you got too dirty a mouth for such a pretty girl."

She glowers, stuffing her hands into the pockets of her hoodie. "Told you not to call me Angel. I'm not ten years old anymore, Gran."

Gran reaches up and pats her cheek, shaking her head. "You're always gonna be my angel. Now, what's this about some light? You hanging out at the clubs?"

Angel laughs, flopping gracelessly onto the couch. "Nah, none of that sh —stuff," she says, when Gran pulls her hand back. "Just up top, you know, looking out."

"You should be sleeping, not running around looking for trouble." Gran puts her hands on her hips and shakes her head. "You work too hard. You need to take care of yourself."

"Yeah, who's gonna take care of you if I don't?" Angel pushes her hair off her forehead and gives Gran a hard look. "There's some weird guys out there."

"I got friends," says Gran, with another shake of her head. "You don't need to worry about me."

"I always will. And Anna and Sandra and all those ladies aren't much of an army. Not when there's…green freaks running around." Angel picks at her fingernails, not noticing Gran's unblinking gaze till the silence gets too heavy, and she looks up. "What? Gran, what is it?"

"You said green freaks?" says Gran. "You mean like, turtles?"

Angel sits up so quickly she tumbles off the sofa. "What? You've seen 'em? Gran, are you okay? Were they in here? Did they — did they hurt you? Oh my God — ow, Gran!"

"Don't you dare take the Lord's name in vain," Gran snaps, her eyes glittering.

"All right, all right, I'm sorry, but — Gran, you've seen those guys? Are you okay?"

"Four of 'em, right?" Now Gran's smiling, her blunt white dentures on display. She looks — happy, not freaked out like Angel would expect.

"Yeah," she says slowly. "Four. Got different colored masks, too. I only saw three of 'em tonight, though — they had some, like, rabbit with 'em tonight. I don't know. He was all dressed up like some kinda samurai. It was weird."

Gran bursts out laughing, clutching her stomach and wheezing hard enough that Angel has to haul her to an easy chair before she can recover.

"Oh, Angel," she says through a gasp, after Angel brings her a glass of water. "I don't know about this samurai bunny, but those green freaks of yours? They're nice boys. Sit down. I got a lot to tell you."

Else-when.

"No sunrise today," says Raphael. Leonardo hears the rustle of his jacket, then the creak of the old seat as Raphael settles in next to him. "Still want to send out the patrols, fearless leader?"

Leonardo nods. He sets his cup aside — not tea, just a few dried mint leaves in hot water — and stretches his fingers. It's not too cold today, not too wet either, and his knuckles aren't quite so swollen as they were yesterday. "Tell them to follow Wednesday's pattern. Can't have them getting predictable."

"You got it. I'll tell the squad leaders at shift change." Raphael leans back with a sigh. "How're you feeling today?"

"Fine." He tilts his head back and takes off his glasses. The room around him is a dull, grey blur, with or without his glasses, but he can see brighter spots of color: Raphael's skin, a faded pink blanket throw over a yellow couch. "No headaches, but vision's about the same as it was."

"You should get that doctor guy to take a look at you, the one who came in with the last group. He used to be a general practitioner down in Florida, back before."

"Sure," says Leonardo, slipping his glasses back on. "I'll get right on that, Raphael."

His brother sighs, an ugly, worn-out sound, but doesn't argue. They're not easy together, they never will be, but they've both learned how not to make the cracks any deeper.

"You heard from Mike lately?" he asks, when Raphael starts to shift like he's about to leave. The silence before Raphael responds is too long for the answer to be anything but no.

"Nah. Last I heard, he was somewhere up in Massachusetts. One of the supply runners saw him near the old farmhouse." Raphael sinks back into his seat, the cushions groaning. "He's still looking."

Leonardo shakes his head. "He should know better."

"You can tell him that if he ever decides to come back."

His hands want to clench into fists, but he'll pay for it later if he lets them, so he picks up his cup again, more to have something to hold than to drink. "It's been almost thirty years," he says, as calmly as he's able. "We're running out of time to fight. Mike shouldn't be wasting his time looking."

"Then maybe you should be doing a better job keeping your troops in order, Leonardo," says a new voice. Leonardo sits up straight, his cup forgotten, and feels Raph do the same at his side.

"You're back," he says, choking on the words.

"Yeah," says Mike. "For now. Needed to grab some stuff before I went out again."

He sounds so old, Leonardo thinks, on a wave of futile longing. They all do. Even the children born since the war started sound ancient, but it's Mike's voice that brings it home every time he hears it. He wonders if Mike still has freckles. There's no sun now to bring them out, but Mike always had them when they lived in the sewer, so maybe. Maybe. It'd be nice if some of those good days remained. Just this one thing.

"Again?" says Raphael. "Mike, seriously, you've gotta stop."

"No." It's a simple refusal, flat and empty. Leonardo closes his eyes, so his world is just black instead of variations on grey. "I'm not going to stop. There's something out there. A clue."

"If there was, we'd have found it by now." Leonardo mouths the words, feels them leave his throat, but they don't feel like something he would say. They've been following this script for so long that the words don't make any sense. Mike hopes, Raphael asks him to stay, and Leonardo tells him there's no more hope to be had. He doesn't need eyes to see that.

"If we'd all look together, maybe we'd find something," Mike argues, but with no real conviction. "Whatever. I'll be gone in the morning. You guys…yeah."

Leonardo listens for his footsteps to recede, or a door to close, but he hears nothing but his brothers' steady breathing. Even that sound is wrong, not quite whole, and he hates how it still hurts, how this wound won't heal.

"Leonardo, we're almost — Mike?"

Speaking of wounds, thinks Leonardo, opening his eyes. Alice is here, her hair vivid enough to be a blur of red even through his glasses.

"Hey, kiddo," says Mike, his voice light for the first time. "Looking good."

Alice laughs, and Leonardo imagines her shoving her hair behind her ears, and her bright, crooked smile. "Don't even start, we both know I look like hell. Hug?"

"For you? Anytime."

Leonardo hears them embrace, a quick, tight hug, and his brief wish that Alice would hug him is gone before Alice's footsteps cross fully into the room.

"So where've you been?" she asks. "Supply run?"

Mike hesitates, and Alice sucks in a breath through her teeth.

"Oh. Right. Stupid me." She breathes in again, loud enough for Leonardo to hear. Raphael stands up, leaving Leonardo alone on the couch. He can picture Raphael moving in to intercept Alice before she loses her temper, one hand on her thin shoulder.

"Alice, I —" Mike hesitates again, and Alice leaps in, talking to Leonardo now, as if Mike no longer exists.

"Casey gave me the evening patrol reports, so I'm ready to go over them when you are," she says, the soldier again. "Nothing new except some building collapses. We'll have to change patrol routes to compensate."

"Alice," says Mike. He's almost pleading. "Come on, you gotta understand."

She's giving him that look of April's. The shitlook. Leonardo is so sure of this he'd stake his life on it, not that there's much of that left to stake.

"You do what you want, Mike. It's not my business," says Alice, in the arctic tones she could only have learned from one person. There's one bloody, aching second when Leonardo thinks he hears another voice underneath hers, and even if he doesn't have it in him to hope, anymore, that things could get better, there's still enough of him left to wish they were still a family.

"He's my brother," says Mike, his voice choked and close to tears, "And they're your —"

"They're gone, Mike." Leonardo wishes Alice would throw her clipboard or shout, like the Alice of fifteen or even ten years ago would have, but she only sighs, a grey, weary sound in Leonardo's grey, weary world. "Hope's for idiots. When are you going to get over it? I did."

No, she didn't, Leonardo knows, but it won't help Alice to remind her that they're all orphans now, one way or another.