Elsewhen, years ago.

April wakes when the wind jostles the cage. She never really sleeps, but sometimes she manages to slip into a half-doze, where her hunger and thirst don't matter as much.

She knows there are better uses for her time: some of the bars are loose, and all of them are rusted. With a little effort, she might be able to break a handful, crumble them to nothing. All she needs is a hole big enough to slip through — not that it would be very big at all. She's just a shadow of her old self.

It's pointless to try. Even a little effort is beyond her. She can barely lift her hand, and when she finally manages it, it's shaking so badly she can't even curl her fingers into a fist.

I'm dying, April thinks, and for the first time, the thought doesn't bother her.

It's not so bad. The worst was four days in, when her thirst left her groaning on the floor of the cage, her mouth thick and clumsy around a dry scrap of tongue. People yelled, and threw things — rocks, bits of trash, nothing with a drop of moisture — but she barely noticed. All she wanted was water, something to fill her mouth, cool and wet and slippery, sliding all the way down to her shriveled belly.

Now she's at five days, and April thinks — no, she's sure — she won't see a sixth. And that's fine, it's fine. The guys got away; she saw that much, Karai forcing her head up to watch their retreating shells. Mikey had looked back, his face grey, but Leo had dragged him away. Casey and Raph ran on the flanks, and Alice —

Alice made it. Wasn't that enough to hold onto, while everything else slid past her? She'd done that much right. At the end, with Karai's blade at her throat, April made sure her family got away.

And I made Shredder pay. She smiles at her hand, then lets it fall to the floor. Did I ever. The last of the Footbots, their circuits melted to slag. Without the Kraang, who would fix them?

It almost makes this squalid, public death bearable. There won't be a last-minute reprieve for her; Shredder won't descend from his great spire to offer her a chance to switch sides. She won't be forgiven.

Fine. He can take his forgiveness and his temptation and shove them up his ass. He can choke on them. They're not even his to offer; they're the Boar's, and anyone with a brain can see that.

I didn't break when I was sixteen, April tells herself, and I'm not breaking now.

Of course, when she was sixteen, she had friends, she had a family, and they never left her. She never faced her battles alone. Now, she knows, she'll never see her family again. Never hug Alice, never lean her head on Mikey's shoulder, never —

The word doesn't quite make sense. Not yet. April thinks that never is a word no one understands until they're jammed right up against it, with nowhere else to go. She's getting there. A few more hours, and she won't be able to lift her hand. A few more after that, and she'll stop breathing, and then she'll be past never, out into the dark, where nothing can reach her.

She curls around herself, every joint creaking and aching, and shuts her eyes. There's no shame in wishing her end would move its ass and get here a little sooner. She's no good to her family anymore, and she's barely any good to Shredder. Her entertainment value has waned; no one stops under her cage to throw things or laugh or spit. Death has robbed her of any purpose, and now all she has left is time.

Time's a dangerous thing. Too much of it, and her mind turns to quieter, softer times, when she could afford to be stupid, and laugh and not worry about who heard her. When she still had Donnie, never more than an arm's reach away.

Donnie, eight years gone, searching for a spear that April no longer believes exists. He wore his cape, the purple faded to grey, and he kissed her hard under the stairs, his hands in her hair, like they were teenagers again, not half-dead and terrified.

I'll be back, he promised. We can still win this thing, April. We've got a chance.

Then he was gone. He walked into the night, over the fields, and he never came back. And stupid stupid her, she still believes him, she still believes he'll keep his promise.

Not stupid. He always keeps his promises.

But eight years is a long time to wait, and April is so very, very tired. Her family is safe, and that's better than she could have hoped. And maybe Donnie is still out there, still searching, and he'll come home to his brothers, and to Casey, and to their daughter.

What a funny word, daughter. April smiles again, chapped lips curving, her eyes still closed. She never got to tell Alice the whole story about how they found her. That's all right. Donnie will tell her when he comes home.

When it starts to rain, she forces herself not to lick the water from the floor, and then she starts to shake.

March 30th.

April comes back to herself — her world, her body — to find that Donnie's gotten her into a chair, and thrown one of his old wool blankets around her shoulders. He crouches on the floor in front of her, chafing her hands in his. For once, April realizes, her hands are colder than his.

First time for everything, she thinks, then jolts at the sound of her own voice. Donnie's mouth tightens, his hands going still.

"Are you okay?" he asks. His voice is low; no one outside the lab will hear, no one will know what they saw. April swallows, blinking away a film of tears, and nods.

"Are you sure?" Donnie rocks back on his heels, eyes warm on her face, but there's something in his expression that doesn't quite match the gentle way he's still holding her hands. "We both saw —"

"I'll be fine," she whispers. "I just…" She slides one hand from Donnie's and rubs it over her face, shivering at her chilly skin. Well, of course you'll be cold, she tells herself. You were just facedown in a cage, out in the middle of the winter. You're freezing to death.

Starving, she corrects herself automatically. The other April had been starving.

"Oh my god," she says, and covers her face. It all floods back to her — the wind, the icy metal sticking to any bare skin, and that horrible, gnawing hunger, burning away in her belly. Her body dying around her, muscles turned to water, and bones to sand. Dying.

Donnie's heavy hand cups the back of her head, her cheek. All he says is her name, a soft croon meant to comfort her, and nothing else. It almost, almost helps — but what fills her, in every inch that's not still echoing with borrowed, familiar hunger, is one thought: I was dying, and you weren't there.

There are more pertinent questions that April needs to be asking: is this another trick of the Boar's tops the list. They have to keep working, they need to fight. She doesn't have time to huddle in on herself and try to get warm, but all she can think is I was dying, and Donnie was already dead.

"April?" She lifts her head and meets Donnie's gaze, still warm, anxiety pulling at the lines of his face. He's close enough for her to recognize that unfamiliar element in his expression: it's anger, straining at a tight leash. "What can I do?"

The unspoken question underneath it makes April flinch. Donnie's not just asking her how he can help, but how he can fix this nightmare that's been forced between them.

But beyond the hunger, the pain, and the lonely, wailing grief, April remembers one thing — a gift, her gut tells her. Trick or not, this one thing is true.

There's a way to kill the Boar.

April sits up straight, shrugging off the blanket. It doesn't matter if what they saw in the portal is true or not. Whether the sensations echoing in April's body are real, shared across universes, or whether they're just one more way for the Boar to worry away at Donnie's defenses — it doesn't matter. What matters is that April controls herself, and gives Donnie something to lean on before his anger turns inward, a sharper blade than any in the dojo.

She brushes her hair out of her face and tugs him close, even though the position is too awkward for a real hug. Donnie comes willingly, sighing against her neck, and a few of the hard knots in his shoulders dissolve.

"The Boar's a bastard," she says with her mouth against the dome of his head. "Whatever that was — we can do this. We can kill it."

Donnie pulls away to frown at her. The low light turns his irises almost black, faint red flaring along the rim. "You know that?" he asks. "You got that from the portal?"

"No," she says, squeezing his hand. "You're going to hate this, Donnie, but — that April? I felt her, I —" She hesitates when Donnie shakes his head, half-apologetic, ready to lecture her about pseudoscience, then pushes forward. "Donnie, I'm serious."

"I know," he says, and it's only because this is Donnie that it doesn't come out patronizing — but only just. April closes her mouth and waits, biting the tip of her tongue. "But the Boar — April, it made me think you were dead, before." His voice barely stutters over the words, and April marvels at Donnie, at how he protects himself and at how he always pushes forward, never stopping to let himself rest. She squeezes his hand again, and he squeezes back, faintly. "It's probably another trick," he says, resignation in his voice and in his eyes. Donnie is so tired, and he'll never admit it.

He looks old, shadows adding decades to his face, and for a moment April sees him not as her Donnie, tired but determined, but as the lost Donnie, broken-fingered and alone, shuffling through a deserted lab.

Was that her Donnie? April thinks. It'd be a sick kind of symmetry - exactly the kind the Boar would love. But at least he's alive. Maybe he got out. Maybe he came home.

She's the one who deals in faith, but April knows that it's too much to hope for. The other April died, and she died hoping her Donnie would come home. That's all there is to their story.

Not hers, though, and not her Donnie's.

"There's a way," April says, knowing that it's only because Donnie loves her that he doesn't roll his eyes, or sigh too loudly. "Donnie, I know there is —"

"Because you saw it in the portal?" he interrupts. "April, the Boar lies."

"I'm not," she says, her own temper leaping up before she can keep it out of her voice. Donnie's eyes flick toward the door, and she inhales, nodding. "I don't," she says, a little calmer. She has to be the other April's voice, now that that April can no longer speak.

The thought leaves her full of clutching grief. You died, she thinks, and I'm so sorry. There's no answer.

"Every lead's worth following," she says, trying for reasonable as Donnie stands up and leans against the desk, rolling his shoulders. "How many times has Sensei said that no matter how careful your enemy is, they always let something slip? You just have to look carefully."

"Against the Kraang and the Foot, maybe," Donnie says, smiling wry and crooked at her. "But we're a little out of that league now."

"Fine, maybe," April says. She stands up too, not wanting to leave any unnecessary distance between herself and Donnie. Part of it's selfish, a quest for more warmth to banish the cold inside her, but most of all it's wanting to be near him, making up for all that lost time - a phrase that's more apt than ever, now. His arms wrap around her easily, as if this is a practiced dance, and not an argument over one more impossible crisis. "But," she says, leaning her head on his plastron, "I know this is important, Donnie."

He sighs. April grins, knowing the sound by heart: he's capitulating, just a little, indulging her as always. "Okay," he says, holding her closer. "What is it?"

"There's a weapon," she says, her attention so focused on not thinking of that other Donnie, lost and wandering, or maybe just lost, broken away from his brothers and everyone who loves him, that she doesn't feel Donnie's breath catch. "It's a spear, and it — Donnie?"

"Did you say a spear?" he asks, voice bright and wondering.

Angel seems to relax once Leo maneuvers her into the kitchen. He finds her frustratingly hard to read, and wary too, turning to watch him whenever he shifts. But Mikey doesn't worry her at all, so Leo sits at the kitchen table, in plain sight, and lets Mikey steer the conversation while he watches the girl.

"Angel, my friend," Mikey says airily. He drapes himself on the stool next to Angel's, and smiles at her over his folded hands. "You are going to love it here."

"It's a sewer," Angel says, her mouth twitching. She's trying hard to resist Mikey's charm, but Leo feels her willpower steadily crumbling. "I don't know how you guys stand it." Her cheeks flood with red, and Leo watches the realization hit her: they don't have anywhere else to go. "I — god, I'm sorry, I —"

Mikey waves the apology away, already up and bouncing toward the cupboards. "Don't even worry about it. I mean, yeah, it's a sewer, you got me there, but we have got this place hooked up. Right, Leo?" Without waiting for Leo to reply — and even if Mikey had paused, Leo wouldn't have opened his mouth anyways — he keeps talking, throwing open cupboard doors and pulling out cans and bottles. "We've got amazing wifi, like, every video game and movie ever, I told you about the hot tub, we got some awesome showers, and seriously, check it out, we even have crumpets." He shakes a package at Angel, who gives him a bewildered look, then glances at Leo before she remembers she's supposed to be ignoring him.

Leo just sits and watches. This girl, wrapped in April's old clothes, her hair unwashed, was touched by a god. Leo needs her to feel safe, because safety means talking and talking means answers for Donnie. He already knows what to ask; he just needs Angel to give him the key to unlocking her secrets. Until then, he's a shadow.

"I don't even know what crumpets are," Angel says. "Are they like English muffins?"

Mikey gasps, and presses the package to his plastron. "Don't even know — haven't you heard of cricket?"

"I — what? Yeah?" Angel shifts back on her stool. Leo watches one thin eyebrow arch as she turns her profile to him. "What's that got to do with crumpets?"

"You gotta know what cricket is, to understand crumpets." Mikey opens the package with his teeth. "At least I think that's how it goes. I mean, it's England, so whatever, right? All that matters is that they're tasty."

"If you say so." Angel turns in her seat to look at Leo. Is he for real? she mouths, wariness briefly forgotten.

Leo reminds himself to thank Mikey later, and spreads his hands wide. Pretty much, he mouths back. "You want some tea?" he asks Angel out loud, nice and light, just testing the waters.

A faint frown darkens Angel's face, then disappears. She nods. "Yeah, tea'd be nice. You guys have like, milk, and stuff?"

The water's just fine. Leo nods at the fridge. "Milk's in there, sugar's somewhere around here."

"On it, bro!" Mikey slides the sugar bowl and three mugs, tea bags already inside, across the table, then spins back to fuss with the toaster. "You good with cream cheese, Angel?"

"Yeah, I'm good with cream cheese." A little smile tugs at the corners of her mouth, though she doesn't turn it on Leo. "But I'm not that hungry, so don't like, stress about it." Her stomach rumbles as soon as she stops talking, and she shrinks down into her borrowed hoodie, miserable red blotches staining her cheeks.

"Mikey's always ready to eat." Leo stands up to grab the kettle as it clicks off. "It's no trouble at all."

"I just don't —" Angel pauses, blowing out her cheeks and dragging fingers through her hair. "I broke into your friend's apartment, I stole her clothes, and now you guys wanna feed me?"

Leo almost asks, and how did you find April's apartment, but he pauses to weigh his options. He could push now, and risk Angel's belligerence becoming armor, or he could wait, and possibly watch his key drift out of his grasp. He doesn't have April's intuition, but he can read what he needs in Angel's face, finally, and he decides to push.

"Well, that seems to be our fault," he says. He shoves a mug at Angel, nods when she stares at him, eyebrows puckered. "Mikey said something about…being tainted." He says it as gently as he can, but Angel curls her hands up into the sleeves and shakes her hair over her face.

"I don't want to talk about it," she says. Leo hears the warning in her voice: she'll claw him if he goes any farther now.

Gently does it, he reminds himself, and moves around Mikey to get the milk. His brother widens his eyes at Leo in question, and Leo shakes his head, an order to wait. Mikey rolls his eyes, his tongue hanging out of his mouth briefly, then turns back to the food.

"How much milk?" Leo asks, from a safe distance. Angel doesn't move, not even a shrug, so Leo puts the milk on the table next to her and goes back to his stool, his attention outwardly on his slowly steeping tea. But he's still watching, waiting for the claws to retract, waiting for —

"It's not really your fault," Angel says softly. Mikey lets his humming fade away gradually, and Leo reaches for the sugar bowl. It's a simple prop, but it does the job: Angel keeps talking, wiping her face with her sleeve. "Like, you didn't know, before you got there. You just wanted to talk, right? I just — the Bull told me to carry the message, and he'd keep Gran safe. He said I'd be okay too, as long as I didn't go in the lair, or talk to you guys. But then you were there, and I didn't know what to do. God, I'm such a dumbass, I don't know what I'm doing, I listened to this random guy and now look where I am." She sniffs and scrubs her nose. "This city is so weird."

Leo laughs. "Angel, you have no idea." Over at the counter, Mikey shakes his head, his shoulders shaking with a laugh. "If I'm honest, I'm hoping the Bull was a little more forthcoming with you than it's been with us. My brother Donnie —"

He grits his teeth against a sudden wave of pain, as the deep cuts in his arms sing to life.

"Donatello will know what he needs to know, when he needs to know it," says Angel. All inflection has evaporated from her voice, and her hands fall limp to her lap. She slowly swivels her head to look at Leo, her mouth hanging slightly open, and her eyes so wide the whites show around her irises. "You all test and test," she adds. "You, April. You all must learn respect."

"Leo —" Mikey says. Leo silences him with a slash of his hand, his pulse pounding in his mouth.

"Don't do that," Leo says. "She's not your puppet. Whatever you're doing, stop."

"You are not my leader, Leonardo." Angel's head tilts until her ear almost rests against her shoulder. Leo flinches reflexively, already hearing bones and tendons cracking, but the Bull doesn't push the gesture. It's trying for curiosity, Leo realizes, with a sick rush. It's trying to make her look human, as it uses her body.

"She agreed to be my messenger," says the Bull. It straightens Angel's head, and lifts her hands to rest on the table. "I am not hurting her."

"It's not right," Leo growls, still sick, but now, hot anger courses through him. Good; it's easier to ignore the pain. He holds his anger back, wills his hands to steady. "You're playing with us, you're playing with Donnie and you can't even be bothered to talk to him. What's your game?"

He shouts the last words, control fraying as the last two months come crowding in: April falling, Donnie's guilt, Donnie's weariness, Casey and Donnie bleeding, Karai, Karai —

"You are lucky," says the Bull, in its dead version of Angel's voice, but Leo leans across the table, as close as he dares. He sees Mikey crouch, legs poised to spring, then fixes his attention back on the Bull, and its borrowed body.

"Yeah? Tell me how. Surprise me."

"I will say this once more, child," The Bull raises Angel's hands from the table. "You all would be wise to learn deference."

It shoves him out of his stool, flat on his shell. Not hard enough to hurt, just enough to startle. Mikey yells his name, but before Leo can sit up or draw breath to respond, the Bull leaps over the table and shoves Angel's face up against his.

"I will do this one thing," says the Bull. "Since you demand it. Let me surprise you, Leonardo." The Bull leans in, Angel's hair brushing Leo's face. "Tell Donatello these two words: the spear."

"The what —" Leo's breath is knocked out of him as Angel collapses on top of him, limp and sighing. "I — Mikey, give me a hand!"

Together, they ease Angel up and prop her against the kitchen table. She's pale, but her breathing and pulse are steady.

"What the hell, Leo?" Mikey whispers. "Are we ever gonna be done with this freaky stuff?"

Leo rubs his face, relieved that his hand isn't shaking. "I don't know," he says. "Come on, let's find Donnie."

"I'm right here," Donnie says from the doorway, his shoulders almost blocking April's bright gaze. "Is everything okay? What happened?"

There's no good way to explain; Leo already hates himself for adding another puncture wound to Donnie's ego. "We got a message for you," he says. "You'll never guess from who."

Donnie's face empties. "Really," he says. "And what did it have to say this time? More waiting? More patience? More —"

"Just two words," Leo interrupts, his hand still on Angel's wrist, counting her pulse. "It said, the spear."

Donnie's mouth drops open, his voice astonished and so, so young. "The spear?" he asks, faintly.

"Far be it from me to say I told you so," says April. "No, wait, I told you so."

Karai takes her place at the far edge of the perimeter. On the surface, being relegated to the outermost circle is a punishment, and she made a show of protesting when the Boar ordered her out of its sight. All noise, all smoke — but Karai's grateful for the exile. Watching the city means she won't have to watch what goes on behind her.

Of course, on a night as still and cold as this one, there's nothing to keep her from hearing everything.

Slash rattles the cage, snarling when a woman shrieks, then laughing when her shriek collapses into tears. Karai waits to feel revulsion; she's always hated weakness and nothing will change that, but she feels nothing in the space where her heart used to be.

"Yes," says the Boar, its voice delighted. "Oh, Slash, my prize, you have brought me such…" It laughs, throaty, rich, and the woman's sobs go shrill, hopeless, desperate.

Karai plants her feet solidly on the asphalt. Someone may run; it'll be her job to catch them, and drag them back to the Boar. No one's tried it yet, but there's always the chance. What will she do, then? Will she bring them back to the Boar's teeth?

Will I? she thinks, her eyes turning west, toward the Foot's old church.

Tonight's catch is a small one. As fast as Slash is, word travels faster, and the homeless are wising up and leaving Manhattan. It won't do them good for long, not when the Boar's hunger keeps growing and growing, but they'll be thankful for another night left alive. Karai thinks of the first feeding, how carelessly the bodies were dropped in the alley, waiting for the turtles to come home and see the Boar's greeting.

"That one," says the Boar, and the crying woman shrieks again, the sound harsh enough to make Karai flinch. She smells the woman's terror wafting toward her in a thick acrid cloud, and out of nowhere, a voice tells her to run.

Get out of there, Karai, while it's distracted. Just run as far away as you can.

She shuts her eyes as something fragile shifts inside her chest. The voice is familiar, a hand held out to her, a rescue, a promise. It's Leo's voice, the last thing she wants to hear.

A heavy thud behind Karai cuts off the woman's shriek and leaves her moaning. The Boar laughs again, the sound now tinged with madness, barely a laugh at all, and then —

Then the Boar starts to feed.

Karai is too far away to hear the most important sounds, but she can imagine them easily enough: teeth snapping through fat and muscle, a faint gurgle as blood fills a torn throat, fingernails scratching at the asphalt. What she does hear, as clearly as if she stood at the Boar's side, is the Boar laughing around each bite.

Everyone left in the cage is screaming now, rattling the bars themselves as they try to get away. How many of them are left? Five? Six? Karai didn't look when Slash brought the cage into the alley. She didn't want to see. She didn't want to know.

If someone tries to run, would she catch them?

Would you? Leo asks, and briefly, the smell of blood and urine and sweat disappears, and Karai smells Leo. Soft leather, beeswax, so close she can almost feel his skin under her hands.

Would you have brought them back?

Leo would want her to say no. He would want her to say that she's capable of something more than self-preservation. But the truth is, if anyone's getting a chance to run, Karai wants it to be her. She used up whatever altruism she had trying to warn Leo to get out of the city. Her one selfless act and she squandered it years ago, because she made sure herself that Leo would never listen to her again.

The Shredder taught her that inaction was cowardice; that one should choose a course and set oneself to it, regardless of the cost. There was honor in determination and in staying true to one's path, which Karai always thought was a way to make his vendetta sound like justice and not like an obsessive, pathetic quest for vengeance. He'd call her a coward if he were still alive, a waste of his time and effort.

Fine with her. She may not help someone escape, but she won't help them die, either. She still has her withered excuse for honor.

It almost makes her smile to think that both her fathers would be disappointed in her.

She's so distracted she doesn't feel the Boar's approach, or smell the blood soaking its robes. When its hot fingers clench around the nape of her neck and lift her like a kitten, she hisses and thrashes mid-air, but can't fight her way free.

"Your thoughts are far away, my lovely," whispers the Boar. Its teeth glisten, wet and red, as it looks up and smiles at her. "Are they with the brothers? With your Leonardo?" It licks its lips, a ravenous little murmur leaking out around its tongue.

"He's not —" Karai begins, still kicking, scratching at the Boar's fingers, but the Boar flings her to the side like a piece of trash. She hits the wall shoulders-first and only loses half her air, and pushes to her hands and knees, instinct telling her to run.

She gets one step before the Boar appears in front of her, wide red mouth gaping as it shoves her back against the wall, blood dripping from its chin to her chest.

"You disapprove," says the Boar. The hot stink of its breath makes Karai retch — that's blood and skin clotted at the corners of the Boar's mouth, and its swollen belly presses against hers as it comes closer. Karai feels its touch plucking at her thoughts, the contents of her skull as bare and open to the Boar as the streets of the city once were to her. "You think…you think this is dishonorable."

There's no point in denying it. The Boar sees everything, knows everything. Yes, yes, Karai does think it's dishonorable. Maybe she's finally learned remorse, or maybe it's Leo's voice in her head, but there's no honor here. This is a slaughter of the helpless. It's nothing that she wants a part of, coward or not.

You'd be so proud of me, Leo, she thinks. Last time counts for everything, right?

"Yes, I do," she hisses, narrowing her eyes against the stench, facing the Boar dead on. Where's this resistance coming from?

Does it matter? says Leo. Keep going, you're doing great.

Shut up, boy scout, Karai thinks, almost giddy as the Boar reels back, its inky eyes wide.

"Honor," it whispers. "Honor, honor. Oh, my lovely Karai, my sweet Karai, I wonder. How does honor taste?"

It fastens its bloody mouth on Karai's neck, just above the curve of her shoulder. She screams as its teeth pierce her, shamed and agonized as the Boar worries at her skin, down to the muscle.

The Boar's teeth snap together; it jerks its head back, and Karai's vision goes white as the agony crests, a whole new realm of pain. From very far away, she thinks she can hear the Boar chewing.

"Honor," says the Boar, almost primly, once Karai can focus again. "It tastes just like the rest of you, Karai." It turns away, leaving her gasping and bloodless — but not painless, no, not at all — on the asphalt. She feels the sweep of its robes against her cheek and turns her face to the ground, trying to catch her breath.

"Slash, my prize," says the Boar. "I want something more. I want a meal, not these morsels." Karai hears it slaver, wet and thick, the laughter creeping back into its voice. "I will not wait. No, no, I will not, no. I want them all, I want them."

Karai covers the hole in her shoulder with one hand, and tries to turn herself over. She manages to twist onto her side, in time to see the Boar smile down at her, the bodies heaped behind it.

"Shall we look to the new warhounds?" says the Boar, reaching down to stroke Karai's hair, the way Karai would pet a cat. "Yes, it is time to see how my harvest has fared. I think oh, yes, I think this new field will raise a much healthier crop." It digs its fingers into Karai's cheeks, just below her eye. "Much healthier than yours," it purrs.

Raph doesn't hang around to watch Donnie and Mikey play nursemaid to the new kid. As soon as Mikey carries her into the common room, he shoves out of his beanbag chair and heads for his room. Leo glares at him as he passes them, but Raph waves him off.

"What? You want me to stick around and play doctor? No thanks, you guys've got this covered." One look tells him that the kid is still breathing, and she's not bleeding, so he figures she'll be fine.

And if he's honest, he's sick of this weird crap. Whatever happened in the kitchen, he doesn't want to know. He just wants five minutes to catch his breath, to think about something that isn't a pile of bodies in an alley, or whatever made Donnie and April walk out of the lab like zombies. Raph's not a wimp, he's not, but he's so tired of always having to raise his weirdness level that he'll start punching holes in the wall if they make him stick around.

It's not like he's any good at this doctor stuff anyways. Better that he just walks away, and lets Mikey do his thing, instead of standing around trying to look helpful, like April and Usagi.

"Let me know if you guys need anything," he says, after a second's thought. Leo's glare softens — he gets it, thank God — and he squeezes Raph's shoulder, quick and hard. Then all his attention is on the kid, and Donnie quietly counting her pulse.

He hopes Casey's sacked out in his room already, but when he pushes the door open, his covers are still rumpled from when he didn't make his bed that morning. Casey's not reading at Raph's desk, or messing with his drums. The room doesn't even smell like him.

If you're trying to work out, you're a bigger dumbass than I thought, Raph thinks, and closes the door. He hears the faint splash of one of the showers, and a little tension eases out of him. Just a shower. A shower's fine.

Raph hasn't ignored how beat Casey got. It's just, Casey hates it when people notice that kind of thing, and he likes to play the tough guy. Usually, Raph lets him, until Casey tries to work out or go to practice and then ends up making everything twenty times worse. Then he throws Casey into bed and keeps him there until the bruises fade or the sprains heal, because Casey may be an idiot, but he's Raph's idiot, and the thought of something happening, really happening to Casey, makes Raph's stomach collapse into a greasy knot.

But Casey's in the shower, which means Casey's fine. Unless he isn't.

Raph walks to the bathroom, because running means admitting something's wrong, and there's no reason for it. Casey likes the showers in the lair. They've got better water pressure, more hot water - Casey can stay in there for hours, singing and getting armpit hair all over Raph's soap and cackling about it later, and he's fine.

I'm freaking out over nothing. Raph nudges the door open with his foot, and walks into a dark, steamy room — a shower's running, but the only lights on are the ones over the sinks, on the far side of the room. And there's Casey, his shirt off, peeling away his bandage.

"Hey," Raph says over the rush of the water. "You good?"

Casey nods. "Yeah, just checkin' this, making sure I'm not growin' mold or anything." He hisses as he pulls the bandage off and tosses it into the sink. "Shit, that still hurts."

"Wimp." Raph leans his shell against the sink while Casey prods and swears at the half-healed gouge on his side. "Suck it up, princess."

"Fuck off," Casey says. "I'm not the one with anime girl powers."

"You asshole —" Raph snaps, then rolls his eyes. "Whatever. Hurry up and take your shower."

"Aw, Raph." Casey pouts at him, injury forgotten. "We could make this a moment. You, me, a shower — come on, it'd be hot."

"Not with everyone in the other room. God, just get cleaned up." Raph pushes Casey's face away when Casey leans in for a kiss, but he smiles, relief and annoyance mixing heavy in his gut. "Something weird happened with that Angel kid. We should probably check it out."

"Weird how?" Casey asks. He balls up the bandage and throws it in the trash, then rinses his hands in the sink. "Gimme a baseline."

"Yeah, I don't even know where that is anymore." Raph sighs and rubs his shoulder. "Just take your shower, okay? I gave them some space while they looked her over, but they might need help, I don't know."

"Aye, aye, Captain." Casey ambles toward the showers, kicking off his boots and socks as he goes. Raph watches him, his annoyance fading away and a lazy, peaceful haze replacing it. Casey's fine.

"I'll be out there," he says, heading for the door. Casey may not mind a spectator, but Raph's not in the mood to start something they can't finish, or at least can't finish right. But there's that unease again, ramping up the farther he gets from Casey, slick and twisting under his skin.

Raph's hand hits the doorknob, sliding on the wet metal, and then Casey screams, the sound boiling out of his throat to ricochet off the stone walls.

"What the f — what is it?" Raph slaps on the rest of the lights, trying not to slip on the tiles as he turns around, trying to find Casey in the steam. "Casey! Case, what is it?"

No answer, just another scream, and another. Raph finds Casey on his side, curled tight around himself, one leg kicking the wall as he twitches and screams.

Oh god, Raph thinks. Oh, my god. "Leo!" he bellows. "Mikey! Don! Get in here!" He sinks down next to Casey, tries to pull Casey's hands away from the wound on his side. "Case, what's happening, what's happening?"

"Inside," Casey wheezes, his eyes squeezed shut. "Moving, aw, Jesus, Raph, it's moving."

"Okay, come on, let me see — dammit, Case, let me help." Raph finally pulls Casey's hands away, ready for blood or bone or God, anything but what he actually sees: a jade-green cloud shifting just under the healing skin on Casey's side, moving in slow, rolling waves.

"Raph," Casey says. "Fuck, Raph." His hands scrabble at Raph's arm, and his eyes meet Raph's for the space of two heartbeats. Then Casey screams again, the skin on his side stretching, shredding, and the cloud pours out of him, claws and teeth forming as it touches the water.

Raph yells for Leo one more time before the warhounds drag him under.