Ch. 15-Home

Jade stared concernedly down at the figure on the worn old mattress. It had taken her quite some time to get the turtle into what she had dubbed her 'Hideout. The teenage vigilante had found out about this place while going through her uncle's company papers. It was a huge underground storage area, originally intended to store top secret government equipment. Unfortunately, the whole operation was put on hold and eventually forgotten, which meant she had an entire warehouse-sized space all to herself complete with independent power generator and an elevator large enough to accommodate her motorcycle. Once she had discovered its location, all it took was a little bit of ingenuity to crack the electronic locks and everything was good to go.

She didn't have much in the way of furniture, just an old mattress, a couple of lamps and several large tables. Midori ran a gentle hand over the turtle's fevered brow, before pressing a soft kiss right between his eye-ridges.

After their really close encounter two nights ago, Midori had taken the turtle back there with her and proceeded to stay with him. Man, we're lucky things played out the way they did...or I wouldn't have been able to take care of him. She thought, her mind flashing back to that very morning…

It had been about forty-five minutes after Raphael left when there came a quite knock at Midori's window. She looked up, startled, raising an eyebrow when she saw the turtle standing outside, an unreadable expression on his face. Then, within seconds the reptile was gone. Midori went over, stuck her head out the window and looked up, noting the turtle was headed for the roof. And he was moving fast.

Something in the air waves told her he expected her to follow. The cool night air that swept into the room made her pull a jacket on over her pajamas before she stepped out of the window. Her loose pajama pants billowed gently in the wind, her hair getting swept into her face. Midori climbed the fire escape as fast as she could making her way to the building's roof. As soon as her dark green slippers touched the flat cemented surface, her eyes searched the darkness for the turtle.

Her honey-colored gaze landed on him after a few long moments. A loud cry of rage and hurt filled the air as Raph pounded his fists against the concrete stairwell. Midori approached him slowly, making certain he was aware of her presence. His sinuous green shoulders heaved up and down with every tenuous breath and she knew he was struggling to hold back tears.

Slowly, she reached out, pressing her light palms against the turtle's shoulders. That was all it took. All the tension that had collected there evaporated under her touch. The anger that had been boiling inside of him now completely drained, leaving only sadness, regret and hurt.

After a long silence Midori spoke, "Do you wanna talk about it?"

"No."

"Raph." She began sternly, about to tell him to let it go, but he cut her off.

"Ugh! I just…I can't—oh forget this! This is it! I just can't take it anymore! They want me to leave so bad, then fine! They'll get their wish! Why can't they just accept that I do what I do because I'm a fighter! This city is in my blood, it's a part of me and I'm not just about to let its people down. That settles it. This time I'm staying out and I'm not going back!" The red banded turtle turned away from her, but Midori reached out and grabbed his shoulder.

"You can't run from your problems, Raph. No matter how hard it may be you have to go back, stare them in the face and tell them what you just told me now." She paused, "Though albeit in a calmer and slightly more composed manner."

The green-eyed turtle turned to face her, about to speak but before he had a chance to do so, the door knob of the stairwell turned and the door began to creak. The mutant's eyes widened and he jumped back into the shadows.

"Midori? Are you out here?" Uncle Ryuu's voice called softly.

"Yes, Uncle I'm here." She replied equally quietly.

The six-foot tall man stepped out onto the roof and moved over to his niece. "Thank goodness you're here, when I checked your room and found you gone I was worried."

Midori waved off his concern, "I'm fine. I had some trouble sleeping so I decided to sit up here and enjoy the view."

Uncle Ryuu glanced around. "Yes indeed, it's very beautiful."

She raised an eye-ridge at him, "Is there something wrong, Uncle?"

The middle-aged man shifted nervously. He looked deep into his niece's amber eyes for a moment before replying, "I've been called out of the country on business."

Midori looked up, slightly surprised. "For how long?"

"I'm not sure. Two or three weeks most likely."

"Hm." She replied, turning her gaze back out towards the city.

"But before I made the plans I wanted to make sure that you'd be okay. Are you alright with this?"

Midori turned her attention back to his kind face and smiled softly, "Of course I am. I am a big girl after all. I can take care of myself. I think I can survive for two or three weeks on my own. We both know I've handled worse."

The tall, muscular man nodded. "Alright. If you're certain." She nodded. "My plane leaves at 3:20. Call me if anything happens, okay?"

"Okay." She said with a smile.

The great big man wrapped his arms around her and hugged her tightly to his chest. "Love you, kid."

"Love you too, uncle."

He smiled and brushed his fingers against her chin. "See you soon as I get back." He kissed her forehead and with one last parting smile he exited through the stairwell.

Raphael waited until he was certain the man was gone before he emerged from the shadows. The two teenagers exchanged glances and finally the turtle spoke.

"In that case…what do you say we go out for a run?"

"Don't you think you should head home?" She urged and his shoulders sank.

"Yeah…I'm not ready to face them quite yet. Think I'm gonna stay away for a little while. Just to—ya know—clear the air. Give 'em a chance to cool off." Though his voice was calm his entire body was practically shaking with nervousness. Obviously, whatever words had been exchanged in the fight earlier, where really sticking with him.

Midori gave him a sideways glance and nodded. Maybe it will help him work off the nervousness. "Alright, one round, then you're going home before your family members all have nervous breakdowns."

The turtle nodded, his bright green eyes glowing hypnotically in the moonlight.

Midori was pulled from her thoughts as a soft groan sounded from the figure on the bed. The teenager kneeled down by his bedside and looked him over. Raph's forehead was sweating as he had a slight fever, no doubt a result of almost drowning. Long, pale fingers lifted a wet washcloth from the bowl at her side and wrung it out lightly before placing it, soothingly, on the reptile's brow. Raphael flinched and pulled away with a small whimper. Midori cooed and pulled his head back in her direction, which was difficult considering that he was sprawled out on his plastron, the side of his head pressed into the mattress's soft surface.

Slowly, oh so slowly, emerald green eyelids flickered open. The bright neon irises lit up softly.

A gentle frown curved at the corners of her mouth and she whispered, "You got lucky."

Green eyes moved slowly up to her face and the reptile croaked out, still slightly pained. "Luck is all that keeps me alive sometimes." One corner of his mouth curved upward into a pained smirk, his eyes never leaving her, beautiful, concerned face.

"I know." She said, her tone hushed. Midori looked down at him, their gazes meeting. Her amber eyes were hard and serious. "You have to be more careful, Raphael, or one of these days you're going to get really hurt…if not worse."

Raph scoffed, "Heh. C'mon, it's not like anyone's going to care what happens to me! My family couldn't care less about me, all I've ever been is a burden! I mean, look at me! I'm a jacked up mutant freak! Who in Shell is gonna give a shit?!" He stated, slowly pushing himself up. Noting the bandages wrapped on his carapace with his peripheral vision.

"I would." Midori replied with so much certainty that Raph was momentarily left with his mouth agape. "You're a wonderful person Raphael Hamato. You have courage, strength, compassion and warmth. I've seen how you fight, I've seen how much heart you put into each and everything that you do. You're amazing." She stood, taking his hands in hers and looked down into his gorgeous green gaze. "The world needs guys like you, Raph. Even if they can't know that you exist. And we both know all that nonsense about your family isn't true." With that she walked away and Raph remained seated on the bed a couple moments longer.

Finally he pushed himself up and stood shakily on his feet. He went after Midori and put hand on her shoulder, making her stop. "I'm sorry if I worried you."

She turned to look at him over her shoulder. Eventually she decided that since he knew she had been worried, nothing more that needed to be said on the manner.

When he received no reply, Raphael moved on, "What time is it?"

"Almost nine o'clock, Sunday night."

Raphael's eyes went wide and he stared. "What? Midori…please tell me you're kidding." When she said nothing he rubbed his temples and sighed dramatically. "Oh man, we went out on Thursday…er early Friday morning. So I've been out for three days?" Midori nodded.

"Yes, but if you're thinking about leaving I must advise against it. You still have a slight fever, though it has gone down drastically."

"Sorry, M. I'd love to stay with you and all, but I really gotta get home. You told me I had to face my problems and I'm going to do it. Besides, they're probably going to freak out about my injuries and everything so I better get going."

She stepped in front of him and pushed him backwards. "Until your fever breaks it isn't safe for you to go topside. At least wait until then. It should be back to normal within two hours from now."

Raphael finally gave in, begrudgingly. Unfortunately two hours turned out to be four and the turtle didn't get back to the lair until almost one thirty. He traversed the entranceway slowly, expecting his brothers to come bounding up to him at any moment.

When nothing happened he glanced around, surprised to find no one waiting up. Well it has been three days…But last time they waited for me.

The red-masked turtle moved toward the lab, pushing the door open slowly. His soft green gaze fell almost immediately on the brainiac's thin form which lay fast asleep at the desk. An emerald green hand pulled the door closed silently, and he about-faced making straight for his room.

The hothead's heart sank a little as he allowed himself to believe that they hadn't even cared that he was gone. With a frown he shook it off, denying that line of though completely, as he entered his room. The second-eldest turtle closed the door with a soft click, and turned around.

The corners of his lips pulled upward into a soft, gentle smile. Michelangelo, his baby brother, was curled up on his bed. Which, of course, in any other situation would have earned him a beatdown, but at this moment it was exactly the reassurance that Raph needed. The little turtle was shaking slightly with cold and Raph went over to pull the covers up over him. Mikey sighed contentedly in his sleep and murmured, "Thanks, Raphie."

Raphael did a double-take, before he realized, with certainty that the young turtle was still asleep. That Mikey had somehow known which of his brothers it was seemed incredible enough, but why would he assume it was me? Raph thought. Oh well.

The red-masked turtle made himself comfortable as he could on the floor and fell into a deep and exhausted sleep.

I woke up the next morning with a groan. I didn't want to get up. I didn't want to deal with another day of Leo blaming himself, Donnie shutting himself up in his lab and Sensei drilling us harder than usual. I just couldn't do it anymore. I got a full night's sleep last night, yet somehow I still feel emotionally drained. Wait a second, this isn't my room! Oh, right. I decided to sleep in Raph's room last night. Gosh, I miss him so much. That's funny…I don't remember pulling the covers up last night. I got up and looked around, wondering if any of my brothers had wandered in here in the middle of the night. Nothing.

I got up and started making my way towards the door, when something moving near my feet caught my attention. I looked down and gaped. Raph?! He's alive! He's okay! I rejoiced, about to pounce on him and squeeze the life out of him, while simultaneously yelling at him to never do anything like that again. But I stopped myself when something else caught my eye. He had bandages wrapped around his carapace. Not only that, but he looked dead tired. I frowned. I'll let him sleep for now. I can celebrate later. A full smile spread across my face for the first time in three days. I yanked the blankets off the bed and lay them gently over my older brother's sleeping form before creeping silently out of the room ninja style.

I headed straight to the kitchen and started making breakfast, whistling and humming happily. Donatello was the first to arrive, followed closely by Leonardo, both of them still with grave looks on their faces. I decided to give them a piece of my mind. See, I had assumed that Donatello, Leo and Sensei had already been aware Raph was home, but they hadn't told me because I was already sleeping. So I was kinda mad they hadn't woken me up to let me know. I sent them both mock glares as I turned and pointed at them with the spatula. "So why didn't you guys wake me up?"

My bros exchanged confused glances. Then Leo turned back to me, "What are you talking about Mikey?"

I gave him a frustrated 'really' look. "Don't try that with me, Leo. You guys should have woke me up, it would have been really important to me."

Leo's curuelean blue eyes narrowed, "Michelangelo, what are you talking about? Why should we have woken you up?" he said, his voice raised with impatience and frustration.

My eyes widened as I realized they really didn't know what I was talking about. "Didn't you wait up for Raph last night?"

At the mention of Raphael, both turtles deflated.

Leo looked up, his eyes tired and emotionally drained. "Raph's not coming back Mikey. There was no point in waiting anymore."

I went over to the stove and turned off the omelets. I yanked off the apron I had on and my brothers gave me a confused stare. I grabbed both of them by the arm and dragged them down the hallway to Raph's room.

"Mikey what on earth has gotten into you?!" Leo asked rather loudly.

"Shh!" I told him. Opening the door as quietly as I could.

"Mikey what are you trying to pull?" Donnie asked just as I poked my head in to make sure Raph was still there. And he was, fast asleep. I pushed the door open the rest of the way, gesturing for both of them to be quiet and pointed at the floor.

They humored me, and as soon as they saw the sleeping figure on the floor, their eyes almost bugged out of their heads. At their simultaneous gasps Raph popped one eye open and grumbled, "What is this a floor show?"

All three of us ran over and threw ourselves onto the floor and straight into him, rolling him back on his shell slightly. Our hotheaded brother hissed in pain and pushed us away frantically, and we took a step back, staring at him worriedly. As soon as he was back on his plastron and the pain seemed to have ceased, D was by Raph's side. He pulled the blanket off so he could look at Raph's shell, and he was surprised to see it had already been bandaged. The brainiac was about to start unwrapping them when Raph caught his arm, "Don't Donnie, it's already been taken care of."

"What happened?" Leo asked, and I could tell from the look on Raphael's face that he wasn't looking forward to telling us.

Both Donnie and I took special note of the way our hotheaded brother tensed when he realized Leo looking straight at him, and from that moment on their gazes remained locked. Finally with a grumble and a sigh Raph muttered, "I lost the shell cycle."

And then D went bonkers.

"You LOST the shell cycle! Raphael it took me weeks to build that! It's not like we can just buy a new one!" Raphael flinched, "What did you do, forget where you parked it?!"

Raph stared at the floor, "It kinda blew up."

Everything stopped and we stared at our red-masked brother. Leo's eyes narrowed, I glanced over at him and something told me that he suspected there must have been more to it than that because he continued to stare at Raph until the red-masked sighed dramatically.

"Alright fine, it blew up while I was on it." He stated reluctantly, all three of us tensed as we realized that Raph had come really close to being killed, again.

Any objection Don might have had was swallowed as he spoke up hoarsely, "I designed it to have all kinds of safety provisions, something like that shouldn't have been able to happen." Even I could tell from his tone that he was blaming himself. Before I could say anything to comfort him Raph spoke up, yet again.

"Don't blame yourself, Donnie. Even you couldn't have predicted a bullet hitting the fuel tank."

"A bullet hit the…." Donatello's voice faded away as he stared at Raph wide-eyed.

Leo crossed his arms over his plastron, "Raphael, I thought we had agreed that any enemy with guns is forbidden to engage, especially when you're alone."

"Geez, cool it Leo. It's not like I could just tell the Foot, 'hey my bros don't want me fighting guys with guns,' and run off. Beside they were the ones chasing us-I mean me!"

Leo's eyes narrowed as he caught Raph's slip up, but in the end I guess he decided it was better not to confront the hothead. Then his eyes widened as he realized something else, "Wait, you said the Foot are the ones with guns?"

"Yeah, yeah, the Foot Fearless, ya know those guys we fight all the time whose leader looks like an overgrown can-opener?"

"How long have they been using guns?"

"Uh…" he said, his eye-ridges furrowed in a thinking expression.

"Come on, Raph, this is important!"

"Alright, alright, lemme think, ya jerk!" Raph was silent for a moment before answering, "Two or three weeks now I guess. First night I know of was the night I came home with a graze, obviously."

"Okay, we need to tell Master Splinter and ask him how to go about this." Leo said determinedly.

Donnie looked at me for a moment and then at Raph, "Hey, Raph?" Bright green eyes looked over at us, "Do you think you could show me the place where the Shell cycle blew up? There might still be some parts worth scavenging."

"Um….I don't think so, Don." All three of us looked at him questioningly.

"Why not?" Donnie asked.

Raph scratched the back of his head nervously. "Unless you're willing to go look underwater..."

"WHAT?" We all said simultaneously.

Raphael sighed and then started to tell us the whole story, "I was going for a late night run. I was planning to come home later and apologize to Leo, but I wanted to do one more round, cuz…well I'll explain that later. I was on the shell cycle and next thing I know there's a motorcycle with two Foot bots following and taking pot shots at me with a semi-automatic. I took the 'scenic drive' through East River Park trying to throw them off. I was almost rounding a bend when one shot hit the tire and set me skidding. Second shot hit the fuel tank, and the whole thing exploded just after crashing through the railing into the River. I got thrown backwards into a rock, cracking my shell real bad."

All of us stared at our brother, absolutely terrified. Leo was the first to act. He approached Raph and wrapped his arms around him, obviously taking care not to press against his shell in any way. It was then that I realized my eldest brother had tears in his eyes. He clung to our brother, sobbing over and over that it was his fault and he was so sorry.

Donnie elbowed me and gestured towards the door. I nodded my agreement.

It was about time we let those two make up on their own.

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