Donnie had assured the others he could probably find and trace April O'Neil's IP address in a matter of minutes, and since it was still a few hours before dark, they all agreed to get some rest before they set out to find her.
Ming tossed and turned in her sleep. She was having another nightmare. She had those often.
It hadn't started out as a nightmare. It started with a hug...
She was hugging her brothers and Master Splinter. She felt safe, like nothing could ever hurt her, not with her family around... Until... Splinter was suddenly gone.
Ming could sense her brothers' fear, anger, sadness... And then suddenly, it was just her and Raph, alone in the lair. Leo, Mikey and Donnie had disappeared.
"Raph?" Ming whimpered. "What's going on?"
Raph didn't answer her, only hugged her closer, tightly, before he looked up at something behind her. Ming watched him walk past her down a dark passage.
"Raph! Wait!" She took chase, her legs moving slower than they should be, barely able to keep up with Raph as she ran down the passage, which seemed to get smaller and smaller as she ran, threatening to close her in before she could reach him.
"Raph!" Ming called him again, finally stumbling into a big, bright room. In the middle of the room was a large man wearing a suit of spiky armour that almost looked robotic. Raph was facing him. Ming could tell her other brothers were nearby, but she couldn't see them. She could only stare as the armoured man raised a clawed hand and swung at Raph, catching him in the side.
Raph fought back, but as he did, he started fading. Like he would disappear too, and Ming would be alone with the man. This man that she knew was responsible for this. For taking away her father. Her brothers. Her family.
"RAPH NO!" Ming screamed, feeling like her lungs were filling with water as Raph slowly faded out. "RAPH!"
Ming gasped, bolting upright in her bed. Sure, she'd had nightmares before, she was used to having them all the time, but nothing like this. This felt so real... Like it really happened...
Or maybe more like it would really happen.
Ming scrambled out of bed, and ran to check on Splinter first. He was in the dojo meditating. Good. Right where he belonged.
Next she peeked into Leo's room, slowly pushing the curtain to the side. He was in bed, asleep. Ming nodded, and headed for Donnie's lab.
Leo rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, slowly coming to. He had been awoken by footsteps that were running through the lair, not really trying to be quiet. His curtain was swaying like somebody had just closed it in a hurry. Leo got up to peek out. Ming was running into Donnie's lab.
Donnie was conked out on his mattress in the corner of the lab, his glasses and tech not even put away properly, just thrown haphazardly to the side. Ming ducked out of Donnie's lab and headed for Mikey and Raph's room, closing Donnie's door a little too fast and loud, startling him awake. He got up to see what was going on.
Opening his door, Donnie saw Ming running towards Mikey and Raph's room, and Leo peeking out of his room. The brothers made eye contact. Donnie pointed his thumb questioningly in the direction Ming had gone. Leo just shrugged, and disappeared back behind his curtain to get a little more sleep.
Ming entered the large round doorway to the room Raph and Mikey shared. She could hear both of them snoring away like a couple of chainsaws, but that didn't necessarily mean they were both there. She knew Raph had recordings of himself snoring to get away with sneaking out, and she couldn't quite tell if that was him or some pillows under the red blanket on the top bunk.
Because there was no ladder to Raph's bunk, Ming had to get creative to climb up high enough to see. That meant first climbing onto Mikey's bed to get a leg up, then trying to get her footing on the bed frame just to be able to see.
While she was doing this, in her haste to check on Raph, she didn't notice that she was stepping on and repeatedly kicking Mikey, too focused on her task. That was, until Mikey grabbed her ankle.
"Hey! What are you doing?!" Mikey growled, half-asleep and annoyed at being woken up by his sister's foot in his face. He got out of bed to look at what Ming was doing.
She was dangling herself off Raph's bed, one elbow holding her up and one hand reaching for his covers. She looked up at Mikey, tears staining her face.
"Woah. Hey, what's wrong?" Mikey asked, more gently.
Ming sighed, jumping down. "S-sorry, I-I just- Had to check on you guys-"
"Bad dream?"
"Y-yeah..."
"Wanna talk about it?" Mikey offered, used to Ming's constant nightmares. When she had been small, it was often that he or one of the others would awaken to her snuggling up to them in their beds, too embarrassed to wake them and too scared to sleep in her own room alone.
Ming nodded, sitting on Mikey's bed next to him. Leaning on her brother, she described the dream as best she could, already feeling better as he wrapped an arm around her shoulder.
"... I guess it just... felt so real... I needed to just... check on you guys, y'know? Make sure nobody's... disappeared..."
"It's okay." Mikey soothed. "I get it. But, hey, everybody's here. Everybody's okay. You're okay, too, right?"
"Yeah." Ming gave a half-smile. "Yeah, I'm okay, too."
"Good," Raph suddenly grumbled from his bed, "Now go talk somewhere else."
Mikey and Ming both rolled their eyes and chuckled at Raph's annoyance."Yeah, come on, let's get you back to bed. We want April to like us, not be freaked out by your grumpy face."
"Hey!" Ming giggled, but followed Mikey back to her room anyway, leaving Raph to fall back asleep.
"Want me to stay with you until you fall asleep?" Mikey offered when they got to the door of Ming's room.
"No, I'll be fine now," she smiled, hugging her brother. "Thanks, Mikey."
As she closed her door, Ming let out a slow breath, feeling a lot better. After all, it was just a dream. Her brothers were all okay. She was safe. Nothing could take her family from her. Nothing.