XV.

Lincoln M. Kelith sighed through his nose as he sorted through the group's supplies. One look at the water bottles and they knew that some, if not all, were spiked with the poison they had been feeding them from before to make them all submissive.

He had been the only one who refused water, and had suffered a mild case of dehydration as a result, but it was worth it. He wasn't as susceptible to commands as they rest of the group was, and was thankful for it.

Closing his eyes, he opened them once more to crane his head in search for his wife. He found her bright platinum blonde hair easily against the darkness of her environment. Roselle was his Caucasian wife; he remembered meeting her here during a project he was previously involved in. He had brought her to the village where they had met, planning to celebrate their anniversary in their old meeting place near the ruins of an old temple.

Roselle caught his gaze and smiled at him before turning to attend to the children.

He resisted the urge to run to her, to check if she was really okay and not—

Lincoln sighed again. No amount of apologies would make this up to her, he just knew it.

"I'm pretty sure the poison was actually a sedative," a voice said beside him, bringing Lincoln's attention back to the group's current problem, "I..uh, saw this thing before. My brother used to use it on patients to calm them down in case he was short on anesthesia."

"Your brother was a doctor?" Lincoln asked, trying to tear his mind away from the horror still fresh in the back of his head. The teenager nodded in response, scowling when his unruly blonde hair fell over his green eyes. Lincoln offered him his wife's discarded hair-tie.

The teenager looked at him like he was an idiot.

Lincoln shrugged and tied back his own messy, long black hair into a low ponytail, "Just a suggestion. I say we go to the waterfall we passed. Being this deep into the jungle means that the water will be clean enough. Not many people around to pollute it."

"What about the animals peeing in there?"

"Would you rather drink the sedative-water, then?"

"…Nevermind," the teenager grunted. Lincoln snorted, "Go back to the vans, we might as well go now and camp out at the riverside."

Pausing, he turned back to the teenager, "What is your name, anyway?"

He saw the younger man tense, looking at the ground with a furrow in his brows.

"…It's Raph. Call me Raph."

XVI.

"Don?"

"Wha— Where are you?! You know how worried I was when Mikey lost contact and then you decided to disappear off the face of the Earth—!"

"Relax, Don! I can't do anything when I'm being used like a damned druggie!"

"Druggie— …What happened? Where are you guys?"

A sigh, "We got separated, Don. It's just me here."

"Wonderful. Great. This is just beautiful. Now we're never getting out of here!"

"Will you stop panicking?! I'll look for Mikey as soon as night comes by. I'm pretty sure he was thrown in the river, and that's where we're heading right now."

"'…Fine," he sucked in a deep breath, "Fine, fine. Look, I'm sorry, I just…"

"it's okay, bro. The situation looks shitty to me too," a pause, "Hey…now that you can talk to me, can you talk to Mikey now too?"

"…"

"Don?"

A sigh, "There's a problem. I did, but he…I think e has some sort of memory problem. He can't remember our link. I'm pretty sure he thinks I was part of his imagination."

"…Fuck."

"I know."

XVII.

Sleeping in the van all day meant he had more than enough energy to spare for night-searching. Currently, he was with Lincoln and his wife Roselle, lugging around knapsacks they'd found in the back of one of the vans to find more food in case they'd get delayed for one reason or another.

They'd already dropped the water off, and the three of them were picking wild berries under Roselle's watchful eyes.

"Those are poisonous berries, Raph," Roselle said from behind him, producing a small plastic bag from the pocket of her jeans, "Put 'em in here though, they might come in handy."

He took the small plastic bag, eyeing the berries warily, "You're not looking to poison the bandits if they come back, are you?"

The grin she gave him told him enough. Tossing a side-glance at Lincoln's direction, Raph was pretty sure neither of them would mind poisoning the bandits.

Not that he'd stop them. Shrugging, he stuffed the dark blue berries inside the plastic bag and tucked it into his pants. (It had been so weird to wear pants for the first time. At least it didn't look as tight as Roselle's.)

"We're here," Roselle said, though Raph had heard the river long before he'd seen it, "And I think someone might be dead."

Her blasé attitude towards death should have been disconcerting…then again, who knew how long she'd been captured before he and her husband came by rolling in? And—

Raph sniffed the air. Then Raph cursed enough to make Lincoln cover his own ears. Afterwards, he stood and stormed off in the blood trail's direction.

"..Well," Lincoln said wryly, "At least he took his knapsack with him."

"What makes you think he smelled food?" Roselle asked with amusement.

"Dead animal, maybe?"

XVIII.

Waking up to a dull ache compared to the stinging pain he was dealing with before passing out from exhaustion was a nice change.

Waking up to a blonde teenager and a kid with dark skin and a really, really familiar afro was…different. Not bad…but different.

Not to mention he more or less freaked out when he recognized just why the ground was moving again. The teenager moved to calm him down, placing a hand awkwardly on Michelangelo's arm and muttering explanations.

When it was clear that he wasn't calming down in the slightest, the kid's eyes widened to the size of dinner plates when the teenager raised an arm and slapped him across the face. Silence reigned for a few minutes, as Michelangelo was trying to process the stinging pain on his cheek and the teenager looked down, thoughtful, at his hand.

"Well, what do you know? That actually worked."

A/N: And it's at this point that it'll be veering off a bit. Not quite, but it's still there. Some scenes will still be there. And yes, Mikey WILL end up being more or less stranded with Leo...just, differently this time.

(And why does that Line button keep disappearing on me?!)