If you are disturbed by Raph's dream imagery, I can assure that you that it has a specific kind of symbolism and I'm hoping my references made it clear. If not, I'll explain it to you in a PM. And then I'll revise it to make it clearer. hehe Well, that's the end. I hope it was okay. I feel like the last scene should have been Leo/ Mikey, but it went Raph/ Mikey and then Raph/ Leo. Don't know why.

It took Mikey a whole fifteen minutes to realize his new position as cherished invalid and he spent the rest of the next day happily ordering April and Don around. Mikey never dared order his father around, but reckoned he could if had the notion. Leo had been asleep since he collapsed in the dojo and Don had lugged him into his bed with Casey and Splinter's help.

"I want more orange juice," Mikey said, holding his glass limply at his side. He couldn't believe his weakness. He couldn't even hold a glass properly.

Casey just stared at him. "What do you want me to do about it?"

"Get me some," he said, redirecting his laser beam of cuteness in Casey's direction.

"Sorry. Don't work on me. I'm not a girl and I didn't bathe with you as a baby."

Mikey let the glass fall and drip orange juice on the floor. "I don't mind. I can't believe I don't hear that thing anymore. And I don't see it. I could see it when my eyes were shut after a while. Where's Raph?" His breathing quickened as he finally realized that Raph was gone and not asleep like Leo. How had he missed that? "Where's Raph? Is he okay? Did he get hurt?"

"Calm down, kid," Casey said. "Raph's… fine wherever he is."

Mikey would have jumped up if he could have moved. "Give me my phone."

He felt Don's hand on his forehead. He tried to look behind him, but it was impossible. "Just rest. I've been calling Raph for hours. He won't answer."

April sat on the floor next to Mikey and sat a plate of cookies and a new glass of orange juice on the coffee table. She handed the empty glass to Don. "I wonder why he's gone."

Mikey said without thinking, "He's embarrassed. He told me so."

"Huh? When?" Casey said, practically jumping out of his seat to steal one of his cookies. "You were about to keel over."

"He told me with his brain. These are good." He made a face that indicated otherwise.

"With his brain?" Don said, wrinkling up his face in horror of Raph's mind.

Mikey bravely swallowed the cookie, baking powder clump and all. "Yeah, after a while it kind of showed us what each other was thinking. But it only showed the bad stuff, of course." They all glanced at each other and Mikey knew they were freaking out. "Don't worry. I won't tell you what he was thinking anyway. It's none of your business. Hope he doesn't tell you what I was thinking." Mikey shivered at the idea.

Don absent mindedly grabbed the full plate and glass and took it back to the kitchen.

April said, "Good thing for you he isn't the most communicative guy in the world."

Raph watched Leo and Leo watched him back. They were at opposite ends of the bathtub and the water was warm. It dripped steadily out of the faucet between them. A comforting tune to keep them company.

"The beginning was better than the present. It was safer here," Leo said. "It was warm and quiet."

Raph pushed on Leo's feet to make more space for himself. Leo didn't resist at all. "But we aren't brothers," Raph said, watching the water lap against his plastron.

His brother leaned back against the porcelain. The water was always calm when he moved and he rarely broke its surface. Fluid movements. "We're Castor and Pollux."

The water was comforting and Raph slid down, trying to cover his head, but he could never quite shift himself low enough to be covered. He saw red. It was fountaining out of his wrist and blossoming in the water. He couldn't let Leo see this.

He would leave. He would go into the living room and out into the tunnels. But there was nothing but trees. Why was he here again? He wanted to go home. There was no door anywhere. Nothing but the mist and the trees and the ferns. He moved fast, trying to find something. Anything. Someone was behind him. It would be that Shadow that followed him.

Leo took him by the shoulder and turned him around. He pulled his katana and held the blade in his own hand until the blood ran down his fingers. Then he pressed his bleeding palm against Raph's wrist. "I've fixed that now," he said. The blood throbbed out of their veins in sync for once.

Where was he? A brick wall. But not the brick wall in his room. He could have sworn that he was in his own room. The darkness felt familiar, if it ever can. And he was looking at water flowing past.

He was sleeping on the wet old mattress at the emergency station in the tunnels. Raph sat up stiffly, rubbing his cold and clammy arms. Someone should have checked for him here. They were losing their touch. He would make sure to bring it up when he got home.

The deep scab on his wrist had fallen off as he'd slept and now there was a raw gash. Leo's hand. He'd had that dream about the bathtub. He sometimes dreamed that he was sitting in the bathtub with one of his brothers. He never told them about it because he was sure he would get awkward looks and statements of disgust. But it didn't feel dirty to him. It felt peaceful. Like he was in a place where he was meant to be.

Maybe he would head home. If they mentioned what happened in the group dream, then he would take off again. It wasn't up for discussion.

Mikey was asleep on the couch. Thin. He was so thin. But he was smiling and had a full plate of cookies rising and falling on his stomach and Mr. Bear in the crook of his arm. The television was on, playing an infomercial.

He turned off the TV and put the remote down as quietly as possible. There was enough room for him to sit on the side of the couch and that depressed him.

"What's that?" Mikey asked. He opened his eyes and said, "Raphie! You're alive! Pick me up so I can hug you!"

"I don't think so." Shot him his arrogant face. He'd escaped the Mikey hug attack.

They sat in the silence awhile and Raph wished he hadn't turned off the TV. Mikey said, "Bet your real glad to have that voice out of your head. I sure am. I keep having the TV on because I'm afraid it'll come back, you know." Nervous laugh. Tried to play it off.

And Raph said before thinking, "Don't worry about… that stuff… that you worry about. It doesn't matter that you don't fit into the world. Look around. Is it a place you really want to fit into?"

"Yes," he mouthed silently. He looked away and held his breath for a second. "I try not to care, but it's real hard. It's like… you know… looking inside a store window at something you can't buy. If we knew what that was like. We can't even stand around on street corners looking in windows."

Raph knew where this line of reasoning would lead. To tears. And yup. There were the tears and it didn't help that Mikey's unusually thin face made them even bigger and bluer and sadder. Raph said, "It don't matter. Things'll look better tomorrow. We just got to go on every day. That's all living is. One day at a time. Some days are bad and some days are good, you know."

For some reason Mikey let out a strangled little sob, but he nodded. Raph leaned down to cover him up as he turned over to sleep and the cookies clattered to the floor. He cringed at the bruises that still laced his arms and Mikey cringed as he changed positions. "Today was a good day," he said.

Only Mikey.

Leo grabbed Miona's warm body out of her crib and held her against his chest, letting her sleepy head rest against his shoulder. "I didn't tell that story right," he said. "I got it all wrong." He glanced at the looming shadow in the corner. He knew it was watching. "Polydeuces wasn't weak. He was better than I could ever be, if he could so readily give up his life for his brother. Without ever questioning why. That's why the creature chose him. Isn't that right, Raph?"

The shadow sighed and stepped into the lamp light that fell through the window. He was hunched over, like a child who had just been caught stealing cookies from the cookie jar.

"How did you find this place?" Leo asked.

His voice was quiet and unusually gruff. "I know how to use a computer. What are you doing here?"

Leo sat down in the rocking chair carefully. "I just wanted to say goodbye. She's going to have a hard life ahead of her."

Raph stood next to the rocking chair, watching them rock. After a while he said, "I wondered what she looked like. This little brat that almost killed Mikey. I was picturing some evil little troll. But she's just a kid."

"Nothing special about her."

"Castor's better than Polydeuces," Raph said, rather more loudly than Leo liked. "He was nice. Pollux was a jerk. All his selfless sacrifice for his brother was just him being too selfish to lose him without going along too. Castor looked out for others."

Leo choked up. He couldn't remember the last time Raph said anything so nice to him. As awkward as it was. He laid Miona back in her crib and she wiggled into a ball. They were quiet for a while, listening to the cars passing by and Miona breathing gently. There was no need to explain things to Raph. He knew they were in sync for once. He wanted to be quiet and enjoy it. He knew the moment wouldn't last long. Their biorhythms would change as soon as they broke out of the moment and they would slip back into their grating paths.

Raph said, "I know we defeated the bad guy and all, but I wish I could have kicked its ass though."

"Yeah, me too," Leo laughed.