Obligatory Author's Note: 0-o Uh. Yeah. Been a while. *fidget* Look, road trip chapter! You read it while I run the other way!

Disclaimer: Yeah, no. Probably a good thing, too.

YOU ARE NOW LEAVING CALIFORNIA.

It was more fate than anything that had Donatello leaning forward to peer through the windshield of the clunky old van in time to catch a glimpse of the roadside sign as it whizzed by. The words had been barely visible in the late-night darkness and normally the genius wouldn't have bothered noticing- but he supposed that if he hadn't looked, the next opportunity he'd get to figure out their location would be when it was his turn to drive in who knew how long.

Nothing like not knowing you're out of California until you're halfway through Kansas to make a journey more interesting.

Leonardo glanced over from his position in the driver's seat and started, a half-exasperated frown cutting across his features. "Don. I know we're trained ninja, but is there really a need to be stealthy in the vehicle?"

The genius sat back with a sheepish grin. "Oh, sorry. Didn't mean to startle you."

"Just...stay in your seat, will you? I don't want to crash because your head mysteriously appeared by my elbow."

"Leo, there aren't any seats to stay in back here," Michelangelo piped up from further back in the vehicle, attempting to make a pillow out of a bag of plastic eating utensils. "I mean, if you really want I can dig up some streamers and tie him up or duct tape him to the side of the van, but otherwise-"

"Why would you buy a van without seats in the back? There had to have been better options to invest in," the eldest brother admonished, quickly peering at him through the rear-view mirror.

The owner in question rolled his eyes. "Okay, first off, I'm a giant walking turtle. I couldn't just head out to the nearest dealer and start test-driving. Second- do you really think that I make that much money off of balloon animals and knock-knock jokes? Buy what you can afford, dude- that's probably life's biggest lesson right there. Third-"

"I think he gets it," Donnie offered quietly, hoping to end the rather agitating tirade. Mike very eagerly ignored him, enjoying the feeling of making a point to his increasingly annoyed-looking brother.

"THIRD," he continued meaningfully, "When I bought this I wasn't planning on stuffing in passengers for a sudden cross-country trip. I just needed room for me, the head and the gear. And lastly, I really don't see where you get off complaining about the mode of transportation when I volunteered it to replace the hunk of nothing you two rolled in on. Be grateful, why don't you?"

"Alright, alright, I'm sorry," Leo offered hastily. "It was very gracious of you to offer your van and I'm honored that you're letting me drive it."

Michelangelo's smile was nothing short of devious. "That's more like it. So how come you guys didn't just come storming over in the Battle Shell or something?"

Donnie fiddled with a piece of seat interior protruding from behind Leonardo. "We considered it, but-"

"Well, the Battle Shell was really conspicuous anyway-"

"-it's been in New York all this time and I never showed Leo how to maintain it. That's probably a week's work in itself, but just wait until you see the helicopter."

The only suitable response Mike found was a shrug and an "oh."

There were a few minutes of silence- during which Don pulled a stray fork out from under himself and noted that Leonardo cleared his throat three times- at which point Mikey glanced through the windshield and seemed to deflate slightly. Which, the genius reflected, was what he himself had done about halfway through his journey from Boston to New York.

"Miss it already, Mike?" He asked quietly, snapping the youngest turtle to attention.

"What, the party biz? Not exactly. I love kids and all, but you can only get kicked in the crotch so many times before the novelty wears off. Guess it's just as good I don't have a girlfriend," he mused. "Nobody ever goes for damaged goods these days."

The genius blanched. "Ah. Um. Not what I meant, but thank you for that...charming mental image."

"What was it he used to say? Too much information?" Leonardo supplied, wearing his own less-than-impressed expression. Mikey just shrugged in response.

"I didn't mean the 'party biz,' anyway. I meant California," Don informed him, just short of being amused.

"Oh. Well, uh, no- not exactly. Not like San Diego's all that different from any other big city."

"You've still been living there for years."

"Yeah, well...that doesn't really have to mean anything. It's not the place a person misses, y'know?"

Donatello thought that maybe he did. After all, he didn't miss Boston for the architecture or the citizens: it was more about the freedom he'd had to leave behind. The knowledge that their greatest enemy no longer existed, that the past had been firmly put in its place behind them and would stay there. It had been- in spite of the fact that their family was scattered to the winds- comfortable. He'd felt like they were safe, a feeling that hadn't been as well backed as he'd hoped. The feeling was one quickly dissolved, which he supposed was roughly the extent of Mike's slight gloom.

Other than the fact that one of their closest friends was dead. And that they wouldn't be going to her funeral. Not to mention that they were about to try to round up the fourth member of their team in order to charge towards the enemy head-on; that was practically a suicide mission in itself, not to mention the difficulty of finding the afore-mentioned member.

Even while he strongly considered asking Leo to surrender the wheel so that he could turn them back around in order to hop a boat to Hawaii (and who knew? Raphael could have even retired there ahead of them), Don couldn't help but feel a strange sense of grim satisfaction regarding the entire situation. They weren't going to look the other way and keep their heads down, something that he felt would have been their primary course of action not long ago. Instead of hiding from their problems, they would be meeting the enemy face-to-face and together. Not necessarily as a family, and perhaps only as the barest definition of a team, but together nonetheless. He wondered if April and their father would have been glad to see it.

Michelangelo seemed to notice that his older brother was becoming wrapped up in a less than enthusiastic mindset, and so decided to intercede by asking if he wanted to play I Spy.

Yeah, this was going to be a long trip.

****^****^****^****

WELCOME TO OKLAHOMA!

"You guys ever feel like we're always living out some kind of stupid Scooby-Doo parody?" Mikey asked as he switched lanes, voice somewhat muffled due to the fact that he had been forced to don the cumbersome head of Cowabunga Carl once the sun had risen.

"Traveling across the country in a clunky neon van so we can solve some kind of mystery, gathering the team together after about a million years- come on, we've even got the talking animals thing covered! I think someone upstairs likes kicking us in the cajones, bros."

Leonardo raised an appraising eye ridge, casually turning a roll of streamers in his hands and casting a sidelong glance at Don. The genius shrugged and leaned more comfortably against the side of the van, indicating that he wouldn't be touching this particular conversation.

"Oh, whatever do you mean, Mike? I'm totally eager to converse with you- it's the least I could do after forcing you to wear the head from hell," the turtle at the wheel muttered half-jokingly. His brothers sighed simultaneously.

"I know you hate the costume, but it's not like you're putting up with it forever," Leo pleaded. "We can't just go driving around in broad daylight without some kind of cover."

"Knowing that doesn't make me like it any," the youngest insisted sourly. His voice perked up a little for his next sentence. "Just like in the bad old days, eh Donnie? Makes ya wanna add to the Mystery Machine motif by having a really trippy flashback or something."

"By all means, feel free to do so once your turn at the wheel has ended," Don replied dryly, a slightly amused grin stretching across his face.

"As long as it isn't a montage flashback. I can just see it now," Leonardo interjected. "Cowabunga Carl, the Ghost of the Jungle, Don the IT Agent and the Nightwatcher, all running around some giant maze of a mansion to a soft rock instrumental."

Donatello's face contorted as he pictured the scene. "Chased by screaming children, street gangs, Hispanic crime lords and clients seeking vengeance for being mistaken for the opposite gender."

There were a few seconds of silence, broken by Michelangelo's amused chuckle. "You guys just love to crush my philosophies, don't you?"

"Passes the time," Don admitted. "Not that I don't see the general idea behind it."

His face was hidden, but the sarcastic glare was all too easy to detect in Mikey's voice. "Gee willikers- acknowledgement. My life has suddenly been given unexpected meaning. Thank you so much, Donatello."

"You're welcome, Raphael Junior."

The silence following the genius's retort was much longer than the one prior.

****^****^****^****

SOMEWHERE IN ILLINOIS

Donatello snarled, slamming one hand onto the horn with unnecessary force and jerking the vehicle back into a straight course. The nerve of some of the people on the road- as though there weren't anyone else driving alongside them, as though it was impossible to be the least bit courteous and avoidant of wreckage and injury.

The earth was utterly filled with idiots, he determined.

"If you're going to switch lanes, you use your damned turn signal," he growled furiously. "I don't even have a license and I can drive circles around these idiots! Why don't they ever give I.Q. tests to potential drivers, that's sure to weed out a few unworthy specimens-"

Mike chortled, unraveling the roll of streamers that Leonardo had discarded in favor of trying to catch a nap and amusing himself by wrapping his hands up in it as best he could. "I spy with my little eye, something green and succumbing to road rage," he pointed out in a sing-song tone.

"Well it spies you back and may resort to strangling you with your own party favors," Don responded irritably.

"Ooh, positively snappish of you. What brings about this sudden charming attitude?"

"You may have forgotten this in the past few years Mikey, so let me remind you. When someone as placid as Don threatens to strangle you, that's generally a good time to keep your mouth shut," Leo warned his brother drowsily, apparently unbothered by the noise surrounding him.

The bright green crepe paper made the nonchalant wave seem far more humorous than it had been intended, but Mike figured that it got the job done. "Don't be ridiculous, he doesn't mind."

"He does. So listen to Leo and don't talk to him unless it's to tell him he can take off this ridiculous headpiece," Don snapped.

Leonardo cracked open an eye with a slight frown. "I figured Mikey would complain, but I thought that you at least wouldn't mind," he mumbled. "You know it's important for security purposes."

"And can you stop talking in third person? It's...kind of annoying." Michelangelo added. He briefly attempted to pick up one of his eldest brother's feet in order to wrap him up as well, but was dissuaded by a particularly stern glance.

Figured: only a few brotherly traits had made it to their age of nearly thirty and most of them were the uptight bossy ones. Mike rolled his eyes and conceded to the glare.

"Says the one whose driving schedule conveniently leaves his head uncovered and the one who could never keep his fingers off of shiny buttons." Don muttered, making a sound that might have been a frustrated huff (though it was particularly hard to tell given his current wardrobe). "I can see why you never kept this thing on, Mikey," he called out with very little real sympathy.

"If you'd only known then what you know now," the younger turtle cried in mock lamentation, pretending that said sympathy had been sincere.

"I would've made Raph substitute for you a few times," his brother finished firmly. "Maybe a few hours in this would have forced him to settle down a bit."

For a minute or so, silence reigned once more- but Michelangelo determined that avoiding mentioning their only remaining brother wouldn't exactly be conducive to finding him or convincing him to come along. There had also been a question flying around in his head for several hours' time and he was more than a little determined to get an answer.

"How exactly…are we supposed to find him?" He asked softly.

Leonardo stared intensely at the back of the front passenger's seat, avoiding meeting Mike's gaze as he deliberated. "…I don't know," he admitted eventually. "I've got a few ideas, but they're nothing concrete- and it's not like we've got any kind of trail to follow."

The words flowed from his mouth hesitantly as he discovered that they were more painful to say than he'd thought they would be. He was supposed to have a set plan for this, because he'd always been the one with the strategies before. Insecurity, hesitation- they were traits he'd never taken the time to acknowledge, in favor of surety, confidence, rolling with the punches competently.

But that had been back when he was a leader with a trained, cohesive team to back him up. This...this so-called team they were rebuilding: at the moment it felt like nothing more than one built out of necessity, ghosts and guilt. Like something broken being hastily scooped into a bag and left there in a dozen pieces.

They didn't have to be pieced back together for this, he told himself as firmly as he dared. They just needed to be in the same place at the same time and for the same purpose.

"Do you think we even really have a chance?" Michelangelo's voice pulled him out of his thoughts in order to meet the other's gaze in surprise.

"We wouldn't be trying to find him if I thought we didn't," he offered in answer.

"You say that, but you don't mean it. This could just be some kind of huge waste of time- time that we need to use to track down the Foot."

"He's got a point," Don stated from the front. "It's been a long time. If he'd wanted anything to do with us…if he wanted to be found…I mean, he didn't leave so much as a note. Leo, he could be anywhere in the world right now."

"Where he is isn't important and I highly doubt that the Foot Clan is going to just vanish again. Raph's still a part of this team. We can't do this without him."

"You guys," Mike suggested in a pained manner, voice the quietest it had been in several hours' time, "really seem to be taking for granted that he's still actually alive."

"Why wouldn't he be?" Came Donatello's retort, exaggeratedly casual.

"Don't get me wrong, it's not like I don't think he could still be running around somewhere. It's just- I mean, this is the guy who'd charge just because everyone else told him to back off. You know, Raph, who would've gotten himself chopped up a million times over if we weren't there to stop him?"

Leonardo didn't have anything to say to that, because he was slightly afraid that if he really considered the facts, Mikey's theory would turn out to be more and more of a reality. He loved all of his brothers and had learned to accept both their assets and their faults over the years, but Raph had always been particularly difficult to cope with. Sometimes, before this entire ordeal with April had been set into motion, he would find himself wondering what could possibly keep his brother from losing all control now that his family was no longer around to rein him in.

More specifically, now that Leonardo himself was no longer around to rein him in.

In the past he'd wondered if Raphael held any kind of real concern as to his own well-being or if he just kept himself alive and at home for everyone else. So often, the only thing that came between him and an early grave had been the insistence of a brother or of Master Splinter himself.

It was a matter of control, which was something that the second-youngest just never seemed to be able to gain.

Part of Leonardo determined that his brother was still alive and well, somewhere, and that they were bound to find him. Even though it would probably be merely due to the fact that Raphael was drawn to trouble as naturally as birds were drawn to trees.

Another part of Leo wondered how they would be able to get the materials for a headstone now that April was no longer around to help.

He told himself to shut up and go back to sleep.

****^****^****^****

NEW YORK, NEW YORK

Donatello stretched his arms over his head with a small groan, nearly losing his footing in the murky water of the sewers as he did so. He was quick to straighten himself up once more, glancing at the figures before him and breathing a sigh of relief that they hadn't noticed. It seemed that Mikey's insatiable appetite for interaction had actually helped him save face for once.

Slipping in sewer water like some sort of klutzy pre-teen in a school cafeteria? Him? Time certainly had a way of changing things.

Then again, he considered, glancing at the tunnels that had certainly failed to grow less familiar over the years, it also had a way of leaving things exactly the way they'd been before.

April probably could have explained the idea more accurately. Of course, she would have done so while carrying bags of groceries and keeping perfectly balanced. Before everybody separated, before all of those years had passed, he would have taken care to try to forget what she said out of sheer jesting spite.

Strange how quickly it had gone from that to Donatello thinking that he would have gladly traded almost anything for one last bit of advice.

"Tell me I'm not hearing this! The great Leonardo, living on takeout?" Mike cried in a strange combination of horror and glee. "How long has it been since you've had any real food?"

Leonardo shrugged amiably. "I haven't kept track. There are more important things to think about than takeout and how often I have it."

"That's only because you're used to it. Like how Don probably couldn't tell us how much coffee and non-food he downed in a day in Boston. Doesn't mean you guys weren't doing a little overkill. It's not like you have absolutely no cooking skills," the youngest said in tone eerily close to lecturing.

Leonardo avoided replying to the statement by very hurriedly pushing forward and opening the entrance to the lair. This was around the time that what Mike had once fondly dubbed his 'ninja sense' started sending off alarm bells in his head. He halted momentarily in the doorway, ignored and pushed slightly to the side as Mikey entered in a haze of nostalgia.

It was rather quickly shaken off.

"Geez, Leo, I know you're not paying a bill or anything but leaving all the lights on while you're on a cross-country trip? That probably cost us, like, seven rainforests or something," he called as he dashed in, ducking into one or two rooms in order to flip light switches.

Leonardo frowned. "I didn't-"

"My ears must be deceiving me! What happened to the little brother that left his video game on and paused for three days straight until he was allowed to play it again?" Donnie shouted back, cutting his brother off.

Mike turned around with a cheeky grin. "That's California, baby- if you go a year without becoming forty percent silicon, they make a tree hugger out of you."

"Guys, shut up for a minute. You can do your weird banter thing later," Leo said sharply, casting suspicious glances around the main room. Both were immediately vigilant.

"What's up?" Don asked, voice urgent.

"I didn't leave the lights on. Don, you were there, you waited while I made sure they were all off," the eldest explained. After a moment during which the other two simply blinked at him, he elaborated just in case. "Someone else has been here."

FORGIVENESS! T-T