Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Raph stared down at the shattered plate on the tiled kitchen floor.

His limbs felt limp and his head felt weird, far away, and kind of clouded. His mind was slow, almost like it was impossible to think about much of anything, filled with cotton and all-around fuzzy. His vision was the same; unable to truly focus on anything in particular.

It kinda reminded him of their fight with Superfly—that sort of drugged-up feeling from too many hard painkillers.

“You okay Raph?” He heard Leo call from another room. He sounded farther away than he really was. Or, maybe he was more rooms away than Raph thought?

Raph didn’t break focus with his incense staring at ceramic shards. “Yeah, I’m… fine.”

He blinked and slowly but surely, whatever weird feeling that had overcome him was gone. That was weird. He blinked again to ensure he didn’t just imagine it happening. What was that? He didn’t remember taking any painkillers or any other drug for that matter. Hell, he didn’t even remember what he was doing here! The last thing he remembered was school, a science test–

“Raph?” Leo said. Raph flinched. When did he get so close? How did Raph not notice? God, he felt so unnerved, anxious, and more importantly confused.

Raph glanced over at Leo. He looked agitated, though not in his normal Leo-way. Not only that, but his shoulder was partially wrapped in a bandage, clearly not new, but Raph couldn’t remember him getting an injury.

“When did that happen?” He asked, trying to distract himself from thinking about whatever had just happened to him. The room was too small, crowded with things, or maybe not crowded enough? His instincts were telling him that something was off but everything looked normal. How did he get here? Wasn’t he just at school?

Raph was starting to freak out, why was he starting to freak out?!

Leo shrugged and grabbed a nearby duster before bending down to help sweep up the shards.

Raph huffed and bent down to pick up the shards of ceramic. “I said I’m fine Leo. I just dropped a plate, chill.” There was no need to worry Leo about the weirdness that was going on in his head right now. He was fine, it was probably just sleep deprivation or something stupid like that.

“I don’t know like you’re acting like this Raph.”

“Acting like what?” Raph said defensively. He could tell Leo what was wrong. He could, he almost wanted to but Leo somehow put him even more on edge than before, he didn’t want to tell him.

Raph looked around the room somewhat frantically, not paying much attention to his brother. Everything was normal, except it wasn’t because something was wrong. Something was really wrong and no matter how much he searched for something that would make sense of this feeling, nothing did.

Leo sighed. “Like that, Raph. You’re acting weird, even though you say you're fine. Is school giving you trouble again or something? It wouldn’t look great if your grades started to drop like last time.” He chided as he swept up the rest of the shards and stood up to dump them in the trash.

“No. It’s not that,” He mumbled a tight coil building in his chest. “Just back off Leo, I’m fucking fine alright?”

“Then what is it Raph? If it's not because of school then what is bothering you? You’ve been more irritable lately and it's been putting us all on edge, then you just go off to who knows where once you’ve snapped at us! What's going on with you?” Leo said tersely, his posture was tight, curled in on himself, almost as if he was preparing for an attack.

The coil was tightening, putting more pressure on him. He didn’t understand what Leo was talking about. Was he more irritable lately? Yeah, probably. Well… maybe? Playing catch-up at school was not fun, even for someone like Donnie, and he had been practicing wrestling more and more after school, leaving him tired by the time he got home. But why was Leo getting on his case about leaving the sewers? That’s what they did before they got accepted, that's what he was going to continue to do now. How did Leo not get that, he has done the same things before!

Raph stood up quickly and crossed his arms, fingernails digging into his arms to keep his temper at bay. “Nothing’s fucking going on Leo! Just get off my back!” He said, pulling himself off the floor. “I don’t need you to lecture me right now, okay?! I am just stressed out! That's it!”

Leo shook his head and looked at Raph. “Raph, not only are you lying to me, but you're also just proving my point!” Leo paused momentarily, looking over and analyzing Raph in a way that made him uncomfortable. “You’re so quick to defend yourself, that you won’t even listen to what I’m saying, god Raph, Just…”

He rubbed his hand across his face. “I’m worried about you, and you’re making it really hard to even talk to you!”

Something about even Leo is wrong, something is wrong, it's all just fucking wrong. “Shut up Leo and let me fucking breath!”

Leo opened his mouth to respond but before he could say a word, Raph dashed out of the room.

He needs to get out now. Get out of that room, get out of their house, the sewer, fuck, even his own skin right now. The coil was so tight that it was now hard to breathe, and Raph could feel his irritation at Leo only adding to it, him and his weird aggression.

His body didn’t feel correct, nothing did. Everything was wrong in a way he didn’t know how to fix. That question came up again and again in his mind like he was unable to get rid of it. What's going on? What the fuck is happening to him?

Raph took deep breaths in and out as he continued to run through the sewers, up through a ladder, and to the surface. He didn’t stop there and went to the nearest building's rooftop, an apartment complex. It was only then that he was properly able to get in his breaths. Not only that, but the anxious feeling he had almost disappeared completely, and the tightness in his chest loosened almost entirely.

Despite that, he was still shaking and he was gripping his arms so hard that they might leave marks. He forced himself to let go, but all the tension he felt didn’t go away. So, he did the only thing he could and breathed.

After a few minutes of just breathing and trying to control his body, he collapsed onto the floor. He felt exhausted, physically and mentally. He glanced up at the moon and grit his teeth. God that was such an overreaction. They both overreacted. Leo was just worried about him, but he was so annoying about it sometimes.

Still, getting on his case about going out at night was something Raph didn’t understand. Before their acceptance into society, he would take walks around the sewers and just listen to the city. Now that the other mutants had moved it, it was almost guaranteed that he would run into one of them. Not that he didn’t like the other mutants, but the lack of privacy in the sewers was fucking annoying.

So he went on rooftops or sometimes just walked through the streets. It was calmer that way. Nicer.

He shifted himself so he was sitting upwards. He felt mildly better now. Everything was clearer in a way it just wasn’t when he was back inside. He shivered when he remembered Leo’s voice. It grated on him in a way it just hadn’t ever before. He was used to his brother's voice, he knew he was after spending so much time with him. So why was it uncomfortable now?

Raph reached into his jacket pocket and grabbed his phone, hoping that one of his school friends had texted him or maybe they could hang out if it wasn't too late. He needed a good distraction. Raph turned on his phone and the Home Screen appeared. It was 10:53, Tuesday, September sixteenth—

Wait what?

September sixteenth? It couldn’t be September, he remembered being at school today and he had checked the date to write it down, Raph remembered writing it down himself! Even if he had gotten the date wrong, September sixteenth was months away from May fifth!

This must have been a joke and Mikey or Donnie had messed with his phone. It could even just be an annoying bug, glitch, or hacker. There wasn’t another answer for it. There couldn’t possibly be! Raph couldn’t have just forgotten almost five months of his life.

He didn’t remember any head injuries, or at least, any that were more severe than normal. If he were in a coma, he wouldn’t just wake up in the kitchen of all things. Maybe time travel? Science was getting better and more advanced.

Raph turned off his phone and let it fall to the floor. He rubbed his hand against his face. He couldn’t just tell his brothers he doesn't remember the past five months. What if something really important had happened, like Donnie getting a Nobel Peace Prize or something? How could he tell his brother he didn’t remember?

He took deep breaths in and out, in and out, in and out.

Raph’s adrenalin had kicked in again, and his palms were sweaty. He wouldn’t get a panic attack on the roof of an apartment. He continued to breathe, even once the shaking in his hands stopped,

He was overreacting again. He was fine, he was mentally okay as much as a teenager could be in twenty-twenty-four. He was fine.

It wasn’t September and his brothers were just messing with him. He must have just been so tired that he didn’t remember getting home or something like that. He might have taken a nap and when he had dropped the plate he woke up. He was just… tired, and that's why he acted like that. It was normal. He was fine.

It was because he was fine that he didn’t text any of his friends to make sure of the date, or look online or anything else that would prove that he was fine.

Ugh, he felt sick to his stomach with fear and anxiety.

He glanced down at his phone again. It was later than he should have been out on a school day. If Leo told Dad he was out this late like he always did, it would probably be better to go back now than later, even if he didn’t want to talk to anyone right now.

He slowly made his way down the fire escape that was on the building and down the ladder. He had almost pushed the manhole cover closed when he noticed something odd out of the corner of his eye.

There was graffiti written on the far wall. It was common to see, he and his brothers had a habit of doing so when they were bored, but he didn’t remember anyone writing this far down in the sewers.

Just when he was about to walk over and see what it said, he pulled his hand down too fast and snagged on something sharp.

“Mother fucker!” He whisper-yelled to himself. Whatever he had snagged his hand on had ended up breaking skin, and now he had a semi-deep cut that went across his palm. It stung a bit but it wasn’t too bad.

He should just go back. Who knows what kind of grime could be down here? But, at the same time, he never really cared how injured he got as long as he survived, that was something his dad and Leo could care about. His minor injury could wait.

Raph pulled the manhole over and hopped off the latter onto the floor. He walked over to the graffiti and once he got close enough to read it, he felt a shiver roll down his spine.

In large, black spray paint it read: UNDER ONE NOT MARKED

The worst part was, It was written in Raph's own handwriting, only messier and more frantic. Maybe he did lose five months of his memory. “The fuck is this?” he asked his past self, with the only answer being echoes of the same sentence throughout the sewers.

He wanted to clean his hand now.

Raph slowly made his way toward him and his brothers shared the room as quietly as he could. He didn’t want to wake up Leo after their argument and he knew Donnie and Mikey weren’t exactly quiet. He held his breath and pulled out a small first aid kit from under his bed.

With the amount of injuries he gets, it seemed like a good idea to keep one near one of his only private spaces. Raph's brothers would consistently take things without asking, (if he was being honest with himself, Raph takes from them just as much.) and it was nice to have something that didn’t need to be constantly replaced.

Unfortunately, it seemed that in those five months, he had run out of both rubbing alcohol and both of the spools of gauze he had kept in there. He tisked as he closed the lid and slid it under his bed. Now he was kind of ticked off that his past self wouldn’t replace it, even though he knew that present him would do the exact same thing.

He quietly got to his feet and slipped out the doors. Just as quietly he made his way to the bathroom and turned on the light.

Raph leaned down, grabbed a box of medical supplies from inside one of the cabinets, and set it on the counter. He then turned on the sink and started to clean the cut on his hand.

Today was so fucking weird, and he only remembered the last few hours of it. The graffiti especially creeped him out in a way that he just… couldn’t understand.

“Raph?” He heard from the doorway.

A shiver rolled down his spine at Donnie’s voice. Much like Leo’s, it was unnatural and wrong. Somehow not Donnie’s while being undoubtedly his.

Donnie peered over his shoulder as Raph turned off the knob. “Did’ya cut yourself on the ladder again?”

“Again?” He questioned Donnie as he got out rubbing alcohol from the box of supplies. Oh no.

Donnie nodded. “Yeah, don’t you remember? I think this is the third time you’ve accidentally cut yourself after an argument with Leo.”

Raph poured the rubbing alcohol on a cotton swab and whipped away the blood that had accumulated. Underneath were two similar scars that were both about the same length as his most recent one. His breath hitched. That wasn’t there before, even if he had lots of little scars on him, he knew what most of them were from. He didn’t remember these.

He felt Donnie take his hand. “Yikes, this one’s deeper than the others. Much deeper.” He started to wrap the gauze around it. Raph almost yanked it out on instinct but refrained himself. Donnie was his brother, there was no need to be on edge.

“Uhm, Donnie, was I acting weird these past few months?” Raph asked tentatively.

“I mean, yeah you’ve certainly yelled at us a lot more, have been more argumentative with Leo, all around a real grade-A jerk.” Donnie pulled a little tighter on the bandages.

“Ouch– dude!”

“Sorry,” He mumbled under his breath, though made no move to loosen them. “Just– Why Raph? Why have you been so much more temperamental lately? An answer or a reason would be nice to have y’know?”

Raph shook his head.“ I don’t know Donnie, I just don’t! And I swear if I knew I would tell you!”

What had he been doing these past months? If he was as consistently angry as Leo and Donnie have said, why was he? Of course, he wasn’t as cheerful as Mikey or whatever, but he didn’t try to make a habit of yelling at his brothers. He must have had a reason, right?

Donnie scoffed. “How do you not know? I don’t think people get angry for no reason, so what is it?! Stress? Pain?”

“No Donnie, it’s none of that—”

“Then is it because of me? Because of us? Did we do something to you that you're not telling us? Please Raph, I don’t like you like this.”

Raph gently pulled his now wrapped-up hand away from Donnie. “It’s nothing you did, I swear by it.”

Donnie nodded. “Yeah, Okay, Fine. But when you do figure out why, or you decide to tell us, please do. I don’t want you to keep secrets from us.”

Gilt sank in Raph's chest but he swallowed it down. “Yeah, I can do that.”

Donnie nodded and started to make his way through the bathroom door.

Raph should say something, he should tell the truth, he should say that he doesn’t remember anything these last five months he should— “Wait, Don,”

Donnie turned around to look at him, clearly expecting Raph to admit to something. Raph took a deep breath in. “…You haven’t gotten a Nobel Peace Prize, have you?”

Donnie chuckled and smiled at Raph. “Yeah. I won the Nobel Peace Prize in robotics and anime, the president resigned from office just to put me in charge, and my wedding with all seven BTS members is next spring. Don’t miss it, I need my best man.”

Raph smiled back. “Only if you’ll let us sing.”

Donnie barked out a short laugh, “With your chords? Not a chance!” He exited the room completely, and Raph didn’t miss his quiet little, “‘night Raph.” As he left.

Even with their joking and teasing, Raph couldn’t help but feel like something was missing. Something was wrong, and Raph was gonna find out what.

Chapter Text

The moment he awoke from Leo’s loud alarm, Raph grabbed his phone as fast as he could to check the date. He let out a sigh of relief that it was the next day, Wednesday the seventeenth.

At the very least, he hadn’t forgotten another five months or anything like that. Still, maybe he was just jumping to conclusions like Leo had so frequently told him not to. He just needs confirmation that he’s overreacting and everything is normal and okay.

“Hey, Mikey?” Raph asked in a hushed voice to the bed above him.

Mikey sleepily mumbled something that sounded like, “Yeah?”

“You and Donnie didn’t, like, mess with my phone at all did you?” Maybe he was acting weird these past few days, and maybe he did get those scars and just forgot. He didn’t want the fact that he had missed five months of his life to be true. It couldn’t be true.

Mikey yawned. “No? I don’t know about Donnie but I haven’t touched it at all. Why?”

Raph felt dread overtake him. “What day is it?”

“I don’t know dude, September something-or-other. Let me sleep for five more minutes before interrogating me…” He said, slowly getting softer with each word.

Nothing is normal or okay, and even before he asked Mikey he knew it wasn’t. Still, five months is a long fucking time to forget something; who knows if he had lost old friends, made new ones, or even gotten into a fight at school. He wouldn’t put it past himself since he was close to starting a fight with McAlister, that dickhead. (holy shit that was five months ago.)

If Raph did get into a fight with him, he deserved it just for being McAlister. Last time, he and Raph were assigned a group project, and not only did he do absolutely nothing, but he also had the audacity to plagiarize Raphs essay a week later! Plus he was also a jerk who made fun of people for the dumbest of reasons. He would probably make fun of Raph to his face if it wasn’t for Raph being able to throw hands and win.

Raph sighed and threw his bed covers off of him. Whatever. He’ll figure it out when he gets there, along with all the work he needs to catch up on.

The rest of his morning was as normal as he could hope it was. He still felt on edge whenever his brothers walked in the room, (he discovered that Mikey was not exempt from this new weird rule.) and he had wished he had just slept that off. Another weird thing to tack onto the list would be his dad. Normally his dad would be up at the same time as them just so he could make sure none of them were sick or anything, but instead, he didn’t show up at all. When asked, Leo had told him that he had to stay at a hotel for his job for the week, but that he should be back by next Thursday.

He didn’t know Dad had gotten a job.

Five months was a long time, who knew how much he had missed from just his brother's life? While he had definitely thought about this before, it was only starting to sink in now.

Five months.

Five whole months of his life were gone, five months that he would never get back.

Fuck, he was a junior now! He had new teachers, all of his senior friends had graduated and now he had probably made new friends and had new classes! It had now been over half a year since they had defeated Superfly, and he wasn’t there for almost all of it!

Raph's stomach swirled as he hoisted his bag over his shoulder. He felt like he was going to be sick, but he refused to throw up, pushing the nausea as far down as possible.

“Raph, you coming or what?” Mikey said far too cheerfully from the entranceway.

Raph swallowed and walked towards him. “Yeah, I’m coming.”

He wanted to be anywhere but here.

School wasn’t bad, or at the very least he liked being around people and the work itself could be fun when he knew what he was doing. That part of school only bothered him when he didn’t understand it and didn’t know the people he was around.

Right now though, he didn’t know anything or anyone and that was terrifying.

He gripped his backpack step harder as Mikey bumped his shoulder, they were in the middle of the hallways and thankfully no bell had rung yet, but he still couldn’t help but be on edge.

“You doing okay Raph? You look a little sick right now.” He said as he shoved a few folders into his already crammed locker.

“I’m doing fine Mikey, I’m just tired.” He said while leaning against the other lockers. He hated feeling this much anxiety and stress, it had even made him start to shake a little but he pushed it down as much as possible. Is this what Leo felt like? Ugh, it was awful.

Mikey looked him up and down cautiously and smiled before closing his locker. “When are you not? Come on, the bells are about to ring and we both know Ms. Wright hates us being late. I swear she targets us, and even though Jane said that she gets angry with everyone, I still think that just because we’re mutants–”

Mikey continued to chat on and on while Raph tuned him out. Okay, he and Mikey had at least one class together, so that meant that he wasn’t left completely on his own. Hopefully, that meant that he didn’t have to pretend to know other people if Mikey was around. He should make it better, if not, then at least familiar.

Once they had gotten into the class and their teacher started teaching English, Raph cautiously took out his phone to search up the rest of his classes. He took a screenshot of them before the teacher could see him with his phone, and after he shoved his phone in his pocket he pretended to know what they were learning.

The next three classes were very similar to the first, Mikey being in the same classes and everything. It was an odd coincidence, especially given that their first semester of school had
Raph sharing none of his brother's classes, but it's not like he was complaining. It was only until lunch that he had a problem.

None of his brothers were really in the same circles, and even if they were, Mikey didn’t have the same lunch period as him. He debated texting his brothers, but he decided against it. For some reason, he still had weird feelings about telling them about this, and it was only if he was smarter that he could make a text that didn’t sound weird.

He didn’t want to be a loser who would hide in the bathrooms to not talk to anyone, but the thought of talking to anyone he knew gave him unwanted anxiety. It would have been so much worse if someone he didn’t know tried to talk to him too.

Which is why when the bell rang out, he ‘snuck’ into the bathrooms. Right when he was about to duck into a stall, however, he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the mirror that made him do a double take.

He leaned against the counter to get a better look at it through the mirror, anxiety festering inside of him the longer he looked at it.

With his finger, he traces a long scar from the midpoint of his chin down to the midpoint of his neck. He shivers when he still feels the stitches inside of it, the skin feels a bit raw and misshapen around the scar.

What— what happened? How the fuck do you even get a scar like this? Did he get into a fight with someone with a knife and lose?

“What the fuck…” Raph mumbled under his breath, still feeling around the scar. He could feel his heartbeat from it. It's near major arteries or something like that. Whoever did this almost killed him.

At that thought he pulled his hand away from his neck and gripped onto the countertop to keep himself steady.

Raph could have died. He almost died. Raph almost died and he didn’t even remember it. That’s…

Then an even more terrifying thought popped into his head. What if there are more? What if he has even more scars on himself than he doesn't remember having? He didn’t check last night, even after Donnie revealed his older hand scars to him. He didn’t even notice this one until now.

Raph peeled his hands away from the countertops and gripped onto his shirt instead, pulling it as close to his skin as possible. He doesn’t want to check. He should leave it alone. But he still needed to know, didn’t he? He needed to know what happened to him, even if it’s ugly, he needs to know.

Despite telling himself that, even the thought of checking was horrid. He didn’t mind having scars, he really didn’t. but not knowing what had happened to his body? Knowing that something happened to leave a permanent mark on his body but not knowing what? He pulled his clothes even closer to himself, to the point where he heard the seams cracking.

Check. See what they have done.

Raph blinked as this new thought popped into his mind. It wasn’t like a normal thought, it somehow didn’t feel like his own—what was happening to him oh god oh god oh god was he now hearing things and going insane?

He took in a huge gulp of air to keep himself from panicking any farther than he already was and with shaky hands, turned on the water and splashed it into his face. It was only then that he let out the breath. His hands were shaking so hard, he needed to fucking calm down.

He was fine, he was okay, he was alive. Raph repeated the statements in his head like a mantra. He was fine, he was okay, he was alive. He was fine, he was okay he was a—

“Raph?”

Raph shot up from where he was standing and turned to look at whoever had snuck up on him from behind.

It was someone he had never seen before, they were tall, taller than Raph even, and had dark black hair and similarly dark clothing.

“You wanna still meet up after school to talk about that thing? You said you would text me, but haven't yet.” They smiled at him, and he realized that they were missing a few teeth.

“Uh—“ Raph responded dumbly. Well, fuck him I guess universe because the exact thing he didn’t want to happen happened and even worse it happened immediately after he almost had a panic attack in the school bathroom, great, just great!

“Raph? You doing okay?” The person looked at Raph before sighing. “Do you remember who I am?”

Raph shakes his head, and the person runs a hand across their face. “You don’t remember me. Damn, I thought you were lyin’.”

They pointed to themself. “Casey. Casey Jones. Non-binary hockey extraordinaire, and like the coolest person you’ve ever met.”

Raph blinked. “I told you what?

“You told me that you had some memory issues! That you kept forgetting days and weeks and months and stuff, y’know? Short-term memory loss or something like that.”

So, it wasn’t just a one-time thing and he had instead forgotten multiple times? “Why would I joke about that?!” He growled at Casey.

He had memory issues, constantly apparently, and he remembers that he had them and told another person about it yet he can’t remember now. Plus he has those weird feelings when he’s near his brothers and especially in his home of all places, and has scars that he doesn’t remember and to add to it all, he almost fucking died and doesn’t remember—

“Dude, you okay?” Casey said, putting their hand on Raph’s shoulder.

Raph flinched and tugged it off of him. He could feel his emotions building to the surface and he didn’t like it at all. “Do I look fine?! I’m fucking terrified right now and I have no idea what’s going on or who you even are and my brothers keep weirding me out, and your nonchalant attitude is not helping at-fucking-all right now, so could you please take this a little more seriously or just shut up?!”

Raph huffed out and tightened his fists to keep himself from punching Casey or even a wall. This was too much right now, too much in general, he should have just stayed at home and told his brothers about this so he didn’t have to be this confused about everything and anything right now! He was exhausted yet full of adrenaline in a way that triggered his fight or flight and right now he definitely wanted to fight, yet he didn’t want to hurt anyone right now, himself and Casey included.

“Dude, calm down,” Casey commented and Raph glared up at them.

“Calm down?! You want me to fucking calm down when my memory—”

Casey put their hands up defensively. “Hey, hey! Y’know what? I know a spot that’s better than a public bathroom, let’s go there instead! That way if we decide to fight neither of us will get in trouble, okay?” They asked rapidly, shuffling a few feet back to get closer to the bathroom entrance.

Raph didn’t move, still wound up from everything he had learned less than a day and a half. He was so scared, so terrified right now, so confused.

“—or we could stay here and breathe! If you’d rather do that then that’s fine, I’m down for that too! Anything you want to do right now I’m cool with that, even if that means skipping a class or two.” They said awkwardly. Their voice was grading on his ears as he tried more breaths to calm himself down. It was getting harder and harder to breathe, why couldn’t he breathe?!

“Do you want me to talk to fill the silence? I can do that—”

“Shut up Casey!” Raph managed to gasp out as he pushed himself against one of the bathroom walls to keep himself from swaying.

He continued to struggle to take in breaths, trying his hardest to remember how Leo deals with these. He needed to be grounded, and the tiles were cold enough for him to focus on them instead of the panicked feelings he was having. Eventually, he was able to breathe again, and he started to tell himself everything he knew about what was going on.

In and out. It had been five months since he had last remembered anything. His memory loss wasn’t a one-off thing and happened enough for him to tell Casey, someone he had known for less than a week. He had started sophomore year. According to his brothers, he had been acting more aggressively and arguing with Leo more. He has scars around his body that he doesn’t remember and one that specifically looks like it almost killed him. In and out.
He was alive. In and out. His brothers were still alive. In and out. He was fine. In and out.

He took another deep breath in, he just had a panic attack in a school bathroom, god he wanted to die. He thought before glaring up from the floor and over at Casey. “What else did I tell you?”

They bit their lip and gave a dry laugh. “Can we talk about this somewhere that’s not the school bathroom?”

Casey somehow had the keys to access the rooftop, though Raph suspected that they didn’t have permission to even go up here.

Casey sat down next to the door and opened his backpack to take out two sandwiches. They held one of them up to Raph who reluctantly took it and sat down somewhat far away from them.

They took a bite of their sandwich. “So, how you doing? ”

Raph gave them a blank stare and rolled their eyes. “Just peachy thanks.” He responded, sarcastically and on edge.

Casey snorted. “Yeah, sorry dumb question.”

Raph fidgeted with the saran wrap that was around the sandwich while he thought. Not only did Casey know him, but Casey knew things about him that his brothers didn’t seem to know. He suspected that if his brothers knew he had memory issues they would have told him and not asked for reasons for his past behavior as Donnie did, so he could only assume that they didn’t.

But then there was the question of why. Why did he tell Casey and not them? Why did he tell Casey at all, and what else did he tell Casey?

Raph sighed and pressed the palms of his hand into his eyes. After he and his brothers had fought tooth and nail to become accepted by the community, and then they were, he didn’t even get two months to enjoy the joys of having human friends before this whole mess happened to him.

“I told you I had memory problems?” He asked Casey.

Casey nodded. “Yeah, said that like, every few weeks your memory would get reset to a certain day. Sounds super inconvenient by the way.”

“May fifth?” He furrowed his brow. Every time? That wasn’t how memory loss worked, or at least he didn’t think it worked like that.

“Yeah! That one!”

“When did I meet you, and when did I tell you this?” If his memory reset every few weeks to the same day, did that mean that whenever he had met Casey he had regained some of his older memories? That had to be the case, otherwise, how would he know?

Casey took another bite of their sandwich and paused to think. “Let's see… technically we met sometime in August when we were first placed in weightlifting together, but we only started hanging out two and a half weeks ago I think. You told me all this stuff Friday, and it's kinda sad to think you won’t remember the times we hung out and all, y’know? Do you know if you’ll remember it or gain it back?”

Raph shrugged. “I dunno man. Did I tell you anything else that I should know about this? Do you know if my brothers know, or do you know how I got this scar?” He pointed to the scar on his chin and neck.

“No, you got that before we started hanging out. I think you got it before school started if I remember right. I don’t know if your brothers know, but I would assume they do. They are your brothers after all.”

They look for one last bite of their sandwich before crumpling up the saran wrap that was left. “The only other thing you told me was on Friday when you said you wanted to talk to me after school today. You sounded super serious about it too, I was kinda worried that something bad had happened.”

Raph looked down at the sandwich in his hand. Something serious? Ha, what bad timing. He held out the sandwich back to Casey who looked at him curiously. “Not hungry,” Raph mumbled.

He wished that this was just a bad dream, the kind of weird dream where weird things could happen like losing five months of your life and meeting someone who knows you but not vice–versa. The kind of weird dream where your brothers act a bit weirder than before, and they say you're the one acting weird, even though you know you’re the same as you’ve always been. The kind of weird dream that you could wake up from.

Casey shrugged and took it back just as the bell rang out from the speakers. Casey shuffled on his backpack and stood up. “Do you want to go to your next class, or skip, because if you skip then I’m down for that too.”

Raph shook his head. “I’ll be fine, just go to your next class, I guess I’ll see you in weightlifting.”

“Yeah sure, I’ll see you then.” Casey smiled at him before their face turned to be much more serious. “But I also think that you should probably go to a doctor or veterinarian or whatever. I don’t think this kind of memory loss is healthy, turtle or not.”

“I’ll see you later Casey,” Raph said through his teeth, a bit annoyed. He really wanted them to leave.

Casey looked hesitant and almost sad at Raphs apprehensiveness, but eventually just sighed and responded. “See you Raph.” They left and the door shut behind them.

Raph let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding in. He was so tired right now, he wanted to sleep it off and wake up to a world where it was May 6 and this was just a weirdly scary dream. But it wasn’t.

Even still, it wasn’t like he didn’t have choices. He could just leave the school and go home instead. Raph bit his lip. But after so much work and longing to go to school and finally getting accepted, should he skip school? He hasn’t yet, at least to his knowledge, and it feels weird to run from something he wanted. Raph shook his head. He isn’t running from that, things have changed since then. School is now new and unfamiliar all over again, and it would be so much better to be anywhere but here.

He looked over the edge of the building to see quite a few students making their way inside. Once it looked like enough people had left, he jumped from the school’s rooftop onto the closet building.

However, as he jumped, he noticed a certain person. It was April, though she looked much lonelier than before which was weird. She wasn’t talking to anyone around her and was walking with her head down.

Raph didn’t really care all too much, maybe she just had a rough week or something, but either way, he found that he had a weird urge to talk to her. He took a look around first before finding a fire escape going down the building. He quickly ran through it to the ground.

“April!” Raph yelled out to her from quite a bit of distance away.

She flinched when she heard him and looked around till she saw him properly. Once she did, she grimaced and turned away from him fast. The bell then rang after, and she ran to the doors.

Raph blinked. April looked mad, or at the very least she didn’t look happy to see him.

He sighed and started to walk away from the school. Whatever, Raph would just have to add her to the list of people he’s pissed off in the five months. Hopefully, this will be the last time he has to rediscover all of this and his memory problems.

Fear pooled inside of him again, and he had to take deep breaths to keep himself from freaking out on his way home.

Chapter Text

“Memory loss or amnesia is the term for when a person has an unusual difficulty remembering things. It can be caused by alcohol, drugs, concussions, and various illnesses such as Alzheimer's and–”

“Raph!” Mikey said standing in front of the couch where Raph was sitting, holding up a Nintendo Switch controller that they definitely did not have before. “Wanna play against me in Mario Kart?”

Raph rolled his eyes and unpaused his video after ignoring the grating feeling Mikey's voice gave. “Not right now Mikey, I’m busy.”

“But you’ve been busy for the last like, six hours! Leo and Donnie said they were both too busy with homework stuff, but I begged Steven to let me borrow his switch for the day, so c'mon and play with me!” Mikey wined, almost pushing the controller into Raphs hand.

“Stop Mikey, I said-”

“Raph!” Leo shouted angrily from behind Mikey, his arms crossed with a serious look on his face.

Mikey jumped and Raph shivered again when he heard his brother's voice, somehow it was even worse than it was before. “What Leo? I’m busy can’t you see?” he said, gesturing to his phone where the video was playing.

“Yeah, clearly.” His brother rolled his eyes and Mikey quietly walked away from the two of them, then out of the room entirely. Leo continued. “Dad got a call from the school, saying that you weren’t at any of your classes after lunch for three days!”

Raph tightened his grip on his phone and averted his gaze away from Leo. For some reason his brain couldn’t stand looking at him, something was really wrong because he felt a weird, tightening emotion that only increased the longer he looked at him. He hated it and wanted it to stop so badly.

“So what?” He responded to Leo.

“So what?! Raph–” Leo took a deep breath in and out. His voice was shaky and Raph couldn’t tell if it was from rage or anxiety. “I’m worried about you! I thought that you wanted to go to school and now you’re doing stuff like this again? I thought that after last time you wouldn’t keep doing this sort of stuff, especially after you promised you wouldn’t!”

Leo sighed and sat on the couch seat next to him and Raph badly wanted to get up and move far away from him. Still, he stayed. He wanted and needed to know what Leo was talking about. Even if he didn’t want to look at the scars, he still needed to know what had happened.

“I do want this, I promise you, I want this!” He said, his mouth dry. “And what do you mean by again?”

Leo scoffed and gestured to his arm which was still heavily wrapped in bandages. “Don’t act clueless Raph, It only happened a few days ago. After school on Friday, with the big argument?”

He looked at Raph expectantly, and Raph in return nodded as if he understood what he meant. Raph looked at the bandage more carefully this time. It was thicker than he thought it was. Something bad must have happened, and he could assume that it had something to do with himself.

“How bad is it?” He asked.

Leo looked at him with astonishment and growled at him. “Well gee, I dunno about you but if your brother puts a sai through your arm, I can imagine it would be pretty fucking bad, why’d you ask?” He sarcastically spoke, clearly pissed.

Raph blanched and looked down at his hands in astonishment. He’d done what to his brother? Over an argument of all things?

“What the fuck!?”

Oh god, when his brothers said he had been weird, they meant it! He could never imagine that he would do that of all things, hurting his brothers. He was aggressive and blood-hungry sometimes, sure, but to hurt them like that? To put a sai through his brother's arm? What was wrong with him? What had happened on Friday to make him do that? Did he legitimately go insane? Oh god… what if he did it again? Leo was agitating him, all of his brothers were whenever they walked into a room, so what if he just snapped and killed one of them? He doesn’t think he could live with himself if they died if he killed them. Raph should get up from where he’s sitting and run away from the sewers never to come back because what the fuck–

He felt Leo put a hand on his shoulder, and Raph realized that he was crying. He vigorously wiped his eyes with a hand to try and clear them. He shouldn’t be crying when he was the one to hurt Leo like that.

“I’m so fucking sorry Leo, just– god!” He said.

Leo rolled his eyes, though didn’t take his hand off of Raphs shoulder. “I already said I forgive you for it. If you’re really this sorry about it then prove it by going to school–for the whole day– and stop acting up like this. You wanted to go to school before so act like it.”

Raph took deep breaths in to keep himself from crying more, he didn’t deserve to. “I think somethings wrong Leo.”

Leo’s face grew dark and after a few long moments of neither of them saying anything, squeezed Raph’s shoulder hard. “What do you mean?”

Raph swallowed down all the anxiety, self-hate, and especially whatever weird concoction of emotions Leo was making him feel, and forced himself to speak. “I–I don’t remember! I don’t fucking remember anything since May fifth and these past five days! It’s all just gone, and I don’t know why it's happening, but it's freaking me out!”

There was a long silence between the two. Raph stared at Leo with deep sincerity, while Leo stared back as equally incense with an expression Raph couldn’t read. He looked deep in thought and Raph wished he could just take the words as they were.

Leo let go of his shoulder and stood up from the couch with a sigh, not letting go of the eye contact. “I don’t believe you Raph.” He said cooly, his voice matching his eyes.

“What– What do you mean you don’t believe me? This has apparently happened multiple times, and that's fucking weird! I don’t remember stabbing you…” He trailed off for a second. “And I don’t remember acting out or the argument!”

“I don’t believe you, because I don’t want you to make excuses for what you did and are doing! If you had memory loss multiple times, we would have noticed it by now, and as far as I’m concerned this is the first time it's happened!”

Raph shot up from the couch and walked towards Leo, making him take steps backward. “Leo, I am telling the truth! Why would I make excuses for something like that?!”

“Because it's horrific Raph! When it happened you looked like you wanted to kill me, and you just want to make excuses for what happened to relieve yourself of responsibility!”

He held up his shoulder closer to Raph. “You did this! You did this to me and I don’t want you to act like you didn’t! I forgave you for it so you should just take that instead of whatever this is!”

Raph took more steps towards his brother and Leo in turn took more steps back, so much so that he was almost to the wall. “I’m not trying to not take responsibility, I’m trying to fucking tell you why–”

“Raph!” Donnie stepped in between the two of them, cutting off Raph and pushing him away from Leo.

The bespectacled turtle looked Leo up and down, almost as if he wanted to ensure he was okay, before turning to Raph with a glare. “Jesus, go take a walk Raph, alright? We don’t want a repeat, now do we?”

Raph made eye contact with Leo before grinding his teeth. “Fine!”

Raph stormed out of the layer and back into the sewers with a huff. He didn’t get why Leo didn’t fucking believe him! He thought that his brothers of all people would be understanding or at the very least, hear him out about what he was saying!

God everything was so fucked up right now!

His brothers don’t believe him about his memory loss, he can’t go a full day of school—which he used to enjoy, mind you—without freaking out about the tiniest of anxieties, and worst of all he stabbed his brother, he hurt his brother.

Raphs walk around the sewers started to turn into a sprint the longer he walked.

Raph was—Raph must have been dangerous, right? There was no way he could possibly justify his past actions, not unless he knew the reasons why, and even then! He and his brothers always fought and roughhoused like normal brothers would, but this wasn’t like that! This was just like those goddamn scars, he didn’t know what happened to him and that was making him freak out so, so badly.

The longer he thought about it the more nauseated he got. The walls around him were too close for comfort and as much as he wanted to prove Leo wrong about always leaving, he had to escape from the confines of the sewers.

Swiftly, he climbed up the closest ladder and found himself in an alleyway. He let himself gasp for air once he reached the outside, finally able to calm himself down from the damp, suffocating air of the sewers, and his home.

Once he was calm enough, he felt his jaw tighten with anger. Why didn’t Leo believe him, why couldn’t he possibly fucking believe that he had memory loss?! Memory loss that Casey had told him happened multiple fucking times between the span of May fifth and now! Just— Goddamn him!

He put a hand over his mouth as a thought popped into his head. Unless Casey lied to him? While it wouldn’t make a lot of sense, Casey could have just not told him the truth. People can lie, and some people even have the balls to lie to his face!

“Fuck!” Raph shouted out as he took his hand away from his face and balled it into a fist.

God! Now he could either trust Casey, someone who he doesn't know but who believes and knows Raph has some sort of memory loss, or he could trust Leo, who doesn’t think he has memory loss and should know if he did or didn’t have it in the past! Could he even trust himself at this point? Goddamn it, he couldn’t trust himself either way and right now it was hard to comprehend the fact that he stabbed his brother why had he stabbed his brother?!

And to make everything even more confusing, he doesn’t even know if patterned memory loss is important or not! Does it mean he will have a higher likelihood of missing months of his life again?! If yes, then would it reset to May fifth again as Casey said?! Who fucking knows because Raph as hell sure doesn’t!

Raph felt all of his emotions start to build up in him like an angry fire until he took his fist and punched the brick wall closest to him.

God he wanted to fucking cry, this was too much and too confusing and he wished his dad was here so he could talk to him about all of this because unlike Casey he could trust him and unlike Leo and his other brothers, he would believe him.

He brought his hand away from the wall and vigorously whipped his wet eyes.

Whatever. Just… whatever. He can deal with this, he’s strong, and strong people wouldn’t cry after a silly argument with their brothers. Or at the very least, Raph wouldn’t let himself.

Briskly, Raph walked out of the alleyway and onto the streets, popping his hoodie overtop his head. He started to walk through the crowded and bustling streets of the city.

Even before his memory loss happened, he always did things like this after being accepted into society. Just walking around the streets at night was nice, and while he and his brothers had often gone out into the city the night before, there was something different about this.

It was a powerful feeling, that he couldn’t really describe other than pure bliss in knowing they didn’t have to hide anymore.

Now, it felt different, because it was more like a saving grace where he could empty his mind of the noises and ignore his situation with his brothers and his memory loss, and all of his problems that were more than just overdue assignments. He didn’t like it as much as he did before.

Even though it was different and worse, that didn’t mean it was bad. It was still just as, if not, more calming than before. Even with his mind supplying him with his situation, he tried to keep himself grounded in his surroundings.

The cold late-summer weather was kicking in, chilling his face and fingers. A guy was yelling from his car about traffic or something like that. An older woman was selling hot chocolate on a food cart, and a few teenagers playing with hockey sticks near an alleyway. (Raph decided that even if it wasn’t Casey, he still didn’t want to take his chances and have to talk to them.)

The longer he walked, the farther away he got from people and the more he edged on the outside of town. The sky had darkened more and more with every minute that he was out. He didn’t check the time because he honestly didn’t care unless Leo personally brought him back home.

He needed this, it didn’t matter to him if Leo got upset and prissy over it because if he wasn’t going to believe him about his memory loss, then the least he could do was give Raph some time for salvation.

He should apologize when he gets home though. He should apologize for arguing, skipping classes, and for stabbing him. God he especially needed to apologize for stabbing him because just thinking about it made Raph nauseated. Raph wished he could stop being nauseated, what was with him and nausea?

Raphs’ walk slowed more and more the farther he walked as well, though it wasn’t a conscious decision and weirdly enough didn’t feel like a subconscious decision either. Call it faith, luck, or even just a weird third thing, but when he had stopped walking altogether, he had found himself in front of the abandoned TCRI facility.

If it wasn’t at least kinda creepy to see it all boarded up like this, he would have called it satisfying seeing it be torn to pieces like this. Honestly, it serves them right for milking his family. Raph shudders just thinking of the pain and his brothers screams—ugh.

Still, as much as he wanted to put the bad memories and the past to lay in the grave of the facility, something seemingly urged him to look closer at the old building. Aside from it looking abandoned and blocked off, there were also small-ish pieces of the building completely torn off off the sides and pushed close to the building to avoid the sidewalk.

He walked closer to the building and peered into the building’s small windows. Inside, it unsurprisingly looked ransacked with papers strewn about across the inside along with random scraps of metal and random office supplies.

It looked about as normal as a creepy maybe-illegal science facility would be.

Raph continued to walk around the premises of the buildings, most of it just being broken glass, beakers, tech, and other broken trash. Once he had made a full loop of the building, he decided that there wasn’t anything here for him. However, right as he was about to walk away, he heard a car pull up to the building and loud voices exit it once parked.

As he heard them walk closer and closer to him, he ducked under some larger rubble and kept his breathing shallow. Raph heard around six or seven pairs of footsteps walk towards him and near the largest hole in the building.

“Jeeze, they’re having us working till, what midnight today or something? Is the pay even good?” He heard one of them ask, his voice getting farther away once he stepped into the building itself. Whatever they were doing seemed really sketchy.

Raph was gonna follow them, in case he needed to intervene if they were doing illegal or even just dangerous things. While he didn’t have his sais on him, he could handle himself in a fistfight. (He hadn’t ever fought a 1v6 fistfight, but there's a first time for everything.) Raph peered around the corner cautiously, trying to get a good look at them.

The tallest man of the group spoke next. “Eleven-thirty’s when we’re scheduled to be done, but with the way traffic goes in New York, I wouldn’t be surprised if it actually took until two AM if we’re lucky!” He also ducked into the building. “But from what they had said, they would be giving us five times what we got from our last job.”

“Holy shit, five times?!” Another one shouted before going in. They continued to chat as each of them went into the building. Once the last guy was in and distant enough away, Raph slipped in as well.

Slowly, the group made their way through the building as Raph followed as silently as he could, even trying to make his breaths as quiet as possible.

From what his dad always critiqued, he was the loudest of his brothers when it came to sneaking around but even still he was doing a hell of a good job at it right now! “Take that Leo and Dad and your stupid training!” Raph whispered-yelled to himself.

Once he realized that making any noise would probably be a bad idea, he quickly ducked underneath a tipped-over table and put his hands over his mouth. Hoping that none of them heard him.

“Did you guys hear something?” One of them asked.

Another just let out a huff. “Yeah, it’s the ghost of the past experiments here in the lab, haunting whoever’s inside to kill them for what humanity has done to them.” He said sarcastically. “Gary, stop being a pussy and help me lift this heavy as-shit door!”

Raph let out a quiet sigh of relief and looked over the edge of the desk and over at the men. They lifted a heavy-looking metal door and dropped it close by, revealing a downwards-heading staircase.

As the men were heading down the stairs and just as Raph was about to follow, he felt a piece of paper get stuck to the bottom of his shoe. He took it off and just was about to throw it away, he looked at it and almost dropped it in surprise.

It was the torn top of a newspaper, marked July of this year.

The title and subtitle read: MISSING MUTANTS FOUND— The found turtle teens say that their missing status was a mistake.

The rest of the newspaper had been ripped off, but that was all he needed to crouch back to his spot behind the desk.

That’s weird, that’s so fucking weird. What happened for them to earn the title of missing?

Fear pulsed in his stomach for what felt like the hundredth time that day. He hadn’t seen the other mutants since he ‘woke up’, could they have been missing too? What did it mean missing status was a mistake, how could being marked as missing be a mistake? What happened in those five months?

Raph quickly fumbled his phone out of his pocket and searched for the title of the article in his search bar. The moment it loaded and he clicked on it, his phone booted him from the app entirely. Thinking it was just a weird glitch or even weird timing, he went back into the app, and clicked on the article again, only for the exact same thing to happen.

He grunted in anger before shoving it back into his pocket, along with the newspaper headline. He’ll just ask Donnie to look at his phone tomorrow, or he’ll even just ask Donnie about it. Even if Leo won’t believe him, Donnie or Mikey surely would.

Right?

He shook his head to stop himself from thinking. He’ll think about all the complicated things after he figures out what these men were doing, who they were contracted by, and if it was all legal.

Raph looked over the edge of the table and was just about to see if it was clear for him to follow when he heard echoed voices and grunting coming through the stairs.

The men carried large glass tubes full of a weird, dull green liquid. They carefully walked it out of the building, and once they had watched it walk out, Raph left his hiding—his lookout spot and followed them outside.

Just as they started to load their car and Raph was about to follow them to wherever they were going, he felt a harsh shiver and a bad feeling wash over him. One of his brothers was here, great.

“What are you doing?” Donnie said, his voice cold to the point of almost unfeeling at all.

Raph groaned and turned to look at him. “I was just taking a walk.”

Donnie glared at him. “That’s not what it looks like. What are you doing at TCRI’s facility specifically? This isn’t a sidewalk.”

“It’s fine! I’m fine! I was just curious about this place, I just saw it while walking and wanted to get a closer look at the place that took us captive and miked us. That’s it! Is that so weird of me to do?”

Donnie leaned to get a look over Raphs shoulder to the car behind him. Raph could hear it start to move away and Raph cursed him his head.

“You were trying to pick a fight, weren’t you?”

“No Donnie, I wasn’t trying to pick a fight.” He half lied. If they were acting suspiciously and if they had drawn a weapon on him, he would be in his right to fight them.

Donnie rolled his eyes, clearly not believing Raph. “Whatever. Fight them or not, it’s not my responsibility if you tarnish your newfound reputation. Come on, let’s just go home.”

Donnie started to walk away from the rubble and towards an alleyway on the other side of the road.

Raph hesitated and looked back at the broken building before catching up to Donnie.

After a moment of silence, Raph spoke, and weird and unnecessary anxiety sprung up in him. “I wasn’t lying. What I said to Leo, about my memory loss. I meant it, I can’t remember anything after March fifth.”

Donnie, who was currently opening the sewer drain paused for a moment before looking up at Raph, his expression unreliable. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

He nodded. “Okay. If you want me to believe your lie and excuse, then okay. I’ll play along with you.”

Raph gritted his teeth. “I’m not lying and it’s not a fucking excuse Donnie!” He was acting just like Leo and he hated it, why could neither of them believe him? They were brothers for Christ's sake! “Why can’t either of you understand that—”

“Raph,” Donnie said, cutting him off. “I don’t want to have this conversation with you and have it end with me getting stabbed—”

Raph felt a pain go through his heart at that, so much so that he wanted to either cry, vomit, punch himself or Donnie, or all three.

“—so let’s just go home.” He finished, pulling the cover off entirely and jumping down.

Raph looked behind at the facility. For some weird, inexplicable reason, he wanted to stay and find out what the men were looking for. Raph looked back down at the sewers and with a feeling of dread, followed Donnie down.

Chapter Text

The walk back through the sewers felt just as suffocating as before, Donnie being with him not making it any better. Raph might go as far as to say that it was even worse. He felt an itchy, yearning feeling to go back to TCRI’s old building and piece together what was happening. His lack of fighting and wrestling this week wasn’t making him feel any better either, though maybe that was just his headache.

Raph walked with his hands in his pockets and he could feel his phone and the newspaper inside of it. They felt heavier than they were, and Raph knew why.

He wanted to ask Donnie about it. He wanted his curiosity and fear to be satiated. He didn’t want to wonder what had happened, he just wanted answers, but damn it, if the world didn’t have it out for him.

Raph swallowed. Donnie's words rang throughout his brain. I don’t want to have this conversation with you and have it end with me getting stabbed.

Raph wouldn’t hurt him. Raph would never purposely hurt any of his brothers, especially not now. What he had done then was different. He was a different person then compared to now. He wouldn’t hurt Donnie, and yet he didn’t know if he could prove it to him. However, despite how much he didn’t want to hurt them, he did. Memories or not, he hurt Leo badly. He stabbed his brother through the arm.

Raph shook off his thoughts. He needed to get answers, so he was going to ask Donnie and that’s that. The two of them had been walking for a long time by now, thirty or so minutes, and neither of them had said a word since Raph had begrudgingly followed Donnie in. Every time he glanced over at his brother, he looked angry in a way that wasn’t normal. Or at least, he didn’t look like how Donnie normally would. And to make it even worse, every few minutes Raph got more nauseous for no apparent reason and it was starting to piss him off.

Raph took a deep breath in and bit the bullet. “You said you’d play along with my ‘lie’, right?”

Donnie side-eyed him. “Where are you going with this?”

Raph took out the newspaper scrap and held it out for Donnie to look at. “This. This is weird, what happened? Why did we go missing?”

Donnie took a glance at it before walking a little bit faster. “Not right now Raph. I’ll tell you in the morning or something. I’m tired from today and I don’t have the patience to deal with this.”

Raph winced and knew that what Donnie was referring to wasn’t just his memory loss. He shook it off. “Why not tell me right now Donnie? Not only is the article’s title weird, but when I tried to search it up it wouldn’t work!”

He scoffed. “I dunno man—Maybe your phone glitched or something. I can look at it tomorrow if it gives you more problems or whatever, just let me walk in silence after having to drag your ass back home at fuck-o’clock at night!”

Raph bit his lip. “Donnie, I just need to–”

Donnie cut him off. “Stop it Raph.” He growled.

Raph huffed in frustration. Even while he was angry and frustrated at Donnie, he still felt a little guilty for making Donnie look out for him like this–not to mention what he had done to Leo– but it was also annoying as all hell having to live through what was happening to him.

His stomach swerved. He hated this; he hated it so much. He wanted to ask Donnie about what had happened, but neither he nor Leo would believe him because of something he didn’t remember.

The room started to swerve and Raph put a hand over his mouth. He slowed his walking speed down, and Donnie was slowly getting farther away from him. The nausea was getting worse and worse. Was he fucking sick? Why did he have to be sick on top of everything else?

He came to a complete stop and had to lean against one of the walls of the sewers. His body started to tremble as the nausea only got worse and he could feel himself break out into a sweat.

He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to block out the pain. He felt like he was going to vomit and his body was much weaker than before. He tried his best to shove down the feelings and willed himself to walk forward, but he just couldn’t. All he could do was stay stuck in that spot with his eyes squeezed shut as tight as he could and take deep breaths to keep himself from vomiting. Weirdly enough, he felt himself craving something , but whatever that something was, he didn’t know.

It hurt to not have it.

“Raph?” He heard Donnie ask and he felt a hand on his shoulder.

Raph tensed up when Donnie put his hand on him though made no move to take it off of him even with his thoughts yelling at him anyway.

Don’t let him get close. Get away from him, get away from him!

“Raph? What's happening? Are you okay?” Donnie asked, concern in his voice.

Raph opened his eyes and nodded with a wince. “Yeah, I’m fine. Let's just go home.”

Raph tried to take a step forward before he would have almost fallen over if not for Donnie catching him.

Once in a more stable position, Donnie looped his arm under Raphs for support and Raph tried his best to keep from swaying too much. He didn’t know why he suddenly felt so awful, or why his nausea had suddenly gotten so bad. All he wanted to do right now was to sleep.

After a few minutes of silence, Donnie spoke up. “What's wrong Raph? Are you sick or something?”

Raph gritted his teeth to try and keep the pain down as much as possible. “I thought you said you wanted silence.” He snarkily said.

Donnie glared at him harshly. “Answer my question Raph.”

“How would I know? I don’t have any fucking clue what's happening!” Raph sighed and shook his head, though immediately winced from pain. “Probably sick though.”

“Shit,” Donnie mumbled under his breath and shifted Raph so he was leaning more of his weight onto himself. He glanced over at Raph and gave a small, shaky smile. “I hope you know that you aren’t exactly light, so next time you decide to be sick don’t make me drag you back home.

Raph gave a small smile back. “Next time I’ll just make sure to get sick even farther from home just to inconvenience you.”

Donnie gave a short laugh back and continued to walk forward and it wasn’t long after that they had made it back to the lair and it was by that point that Raph honestly didn’t feel like he could stand anymore. His legs were shaky beyond belief, and overall he just felt so frustratingly weak in more ways than just physical.

Donnie set him down on the couch and seconds after, Donnie almost frantically ran to the bathroom.

Raph wondered if Donnie was scared. Well obviously he was, he wouldn’t have run that fast if he wasn’t unless Raph’s tired brain decided to trick him and at this point, he couldn’t throw that possibility out the window.

Vaguely, he heard muffled noises from the bathroom, Donnie was making noises but it was kinda quiet so maybe he was just talking to himself. It was weird, Donnie wasn’t ever really one to worry about anyone getting sick, even Leo wasn’t worried about anyone being sick. It was almost guaranteed that if one of them got sick then all of them would. Just one of the perks of being physically close to your brothers. Maybe all of the oddities he found and will find in his brothers were just the product of these past months. Maybe they were just different than they were before.

Raph pushed down the fear and swallowed his nausea. His brothers might be more different than he had thought. People are affected by their environment, right? The more time they spend with others the more different they become. After being accepted, maybe they were all changed due to time, and Raph was stuck being a younger, unchanged version of himself.

God, he feels kinda loopy and dizzy. Is Donnie back yet? Or can he just fall asleep here?

Raph closed his eyes for just a second before he was rudely shaken awake by Donnie. “Raph—Raph, dude, hey. I need you to stay awake with me for just a little longer, okay?”

Raph almost nodded before a sharp pain pierced his head so he just made a grunt that he hoped Donnie understood as affirmation.

“These should help with the sickness. You probably just have some sort of flu or cold or something.” Donnie gave a weak smile before slipping two small pills into Raphs hand and offering out a small glass of water.

Raph, despite his delirium, took both the pills and water, drinking nearly all of it just as he realized how thirsty he was. He handed the empty cup back to Donnie who placed it on the side table and looked back at Raph with a level of what looked like concern. A type of concern he hadn’t seen since their fight with Superfly— hell, maybe since even way before then.

Donnie put a hand up against Raphs forehead and frowned. “...no fever huh.” He mumbled under his breath before sighing and standing up. “C’mon Raph, I’ll help you to your bed. Hopefully, you’ll just sleep off whatever this is.”

Raph woke up in a cold sweat, his body trembling harshly. His breathing was coming out in short gasps, and he was struggling to breathe so much so that it almost felt like the air itself was thinning around him. He felt scared, and if he wasn’t so exhausted he might have tried to curl himself up as much as possible to provide comfort. If he had a nightmare, he doesn’t remember, and isn’t that just the most ironic thing?

He slowly took a hand and whipped the sweat off of his face.

He still felt nauseous and sick, but it was duller. His body, though tired, didn’t feel like it could barely move. It seemed that, unlike his memory loss, he was able to sleep off most of the sickness.

The weirdest part was that even when he was physically able to get up, he honestly just didn’t feel like doing it. Normally he wouldn’t want to waste a Saturday sleeping in for even hours after he woke up, but right now he would much rather stay here and sleep.

Maybe it was the stress, nightmare, or the sickness in general that was making him feel this way. Honestly, he didn’t care as long as he could just… stay here.

So he did.

And he did.

And even after what felt like hours of laying there, and despite all his exhaustion, he just couldn’t fall back asleep or even find it in himself to get up. It was kinda weird, he didn’t feel like he was even really laying in his bed, more like distant and floating.

Raph didn’t mind it. It was nice not having to think about anything, not even thinking about his own body. He vaguely heard the door open and heard someone place something on the floor before approaching his bed.

They shook him a bit. “Raph?” Donnie asked in a hushed voice. “Listen, I know you should get rest or whatever when sick, but you also need to eat.”

Raph opened his eyes and glanced over at his brother. God, he was so tired and his muscles hurt. It felt like he had just deadlifted two hundred pounds the day before. “No thanks.” He mumbled.

Donnie frowned, looking both concerned and annoyed. “Are you okay? Tell me if you're in pain and I can get you medication.”

“Kinda? I’m mostly just tired. Sweaty.” Raph groaned.

Donnie glanced over at him, looking more concerned than he needed to be. “Are you sure you're okay? You’ve been asleep for over a day.”

Raph blinked and sighed. He felt more grounded now at least, but losing another day of his life wasn't what he wanted at all. It made him frustrated and angry, not just because he lost a day, but also for being sick in the first place. He wanted to stop feeling so confused, get his memories back, and just live like he did before. He just wants normalcy, is that so much to ask?

“Yeah, I’m sure. Not hungry.” Even the thought of eating right now was nauseating, and the smell of the soup wasn’t making it better.

Donnie looked at Raph’s face, analyzing him with concern and fear. If Raph was less delirious, he might have been weirded out by this, but with how Donnie had been acting since he saw Raph sick, it wasn’t completely unexpected. Donnie rubbed his face with his hand and nodded.

“Yeah, okay.” He said as he pulled out Raphs phone from his hoodie pocket. He placed it next to Raph. “It must have fallen out of your pocket earlier or something, but if you need anything, just text us, okay?”

Raph nodded. “Okay.”

Donnie got up from where he was leaned over and started to walk to the door. He turned to look at Raph one more time before closing the door and leaving Raph alone.

For another minute or two, Raph stayed in the darkness of the room. He wanted to get up, he wanted to go back to TCRI and find out what those men were doing. He wanted to find out what had happened to mistake them as missing.

Raph glanced over at his phone. He should text Dad. Ask him about what had happened or just tell him that he had memory loss.

He pulled himself up into a sitting position with a large amount of difficulty. His arms were shaking way more than they should, and his whole body ached immensely. Raph leaned himself against the wall and took ahold of his phone.

Raph opened the phone and winced at how bright it was even on the lowest setting before opening his text messages. These past few days, he had only taken a few glances at his older texts. Most of them were just conversations he would expect to have with his friends and brothers while most of the others were deleted. He had avoided looking at his texts with anyone he didn’t know, but weirdly enough the only new people he had added in the past five months were Casey and a few others who only had one or two texts between them.
He clicked on his Dad's, where the only new texts since may have all been from Raph and deleted. While he never really texted his dad before, it was kind of odd how he didn’t text Raph at all in the past five months.

Raph tried to rationalize it to himself. His dad was probably just busy with their new lives after getting accepted, he did get a job after all, one that required him to leave for weeks. Or maybe he just texted Leo or Donnie to check in on them instead of texting Raph specifically. While that thought didn’t make Raph all that happy to think about, it would at least be a reason.

Still, swerving anxiety filled inside of him, forcing him to calm down and breathe to keep down the nausea. Instead of focusing on that, he started to text his dad himself.

Hey dad?
Idk if your busy or whatever
But I should probably tell you that I have memory loss
And i can't remember these past five months
Just text me back or something?
I’m kinda scared

Raph took a deep breath in once he finished and immediately exited the chat. His hands were shaking so much for almost no reason, so much so that Raph had to grip his phone hard to keep himself from dropping it. The shakiness wasn’t all from anxiety either, most of it being involuntary from the sickness, and honestly, it was making him irritated more than anything else.

Raph looked over his other contacts, his finger was hovering over April's icon. He wanted to ask her about what had happened, and why he hadn’t seen her around this past week. Before, she would sometimes just chill at the layer with them and just hang out when they were all free. While it wasn’t as if they did it every week, he also hadn’t heard Leo talk about her at all, which was weird.

Of course, she might have been just busy, or even that Leo had gotten over his crush, but even then it still felt kind of off in a way he didn’t know why. Even if she was busy, it wouldn’t hurt to text her.

He clicked on her icon, and read through her past messages. He felt nervous and a little panicked while reading the texts. He was more than a little freaked out by how weird they were, so much so that it made his heart rate increase ever so slightly.

Fri, Aug 21, 3:45 pm
Raph: April, why are you ignoring me?
Raph: Like, ik we aren’t close or anything but like
Raph: Why???

Wed, Sep 2, 1:09
Raph: Hey April, can I talk to you?
Raph: my brothers are being weird and stuff
Raph: and I have this weird thing going on that i need your help with

April: Stop texting me. Unless you have something else to say to me, I’m not helping you.

Raph: What would I need to apologize for?

You are blocked by this user

Raph bit his lip and scowled. Why would April block him? Had he done something to her to make her angry? If that was the case then the text messages themselves didn’t tell him what he did to make her mad!

As he thought about them more, he realized that these text messages provided evidence. (ugh he sounded like Donnie.) He could probably trust what Casey had said about him having lost his memory more than once, Raph could probably assume that the two times he tried to talk to April were after his memory loss. Being put-off by his brothers—much like he is now—shows that these weird feelings he was having were consistent.

Why, though? Why was he constantly feeling on edge and consistently having his brothers sneak up on him? Sure, they were ninjas and were sometimes stealthy, but this hadn’t ever happened before.

A new wave of nausea overcame Raph out of nowhere, making him put down the phone and cover his eyes with his arm, trying to relieve the dizziness and keep from vomiting on himself. He should probably eat. He felt weaker than ever and eating would help cure this frustrating sickness more than anything else. He should just put the phone down and leave it at that. He could always ask April about it tomorrow at school–because yes, he was going to school tomorrow all day no matter what. He needs to prove to Leo that he is different now, that he won't make the same mistakes his past self did, and that he’s not dangerous.

He’s not a danger to his brothers. He’s not.

After a minute or two, the nausea lessened and Raph took a glance at his phone. He and April didn't talk a lot in general aside from him needing help with school. Other than that, the texts were almost nonexistent, and that included these past five months.

However, there was also a group chat that he, his brothers, and April were all in, and the place where they talked the most. Raph hadn’t looked through it partly because he had forgotten due to being a little more than busy since he ‘woke up’, and also because he had a weird, almost jealous feeling about it that he couldn’t quite pinpoint.

Either way, Raph made up his mind, grabbed his phone, and clicked on the group chat, reading through April's texts during those five months.

Tue, May 10, 11:54 am
April: Hey, I haven’t seen any of you today or yesterday, where did you go? I tried to text Leo and he didn’t respond

Thu, May 12, 10:32 am
April: If you’re all sick, then fine, but I’d like to know if you are

Fri, May 13, 2:59 pm
April: If none of you respond to me, I’m going to go to your house. I’m serious.
April: No one here has seen you around and I probably should have done this sooner, so please text me if you get this

Fri, May 13, 3:23 pm
April: where are you guys?

Sat, May 14, 9:05 am
April: I contacted the police. You're all now marked as a missings person case.
April: if you aren’t actually missing, then tell me where you are

Mon, May 15, 1:15 am
April: If you have your phones, and are able to text me, please do.
April: I can help I promise that wherever you are I can help
April: if you guys are fighting something I don’t know about then please just text me
April: if that's the case, then I can help you guys

Sat, May 20, 2:48 am
April: Text me please

Fri, June 20, 4:59 am
April: I know that you are probably kidnapped or something
April: and that these texts are meaningless
April: But I promise you that I will find you guys

Sat, June 21, 6:07 am
April: I hope that you aren’t being experimented on
April: or milked again
April: especially that
April: I really am trying though, I’m looking into any research facilities that might have done this
April: even TCRI

Sun, June 25, 11:33 pm
April: I promise that I’m looking
April: I promise

Thu, June 29, 3:48 am
April: I’m so fucking sorry I can't do anything
April: Like, I promise I’m trying, probably more than the police are
April: But there’s just nothing
April: Nothing at fucking all

Fri, June 30, 7:09 pm
April: I’m sorry

Sat, July 1, 11:52 pm
April: I promise I’m trying

Sun, July 2, 12:46 am
April: I’ll stop texting you guys for now.
April: I know it's not helping at all so
April: It just doesn't feel right trying to text you right now and I probably sound winy and pathetic compared to what you are going through

Mon, July 3, 12:00 am
April: I’ll find you guys
April: I’ll shut up now. Sorry

Sat, July 21, 4:02 pm
April: Fuck you guys, like seriously??
April: I thought we were friends but I guess not??

Sun, July 22, 6:16 am
April: I want you to either apologize and make it up to me or I’m not talking to you because you should understand why this is fucking stupid
April: You could have just told me why, but you go radio silent instead??
April: Like, yeah, I’m happy that you’re all okay and whatnot, but like do you know how much this hurts me? Jesus Christ

While heading the texts, his hands got increasingly shakier until he read the last text messages and dropped his phone onto his lap. He wanted to throw up. April seemed so worried that he felt a lot of guilt start to boil in his chest. He wants to apologize for something he can’t remember, and more than anything, he selfishly wants to know what had happened to them to make her this concerned and worried.

Even with all his guilt, it was hard to push away everything that was in those texts that gave him new information. It seemed that they had gone missing only a few days after he could last remember. That's probably how he had gotten his memory loss in the first place. God, they went missing for much longer than he had originally believed.

They went missing for almost the full five months! Is that the reason why everything has been weird for him? Did they get caught by scientists and they altered his brain to make him act like this? Raph was probably being irrational, life wasn't a comic.

His breathing faltered and suddenly quickened. But a lot of his life was fantastical, and they did get milked by scientists, so it really was possible! What if he was put to sleep in the scientific facility, and everything in his life after he woke up was a dream or something?! WHAT IF EVERYTHING WASN’T REAL?!

Raph brought his hand up to his face and slapped himself as hard as he could, which, with his aching muscles and exhaustion, was admittedly not much. He took a deep breath in and out to calm himself as best as he could.

He was being fucking irrational. If this wasn't real, then he wouldn’t feel pain and he wouldn't be suffering as much as he was. He probably wouldn’t be sick either, and besides, April was mad at them for keeping something a secret from her, so being kidnapped by crazy scientists wouldn’t make much since then, would it?

Just as he started to calm himself down and steer himself away from those sorts of thoughts, a new one popped into his head

They're not real.

Raph blinked and bit his lip hard. He wasn’t expecting his thoughts to refute him again, but maybe they were right! There wasn’t any way to prove that this was reality, and there wouldn’t be any way to escape from this reality! Then he would have to be content to like this forever, not knowing if everything around him was real all because of some stupid memory loss that is ruining his fucking life–

He needs to calm down, he needs to fucking calm down right now. His heart was beating out of his chest and he couldn’t get any air into his lungs. Everything felt so claustrophobic and tight that if the walls were any closer to him he might die. His eyes started to well up with tears of panic and he struggled to pick up his phone off of his lap.

He needed Donnie, Donnie said to text him if he needed to, he should call Donnie or Leo or Mikey, or anyone who can fucking help—

But his hands were too shaky to even open it properly and at some point out of frustration and panic, he threw his phone across the room and almost instantly regretted doing so.

Raph couldn’t even think to try to breathe through all his panic, he was dying and he was dying trapped inside of a science facility with no way out from this nightmarish dream. Everything around him was fake. This sickness—

Raph—

The room he was in—

Raph, please try to breathe—

Even his brothers could have been fake! And even if not everything was fake then he could have been experimented on and that’s how he got all of these scars and that’s how he almost died, and he was going to die wasn’t he? He couldn’t breathe he couldn’t breathe he couldn’t breathe he couldn’t breathe—

Breathe in for four seconds, can you do that for me Raph? One, two, three, four,

Raph took shuddering breaths in when his thoughts told him to, trying to go along with the counting. He struggled to get any air into his lungs, so much so that he didn’t even know if he had even gotten any.

Hold for seven, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven,

Raph held his breaths, and he felt lightheaded, like he was going to pass out at any second. He was dying, Raph was going to fucking die because he was sick and having a stupid panic attack over nothing.

Out for eight. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

Raph didn’t make it to the full eight before he ran out of air again. He was dying, he was fucking dying and he threw his phone so he can’t call for help and he can’t make any noise right now to call for help—

It's okay. It's all okay. We’ll do it again and as many times as you need. In for four, one, two, three, four,

Raph let out a hitched sob before taking in another breath, this one getting more air than the first time but still not enough.

Hold for seven, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven,

Raph held his breath, but it wasn’t good enough.

Out for eight. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. You're doing great, I promise.

Raph let out the breath, then a loud sob. “I’m not, I—”

Yes, you are. Let’s do it again. In for four. One, two, three, four,

Raph took in a breath.

Hold for seven, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven,

Raph held his breath for seven. He was going to die, wasn’t he?

Out for eight. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

Raph let out the breath for seven.

You're doing amazing. In for four. One, two, three, four–

Raph stayed like that for another minute or two, his thoughts guiding him through the breathing exercises before he finally got his breaths under control. “Thank you.” He mumbled out. Feeling even more exhausted than before, which was something he didn’t think couldn’t happen.

His thoughts didn’t respond, and Raph knew that he had definitely gone insane. It didn’t feel like his thoughts, it felt like there was someone with him, coaching him through the breathing exercises. When he was able to see clearly, he had almost expected Leo to be leaning against the bed with a look of compassion, worry, and most of all, understanding; but he wasn’t and Raph knew that those had to be his thoughts, despite him not being able to think properly.

He sighed and pushed himself down until he was lying down. He raised his arm over his eyes. He didn’t feel hot to the touch as if he had a fever, but he was still incredibly exhausted, sweaty, shaky, and nauseous. Raph wants this to be over. He wants to be normal. He also wants to not have fucking panic attacks over stupid things like the unnecessary thought that everything’s not real.

The words that he heard– the thought ‘They’re not real,’ was still bouncing in his head. Much like the other thought, it didn’t quite feel like his. They’re not real, They’re not real, They’re not real.

“What's not real?” He quietly asked himself.

He let out a loud sigh and scrubbed away his tears from his face. Raph was so fucked up right now. Such an anxious, sick mess of a person. He couldn’t even go a day without freaking out over the smallest of things due to having an overwhelming amount of anxiety over small things like going to school. God, he’s so pathetic and a thousand times worse than Leo about it.

He wished Leo was here. The old Leo who he got along with better. The old Leo who he didn’t really have huge fights with anymore. The old Leo who didn’t know that someday his brother would stab him.

Honestly, Raph wished for everything to be back to the way it was. He didn’t want to have to put his brain back together after who knows what happened to him. He didn’t want his brothers to feel like they couldn’t trust his judgment and the things he did. But he doesn't think he could get that anymore.

His past self broke their trust, at least once with the stabbing and maybe even more. Is he just as bad as the person who stabbed his brother, even if he can’t remember it?

He yawned loudly before his stomach grumbled angrily. He should eat. Donnie did after all say that he was asleep for a day at least, and while he wasn't the best at science, going that long, sick, and without food could be good for him.

He slowly pushed himself up and glanced over at the now cold bowl of soup Donnie had provided him. Raph, despite not wanting to eat, leaned over to the desk that was placed on and grabbed ahold of the bowl. It was tomato soup, which was more broth than actual soup, so he hoped that despite how gross the smell was to him, he would be able to keep it down.

Instead of using a spoon, he had decided to drink it straight from the bowl, almost recoiling from the taste. It didn’t taste bad, but the more he ate the more he wanted to throw up.

Still, he forced himself to drink more and more of it. He needed to get better so he could go to school tomorrow, Raph reasoned with his body.

His body, however, disagreed in the form of swerving around in his gut more, making him even more dizzy, and there wasn’t a doubt in his mind that if he didn’t do something quickly, he would puke in his bed.

Raph quickly placed the rest of the soup onto the floor and ran out of the dark room, out to the living room then to the bathroom to the toilet, emptying his stomach.

He was so fucking dizzy and his stomach wouldn’t stop turning and he felt the weird craving feeling again. Raph couldn’t just have memory problems, no he had to also be sick at the same time. He hates being sick, he feels so useless.

Once nothing came out except for stomach acid and saliva, he tried to catch his breath while leaning back until he was up against the wall of the room.

Distantly, he could hear Donnie and Leo talking in the main room, and even though they were far away, he could still distantly hear their conversation. Both of them had their voices raised, though not to the point where they were yelling.

“This isn’t working and you know it!” He heard Donnie say.

Leo grunted. “Stop trying to argue with me. You know that we have to do it no matter what. You know what will happen if we don’t and neither of us want that.”

Donnie scoffed. “If we keep doing it like this, he’ll just end up worse than if we don’t! We need to try something else, try my idea! If we do it like that, then he won’t get sick like this and we won’t have to worry as much as we are.”

They were talking about him, though it was hard to follow along with what they were saying.

“Listen, you know that they won’t like that…” Leo said, his voice became hushed and Raph couldn’t understand what he was saying anymore.

However, he did hear footsteps approach the bathroom and someone knocked on the door.

“Raph?” Mikey said, before opening the door. He stared down at Raph and frowned worriedly. Why were his brothers so worried about him? It was weird that they cared about this more than they believed him about his memory. That was much scarier than being sick.

“You good?” Mikey asked awkwardly.

Raph shook his head. “Just– just take me back to my room please.”

Mikey nodded, walked over to Raph, and looped his arm under Raph, providing support the same way Donnie did. Once the two of them were standing up properly he looked over at Raph and smiled. “I can heat you up some broth, it should stay down better than the tomato soup I think. Afterward, If you’re feeling better, we can play something on the switch. You can pick the game, I know I’ll beat you no matter what!”

Raph looked up at him and gave a small smile. He didn’t want to sleep despite how tired he was, and most of all he didn’t want to be alone. “Yeah, we can do that. But only if you’re ready to have your ass beaten in Smash Bros.”

They made it to Raphs bed, and Mikey quickly made sure he was settled before he climbed up the small ladder to his bed before he jumped off, switch in hand. He joined Raph in his bed and took off the two controllers before handing one to Raph and propping up the small screen with a pillow.

The light from the screen hurt his eyes, and he knew that he still had so much that he needed to do if he wanted to know what happened to him, so much to piece together. But despite how much he wanted to know, and how much he wanted to ask Mikey, he stopped himself.

All this stress was exhausting and taking a break from it would help him not feel like this constantly. Distractions were fine to have right? Either way, he didn’t know if Leo or Donnie had talked to him about his memory loss. Maybe Mikey thought the same as them. Maybe he thought it was just an excuse for everything he did in those five months.

Mikey slightly bumped Raph’s shoulder with his own and Raph blinked at the screen. They were on the character choice screen.

“Are you ready to get beaten so hard in Smash? Unless you want me to get the broth now that is.” Mikey said, already picked his fighter, Bayonetta.

Raph giggled a little. He still didn’t feel good and was still incredibly dizzy, and hungry and his mouth tasted disgusting, but he was kinda happy in a way he hadn’t been since he woke up. He clicked on Meta Knight. “Nah, not hungry. But I do think you're just acting all tough because you know that once I win, you’ll feel so embarrassed that you got beaten by someone who’s sick that you’ll never want to play again.”

He’ll figure everything out tomorrow, he promised himself. He just wants to enjoy this while he can.

Chapter Text

Raph woke up on Monday feeling slightly better than the day prior. That night, he had managed to keep down some thinner broth Mikey had cooked up for him and crashed out in his bed not long after. He was glad he didn’t sleep through Leo’s annoying alarm, but he was still just as tired as ever. Weirdly enough, aside from the shakiness, exhaustion, and nausea, he still felt the weird craving feeling.

Raph shook it off and got out of bed anyway. His brothers, specifically Mikey and Donnie tried to convince him to stay home, but Raph stubbornly refused. He wants to go to school and prove that he can go a full day, to show that he’s not his past self. He wants to prove that this stupid anxiety isn’t controlling him and that this time he won’t hurt his brothers.

The first four Periods went about as well as they did previously. English was first and the hardest class to catch up on, then science and US history, then Economics, the stupidest elective he could have taken. (He kinda hated that his past self put him in this class, but being with Mikey made it a little more bearable.) He still felt like crap in all of them, the nausea gave him a large headache throughout every class and he doubted he learned anything. Then, the bell rang, and it was thankfully lunch.

He waited outside the staircase that was blocked off in the school, leaning against the door, waiting for Casey. Raph didn’t know what he should tell Casey, or if he wanted to tell them anything at all. They were as close as friends as Raph could get right now, but he wasn't sure how much he trusted them. Then again, he trusts his brothers a lot, yet they don’t believe him, so what did that say?

He heard footsteps getting closer and closer to the door before he saw Casey, swinging their forged key around their finger.

“‘Sup Raph.” They said with a smile before putting the key in the door opening it and holding it open for Raph to walk through.

“Hey Casey,” Raph said, walking through the door and up the concrete stairs to the roof. The air was chilly and windy, and Raph was kinda jealous that he missed summer.

Casey placed down their backpack and sat down on the roof, leaning against an air conditioning unit as they grabbed two sandwiches from their backpack and handed one to Raph. They smiled at Raph as he sat down. “Man, math is killing me right now! I can’t believe you passed that class, I have like, a D, and it's so hard that I don’t think I’ll be able to make it up before the first semester. Ugh…” They complained.

Raph shrugged as he looked down at his sandwich. The thought of eating made him dizzy. “I dunno, I guess math just comes more naturally to me or something.

Raph swallowed, debating on what he wanted to tell Casey and if he trusted them. They did tell him things about his memory, and his past self also trusted him enough to tell them. Despite feeling like he shouldn’t, he trusts Casey. Screw it. “Casey, I want to talk to you.”

Casey gave him a smug grin. “Are we not already?”

Raph rolled his eyes and lightly smacked their shoulder. “I mean about serious things. My memory stuff.” He took a deep breath in and out before continuing. Casey stayed quiet and curiously looked at him. “I told my brothers about my memory loss, and they didn’t believe me.”

Casey’s mouth went wide open in shock before they closed it and awkwardly looked to the side. “Dude that sucks, why wouldn’t they believe you? Did you not tell them before?”

Raph shook his head. “Apparently not, even though you said that this has happened multiple times by now.”

“You told me that it's happened multiple times.” They said defensively.

“Whatever, just–God damn it!” Raph huffed. “And I don’t even know if I should be angry at them, because I’m fucking angry at them, yet the reason they don’t believe me is because I stabbed Leo two Fridays ago which freaks me out so fucking much!”

A short silence came over them once Raph had finished. Casey's eyes were wide as they looked Raph up and down. “You stabbed your brother?”

Raph bit his lip. “Apparently.”

“And you don’t remember? You don’t remember that you stabbed your brother?”

Raph glared at them. “Yeah, of course I don't remember stabbing him! I can't fucking remember anything since May fifth, what do you fucking think!?”

“Sorry, sorry.” They said, putting their hands up defensively. “I just thought that maybe some of your memories had gotten back or something. Has anything come back?”

Raph groaned and shook his head. “No, the only thing that's happened is that I’ve gotten sick, and learned that me and my brothers were mistakenly missing. I don’t even know how that's possible because no one has told me anything! God…”

Casey hummed and took another bite of their sandwich. “Oh yeah, I heard about that this summer. I don’t remember what happened, but I’m glad you’re all okay at least? Hang on, I’ll see if I can find that article.”

Raph took a sharp inhale of breath. Right, he had forgotten to ask Donnie to see if he could fix his phone earlier, or even just to tell him what happened. Either way, figuring it out now made him giddy and impatient. Raph wants to know what happened, he has to. He doesn’t want to have these questions anymore, and now it looks like he won't have to.

Casey clicked their phone a few times, each more aggressively than the last they sighed and turned their phone towards Raph. “Sorry. It looks like the page is busted or something,” they said while clicking on it, it booted them from the app just like it did for Raph. “I’m guessing you’ll just have to ask someone who remembers or finds another saved copy of the article.”

Raph took the phone from them, scrolled down, and clicked the other links to more articles. Obviously, the turtles were well known–if not, then famous— so there were way more than a few articles written about them no longer being missing. Even still, every single article on that main page had the exact same result.

Raph gritted his teeth in frustration, tempted to throw Casey's phone. “God this is all so fucking stupid! Why can’t I just remember what’s happened to me?! Am I messed up now in the head or something, because I sure feel like I’m going insane!”

“‘C’mon now man, don’t say that,” Casey gave him a worried look that Raph wanted to slap off their face. “Lots of people have memory issues! I can’t remember what I had for breakfast three days ago, and am I insane?”

Raph glared at them so hard he thought he might pop a blood vessel. Raph is going through is nothing as simple as that and Casey should fucking know the difference! Were they stupid or something?!

“That’s different Casey, are you shitting me?! You didn’t forget five months of your fucking life! You didn’t just wake up on September 16 when yesterday was May 5 like I did! You don’t have scars that look like they should have killed you and you don’t know where they came from! You don’t have thoughts running through your head that aren’t intrusive and don’t feel like they were yours at all!” He took a deep breath in to try and calm himself before he did anything too rash in his anger. His fists were tightly clenched, and his nails were starting to hurt his palm. He was fucking tempted to punch them.

“Don’t compare yourself to me like that,” Raph spoke through his teeth.

Casey looked down at the floor, ashamed and blushing as they crumpled up their sandwiches Saran Wrap. “…sorry,” They muttered. “…I just want to help you, but… sorry.”

Raph took another breath in before sighing and rubbing his face with shaky hands. The dizziness was much worse now, and even though his stomach grumbled he knew wanted nothing more than to never eat again. “S’okay. Well, not really but… I dunno.”

Involuntary tears pricked his eyes and he quickly tried to scrub them away. “I just want normalcy— just don’t want to have to deal with this anymore, is that too much to ask?”

Casey looked Raph up and down before timidly fiddling with their jacket drawstrings. “What if you just… didn’t?”

Raph looked up at them, puzzled. “Didn’t what?”

“Just… didn’t bother to figure out what happened? Like, yeah, it sucks that you can’t remember and all, but do you need to know what happened? If this is making you so stressed out that you’re getting sick or something, maybe you should just… I dunno… move on from it?”

“No,” Raph responded almost instantly.

No, you can’t put this behind you, Raph. They will hurt you if you do. They will keep hurting you. You can’t!

Raph blinked as that weird thought came to mind. Again, it didn’t feel like his, but he was still sick after all. Maybe it was just a side effect or something? That was possible. Maybe he really was going insane. He sure felt like he was going insane.

“Why not?” Casey asked. “I think dwelling on this as much as you are can’t be good for you.”

Raph shook his head harshly. “Casey, don’t tell me what's good for me! My memories are gone and I’m…” Raph swallowed and spoke in a quieter voice. “I’m fucking terrified right now Casey, and ‘moving on from it’ won’t make me any less scared.”

“But–”

“But nothing Casey!” He stressed. “These are my memories and if I want to know what happened to me then I should be able to know.”

Casey sighed before nodding. “You’re right. Sorry. I’m being selfish right now. Y’know, I’m not good at this whole thing, and I just want to have fun and hang out with you. I’m better at that than this.”

As much as he was angry at Casey for being selfish, and for wanting to be friends while ignoring his actual problems, at the same time, he couldn’t exactly say that it was wrong to feel that way. They were still annoying and trying to solve his problems instead of helping him, but they were still here. Raph looked down at the sandwich and handed it back to Casey.

Casey looked at him up and down, worried. “Not hungry?”

“I’m sick right now. Food isn’t all that appetizing.”

Casey nodded. “Yeah, that sucks. Especially since you got that whole memory thing going on Y’know?”

“Yeah, I do know,” Raph growled back.

Casey took off the Saran Wrap and took a bite. “What are you sick with anyway?”

“The fuck should I know? I’m nauseous, shaky, everything kinda achy, exhausted, and on top of all of that, my thoughts are really fucking weird.”

Casey looked at him, puzzled. “What do ya’ mean?”

“Some of my thoughts don’t feel like mine I guess,” Raph shrugged before he buried his head in his knees. The world was starting to spin faster the longer he kept his eyes open. “Like, yesterday it felt like Leo was talking to me or something, even though he wasn’t.”

“Oh weird. Maybe it’s like hallucinations or something,” Casey suggested. “I know sometimes you can hallucinate from being sick and stuff. Like, my dad had to switch medications, but it didn’t go so well and I think he had hallucinations from withdrawal. You could have had auditory hallucinations maybe?”

Raph paused once he heard withdrawal. You withdraw from drugs. Withdrawal causes hallucinations. He remembered the video he watched a few days ago. “Memory loss or amnesia is the term for when a person has an unusual difficulty remembering things. It can be caused by alcohol, drugs, concussions—,”

Memory loss can be caused by drugs.

Raph shot up from where he was sitting, the world swerved under him as he only barely got his balance to work. “Casey, did I take any drugs?!”

Casey looked at him with shock from Raphs abrupt movement, before standing up along with him. “No—no! No, you didn’t take any drugs, or at least you didn’t tell me that you took any! When I said withdrawal, I didn’t mean that you took drugs—”

Raph tuned them out the quicker his breath became. Was he a fucking drug addict before this?! Was that why he was craving something yesterday?! Is the reason for him acting out so much because of drugs, is that also why he kept losing his memory or something—

Yes.

“Listen, Raph, calm down okay? Just because I said my dad hallucinated because of withdrawal, doesn’t mean that you are too! I bet other illnesses cause hallucinations, and we don’t even know for sure if you were hallucinating.”

Casey took hold of Raphs shaky hands and gave a timid, unsure smile. “Just breathe, I’m fairly certain mutants can do that.”

“Asshole,” Raph mumbled quietly. He took in a deep breath before shaking Casey off of him. They were right, nothing was certain, but either way, it didn’t really matter. He didn’t know if they could test for drugs and even then he wasn’t sure if he could file a doctor's appointment without his dad to do it. If he had any other weird, probably drug-induced side effects, then maybe he could do more about it.

Right now, he just needs to not think about it, and he’ll be fine.

After a brief pause, while Raph was getting his mind back together, the school's bell rang out. Casey looked at Raph with an almost pitying look. Raph hated it.

“If you want, we can skip classes,” they said, “Or I can take you home or something. If you're sick then you probably shouldn’t be here, and you look awful too.”

“Thanks,” Raph said sarcastically before rolling his eyes. “And also no. I’m going to class. All of my classes today.”

Casey looked him up and down before sighing and grabbing their bag. “I don’t think you should, but whatever. I won’t stop you.”

Raph snorted. “Like you could even try.”

Casey grinned at him and gave him a small jab in the shoulder. “Oooo mutant boy thinks he tough! I have you know that I’ve gotten into numerous fights, and I have a success rate of at least 5 out of 40!”

“Pfff— 5 out of 40?! That's like, ten percent; I could beat your ass into the ground!” He grabbed his backpack off the ground, his chest felt lighter. Raph liked this, honestly, he craved these kinds of joking conversations he had with people.

“Hey—! I said at least!” They opened the door to the stairs.

“Does it matter? I literally fought a giant fly–whale–horse–whatever mutant and won! Trust me, Casey, you won’t win a fight against me.” Raph took a step down the stairs and mentally prepared himself.

He could do this, he’s survived Superfly for Christ's sake, what’s three more class periods?

Math class went about as well as he thought, which was to say, frustrated him more than he hoped. Last year, math was probably his favorite class. Granted, he wasn’t in any fun electives, and all the other classes were really hard to catch up on, but still, he had enjoyed math. Raph weirdly liked it when he could solve a hard problem. He liked knowing how to do it.

Donnie was still much better at it than him, being in a class above Raph who was already above a class above Leo and Mikey, and Raph wouldn’t even say he loved math, he wasn’t a nerd. He just… enjoyed it, if that made sense.

Still, it was disheartening to know that the math you knew isn’t your current math, and you don’t know how to do anything here, and it even used to be your favorite class.

Needless to say, he didn’t enjoy it.

It didn’t help that his teacher made a snarky comment about him “finally showing up” which only served to make Raph immediately dislike her and her bitchy attitude.

Once math was done, it meant that he had two electives back-to-back. The first one was film studies, (which he didn’t even know was an elective, but apparently it meant watching movies and he was very much okay with that) and the second was weight lifting. Film studies went okay. Donnie was in that class and looked surprised to see Raph there.

Then it was onto weight lifting and the moment Raph stepped into the locker room, he wanted to leave.

He liked getting strong and staying fit, don’t get him wrong, but he noticed a lot of his friends in that room. Many of the boys from his wrestling team last year were here, and honestly, he didn’t know what he should say to them.

Raph knows he’s being ridiculous. He’s getting worked up again over absolutely nothing. He doesn’t have social anxiety, and he would like to think that he has charisma and can talk to people smoothly, but there was something else about this situation he didn’t want to risk.

However, just as he was about to leave and turn around, one of the shorter boys made eye contact with him. His name was Jimmy Hendrickson, and before this new school year, they were pretty friendly with one another.

Jimmy smiled at Raph, and Raph let out an internal sigh of relief. “Sup’ Raph! Where have you been these few weeks, huh?”

Raph shrugged and dropped his backpack by the side of one of the lockers. “Stuff just came up I guess.” Raph lied non-committedly. He didn’t know what else to say if he was being honest.

Jimmy nodded as he grabbed his water bottle and started to follow the other boys out of the room. “Oh, okay. Listen, if you want me to be your partner for warm-ups today, just ask I guess.”

Raph nodded, a bit weirded out by the gesture, but still appreciated it. Once the other boys left, he opened up his backpack and started rummaging through it, hoping to find the gym shirt all the other guys were wearing only to come out empty-handed. He sighed and zipped up his backpack. Whatever, it's not the worst thing ever. People forget small things like that all the time, so not having one isn’t that big of a deal.

Raph didn’t know what he was doing here. Not really. Like, yeah, of course, he was here at school going to his seventh-period class and all, but he felt so unsure of everything. Honestly, Raph felt like he should be somewhere else, doing something more important. He had a feeling that he needed to go back to the TCRI facility.

But instead of following that weird feeling he took a deep breath in and out, preparing to potentially make a fool of himself in front of close friends, and left the locker room.

When Raph walked in through the doors of the weightlifting room, he saw a large portion of the boys look at him. Raph is fairly popular, or at the very least, he was popular before the whole memory loss, and he definitely enjoyed having attention unlike Leo, but he didn’t know if this sort of attention was the kind he liked.

Raph shook off that feeling as he made his way towards the group of chatty boys.
Nathan, one of Raphs friends from weight lifting, looped his arm over Raphs shoulders with a large energetic smile. “Eyy, it's good to see you here man! Where’d ya go?”

Raph shrugged and smiled. “It was just some dumb sickness is all.”

“Ugh, yeah tell me about it. It seems like everyone's getting sick recently.” He said, moving his arm off of Raph.

The rest of the boys around him started to talk to one another all casually, sometimes Raph interjected here and there, but he more or less stayed out of the conversation. It was kinda nice honestly. He knew a lot of these people, and they didn’t seem to think he was acting differently or suspiciously or anything like that. Raph enjoyed it. He enjoyed how normal it all was.

He wished more of his present life was as normal as that, but then again, he was a mutated turtle so really, what is normal?

Two or three minutes later, the bell rang and the Teacher stepped through the door. He wasn’t someone Raph recognized, but he tried to not let that ruin his weirdly good mood. “Start doing stretches while I take attendance,” he said in a gruff voice.

Raph started to stretch out his legs when he felt someone get closer to him. He looked to his left to see Casey.

They smiled at him. “I’ll tell you what to do and stuff. It’s not that complicated, and I think you’ve done it before anyway.”

Raph nodded, feeling touched that Casey would support him, though he would never tell that to their face.

Casey was right about it being easy, so much so that Raph felt kinda silly thinking he would make a fool of himself.

He lifted the dumbbell with the help of Jimmy, his spotter, back up onto the J-hooks and whipped the sweat off his face. “I’m gonna get some water.” He told Jimmy before sitting up and getting off the bench.

Raph walked over towards the water fountain that was conveniently in the corner of the room. He was honestly enjoying himself, albeit even if he was pushing himself a bit hard. He could tell that his entire body was shaking vigorously throughout every bench press and even now when he wasn’t exercising he was still shaking. That wasn’t even mentioning how much his head was aching.

But, even with all of that, he was enjoying himself. A lot. Raph took a few sips of water before the sound of a camera caught his attention.

While it wasn’t uncommon to see yearbook kids around the school taking photos of whatever, he was surprised to see that it was April. Raph stared at her for a moment, debating whether he wanted to say something to her.

He had questions, quite a few of them to be honest. The most pressing was what happened to them during those five months, and why she was so angry at them. Still, he figured that if he just tried to talk to her, she would deflect or just refuse to answer. But even if she does, he needs to know what happened. He needed to.

Raph took in a breath, before making up his mind. You miss a hundred of the shots you don’t take right? “Hey April,” he said. “Do you think I could talk to you about something?”

She flinched when she heard her name and turned towards him before scoffing. “Unless you’re gonna apologize, I don’t want to hear it.” She looked angry, angrier than he had ever seen her before. Even more than that, she looked tired and he felt a little bad for her.

“April, listen–”

April cut him off. “No Raph! I told you that what you all did was fucking stupid! We had talked about plans for that summer and instead, you blew me off to go who knows where without telling me, without telling anyone! Do you know how worried I was? Just–” She cut herself off and whipped her glossy eyes with the sleeve of her shirt. “Never mind, it doesn’t matter. Leave me the fuck alone, okay?”

April turned heel and almost sprinted out the door of the weight room.

Raph hesitated for just a second. Following her felt weird and selfish, but goddamn it let him be selfish then! His curiosity and want to find out the truth wheeled up inside of him until he felt like he was going to burst.

He took off after her, and out into the hallway. She was a little way down, but she wasn’t walking anymore, just looking down at her camera.

“April, I need to talk to you, please !” Raph called out to her, walking down closer and closer to her.

She huffed and looked around at him, a surprised look on her face before it turned into annoyance. “Not a chance Raph. I don’t want to hear what you have to say especially after we’ve already talked about this! God!”

Raph grit his teeth. She was being so unreasonable right now, how hard was it just to hear him out?! “Listen April, I just need you to tell me what happened!”

“I don’t need to do anything for you! Unless you want to apologize then I won’t talk to you, and I won’t help you with anything!”

“April I fucking don’t remember what I–or any of my brothers for that matter– did to you to make you so angry at us, but–”

Her face twisted into rage, she threaded her fingers through her hair and gripped it. “You don’t remember?! Oh, thats fucking rich! Raph, don’t lie to me about that, you should know what you did wrong!”

“April, don’t fucking talk to me like that! Something is happening to me and I fucking need your help right now! Even if you hate me, fine! But If you can just tell me what happened, I won’t talk to you anymore if that’s what you want!”

Raph tightened his hand into fists. He was nauseous right now, the world was spinning hard and everything seemed to move around him even as he stayed completely still. Even so, he was fucking pissed. Pissed at April for not letting him talk, to let him explain, pissed at his brothers for not believing him, pissed at himself for getting sick, and most of all sick and tired of feeling angry and scared about this whole situation.

April looked him up and down before huffing. She started to walk away down the hall again.

Raph paused for a moment before burying his head in his hands.

Fucking hell, he screwed it up, didn’t he? He messed up so much, now April wouldn’t want to talk to him again, let alone help him anymore— he’ll never be able to truly know what happened and he’ll be left in the dark for everything that’s messing up his life right now. Why can’t he just let this go as Casey said, or trust his brothers properly, or not be so obsessed with whatever the truth was about these past months?

“Are you coming or what?” April asked, her tone of voice showed her annoyance.

Raph snapped up his head and looked up at her, before giving a large and grateful smile. He didn’t know if this meant she forgave him for whatever he had done, or if this was to get him to stop talking to her, but either way, his chest filled with a weird kind of joy.

He ran up to her and slung his arm around her shoulder. “Thanks, April. You really don’t know how much this means to me.”

She harshly removed his arm from her and started to walk again. “Sure.”

It didn’t take long before the two of them came to the photo-developing room, in which April took out a key and unlocked it before the two of them entered. It was kind of weird to be back in this room after what felt like forever (well, more like eight months by now).

She sat at a small desk near the end of the room and grabbed a computer from a backpack lying on the floor. She propped open the computer and started to open up a few different files before grabbing a small USB flash drive and plugging it into the computer.

“I’m just gonna download some articles I have saved about the whole thing. I’m not gonna sit here and waste my time telling you what happened. Surprisingly, I have things to do and a life that doesn't involve you or your brothers.” Her voice was dripping with sarcasm.

“I never fucking said that it didn’t.” Raph hissed out.

“I don’t care.” She said, before taking out the USB and almost shoving it into his hands. “There. As a bonus, now if you ‘forget’ again, you won’t have to bother me.”

Raph glared at her and opened his mouth to speak before getting cut off by the bell.

April put the computer in the bag and slung it over her shoulder before walking past Raph to the door. “C’mon, some friends of mine are going to be using this room, and I’d rather not bother them.”

Raph looked down at the small flash drive in his hand before putting it into his pocket. April opened the door and slipped out of the room. Raph followed.

When April started to re-lock the door with her key, Raph stayed around her. “Hey—um, thanks. I appreciate it, like, a lot. And uhm, I’m sorry about what my brothers and I did to you.”

She blinked and looked over at him, and gave him a small smile for only a split second before it disappeared. “Yeah, sure.” She looked to the floor and gripped her bag. “I’ll… see you around I guess.”

Raph nodded. “Yeah, I’ll see you around.”

He kinda hated this, hated where they were. He wasn’t close with April, even after he was accepted and everything. The only reason he would call the two friends was because his brothers were as close as they were to her. That’s not to say he didn’t like her or wasn’t thankful for what she did for them and their reputation, but at the same time, they just didn’t have the kind of relationship Donnie and April did, or even her and Mikey.

He kinda regrets that now though. Now he’s not sure if he’ll ever get the chance to.

April gave a curt nod back and walked away.

Casey dumbass Jones: Hey, do you want to go ice skating tomorrow or something?

Raph: why?

Casey dumbass Jones: idk, it’d be fun? I took you a few weeks ago and i think you enjoyed it
Casey dumbass Jones: besides, you kinda need a break from this stuff i think

Raph: I’ve never gone ice skating before, but sure.

Raph smiled down at his phone before Donnie’s voice made him jump. “Uck, dude you still have that bandage around your hand? Listen, I know I said it was deep, but you can at least change it.”

Donnie set his backpack by the lair’s door as Raph looked down at his hand and put it into a fist. It wasn’t like he was ignoring it on purpose, not entirely anyway. Sure, he didn’t want to think about his scars or what they had meant, especially the one on his chin and neck, but part of it was just that he was too busy to care at all.

“It’s fine,” Raph said as he started to walk to their room. Donnie grabbed a hold of his backpack, keeping him from taking another step.

“No, it’s not Raph. It’s gross and I think you should just change the bandages or something. If you want me to do it I can do—”

“fine-fine, I’ll do it,” Raph interjected. He could do something simple like this, he was a strong ninja, and he shouldn’t be afraid of scars. He wasn’t afraid of scars.

Donnie shrugged and let go of him. “Fine, just make sure you do it properly. We wouldn’t want you to get an infection.”

Raph nodded and walked towards the bathroom. He shut and locked the door behind him before taking off his backpack and clothes. If he was going to do this then he was going to do it. He was going to look at all of his scars.

“If I want to know what happened, I should be able to fucking look at these stupid scars.” He rationalized to himself.

Once all his clothing was off, Raph looked at himself in the mirror. It felt weird, especially now that he couldn’t stop looking at the disfigured scar on his neck. He hated how it looked and how it made him feel. He shuttered as thoughts of death crossed his mind.

He took in a deep breath to calm his heart which felt like it was trying to escape from his chest. This wasn’t scary, this wasn’t fucking scary at all. They were just scars, scars that only proved he went through something and came out alive. Raph wasn’t dead, and no one else was either, so everything was fine.

Raph leaned over the countertop to look at the scar closer, almost forcing himself to. It looked the same as before, hastily stitched together and kinda lumpy at parts. It was the same because what would anything be different? He remembers this week so why the hell was he being so irrational right now—

Raph slapped himself in the face.

“Focus Raph! Don’t send yourself into a spiral thinking about this stuff!” He told himself, before looking back into the mirror.

He started with his face going down. His head looked about the same, maybe a light scratch or two but nothing noticeable. His neck and jawline obviously had that scar on it, but other than that it looked the same.

Going down further onto his plastron, he had the star-shaped scar and a few unhealable scraps on it from his childhood, (and maybe the battle from Superfly, who knows at this point) however there was a small—but noticeable—chip lower down on his left side.

It was weird, it didn’t look like he had fallen and chipped it on a rock, but it instead looked like it was cut out of him.

Raph touched it and shivered. Maybe he had gotten into a knife fight, and someone had gotten a little too close to his side and got the knife cut into it or something? But then it wouldn’t have taken a chunk out of him like that.

Raph shook his head hard. Focus! He looked at his arms and shoulders next.

His left shoulder was weird, it had a bunch of small, circular scars on it that were no bigger than a mosquito bite. He didn’t even know what could have made them, especially with how many there were. There were even some on his other shoulder, though much less than his left.

His arms had large scars of stitches going across both of his wrists. There were a few, less noticeable ones that went up his arm as well, though they didn’t look even half as bad.

Raph grimaced as he traced his thumb along his other wrist. It wasn’t pretty by any means, and overall it looked like it was done in a rush. Raph would know, there were more than a few times when he did stitches on himself to try and keep his dad from noticing. Never ended up working and instead just led to his dad having to fix it for him.

He looked down on his legs. Aside from a few cuts along his calves that could have been from anything, there weren’t any differences. Hell, most of them were so faint that he really couldn’t tell if the skin had even broke or if they were just new.

Raph let out a sigh of relief once he was done looking himself over. He really just was overreacting. The largest and ugliest scar on his was by far the one on his neck and jaw, and he had already looked at it before.

Besides, what are scars besides battle wounds, right? All it meant was that he survived or something. He survived almost dying (at least, probably almost dying.), so he shouldn’t have been afraid to look at his scars.

Raph nodded to himself and looked down at his bandaged hand. Donnie was right, the bandage was gross by now, how often do you need to change bandages like this? About a week was probably enough for it to be healed by now anyway.

Raph pulled out some medical scissors that they had in the canbents, and cut the gauze that was on his hand. Raph was right about it being healed now. Even though Donnie had said that it was deep, most of it was healed over. While it wasn’t as light as the other two scars on his hand, another should make it indistinguishable from the others.

He traced the scar with his finger. He remembered the graffiti he had seen that night too, though it still creeped him out. Was it a message for him from his past self? If so, what did it even mean, and why was it so cryptic anyway?

“Six under one not marked,” Raph mumbled to himself trying to think of what it meant. Was it a math thing? Six divided by one?

Raph huffed and shook his head. It shouldn’t matter anyway, April’s USB drive should be enough for him to stop obsessing over all this dumb memory stuff.

Raph looked up from his hand and back to the scissors he left on the table about to put them away when something in the mirror caught his attention.

He looked up as quickly as he could, almost giving himself whiplash in the process. In the mirror, standing behind him was Leo, who looked kinda worried and even more so when he realized that Raph was looking at his reflection. He looked more like his brother than he had since he had woken up.

Only a second or two after he had looked in the mirror, he swiftly turned around only to see his brother not there. When Raph looked back into the mirror, it was only himself looking back.

Raph felt his heart start to beat hard and he quickly turned away from the mirror entirely and put his clothes back on as fast as possible.

Casey was wrong, he was going fucking insane! What other possible reason would there be for this to happen?! For him to not only hear voices in his head but see things in the mirror!? Was he just hallucinating because of his sickness or whatever? Was that even better? What’s even real?! Does it even matter at this point?

Raph, can you take a deep breath in for me again?

“Shut the fuck up!” He told his thoughts.

“Raph?” Raph froze when he heard Leo’s voice outside. “Are you okay?”

Raph roughly shrugged on his backpack and opened the door. He saw Leo standing out there, and Raph didn’t even question if his brother was real, because how could he not be? “Yeah, I’m fine. I was just… talking to myself I guess.”

Leo gave a tentative nod before Raph dashed off to their room. He needed a distraction or something, the USB could wait until tomorrow.

Even in his rush, Raph didn’t miss the weird glace Leo gave him and it sent a shiver down his spine.

Despite being undoubtedly real, Leo didn’t look like his brother.