The Word

BY Willowfly

A/N: This fic started out as a meme shown to me by the lovely Tori Angeli. I was supposed to set my iPod to shuffle and write for the duration of a song. But when Relient k's "Deathbed" came on, things ran away from me! I've wanted to write a fic like this for a while, though I feared it's been grossly overdone. Still, I thought I'd post it in hopes that someone will enjoy. It's another sad one, so brace yourself.

Every day he was reminded of his own mortality. He'd faced entire armies of Foot Ninja, aliens, gangs, and government agents bent on dissecting him. But he'd come to terms with the danger of it. He always knew in the back of his mind that it only took one well-placed blow, one cut deep enough, one gunshot in the right place to end it all. Dying in battle was almost a given.

How quickly that had changed.

At first it confused him. He was slowing down, and the others were noticing. He'd stopped going out at night, and for the first time in his life, he wasn't an insomniac. But he still couldn't train as hard as he used to. Even during night runs he'd get exhausted and fall behind.

When they tried to help, he lashed out. He couldn't even count the times he'd told Don to mind his own damn business, or told Leo to quit being a neurotic bastard. He wouldn't let anybody touch him. He wouldn't let even Splinter put ideas in his head.

Part of him always knew something was wrong, but he had to ignore it. He had to push it out of his mind because he was Raphael. He didn't get sick. It just wasn't how it was supposed to be. If destiny was real, he had always been destined to go down fighting and take as many evil bastards down with him as he could.

But everything changed with a single battle. His last battle. It was just a nick. He wasn't paying attention and some jackass knifed him in the leg. But it wouldn't stop bleeding. That tiny cut bled and bled until Don ran out of gauze, his hands up to his elbows stained red. That night they'd walked him home, limping and exhausted. No one said a word. That night, Raph saw very real fear cast like a shadow over his brothers' eyes.

He finally let Don test his blood the next day. It took days of testing, retesting, and endless cups of coffee before he could convince himself, before he could accept this. Don was almost frantic, calling in April, Leatherhead, even Professor Honeycutt for a second opinion. The others knew it was bad. Raph feigned indifference despite the terror in his veins while Honeycutt drilled for sample from his hip bone. Together, they waited without a word passing between them, dread growing in their stomachs. When Don finally emerged from the lab for the last time, his eyes swollen and tear-stained, he only had to say one word.

"Cancer," he choked. "It's cancer."

One word, and Raph's entire world was crashing down around him.

He told Don they should've let him bleed out, stood up from the couch, walked up the stairs to his room, and slammed the door behind him. Through the door, he could hear his father crying.

As the weeks went by they started doing everything for him. They made his food and brought it to his room when he was too sick to make it down the stairs. Splinter gave him private lessons after lunch, but only on good days. And when they'd be sitting in the living room watching TV, no one argued over who got the remote. They gave it to him. Every time.

It made his stomach well with anger. He'd grit his teeth and swear they were treating him like some helpless baby. He wanted to fight it. He wanted to show them he could handle this, show them he could still take care of himself. But he couldn't. He just… couldn't. He didn't have the strength. He kept getting sicker, weaker, angrier, more sullen. He wouldn't leave his bedroom anymore, partly because he couldn't find the strength to pull himself out of bed, but mostly because he couldn't find a reason to.

On a bad day, he wouldn't let anyone near his room. When Leo picked the lock, Raph cursed his brother out until he left. He wouldn't even fight back anymore, just stood there with his eyes getting wider through that grim expression on his face, turned, and walked away.

That silence infuriated him more than anything else. Before he knew it, he was stumbling out of bed, yelling at the top of his lungs at his brother's retreating shell. He grabbed the door and slammed it hard, his veins buzzing, gasping for air. Then his vision blurred and he was falling, slumped against the wall.

He couldn't get back up. Every time he tried, his head would ache and his arms would tremble. Panting and defeated, he leaned his head against the wall and cried like no one cared, sobbed until he didn't have the tears.

There was a few shiruken on the shelf beside him, sitting there with edges calling his name. He picked one up and turned it in his hand. He thought about what difference it would make.

A knock on the door startled him. He'd forgotten to lock it a second time. That anger was welling up again. But when he saw Casey's haggard face in the doorway, he froze and stared through swollen eyes. He hadn't seen him since The Word.

Casey said nothing. Handing Raph a beer, he sat beside him on the floor and cracked one open for himself. They drank in silence for what seemed like a long while.

Raph turned the shiruken over in his hand, then placed it back onto the shelf.

"I can't get up," he sighed, grim defeat in his voice.

Casey stood and offered him a hand. But there wasn't any pity in it, and for that, Raph was more than grateful. "Come on," he said, "let's get you back to bed."

Casey let his friend lean on him, didn't falter when he stumbled. Together, they made it back across the room. Once he was settled, Case gave him back his beer. The room fell back into a silence Raph had never intended to break.

"You think we did some good out there, right?"

He didn't know where the question came from, but it was something he felt he needed to know. Even if Casey couldn't give him an answer, even if Raph already knew, he just had to hear it out loud. Ever since The Word, he wondered about that kind of stuff.

"Yeah. You did good, bro. This city woulda been a hell of a lot worse off withoutcha," he said. "Don't you forget it."

When they finished their beers, Casey grabbed the empty cans and left without a word. He took the shiruken with him, and Raph let him take them. He wouldn't forget.

A few days later, there were the pills. They made him so sick he couldn't see straight, but Don promised they would give him a fighting chance. He was twenty-three years old, too young to die without a fight. That was enough to give him a little bit of hope. Maybe he would go down fighting after all. Maybe he could kick this thing.

So he took them, and spent two weeks curled on the bathroom floor, puking until he couldn't find the strength to hang his head over the toilet. He couldn't even tell who kept dragging him back to bed.

Leo and Don thought he was sleeping the time he caught them talking outside his door. Raph lied there listening with his eyes closed, and wished he never had.

Mrs. Morrison died. Don got those pills from stealing her identity and forging the scripts, making April run the errands. They were stealing from a dead, blind old lady, his friend, and making April do the dirty work. She was risking jail for him. They were risking everything for him.

It was then Raph realized they really would do anything. They would risk their livesto save him. That made him even sicker than the pills.

He couldn't make it to the bathroom. He puked over the side of the bed.

After that, he refused to take the pills. He was going to die soon anyways. There was no way they could make him postpone the inevitable by stealing from some helpless old lady. They both deserved more respect than that.

Don begged him for a little while, but dropped it pretty quick. The look in his eyes said that he'd put all his hope in those pills, but Raph had given up hope a long time ago.

The two months following, he was never left alone. His father, brothers, and friends drifted in and out of his room like ghosts. He could almost see the weight on their shoulders, hear it in their voices, see it in their eyes. They feared for him like he had feared the first time Don had said it—The Word that was slowly killing him, his tears making it thick, ugly as it's meant to be. But he wasn't afraid anymore. It was like it had left him in the dead of night. Like he had awoken, and it all didn't seem so bad anymore. His body ached and his head throbbed, his throat and stomach burned, and he spent more time sleeping than he did awake. But still, it didn't seem so bad because every time he opened his eyes, he wasn't alone. Every time he slept, he knew they were there to keep him company.

It was like really living for the first time. He'd spent so much of his life before clouded by hate, blinded and angry at everything and everyone around him. He always hated how the world was so ignorant, that humans were so pathetic and evil and blind. Life was unfair to people like them. It was unfair that he and his brothers couldn't risk the daylight without fearing for their lives while some scumbag could run around raping girls in alleys without a second look. Before The Word, life was nothing but ugliness and despair and things that will never change.

Then, it did change. One day he woke up to Mikey reading out loud from a comic book. He was laughing to himself at some joke Raph didn't catch, a grin on his face and light in his eyes. He watched him for a long time before his brother even noticed he was awake. When he did, Raph smiled back.

He could see everything so much clearer now, and suddenly the world didn't seem like that bad of a place. Life wasn't about the surface, after all. It was so much more than that.

He'd fought it long enough. Maybe it was time to let things go, feel content, say the things he'd once sworn he never would say. One night he woke up more tired than usual and found Leo sitting on his bed, running a washcloth over his face.

There was such a distance in his brother's eyes as he hummed one of Splinter's old lullabies. Even without the words, he never knew his brother's voice was that beautiful. He listened, and exhaustion settled deep in his bones.

He told Leo he loved him. He told Leo he was sorry.

Leo swallowed, nodded, and took his brother's hand. There were tears in his eyes. He gave Raph's hand a squeeze and told his brother he was sorry too.

For what, neither of them knew.

Then, Raphael closed his eyes, his brother's hand still held in his.

He'd faced entire armies of Foot Ninja, aliens, gangs, and government agents. He'd been to space, seen the future, and lived the past. He'd fought for every breath he'd ever taken and worked for everything he ever had. He'd felt pain, hunger, fear, and weakness. But also joy, happiness, and love unlike any other. He'd suffered every day of his life and had the scars to prove it, but it was always worth it because he never was alone. Every battle, every journey, every fear, and every joy was endured together, surrounded by his brothers, his family, his friends.

Raph had never believed in God. Still, he wished the afterlife would be just the same. That was heaven enough.