A/N: Well, here I am, back on fanfiction, after a very long hiatus. For those of you who don't me, I started college as a film major, which is VERY time consuming. But I found the beginnings of this story while searching through my documents, and I have decided to finish it for you lucky people. So. Yeah. Here's chapter 1.

Mel was having a very long day. First the coffee shop getting her order wrong – she hadn't noticed until she got back to her office. She had specifically asked for black coffee, and the workers at the local Dunkin' Donuts paid her no heed, loading it up with milk and sugar anyway. She'd had to dump it out.

Then there were the two late patients. Not so bad, except perhaps the fact that one of them was a chronic liar. He hadn't heard the alarm, there was a lot of traffic even though he took the back roads, his dog stole his shoes… the list went on.

She might have been able to deal with the tardiness which inadvertently caused the rest of her appointments to be pushed back. However, the fact that four patients (including the liar) had missed more than one payment was making it a bit hard for her forgiving nature to emerge. How did they think she got paid?

To top it all off, she had just received a phone call that one of her regular patients was dead. Committed suicide.

Mel couldn't understand it. She thought they had been making progress. He had seemed so much better. Even his wife had come in to thank her, saying how much happier he seemed.

'Seemed being the operative word', Mel thought to herself as she put things away for the night.

When the last file was in its appropriate folder in her file cabinet, Mel switched off the lights to her office, reaching for the doorknob.

Something grabbed her from behind. She opened her mouth to scream, and found it quickly covered by a large rough hand. She couldn't help the slight whimper that fought its way out of her throat – she had a lot of patients who could be considered dangerous – she was convinced it was one of them here to kill her.

"Don't move." The voice was surprisingly gentle, yet had a rough undertone to it. Mel nodded quickly.

The person holding her turned – she turned with him. She was now facing her office, instead of the door.

"I'm gonna take my hand away. Don't scream. Don't turn around. Please." Again, Mel nodded. The hand was taken away, and she was released.

"Walk back to your desk," the voice instructed, "and sit down. But turn the chair so it's facing the wall."

Shakily Mel walked over to her chair and turned it as the mystery visitor requested, all the while wondering what he wanted with her. The voice was definitely male – it was too low and rough to be female.

Slumping down in the seat, she began to fiddle with some stuffing peeking out of the edge of the seat.

"What do you want with me?" she whispered.

"I want to talk."

Mel blinked in surprise. That's what everyone wanted when they came to her. She was a psychiatrist, after all. "You want…to talk. That's it?"

"Yep."

"You could've made an appointment!" The woman laughed, albeit shakily. All that hullabaloo, and this…this…whoever he was, merely wanted what he could get just by walking in the front door.

"Do people cry?"

Again Mel was taken by surprise. "Excuse me?"

"When people come to you. Do they cry?"

"Well, sometimes. It depends, really."

"On what?"

"If they've lost a loved one. Or something traumatic happened to them. Or they witnessed something happening – like a murder."

"Traumatic." The voice scoffed.

"Yes, traumatic." Mel's fingers gripped the arm rests of her chair. She started to turn.

"Don't turn around!"

"Sorry." She turned back to face the wall.

"People lie, you know."

"Yes, I'm quite aware of that fact," the psychiatrist muttered, thinking to her earlier patient.

"So how do you know that stuff really happened to them?"

"Records. Police files. Stuff like that."

"If I told you I murdered someone, would you believe me?"

Mel's fingers tightened on the chair's arms, very slightly, unnoticeable. "I have worked with criminals before. If this is about secrecy…we are very strict about doctor patient relationships…if you had made an appointment…"

The stranger snorted at that. "Well I did murder someone."

The psychiatrist swallowed. "Is… is that what you want to talk about?"

"Sort of. No. Kind of. I don't know."

If it had been a different situation, Mel might have laughed – the stranger was acting like a typical patient. Maybe wanting to deal with something traumatic; after all, if he was to be believed, he had taken a life. That was rather traumatic. Or maybe just wanting someone to talk to. It was normalcy in the midst of oddity, and Mel found it comforting. She decided to treat him as she would a normal patient, though it was hard without being able to make eye contact with him.

"Well…can I know your name at least?"

"You'll laugh."

"I promise I won't. I value the doctor patient relationship very strongly, and I assure you I will take whatever you say completely objectively. I am here to help, after all."

The stranger was silent for a long while, and Mel wondered vaguely if he had left. She jumped when he finally spoke.

"Raphael."

"That's your name? Raphael?"

"Yeah. But it's Raph."

Raphael. An unusual name. Mel wondered if he was Spanish.

"Raph then. So tell me a little bit about yourself. Any family?"

"I have – had – three brothers. And a dad."

"Had?"

Again the voice was silent for an uncomfortably long time. "One died."

"I'm very sorry. Do you want to talk about it?"

"No."

'Some other time then', Mel thought to herself with an internal sigh, then smiled a little to herself as she realized she was expecting him to return, as if for regular appointments. For all she knew, this was a one time deal brought on by a crippling breakdown. But somehow she doubted it.

"This is stupid," the voice – no, Raphael - previously scoffing and sarcastic, now sounded hesitant. "I – I shouldn't be here."

Mel's head picked up in surprise. "Well – you took the trouble to even come. The fact you even stepped into my office – however unusually – tells me that you want to be here. That you want help."

"But I don't know if you can," Raphael whispered.

"Raphael-"

"Raph."

"Sorry, Raph – I think I can help you best if I treat you like any of my other patients. Now for whatever reason, and you don't have to tell me why, you don't want me to see you. I am willing to stay an extra hour after the building closes to have a session with you. I'll sit right here, facing the wall. Does that sound alright?"

"I don't know. I think so."

"Good. Then I'm going to spend this session getting to know you."

A deep sigh came from Raphael, and then, "Okay."

-

Raphael made sure he was out of the psychiatrist's office and far away from the building before the doctor even made it to her Prius. He watched the car drive away from a distance, then found the nearest manhole cover to splash into the sewers.

He ran home. He enjoyed the controlled tempo his feet splashing in the water created, and he closed his eyes as he ran, taking a deep breath.

What am I doing?

What am I doing?

What am I doing?

Those three words resonated around Raphael's head over and over again. For the life of him, he couldn't give a decent answer.

He was going against everything he believed, everything he had ever been taught. They usually avoided talking to humans if possible, April and Casey excluded, and here he was breaking into a woman's office and scaring her half to death.

Raphael had thought that he could deal with the tragedy that had so quickly struck their family alone, but he had been wrong. Of course his family tried to help as much as they could, but they too were trying to deal with the situation. He needed an outsider this time.

Psychiatrist. Psychiatrist patient. Psychiatry…

The thought almost made him laugh.

He was pulled out of his thoughts as he made it to the hidden door of their hidden lair, pulling the sewer pipe that allowed him in. He glanced around, his spirits, temporarily lifted by his run, immediately sinking again.

The lair was silent. It was always silent now. At first the silence had been respectful. Now it had become crushing, torturous and maddeningly thick. It literally got under his shell, causing him to be out of the lair more than ever, and causing increasing guilt for leaving his family.

A slight shuffling in the kitchen caught his attention and he wandered over to it. Poking his head around the corner, he saw Michelangelo rummaging around in one of their overflowing drawers.

"Mikey?"

The orange banded turtle looked up, unsurprised. He had obviously heard Raph coming. "Raph – hey."

"What're you doing?"

"Oh – looking for a pan. Thought I'd bake a pizza tonight. I haven't cooked in a long time."

'Weeks, to be exact', Raph thought to himself. At first, Mikey had done his best to act cheerful in a vain attempt to pull the family's spirits up, but after days and weeks and no reaction, eventually his spirits had sunk as well. He seemed to be doing much better recently, though.

The youngest turtle had been working on writing and designing a graphic novel with April. The project kept his mind occupied, and Raph had been glad to see the spark that made Mikey be Mikey slowly return.

Raph clapped Mikey on the shoulder, a little harder than he meant. "Can I help?"

Mikey blinked, obviously surprised, but he wasn't about to turn his brother down. Raph was hardly ever even home anymore, so Mikey jumped at the chance to spend any time with him.

"'Course… you can get the toppings outta the fridge…"

"I'm on it."

The two brothers spent the better part of two hours putting the pizza together. Mikey did most of the talking – he knew how much Raph hated the silence.

Raph listened with one ear, sometimes making a comment or asking a question, but for the most part let Mikey talk, just grateful for the contact.

"Well, that's it," Mikey said as he pulled the pizza out of the oven. "You wanna get the plates? I'll call Splinter and Donnie…"

Raph nodded and headed over to the cabinet where they kept their dishes. Splinter and Donatello joined them, and they all took their places.

As the family at their dinner in an almost silence, every gaze drifted to the place where Leonardo had once sat.

-

Mel threw her keys onto the counter and bent down to pick up her cat, Jessie, who had come to rub against her ankles in welcome. Not only had the day been a long one, it had been a strange one. She couldn't get her mind off the mystery stranger in her office.

As she dug a frozen dinner out of the freezer and tossed it into the microwave, Mel couldn't stop thinking about him, and what he'd said. It wasn't often that she took work home with her, but this patient – she couldn't get him out of her mind.

He was so young. Twenty-one years. That's what really bugged her. The things he said he'd done… they seemed near impossible for someone his age. He seemed so much older.

'Maybe he is,' she thought to herself. 'Maybe he's lying.'

But somehow, she didn't think he was.

Mel sat down at her table to eat the packaged dinner, giving Jessie a cursory scratch. She wished Raphael would speak about the brother he had lost. She was sure once he did, she could understand him so much better. So far she had only gotten vague explanations of things she didn't quite understand.

She also wondered why he refused to let her see him. Was he horribly deformed? Was he a wanted serial killer whose picture she'd seen in the post office?

These thoughts whirled around her head as she slowly got ready for bed. 'Tomorrow', she thought as she fell asleep. 'Tomorrow I'll ask about his brother.'