Author's Note:

For those of you that have stuck around, thank you. I appreciate your support. I love this story, and I have plans to see it through until the end - even if it takes a little longer than I would like for us to get there.

Enjoy this chapter. Getting in Raphael's head-space is something I have been looking forward to and I am excited to start updating again.

Please note, this chapter is taking place roughly a month after Lily was taken. The events of the movie have already passed. This takes place after Sacks and the Shredder were dismantled.

Hope you all had a wonderful New Year and Holiday season.

~ Kaija

Forgetting about her had proved to be even harder than I'd thought.

Distracting myself from dwelling on her, however, had been a piece of cake.

Shortly after she left, things with the Foot Clan had gotten more intense. A lot had changed in just a few short weeks, including another human finding out my brothers and I.

April O'Neil was a lot easier to deal with than she had been though. April looked at my family like we were mutants. She didn't see past the green skin or the shells. It wasn't that she feared us or wanted to expose us, it was just that she didn't try to make us into something we could never be: human.

I wasn't exactly thrilled about having another person know about us, but April had ties to our past. It was easier to allow her to be a friend than to try and cut her out. She'd proved to be a trustworthy ally when we had finally dealt with Sacks and the Shredder. As a news reporter, she could have gained a lot by exposing my family and I to the world, but she didn't. I respected that, even if her being in our lives did complicate things more than a little bit.

Everyone had watched me like a ticking time bomb since she had left. April coming into the picture had only made them watch me even harder, probably just waiting for me to finally break down and talk about what had happened.

Sucks for them, though. That will never happen. I'd avoided the subject of her skillfully and I wasn't about to break that streak now.

Luckily, April discovering us, our home being destroyed by the Shredder, the capture of Sacks, the dismantling of the Foot Clan, and Splinter almost dying provided plenty of things to distract my brothers from my personal problems. That was all she was now: a forgotten problem that I'd never try to figure out the answer to.

I was done with her and even if I couldn't forget that she existed, I could get over it. I could let it go. I could move on.

And that is exactly what I did.

The first thing I noticed when I woke up and went into the kitchen was that Mikey was in a particularly good mood.

He was humming, which was probably the most obnoxious sound in the world since he couldn't carry a tune to save his life, as he stood over the stove. Whatever he was cooking smelled good, though.

"Sup with you?" I asked him, taking a seat at the table to wrap up my hands so that I could go do my morning work out.

"April is coming by today!" Mikey replied enthusiastically.

I rolled my eyes. His crush on her was both obvious and pointless. April was not her and would never be interested in one of us like -

Stop. I thought firmly, as I always did when she came to mind. Focus.

I stood up quickly, almost knocking the chair over as I did so. That pulled Mikey's attention away from his food, and he turned around to look at me suspiciously.

"You alright, bro?"

"Yep," I answered, already walking away.

Working out was the only thing that occupied my mind completely, and so I had been doing it a lot lately. Or rather, it didn't occupy my mind, it just made it so that I didn't think at all. Everyday I would punch, kick, and lift until I almost passed out. Hours would pass and I would barely even remember if I blinked the entire time. I just spaced out, letting whatever emotion I was feeling that day - anger, sadness, abandonment, and even happiness - swell inside me until I felt like I was going explode. Soon they had all begun to mix together, and I forgot what it truly felt like to feel anything at all. I just... was.

As usual, time passed by without me even noticing it. No one ever bothered me while I was working out. A few times, when I had first been forming the habit, Splinter and Leo had tried to come talk to me, help me, and I had almost lost it. Rage had threatened to take me over completely back then, and they had seen it, so in the end they had realized that it was better to just let me be.

I was a junkie who was simply avoiding my addiction and pushing everyone away that I cared about. I wasn't stupid: I knew exactly what I was doing. I just couldn't find the strength to fight the addiction, not when giving into the desire to punch and kick my problems away felt so damn good.

While I was working out, I would often wonder how much longer my family would let this go on. I assumed that one day they would finally try to break me of my habit, and I both feared and prayed for that day to come.

I wiped the sweat from my forehead and leaned against the wall. My head was light from dehydration and exhaustion. Today had been one of those days where I had pushed myself to the edge of no return, mostly because of the thoughts that had popped into my head when Mikey had been so excited to see April.

I didn't remember what it felt like to be that excited about something, or someone.

And even if I did remember, I wouldn't have allowed myself to.

I sighed heavily, heaving my body away from the support of the wall, and started back towards the living room. I had no idea what time it was or how long I'd been working out. My stomach was empty, since I hadn't eaten anything earlier, and so that was my first stop.

I dug around in the fridge, deciding to just heat up a frozen pizza pocket so that I wouldn't have to actually cook anything. It was quiet as I waited for the timer to tick down on the microwave. I wondered if everyone had gone out in the van for the day, and a tiny part of me hoped that they had - I wasn't sure if I could deal with being social today, especially with April.

I grabbed my food and a bottle of water, deciding to just head back to my room. Just as I was passing by Donnie's lab, I heard noises from inside, and so I paused. I strained to hear what the hushed voices were saying.

"Do you think you can help us, April? I know that it's asking a lot..." Leonardo was saying, his tone very low and serious.

"Of course, I just wish you had told me about all this sooner." April replied.

"We weren't sure of anything until now, or else we would have."

"We must keep this information to ourselves. If Raphael finds out before we have all the answers, it could make him even worse." Splinter's voice echoed softly.

A flash of fury went though my veins. They were talking about me!

"Father, what are we going to do if it really is her?"Donnie asked. "We don't know what state of mind she will be in -"

"Shit, shit, shit." Mikey suddenly muttered. "Uhm, yeah so, Raph is standing right outside the door."

"What?! Mikey you had one job: watch the camera to warn us if he was coming!" Leonardo snapped, his voice not so hushed anymore now that they had been caught.

I took that as my cue to open the door and figure out what the hell was going on.

All of them were staring back at me with a mixture of anger, panic, and sadness as I stood waiting for an explanation.

"My son, I am sorry you had to find out about this in such an awful way." Splinter said after a few more moments of awkward silence.

"Find out about what?" I snapped in reply.

"Raph, we... Well, we found Lily." Leonardo explained gently.

"What?!" I retorted sharply. "What do you mean found her?"

"After she left, we kept trying to figure out what happened. We didn't want to believe that she would just... Leave." Donnie cut in.

I shook my head in anger. "I don't care why she fucking left. Why can't you all get that through your heads? I. Dont. Care."

"Knock it off, Raph." Leonardo hissed, his own temper flaring up. "You obviously do care. You haven't even been able to say her name since she left!"

"Because, I don't care." I shot back firmly, even though even I could hear my voice falter a little bit at the end.

"We all know you do. Why won't you just admit it?" Leonardo pressed.

"I can't deal with this," I muttered, turning around and starting to leave.

"Raphael." Splinter said forcefully, but still in his gentle, fatherly way. "You need to hear what has been discovered."

I paused, closing my eyes and trying so hard to not completely lose it. If Splinter was apart of this... Maybe, just maybe... Whatever they had found out about... About Lily was good news. I doubted that he would want me to stay if what they had uncovered was bad.

A small root of hope began to grow, and I tried my hardest to not let it spread throughout my mind.

Not yet, not when it had been so hard to move on.

Lily. Her name felt like a cool rain, washing away the burning fury that had been blazing inside of me for weeks.

Lily...

"What?" I asked quietly, my back still turned to them all. "What did you find?"