A/N: Watched the newest TMNT with my li'l bro today... I LOVE the movie, but it still bugs me. Honestly, NO ONE but CASEY could figure out that Raph was the Nightwatcher? Sorry, I don't buy that one bit.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

What They Never Saw

It always bothered Raph that his brothers never figured it out.

How long had they lived together… trained together… fought together? He didn't expect them to know every little thing about him, but for crying out loud – how did they not know? How did they never see it?

The Nightwatcher.

Raph kicked his motorcycle into gear and tore off down the road, following the distress call of the police operator. This was his job; this was his life now, such as it was. Of his brothers, he was the only one not satisfied to sit back and wait for the fearless leader to return and guide them all into the war against the criminals of New York again.

He was the only one willing to do something about the deteriorating situation. And if that went against Donny and Leo, even Splinter's plan for them, so be it. Listening to Donny badmouth the Nightwatcher? Whatever. He didn't care. He didn't.

Besides, he had taken pains to keep this a secret from his brothers.

That didn't ease the hurt he felt deep down that they never even noticed it was him. A part of him was dying inside, dying for them to figure it out, to prove that they knew even the least thing about him. As much as he wanted to keep it hidden, he also wanted them to realize it. How did they not see?

Raph growled as he rounded a corner, coming upon the site of the burglary in progress. It was just some idiot gang again, doing some idiot thing. Raph snorted… stupid kids. They saw a gun as the equivalence of invincibility. He would teach them to see otherwise.

"The Nightwatcher!"

Raph grinned as the warning cut through the night air, and all the stupid punks fled in fear. The leader, the one who had yelled, jumped onto an idling motorcycle and it roared to life, taking him down the road. Excellent… it was so much more fun this way.

The red-banded turtle sped down the road after the kid. The punk couldn't have been any older than Raph, from the looks of him. He looked almost younger than Mikey. Stupid kid, he should be at home. With his family.

His family. They had argued about Mikey earlier that evening, he and Donny. Raph glared as he remembered it. He and Donny had never used to fight before… before Leo left. Donny had tried to fill Leo's shoes, but Raph resented being ordered around by his younger brother. Now they fought almost as much as he and Leo had… over the smallest, stupidest things.

Today, it had been whether or not Mikey was doing more for the family than Raph was. Donny was stuck on the point that Mikey at least had a job and was "doing something", whereas Raph had nothing. Raph felt bad now, Mikey's face swimming to the surface of his mind. Mikey, having to sit there and listen to his older brothers debating his usefulness like he wasn't even there. Mikey, whose heart was breaking, but who thought he was hiding it so well.

He'd have to apologize, later. Not to Donny, the uppity jerk, but at least to Mikey, who hadn't deserved any of this.

Raph's mind went back to the chase at hand. The kid was obviously trying to shake him, and the pursuit had taken them to an old, abandoned bridge far out at the edge of town. This area never saw traffic anymore, and the bridge had fallen apart years before, ending in a lethal drop into the water below.

"Kid!" Raph yelled, trying to warn him. There was no way he could have been heard, though. "Kid, the bridge ends!"

Ignorant of the danger he was in, the kid only sped up. Raph growled, pressing down harder on the accelerator. Stupid kids. Last night, some dumb punk had tried to outrun him on a bike, too. The chase, and the stunts he'd been forced to pull, had been hard on Raph's poor motorcycle. The brakes had been shot completely-

Too late, Raph remembered that he never had fixed the brakes on his bike from the night before. His mind froze up and his blood ran cold… how could he have been so stupid!? How had he forgotten!? Raph's eyes widened in horror as he saw the other bike go over the edge, but now he was too close to it himself, and his brakes were shot. He wasn't going to make it. He wasn't going to make it.

Thoughts raced through his mind – fear, not of death but that his brothers would think he had simply left. Satisfaction, that he had at least been able to die in the line of a work he truly believed in. Regret… deepest of all, regret that he had been so horrible to his family, and that he had never had the chance to tell Leo he was sorry. Leo… sorry, bro…

In desperation and by pure instinct, Raph slammed on the brakes anyway, even knowing that they wouldn't catch, that they'd never stop him in time.

To his surprise, the bike bucked under the sudden deceleration and came to a screeching and jolting halt right at the edge. Raph sat on his motorcycle, trying to still the tremors that ran through his body. He'd had close calls before – it was a dangerous occupation – but that was by far the closest. Was he really still alive?

"Hey! Hey, help me! Somebody, help!"

The kid must have survived, then. Raph's mind was still fogged by his narrow escape from death, but the pleas from his quarry forced him back to reality. He couldn't stay there long. There would be time to have a panic attack later, when he was back in the safety of the Lair.

"Hold on, kid," he heard himself mutter. Detaching himself with effort from the bike, Raph stomped up to the edge of the bridge. The kid had obviously tried to bail off his own bike at the last minute and latched himself onto the edge of the bridge in a death grip. He was still there, white-faced and trembling, occasionally looking down at the water far below him.

"Hey, help!" he cried desperately as he saw Raph looming over him. Fear of being caught had been far overridden by fear of death. Raph snorted. Fear of death would do that to a person. Reaching down with one gloved hand, Raph plucked the kid up and tossed him back down onto the firm road.

"Go home, kid," he growled. "This ain't the life ya want."

Staring up at him as though he could hardly believe his luck, the kid scooted backwards from the huge vigilante, before leaping to his feet and sprinting as fast as he could towards home. He was never, ever getting involved in crime again.

Raph watched him go, a feeling of something he couldn't identify settling in his chest. Home. He should go to, back to the place he called home, but which hadn't been home in so long. Walking slowly back to his bike, Raph kicked it into gear once more. Easier and slower than usual, he began making his way back to the alleyway that would take him home.

How had his brakes been able to catch him? He had wrecked them completely… he knew he had. He remembered thinking he'd have to fix that, but had been so exhausted and irate after his fight with Donny, it'd completely skipped his mind.

Pulling into the garage, Raph turned on a light and knelt down to take a good long look at the motorcycle. Come to think of it, he'd never done any repairs to the thing at all… it had simply always been in perfect working order. He hadn't ever given it much thought, assuming he had an exceptionally well made bike. But with all the stunts he'd had to pull over time… never needing work done would be nothing short of a miracle.

Why had he never noticed that before? And more importantly… what else had he never seen?

oOo oOo oOo

In his room, Donny jolted awake as a quiet beeping sound from a tiny, secret device on his table alerted him that the door to the Lair had been opened. He stayed silent and still in his bed, listening until he heard Raph's bedroom door close quietly.

Good… that meant the brake job he had done on the bike earlier that day while Raph was sleeping had held. He didn't know how Raph had managed to lose them completely, but it didn't really matter much.

Donny sighed. He was pretty sure that Raph still had no idea that his "job" as the Nightwatcher was hardly a secret. Donny had figured it out the first time the news had reported on the strange new vigilante. At first, he'd wanted to rage at Raph for his stupidity, but something had held him back.

Leo wouldn't approve, but to hell with it. Leo had left them. This, he knew, was Raph's way of dealing with the hole in his life caused by Leo's continued disappearance. Raph needed this, or go insane. With the way he so staunchly defended the Nightwatcher all the time, Donny had realized that Raph actually believed he was doing something good… somehow, Donny didn't have the heart to try to take that away.

Besides, Raph would never listen to him, and they'd have a huge fight, and then Splinter would end up losing a second son as well.

Donny didn't believe in what his brother was doing, but it wasn't worth losing him. Nothing was worth losing another brother.

So instead, he kept quiet, attacking the very idea of a Nightwatcher whenever he could in the vain hope that Raph would get it and just stop on his own, even as he knew that he never would. But he wasn't about to let his older brother go out there without at least doing everything he could to keep him safe.

Raph never saw him, never knew that every night when he came back in, Donny would quietly sneak out to the garage and give his brother's hidden equipment a complete overhaul, making every repair and adjustment that he could think of.

As Donny made his way to the garage in the dark, he let relief that his brother had come home once again wash over him. His biggest fear was that one night, the little beep that let him know Raph was safe again would never come. Donny pulled out his tool kit and went to work on the bike, sadness overcoming him. He felt tears welling up in his eyes.

How could Raph really believe that he'd never seen?

End