About two weeks ago, he had been talking with Raphael over some old movie they had found a while ago. Halloween was coming up, and while their father slept and their two brothers went out at the mention of it, he and Donnie watched The Haunting, never permitted to watch films like it when they were home, to Raph's amused incredulity. "We risk our lives every day," he had laughed, "and you're scared of a movie from the sixties?"

They were.

So, they had sat, side by side, as the smaller woman on-screen— "An ingenue," Donnie explained, not at all sure if he was right but parroting something you had said— slowly lost herself to the building. The conversation switched from the logistics of a house such as that to the concept of paranoia.

"I wouldn't lose my mind," Raph had announced. "What's the ghost gonna do?"

A scoff. "You say that," he rolled his eyes, "but you don't know. She was fine before."

"It's a house." The older boy rolled his eyes. "Creepy stuff happened there. So what?"
"That's not the point." He leaned against his hand, occasionally glancing back at him. "It's the isolation, the lack of trust in her own judgment, the gravity of any mistake she makes that's supposed to be scary."

He gestured at the television. "But this?" His back hit the cement as he leaned back. "Honestly, she's freaking out worse than you do."

He looked back at him. "I don't freak out that often."

A barking laugh. "That is a fucking lie."

"Is not." Heat rushed up his neck. "I can keep my cool."

"I've seen you around her, man. I'm not stupid."

He straightened up. "I'm not freaking out about her."

"Yes," he sighed, "you are." He lets his head fall back. "Whenever she leaves, you get all weird with your phone."

His voice rose an octave. "I do not!"

"Do too. You're doing it right now."

Donnie looks down at his hands. Sure enough, his phone is turned backwards and forwards in his hands, as if waiting for a call. He was. "It's," he failed to defend himself, "just because I like knowing where it is."

"Sure." He folded his legs onto the seat. "You know how many different ways there are for her to die? You aren't going to get told as soon as it happens if you sit next to the phone all the time."

He stopped.

"I mean," he continued, and Donnie swore he was just trying to get in his head, "she's great at getting herself in bad situations. At least with this chick," he pointed back to the screen, "it's ghosts or some shit. I'm surprised you let her out of your sight, from how you act."

Donnie takes a slow breath. "Raphael?"

He looks down at him. "Yeah?"

"I am painfully aware of that." He smiled. "The cast? Great reminder."

"So? Why do you?"

He sighed deeply. "Because keeping her underground all the time isn't fair."

"So?"

"I care about her, believe it or not." He folded his arms around his stomach. "Besides, we are hardly able to get enough food for ourselves a lot of the time. I can't exactly provide for her."

"So—"

"I have, yeah."

He leaned forward. He was not as good at studying people as Leo, but Donnie could feel the effort being made. "And you know—"

"Yup." He popped the P. "That's another reason, the morality of it."

"And if she was fine with it?"

He chose his words carefully. "Then I'd like to know she's safe." The movie is white noise, now, the images on the screen seemingly meaningless. "Why do you ask?"

"Curious is all." He is glad his brother can identify, at least, the slight edge to his words. Of the four of them, he and Raph were the two worst at reading people, so it was not always any guarantee that he would pick up on it.

"Why?"

He shrugged, finally looking back at the movie. "Just not sure it's worth the effort."

His eyes shifted back towards him. "Watch it."

"Not what I mean."

"Then what do you mean?"

He thought for a moment. "It's like worrying about the moon," he said slowly, never the wordsmith. "It's going to come, you know it's going to, so why stress about it?"

"Because you can't stop the moon." His response is immediate.

"And if Shredder himself went looking for her," Raph replied, "or the Kraang came in the middle of the night, or she fell in front of a train or whatever, that you could stop?"

"I've got to believe so, yeah. Can we watch the movie already?"

"It's called multitasking."

"For you, maybe." He tried to change the subject. "See, I've got no idea what's happening now."

"But if you know that you can't stop everything—"

"There's something to be said," he glared, "about the benefits to hope, that believing that something will happen is good in its own right. Faith and all that. If we're going to talk about this all day—"

"I'll get off your back." He put his hands up half-heartedly, went back to the movie. "Just asking is all."

This line of conversation is not uncommon. It is for lack of a better thing to talk about, Donnie thought; it is easier to relax and think about something that might be feasible than talk about the serious, life-threatening stuff. He could hardly blame him for interrogating him. He knew that, if it had been he who was pining after some girl, he would have asked him all about it. It was something they had been raised to have interest in by their father and having the reality of a dream they had all considered fantastical fuels better conversation than the inevitable demise of their planet. Still, he wished he was not so curious.
The movie continued.

—

You are gone too long.

At first, when he had brought this up to his brothers, the first thing they said was that he was being paranoid. It was not as if you did not leave the sewers every once and a while, by his inadvertent suggestion; humans require vitamin C to function. You may stay out for hours at a time, out with friends they do not know, for school, so as to not lose your place in the world above. None there would ever fault you for it, of course. If they had the option, they would likely do the same, and it is only by virtue of this that he, as scared for your safety as you are, that he makes an effort to trust you to come back.

He texts you an hour after you leave, and you respond, for what that's worth, as little as it is, something simple, a picture of the park. An hour after that, he texts again, the smell of rotting meat finally starting to disperse as his brother rests in his room, just to make sure you are still fine and healthy, to another response, an unenthusiastic— he chides himself for his reading into it— confirmation of your safety and a reminder to text you when the situation is sorted out. And when it is, when he tries texting you again— 'The sun must be going down'— he receives another response, explaining that you are going to go back home for the night, that you would see him tomorrow.

This is when he realizes something is wrong.
From his lab, watching his phone with the door closed in some half-hearted attempt to keep the others from panicking as if he was the calm one, his first thought is to try tracking your location. While he does not have any sort of application installed on your phone that would facilitate this, he figures that tracking your IP address cannot be incredibly difficult, all things considered. He decides against it, hesitant to jump to his immediate inclination, that you were hurt. He does not want to believe something has happened to you.

He waits another hour before calling, pacing around his laboratory, picking random pieces of nothing from the table, sanitizing equipment to keep his hands busy. He figures that is the simplest way to confirm or deny your safety. He calls three times, waiting five minutes— his eyes are screwed to the numbers on top of the screen, watching the seconds— between each attempt as to allow you a window of opportunity to respond.

He rips at absent hair, rubs at his face at the last ring, silently willing you to just pick up the phone, to give him some confirmation that you are not lost or gone or—

"Pick up," he murmurs under his breath, heart beating in his throat as if that will get you to answer faster. It does not, of course; your number is read to him in an automated, bored woman's voice, prompting him to leave a message, and this is when he starts panicking.

He wants to go to your apartment, first, to check if you are there, just sleeping. He tries to, runs out of the laboratory and into his bedroom— your things are still there, laying in bags on the floor— for keys and his staff before running back out.

His brother sit around the television, watching the news impersonally, making jokes about what was being said, about the mannerisms of the reporter, a blonde woman— a childhood crush for them all at one point— named April Showers— an internet search provided her name as April O'Neil— currently talking about some international conflict. The air in the room is light, cheery, as he rushes to the door.

"Donnie!" Mikey cries out. "Where're you—"

He does not have the time nor patience to explain the situation in detail. "She's not answering her phone."

"So?"

"So?"

Mikey supplies unhelpfully, "She's probably asleep."

"She wouldn't go back to her apartment." He links his hands behind his neck, every muscle in his body tense. "All her stuff is here. It's not even eight and she's asleep?"

"Maybe her phone died?"

"It rang," he snaps. "It wouldn't have rang if it was dead."

Raph looks up from the television. "And your plan to find her is?"

"Go to her apartment."

"Why?"

"Because that's what the text said to do."

"And you're listening to a text you don't think she sent you because?"

He stops. "It's a trap."

"No shit."

"Should I go grab Leo?" Mikey folds his legs, shutting the television off.

"He's in no position to do anything physical." The antidote was not amazing at doing its job; it had left him vomiting up the excess foreign material making its way through his body, and though he had stopped about twenty minutes ago, he is still bound to the bed in his room until they can make sure it all left his body. "If he hears, he's going to want to help."

"Then what can we do?"

"I don't know." Donnie crosses his arms across his stomach, vomit rising in his throat. "I-I could track her phone, but who knows if it's bugged or even in the same place as she is, or if that's a trap." 'I should have given her the gloves.' "But if we wait, who knows what will happen to her, what they might do."

"Or what she might say," Raph agrees, shutting the TV off. "But it's not like we can do anything without any leads."

"But if we follow any—"

"Exactly. We need to get Splinter or Leo involved."

"Wouldn't she call if she was in trouble, though?" Mikey fiddles with his fingers nervously.

"She didn't last time."

"Mikey has a point, though." Desperately, he smiles. "Wouldn't she say something if she felt unsafe?"

"Would a ninja give her time to text?" Raph is oddly still.

"Why does it have to be the Foot?"

"Who else would want her?"

"Kraang?" The youngest one gets to his feet. "Can't we look at the thing to see?"

"What thing?"

"You know," he snaps his fingers, trying to form the words. "The rectangle thing?"

Donatello thinks for a second. "The hard drive-looking thing?"

"Yeah!"

"The foreign technology that I can't hack into? The information all in a language we can't interpret?"

"... yeah..."

"Great plan."

"That's my line." Raph sighs, putting his head in his hands. "No use panicking right now until we have something to work with. It's not his fault she got kidnapped."

"Could you not?"

"I'm getting Splinter." Mikey runs off.

"Donnie," Raph looks up at him, "you're going to burst a vessel."

'She said this was going to happen.' He looks over at him. "I'm panicking."

"Obviously." He closes his eyes. "If you panic, though, you're going to do something stupid. Breathe."

"How am I—"

"Inhale."

Automatically, he does.

"Exhale."

He does.

"Again."

He repeats the movement.

"She's going to be fine." Raph leans back. "If it's the Foot, then they're going to want info out of her. They wouldn't kill her right away. We have time."

"But—"

"If it's Kraang," Raph continues, eyes still closed, "then they're too stupid to set a trap, and they obviously don't want her dead, so we have time."

Slowly, his heartbeat calms. "But—"

"You're not useful to anyone if you're losing your shit." He pats the place beside him. "So sit down, put the phone down, and try to think."

With a bit of nudging, he does. Leaning forward, head practically in-between his legs, he swallows back the desperation rising in his throat. Memories of you, lying in your own blood, curled on yourself with glass sticking out of you or lying on your stomach with a trail of red behind you resurface in his memory, and those, he cannot help but remember, were without intent. He can only imagine the ways they can get you to talk or do whatever they need you for.

He feels a hand on his back. 'I brought her into this.' He squeezed his eyes shut. 'It's my fault she's in this. She said this would happen.' "Breathe," Raph says, voice softer than he has ever heard. "It's okay. We're going to find her."

"I—"

"She's tough." Donnie swallows again. "Wherever she is, I'm sure she's fine."

He tries to regain his composure. "You don't believe that," he gets out.

"She survived Karai," he argues.

"The safety thing," he clarifies.

"Sure I do." He leans down to match him. "Besides, she's gone through a lot. She'll manage."

He wants to believe that.

—

It is oddly quiet in this room. Cold, hard— every sound you make echos off the walls— but uncomfortably quiet. There isn't a light, nothing to illuminate the space around you or the faces in front of you. You don't need the light to tell the handcuffs will leave an ugly mark on your wrists, to hear the rattling of the chains, binding you under the hole in the wall. The bars, at least, do gleam in the light ever so slightly.

You do not like the smell. It is not smoke, but an odd, human smell, like period blood, hydrogen peroxide, and mildew. There is nothing on your face that you can feel that might be the source, so you can only assume the things that have happened here.

"You're early." It's the first thing you can think to say to the looking shape that catches your eye first. "What's your name again? Takahashi?"

He pauses a moment. "Takeshi," he grunts. "Once."

"Takeshi," you correct yourself. "Why am I here?"

He is a very tall figure. You had thought so when you had first seen him too, though your bigger concern had been the way long, inhuman claws dug into your arms, leading you off to some alley or another. A bit top-heavy, you think, with proportions not quite suited to walking on hind legs, but not as unfortunate a mutation as was possible. A feline ninja: a cliche, but useful.

His voice is a low sort of growl, not necessarily aggravated, but seemingly tired. You can feel the vibration in your throat. "Do you not know?"

"I've got a general idea," you smile quietly— there is nowhere for you to run, obviously— "but I don't know the specifics."

You can hear the gentle thump of his knee against the floor, the chain too short for you to stand up. "Do you know not of the location of Hamato Yoshi?"

"Sure I do," you say, "but I thought this was about Bradford or the truck."

"The fate of Chris Bradford is irrelevant to my being here." You can hear his scowl. "I'm only concerned with Hamato."

"Then you made a poor decision, picking me as a hostage. I'm terrible with directions."
He takes a deep breath. "Even if you cannot give us an exact location," he says, "any information regarding the Hamatos is valuable to us."

"And what will you do if I don't tell you?" You lean back against the door, legs still numb.
"We will leave you in the dark until you do, with no access to food or drink."

You do not even consider it. "Then this is where I die, then?"

"You do not have to."

"Sure I don't." You smile ruefully. "It's fitting, dying for someone. I'm fine with it."

Your legs curl to your chest as you sense him move closer. "Do you know true hunger, child?"

You say nothing.

"When your stomach," he promises, voice quiet, "consumes itself in desperation, when your mouth stops creating saliva, when your tongue becomes sandpaper in your mouth as your body seizes in agony..." he chuckles darkly. "Then, you will tell us everything."

"Or I'll go crazy from the lack of stimulation." Your bare feet run across the ground. "Or go blind or something to that effect."

"Then you'll divulge your secrets?"

"Not until I do." You sigh. "That gives me three days or so to hope for a savior, right? Am I allowed that much?"

"In a city such as this? To hold onto hope?"

"What else am I supposed to do?"

"Confess."

You laugh. "Aren't you guys the ones going on and on about honor? What honor is there in that, selling people down the river?"

"None." You hear the shifting of cloth as he rises again to his feet. "That's why. It would be fitting for a Hamato."

"I'm no Hamato."

"You may as well be, to my master." His footsteps are barely audible, but you do hear them against the stone. "I'd like to see you crumble the same as them." You can hear the sliding of stone as he steps out of the room. You are not deserving of a goodbye.

You lean over onto your side, bare legs curling up to your chest as you stare out into nothingness. You have never been in a place quite this empty, quite this cold. You wonder if you would appreciate someplace warmer, think better of it. You would not be surprised if they heated the room in slow increments, like how you boil a frog. How does dying of slow cooking feel?

You close your eyes. The floor is cold against naked skin, hard, but you don't mind it too much. It means that your body will not work as hard, anyways; finding a girl in New York is finding a needle in a haystack. You do not doubt that someone will look for you, but you assume it will take a while.

It is not your first night alone. You feel more lonely than usual, though.

"Goodnight, Y/N," you sigh, burying your fear very deep down. "Goodnight, Donnie. See you when I see you, I guess."

You fall asleep.