"Look, Tay, I'm not saying come out here," Raphael says into his t-phone as he paces in the hospital waiting room. "You've got school. Don't—"

"Hell no. If Casey is hurt this badly, I'm coming," Taylor interrupts. "You already made me stay put when it was you. I'll drive out as soon as I can."

"Seriously? That's almost a five-hour drive—"

"I've got coffee and also, I don't give a shit." He hears her make a kiss sound over the phone. "Te amo, Raphael! See you soon."

She hangs up and Raphael sighs, pocketing his phone. The ER waiting room is crowded with more humans than Raphael is used to comfortably being around and his family, even disguised, stick out like a fistful of sore thumbs. Destiny and Sarina take up two chairs, holding each other's hands—Destiny fidgets, agitated, while Sarina stares at the floor. Raphael's brothers stand close by, shoulder to shoulder. Raphael tucks his hands in the pockets of his bomber jacket and joins them, clearing his throat.

"So, Tay's making the drive down here," he says.

"So is Andy," Michelangelo says. He rubs the back of his neck. "You know, that was my first time talking to her...but since I was using Casey's phone, I think she believed me."

"Good," Leonardo says. "What's the status on April?"

"Her phone went straight to voicemail. She might be in class," Donatello says. "I don't want to disturb her study."

"It's alright. We've got a bit of time," Leonardo says. "Casey's already been brought in."

"Can we see him?" Raphael asks.

"Not yet. They said they'll let us know."

Raphael mutters a curse and scuffs his shoe on the linoleum tile. "What do we do, then? Pretty sure the nurses don't want us loitering around."

"We still need to locate Zilla," Donatello says. "With it being so bright out, it won't be easy to find her."

"I can start looking," Michelangelo offers. "Lise is in class for a bit still and I need to let out some nervous energy." He makes his eyes as big as possible. "Please?"

Leonardo lets out a breath of a laugh and ruffles Michelangelo's blond curls. "You don't need to beg, Mikey. That'd be great if you handled that. We'll be here."

"We'll call if anything comes up, especially regarding Casey," Donatello says.

Michelangelo salutes. "I'm off, then! You can count on me!" He turns, stops, and pivots back. "Can I get the keys to the Party Wagon, Leo?"

Leonardo tosses him the keys. "Not a scratch, Mikey."

"Trust me, bro. I've got this."

----------

Michelangelo drives back to his usual end of town, a ten-minute drive from the hospital. He figures that the chances of finding Zilla in the hospital's end of town are basically none and he needs to move fast.

Every second he wastes is another second that Casey doesn't have.

"Shadow? Zilla? Helloooooo?" he calls, searching the alleyways for especially dark patches where she could be hiding.

The more he searches, the more lucky he thinks Casey is to have always found her as easily as he does. She's a hard girl to get a hold of. Alley after alley, shadow after shadow, and there's no sign of her as the sun crawls across the sky.

"Zilla?!" he shouts, caring less and less about being stared at anymore. "Please! It's about Casey!"

"Mikey? Is that you?"

He whips around just as Zilla slips out from underneath a dumpster, huddled in a shady patch between the giant green bin and the wall. Relief floods him as he rushes to her, grinning.

"Shadow! Man, I've been looking for you everywhere!" he says. Her eyes narrow and he gasps, rolling his t-shirt sleeve up to reveal the patch on his arm. "Human patch. I swear, it's me; Mikey with an Angelo."

Zilla nods. "What's going on? What about Casey?"

Michelangelo's brief joy at finding her snuffs out. "He's shaded, dudette. He's at the hospital right now."

"What? That's impossible. I removed all the shade from the bite," she insists.

"It wasn't the bite! The stag stabbed him or something. It's this tiny hole, but it's deep and we all missed it 'cause we were so tired yesterday," he says, shoulders sagging. "It's bad, dudette. Really bad."

Her form ripples as if gusted by a sudden wind before going completely, eerily still again. "Symptoms?"

"Uh...oh, right, those things," he says. "He passed out. Trouble breathing? The wound is all black and full of pus and there's veins all over his chest—"

"It's affecting his heart?" Zilla's eyes close, making her disappear for a second. Michelangelo stares at her and she sighs. "I don't know if I can help him."

"You're the only one who can," he says. "You know more about shadow stuff than any of us, even Don and Sari. Could you try?"

"I don't know."

He frowns, bowing his head. The two mutants remain suspended in the silence for a few tense seconds before Michelangelo speaks again. "Could...could you mutate him into someone like you?"

If her heart had a beat, it would skip one. "What?"

He winces as he straightens up. "The shade is hurting him, but if he becomes a shadow, then...then he'd become immune, right? There's still some of the white mutagen at the lair. It's only a little bit, I think, but maybe—"

"There's no guarantee that it would make him like me. He could end up like the beasts."

"But..." He takes a deep breath and his eyes seem to shine with emotion. He blinks hard. "You said that without you, Wallace couldn't make white mutagen, so you can make more, right?" He purses his lips tightly and takes a calming breath. "You can still help him."

She gazes at him for a good, long time. "What if it's not enough?"

"You can't let a what-if stop you from trying, dudette."

She stays still, hovering, then her shoulders sag. "Is everyone at the hospital already?"

"Not everyone. Raph's girlfriend and Casey's sister are driving out. We couldn't get a hold of April."

"She doesn't know?"

"Not that I know of."

Zilla pauses. "Is Casey stable?"

"Eh..." Michelangelo shrugs, teetering his hand back and forth. "One of the nurses said they would put him on oxygen and run some tests."

"So there's a bit of time yet." She nods. "I'm going to find April for you."

"Wait, really? Awesome! Thank you. We're pretty sure she's at NYU in one of her classes right now. Journalism," he says, smiling a little. "After you find her, then you'll come to the hospital?"

"Yeah. I'll weigh my options and see what I can do."

He exhales. "Awesome. Thank you, dudette."

She purses her lips. "Yeah, sure."

----------

NYU bustles with students of varying ages. Zilla watches from patches of shade as people move in all directions, single or in groups, listening to music, hauling armloads of textbooks or heavy backpacks. So many of them are the same age as her or slightly older, and she lets herself wonder for a second how her life could have been different.

She pictures herself in an NYU crewneck, reading a textbook in the sun. She got mutated so young that she never seriously imagined what she would take if she went for a higher education. As a kid, she always said she'd be a lawyer or a physical therapist. Maybe she would have applied somewhere with a soccer scholarship and gone from there.

She snaps herself out of it. She's on the lookout for a redhead.

She makes her way to the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. Michelangelo said she's in the journalism program, so she'd most likely be here, right?

A brief sense of guilt distracts her. Before she was mutated, April was one of those girls that Zilla didn't notice. During her years of shadowing classes, she recalls seeing her around Casey, them growing closer, but Zilla has never spoken to her. How will she broach this conversation?

"Hi, I'm the girl who's been hanging out with your ex" might not be the best opener.

It's too late to think about it now as Zilla spots April's distinctive red hair. She zips along some shaded autumn-bare tree branches towards her, waiting until she's moved to a more secluded spot.

She clears her throat. "Um, April? April O'Neil?"

The woman stops dead. She doesn't turn around as her hand drifts to her jacket pocket. Zilla slides into her shadow, staring up at her from the ground as April watches her surroundings.

"Down here?" Zilla suggests.

April startles as she looks at her feet. "Who—" Her hand flexes inside her pocket, but doesn't draw anything out. "Hold on, are you...Shadow?"

"Physically, or...?"

"Like Shadow, the mutant who helped Raph."

Zilla nods. "That's me. My name's Zilla, though."

For a second, they just stare at each other. April glances over her shoulder, lips pursing, then hurries to the shade of a nearby tree. Zilla emerges into the shady space, making sure to keep her back against the tree so that it doesn't look suspicious.

"What's going on?" April asks.

"I know it's weird for me to be here. We've never officially met," Zilla says. "But the turtles were trying to get a hold of you. Casey's hurt."

April's face pales and she digs for her phone. She turns it on, her eyes widening even more when she sees the missed calls. She runs her hand through her hair, groaning.

"Crap," she mutters. "I had a test. I turned it off—"

"It's okay. That's why they sent me," Zilla says. Not quite the truth, but easier to explain.

"How hurt is he?" April asks.

"He's at Langone. Emergency department. It's...pretty bad, from what I've heard."

April stares at her in mild shock, her knuckles white around her phone. Slowly, she sits down on the little stone outcropping blocking the grass from the path, dropping her head onto her hand.

"What happened?" she whispers.

"From what I heard, he got stabbed by a shadow beast's antlers," Zilla says. April doesn't physically react and she adds, "Did the turtles tell you about shadow beasts?"

"Yeah, they did." She sounds distant. "That idiot..."

"He was trying to save me, if that changes anything."

"So he was being a heroic idiot?"

"Bingo."

It makes April smile for half a second. She stands back up, blowing out a breath and smoothing her dark green sweater. "I'll head right over," she says. "Are you coming with?"

"I'll be there soon. I have a few things I need to take care of."

Zilla expects April to rush off, but she stays, staring at her with a thoughtful look. Zilla can't explain it, but a tingle passes over her, the closest thing to proper sensation that she's felt in years. April's eyes soften.

"Listen," she says. "Thank you for everything you've done to help Casey."

Zilla shakes her head. "I didn't do much."

"You were there for him. You looked out for him." April tilts her head and again, that tingling sensation makes Zilla want to shiver. "You loved him."

Her shadowy body ripples. "That...it's..." She clears her throat. "It's not like that. I don't...I mean—"

April holds up her hand, patting the air a little. "I don't mean anything by it, I promise. I just wanted to thank you. You brought him back to life a little after...everything."

Zilla hangs there, frozen from her words, and April's cheeks turn slightly pink as she turns and hurries off to the little yellow moped parked and waiting for her. She watches April strap on her red helmet and drive off and even after she's long since disappeared from sight, Zilla swears she can still hear her words and feel the weight of her stare. It was like she knew Zilla's feelings before she did.

She can mull over them later. For now, she has one more stop to make, and then she needs to see Casey before she makes her decision.