TMNT are owned by Mirage. Can someone explain to me why, having eaten a tasty dinner of Kung Pao Trio several hours ago, I am now craving pizza with green peppers? Must be a Mikey influence!

"Looks okay here," Leo said to Raph, as they played their flashlights along and over the opening leading to the junction. They'd carefully made their way along the dark, damp, eerie tunnels, drips from the unseen roof wetting them with cold shivers that trickled down their necks to the exposed parts of their bodies between shell and plastron, then sluicing off to the left or right, working their chilly ways down either side of their bodies to drip once again from the edge of their shells to the ground. The sensation was like being tickled in a very unpleasant way, and neither one felt like laughing. No matter how long they'd been out there, no matter how many of those dank, sour-smelling, icy drips hit them and trickled down repeatedly in the same manner, they could not get used to them; they could not tune them out, and yard after dank and dripping yard they shivered involuntarily, wishing to be back in their safe, dry lair.

The combined beams of their lights lit upon the swirling mass of water as it was channeling off through the various exits. Nothing seemed to be backed up; every outlet did not seem to be refusing its share of the run-off from the surface.

Nondescript things floated and bobbed in the water, but nothing looked dangerous. The brothers silently agreed to return and check out the tunnel in the opposite direction; in the direction that led past their home, through more dark tunnels and pipes, until it emptied its roiling mass of liquid into yet another, lower level junction, to be carried away to who knew where.

More drips tickled them, making each one squirm in discomfort and not a tiny bit of fear. Who knew what was being carried onto their bodies in the icy cold relentless drips from the ceiling. Each had been sick before from the sewers, as well as regular colds and flu- each was not looking forward to the possibility of being bedridden once again with little control over their bodies, aching and vomiting and crying with the pain in their head or their ears or their tummies.

The echoes of those drips, the strange gurgling sounds, and the various noises of running water, of unseen trash bumping into the sides of the channels or each other- of indeed the magnified sounds of their own footsteps and wispy breathing- did not bother them one bit. Indeed, they welcomed the sounds as if they were guardians. It was strange, but if they could hear those sounds, then that meant that no one- or thing- could hear them over all that noise. In the dark, carefully shielding their lights for fear of some nameless city worker being down there for reasons unknown, they welcomed the noises that filled their ears; after all, these were the sounds of their babyhood, and they knew them as well as the sound of Splinter's voice. Yet they kept their hearing tuned for anything that didn't sound like the familiar song of the sewers that they were used to. They kept alert for the sound of humans.

"I am first in the tub when we get home," Raph softly asserted as they neared the end of this particular section. They had gone farther than they'd promised, far past the out-of-bounds that Splinter had set for them once he'd started allowing them to roam short distances from the lair.

Leo frowned in the dark- he kicked himself mentally for not calling dibs first.

"I thought you only liked the shower anyway," he hopelessly tried, but Raph snorted in mirth.

"I'm tired of water dripping on me," he laughed. "I wanna sit in the tub and soak all this cold ice water off of me.

Leo sighed. He knew that Raph would be in the tub for ever, and he also wanted to soak away the dirt and the cold and the fear of illness.

This end seemed to be working as it should as well. The two carefully studied the situation as Sensei had taught them, then turned grateful feet towards home.

"Race you," Raph challenged, taking off in spite of the dark and the cold and the slippery conditions.

"Hey, Raph! No fair!" Leo protested, trying to catch up to the lead that Raph had opened between them.

Raph laughed derisively at his brother, as he made his way easily in the dark back to the lair, dodging or jumping over various pipes and uneven flooring.

"I'm gonna catch you!" Leo, throwing caution to the wind, shouted in challenge, and kicked up his speed, narrowing the gap between himself and Raph.

He was within several yards when he misstepped and, losing his balance, fell splash into the rushing current!

"Raph!" was all he had time for before he found himself being swept back the way they'd just come. His flashlight had flown from his hands, and the dark swallowed him up as effectively as the water was about to.

The beam from Raph's flashlight was chasing madly after him, and he kept his head above the water, focusing on that light, trying to use it to see if there were any handholds nearby. His hands vainly grasped the side of the channel, but the slime-coated surface made it almost impossible to grab for longer than it took to scrape the skin from his palms.

The beam was closer. Now Leo could see Raph's face, a mask of determination and fear, as he gained on his brother, trying to work the rope he had been carrying with one hand from his shoulder and into a position to toss it to Leo.

The sound of the drop-off was growing in Leo's ears, but he kept the panic to a minimum, concentrating on that flashlight beam, that hand that was getting ready to toss the rope. He kept his back to the approaching drop-off, and willed Raph to throw the rope accurately.

With a desperate yet powerful swing, Raph, still running, snaked the rope out to Leo, who grabbed hold on the third try- his fingers were so cold, he couldn't feel them move, and he had to look to see if he'd managed to hang on.

"Got it!"

Raph immediately stopped running, and, dropping the flashlight, braced his legs and pulled on the rope.

Leo quit moving, but he knew he wouldn't be able to hold on for long. With the combined effort of Raph's pulling and Leo's kicking of legs and hauling of himself on the rope, he was able to make it to the edge where Raph, taking a desperate chance, suddenly freed one hand and reached out, grabbing Leo by the edge of his carapace. The effort knocked the legs from under him, but he only slid a tiny bit, and held on for dear life.

Then Leo was out of the water, and in his brother's arms.

They sat like that for several minutes in the weak light of the flash lying nearby, holding on to each other, shivering from the cold and the delayed reaction, trying to catch their breaths, trying to keep from crying.

Leo finally managed to stand up and helped Raph do the same.

"I owe you one," is all Leo said, and they slowly made their way back home.

"How are you feeling now, Sensei?" Mikey asked as he handed Splinter the cup of tea and medicines that Don had brewed.

"Mikey, you asked him that ten minutes ago," Don sighed, as he sat down in the old rocking chair, wishing that Mikey would go away so he could take care of Sensei in peace. "We need to be quiet Mikey, so Sensei can rest."

"It is all right, Donatello," Splinter assured his son in his hoarse voice. Mikey couldn't bear the sound of this new voice- he wanted his father's old voice back.

"Maybe if you ate some honey, that would bring it back," he had suggested earlier, and Don just could not convince him that the way to bring Sensei's normal voice back was to let him rest it.

But Mikey, though he hated this new voice, insisted on hearing Splinter talk. He had become obsessed with hearing Sensei reply to every little question he could think of; he was almost desperate in his desire to maintain this kind of contact, and Donatello was going crazy trying to stop him.

Splinter was feeling better than earlier, but the throat, though not sore, was still hoarse. He smiled inwardly at the way both his sons approached this business of caring for father. He understood, he thought, why Michelangelo needed these verbal ties. He also understood Donatello's growing frustration. He hoped that the idea that had come to him would take care of both problems.

"Michelangelo," he rasped out, and Mikey quickly turned all his attention to his father. "I am rather bored. I would love for you to read me a story, if you do not mind."

Mikey's face exploded with unexpected joy, and before Splinter or Donatello realized it, the young turtle had burst from the room as if he'd been called to dinner, and returned just as quickly with as many comics and other books as he'd been able to grab in the haste of the moment.

Ignoring Donatello's protests, he eagerly climbed into bed with Splinter, making himself comfortable against the pillows that propped up the rat, and eagerly began to sort through the multitude of reading material he'd managed to retrieve.

"What do you want to hear?" he was chattering, so eager to do this thing that Splinter had no time to reply- just as well, for his voice had given out on him again. But Splinter didn't mind; this was turning out the way he had hoped. Michelangelo, preoccupied with reading to his father, would not expect or require Splinter to constantly respond to every query. "Do you want to hear one of these tall tales? No, those are boring, I should have got the other book. I know! Comics! Only some of the words are hard, and besides, the pages are missing- dumb Raph! He took the best ones out of these just to make me mad, you know! I owe him one for that. Oh! I know! I can read you this one! It's my very best favorite one!" And he opened a book of Japanese fairy tales (translated into English) and began on his very best favorite one called "The Eighty-One Princes".

He read the story with great enthusiasm if not great skill, but though he would ask Splinter many questions, he didn't require any answers- he was focussed on something he loved almost as much as Sensei: reading! It didn't matter if he had trouble, he worked hard and diligently to perfect his storytelling skills, and he attacked each difficult word as if it were the fiercest of enemies to be engaged and subdued without mercy!

In the rocking chair, Donatello began to see the reason Splinter had requested a story. Mikey read for over an hour, one fairy-tale after another, and though he assailed his father with more questions than Don could count, Splinter had yet to answer one of them. Mikey was happy. Splinter was happy.

Don was just a tad jealous.

Sitting in the old rocking chair, it had never occurred to him to join Splinter and Mikey on the bed- he had sat there, envy at the sight of his brother and Sensei sitting together slowly growing like a small flame, like a small and unnoticed flame that grew until he suddenly realized that he was angry at Mikey- angry that Mikey and Sensei were so cozy on the bed, reading stories, while he sat in the old rocking chair, waiting for the time when he would brew some more tea and medicines to soothe Sensei's throat and ease Sensei's pain.

As he sat there, rocking back and forth, thinking these suddenly clear thoughts of jealousy, he realized that Splinter was looking at him, waiting to make eye contact.

He looked into his father's eyes- and his jealously vanished as if water had been poured over a flame. He looked into his father's eyes, and saw that he had been waiting for him to come join them; indeed, Don thought that he could see disappointment in them, that he hadn't come over sooner.

Splinter smiled, and Don found himself moving out of that chair and onto that bed in a heartbeat, snuggling in on the other side of his father, while Mikey, oblivious to everything except the lure of the written word, was retelling with great gusto the story of "The Bamboo Princess".

This is where Raph and Leo, wet and cold and bruised and battered, found everyone when they'd finally dragged home. Splinter was awake, cradling a sleeping Don and Mikey. He smiled at the appearance of his other two sons- then grew concerned as he saw their condition.

"It's okay, Sensei," Leo quickly said before they could be questioned. "We just had a careless accident. We're okay. The junctions and sewers seem to be working well for the moment. We checked both ends, and we're sure that nothing is clogging the system."

"We're gonna go take a bath, okay Sensei?" Raph said hurriedly, for Splinter looked as if he were going to find a way to untangle himself from the sleeping sons in order to deal with the awake ones. "We're kind of cold. We'll come back in here when we're done. Do you need anythin' before we go?"

Splinter, mindful of his voice, merely shook his head, but both sons could read the expression in his eyes, the message in his face- they owed him an explanation, and they'd better have it after their bath.

The two older turtles filled the large tub with water as hot as they could stand it. They sluiced themselves with buckets in the shower area, and washed each other's backs as they tried to get the grime and slime and unseen contaminates from their bodies. Rinsing the final traces of soap from themselves, they gratefully sank into the tub together, and let the hot water soak away the last of the adventure they'd just had.

"You're gonna need bandages on them hands," Raph pointed out, as Leo lazily examined the skinned palms.

"Yeah. Later. Thanks, Raph."

"Any time, Leo."

Splinter, a half hour later, found them still in the tub, sleeping against each other. He had managed to put Donatello and Michelangelo to bed for their naps, and now he had come to the bathroom for other business- and to find his older sons, who had yet to explain themselves.

Sighing, he drained the tub, and one by one wrapped them in towels, dried them as best as he could, and put them in their beds where they could finish their impromptu naps.

Glancing at all four, he smiled in spite of his headache, his coughing, his hoarse throat, and his fever.

"I owe you all one," he whispered, and went back to his own room to get some rest.