I woke with a start. I lifted my head from the pillow and looked down next to the bed. Raphael was sitting up and breathing heavily. "Bad dream?" I asked.

He looked at me and frowned. "Sorry I woke ya." He paused. "Yeah, another one."

"Another?" I questioned.

"Last coupla nights," he answered, "either no dreams or bad memories, actually." He paused again and leaned against the wall. "What the hell's happened to me?"

I sat up. "What are you talking about?"

"Yesterday, before you arrived, Mike said I'm all emotional. These dreams..." Raphael said, then sighed. "I was always the loner, the one that would go off and brood, the one who acted first and maybe thought later. I'm not sappy or overly emotional. I've hardly even cried. I'm not big on alot of talk." He paused. "But all I've been doing since I got here, these last few days, is be the complete opposite of what I was ten years ago and..."

"But ten years is a good amount of time," I said, interrupting him. "We all tend to change over time. I think it would be safe to say that if someone had told you fifteen years ago that five years later you'd be headed towards Baton Rouge--"

"I'd've laughed in their face," Raphael finished. "Then Splinter was ill and died. That changed everything. It changed us. It changed me."

"Those are the things your dreams have been about, right?" I asked.

"Yeah," he said, quietly.

I moved off the bed and onto the floor next to him, then wrapped an arm around his shoulders. I wished I could think of something more to say, but the words wouldn't come. I looked him in the face again and saw a single tear rolling down his face. I wiped it away with my free hand, then he look up at me. I could tell there was so much he wanted to say. There were memories and such that I knew I'd get out of him in time. I could read so much in his one eye than I could anyone with two eyes. There was just so much emotion tucked away...