"The Perseids meteor shower peaks tonight."

I nodded, only half listening to Olivia as I traced the scar on my wrist and looked up at the ceiling, thoughts of my mother running rampant through my mind.

"If you wanna watch it, we could drive out of the city and—"

"Don't you have plans with Andy tonight?" I asked, her words finally seeming to reach my ears.

"Yeah, but I can cancel."

I sat up on the couch to look at Liv, standing in the doorway to her room about to get ready for her date. "Don't cancel for me," I said. "Seriously, it's just a meteor shower. Besides, I'll probably just watch Chappie, I've been wanting to watch it forever now."

Olivia grinned. "Yeah, you can watch that one without me. It looks weird." She shifted her weight and leaned against the doorframe, watching me carefully. "You sure?"

"Yes."

"Okay," she took a step back into her room, "I'm gonna get ready then."

I nodded, falling onto my back on the couch again. I wanted to watch the meteor shower more than anything because I knew nothing stopped my mother from watching it every year. Cloudy skies? She drove until the sky was clear. Full moon? She brought out the telescope. Freezing weather? She gathered blankets and sleeping bags and made enough hot chocolate to last us the whole night. Leukemia? She stayed awake all night, staring up at the sky through a tiny window. Nothing stopped her, and I knew every night she was still watching.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. I sighed, irritated. But my curiosity got the best of me and I lifted it up to my face to check it. A message from fake Raphael appeared on the cracked screen:

What are you doing

The message was simple but I couldn't help my smile. I typed a response:

Nothing. Liv's leaving for a date soon, I'm gonna watch a movie

His reply came fast. Of course you are. What movie

I grinned. Chappie

Wtf is that

Idk it's new, it's about robots

Sounds boring

I scoffed. Fuck off

In response, he sent a middle finger emoji.

We went on to talk and bicker for a while longer. But it must've been for longer than it felt because before I knew it, Liv was saying goodbye and leaving to meet up with Andy and the sky outside was darkening.

I didn't really feel like watching a movie, suddenly.

My body stiffened and the air felt...wrong. No, occupied. Then it was breaking and I was moving, lifting my hand and ripping the sai from his grasp. Raphael was grinning at me.

"Nice reflexes, Carter."

"Stop doing that!" I cried, sitting up on the couch while a smile snuck onto my face. Raph didn't reply, he just grinned wider and took the sai from my hand.

"Come on," he said, placing the weapon back on his belt and walking back toward my room.

I narrowed my eyes at his retreating figure. "What?" But, once again, he didn't reply. What the hell is he doing? "Where are you going?" I shouted. He turned his head, a smirk plastered on his face that said get off your ass and see for yourself.

Once again, my curiosity got the better of me and I followed him.

••• 影の秘密 •••

"Raph, what the fuck." It wasn't even a question, but a bewildered statement as I watched the mutant climb up the spire of the Empire State Building.

He stopped with an exasperated sigh and looked down at me. "What, are you scared?"

I scoffed. "I fly helicopters for fun, this is nothing. But where the hell are you going?"

He grinned and kept climbing, yelling "keep up!" over his shoulder. I sighed and resigned myself to follow him up, wondering why the hell I decided to get up off the couch.

Raphael stopped when he reached a landing of metal grating that wrapped circularly around the body of the spire. He reached a hand down, helping me up onto the landing beside him. I mentally reminded myself to work on my pull-ups later, because I probably couldn't have made it up without his help.

"Why the hell are we up here?" I asked, sitting down on the edge of the landing.

"Why not?" He fired back, sitting beside me.

I glanced at him, marginally irritated. "I mean, for what reason are we here for?"

Almost imperceptibly, Raphael stiffened. "Uh," he pulled out the phone Donnie made him and glanced down at it, checking the lock screen before putting it away and holding something else—larger. I squinted through the darkness but couldn't make it out.

"Finally finished that carving," Raph said, handing the object to me. I took it from him excitedly, feeling the smooth, sanded wood beneath my fingers and grinning uncontrollably. It was a flower. I couldn't recognize what kind of flower, but I was too focused on the detail to care. It sat in my palm perfectly, with layers of wide, oval-like petals flaring outward, each with their own unique shape and size and imperfections. They curved and folded and laid over each other as if they were real. The edges of the petals were each rippled in their own way, one of the lower ones with a tiny tear. The lowest, largest petals even had tiny ridges that looked like the veins and texture of a real flower.

"How...?" I could hardly speak. "Are you sure this isn't real?"

"You like it?" He sounded so nervous and unsure.

"Are you kidding?" I asked. "This is awesome, I love it."

He exhaled, seeming relieved and less stiff than before. "Good," he breathed. "I wasn't sure if you liked flowers or not."

Even if I didn't like flowers, I would still love this.

"Do you know what kind it is?" I asked, wondering if it was just a random flower he'd created or if he'd actually chosen a specific kind to replicate.

"I tried making it look like a uh, gardenia."

"Well, I dunno what those look like, but I think you nailed it. I know exactly where I'm gonna put it." I bumped my shoulder against his arm and looked up at him. "Thank you. I love it."

He smiled crookedly. "No problem. I did try making it an aster, but I couldn't get the petals thin enough without breaking them."

He remembered. I almost laughed. "It's fine, I still really love it. So is that why you brought me all the way up here?"

"No, I–"

Suddenly, everything went black. All the lights in New York went out instantly in a huge wave, as if a light switch to the city had been flipped. A blackout.

"Finally," Raph muttered.

I spun, tearing my gaze from the black city to him. "What? What do you mean 'finally'?"

A voice crackled through his transmitter before he could answer. "Sorry, Raph," Donnie said. "Mikey was distracting me." Shocked and confused, I stared at Raphael in silence, waiting for his explanation.

"I uh, asked Donnie to shut off the power to the city," he admitted, a little nervously. "He was a few minutes later than we planned."

My heart jumped, finally cluing into the strange game Raph had secretly been playing. "You planned this?"

He fiddled with his hands. "Yeah. I know how much you love the stars, and I always see you trying to find them at night," he shrugged as if it were nothing and looked at me. "I just thought you might wanna watch the meteor shower tonight."

Tears I could hardly contain built up in the corners of my eyes, making me grateful we were both still adjusting to the sudden lack of light. "I can't believe you cut the power to the city so I could stargaze," I murmured. "You have no idea how much that means to me." Making sure I wouldn't knock us off the top of the Empire State Building, I leaned over and hugged him fiercely, carefully holding the carved flower in one hand.

Raph relaxed slightly and hugged me back, bringing me closer to him. I smiled to myself, listening to his racing heart and breathing in his smell and feeling this incredible warmth rushing through my chest.

"You're missing the meteors," he said.

"It takes half an hour for your eyes to adjust to the dark," I mumbled, not wanting to let him go.

"I just saw one," he argued.

Instantly, I perked up. "Really?" I released him, earning myself a laugh from him as I looked up at the sky in search of a shooting star. "It must've been a fireball," I noted, unable to see any stars in the sky yet.

I felt his questioning gaze on me.

"What's that?"

"Just a really bright meteor," I said, smiling when I recalled a memory. "The first time I saw one I thought the world was ending," I admitted, laughing. "It was huge, and I thought it would blow up the planet." My mother had laughed so much, then explained to me how harmless the fireball was.

His shoulders shook with silent laughter. "The one I saw was not that big."

I smiled, reminiscing in the memory for as long as I could. "Yeah, most of them aren't." I stared across the New York skyline and ran my fingers over the smooth petals of the flower sitting in my palm, in love with the feel of the carved wood, anxious to see the first traces of light in the sky.

"You know, I haven't seen the stars in four years," I said distantly. "I'd watched them all my life but when Mom died and we moved here..." I shrugged. "Not being able to see them was like losing her again." I spared a glance at the mutant sitting beside me. "She would've liked you. She would've liked your whole family."

Raphael remained silent, but I didn't mind. I knew he wasn't particularly good with this 'emotional shit' as he often called it, so I didn't expect him to provide any advice or verbal reassurance. It was enough that he was there, right beside me.

A white line streaked across the sky before disappearing a moment later.

I almost jumped to my feet from the excitement. "Did you see that?" I asked. "Or am I seeing things?"

He laughed. "No, I saw it. Stars are starting to come out, too."

It was true. I could see Polaris clear and true. The brighter stars in the night sky beginning to shine and bring to life their constellations.

I pointed to a trio of visible stars. "There's Orion's Belt."

"You know their names?"

"Of course," I replied. "The bottom one is Alnitak, the middle is Alnilam and the top is Mintaka. They're blue supergiants." Rigel and Betelgeuse had appeared as well, the former outshining the red star.

"Better than your ceiling?"

I nodded, tilting my head back and staring upwards at the pinpricks of light. "Uh huh."

Soon, the whole sky was lit up with meteors and red and blue and white stars. Finding and pointing out all the constellations and asterisms was like saying hello to old friends. And each time I found one I could hear my mother whisper in my ear, keeping count of each one I'd managed to identify. She was finally there, in the sky among the stars but right beside me, like a long-awaited hello. 

"Twelve," Raphael announced when he saw another shooting star.

"Fourteen," I said, grinning and swinging my legs idly. Despite him spotting the fireball earlier, I'd since managed to catch sight of three that he hadn't, thus putting myself in the lead.

Raphael was not handling his current defeat very well. "Are you cheating?" He demanded.

I laughed, shoving him lightly with my shoulder. "Stop being a poor loser. I can't help that I'm a pro and you're a shitty amateur." Another meteor streaked across the sky.

Raph chuckled. "Thirteen."

"Fifteen." I shifted my position on the metal platform and looked at him, sitting with his shoulders slouched forward, elbows on his knees and hands clasped together, staring up at the sky as if it were both his first and last time.

"You remember when we almost died a few weeks ago?" I asked.

Raphael laughed and nodded. "Yeah."

"It kinda made me realize how many things I wish I'd told you before." Raphael tore his gaze from the night sky, staring intensely at me instead. I suddenly felt nervous under his gaze but continued. "I know I've only known you for like, five weeks, but you did stalk me for a few days–"

Raphael's loud groan cut me off. "I wasn't stalking you."

I couldn't help my laugh, I just loved pestering him about it. "We did hang out a lot during those days and I think we got to know each other pretty well. It just feels like it's been way longer than just five weeks. And...I guess almost dying made me realize how much I loved hanging out with you and how much happier I've been since we met. I mean, not right away," I amended, "cuz you were a total ass at first. And then there was that time–"

"Ugh, Raiyaaa," he groaned again. "I know I was a dick, I'm sorry." 

I grinned and leaned against his arm. "I know, I just like bugging you." I tucked a strand of hair that had escaped my ponytail behind my ear. "Uhm, anyway, I guess what I'm saying is almost dying made me realize that I like you, and I just wanted you to know that." Raph stiffened and I immediately recoiled, worried I'd overstepped or freaked him out or something.

"Sorry," I said. "That's weird, isn't it?" Shit. It totally is.

"No," he murmured. "I just...I was surprised...Sorry."

I nodded and we fell into silence, watching the night sky once again, a strange, awkward air suspended between us.

Raph exhaled through his nose. "Fuck it," he muttered. "I really like you, Raiy."

I blinked, my mouth falling half open, and turned to look at him, unable to believe he'd finally admitted to it.

"I have for a while," he continued, staring deeply into my eyes. "I've been too afraid to tell you. And...Mikey kinda called dibs on you."

That time, my jaw really dropped."Well fuck that," I cried. "I'm declaring myself fair game."

A smile spread across his face and he breathed a laugh. "That's good news."

I grinned, completely in agreement with his statement. Raph's green eyes shone in the light of the stars, glancing down from my eyes to my lips; a silent question. My heart jumped anxiously in my chest, and I gave him a tiny nod in answer. Achingly slow, he lifted a hand to my cheek, brushing a finger across the trio of small scars. My heart raced and my eyes fluttered shut when he leaned down, drawing me close. And Raphael kissed me beneath the sky of stars.

AN: AND THATS A FUCKIN WRAP

WHAT A GREAT FUCKIN ENDING!! Y'ALL FINALLY GOT THE CUTE ASS KISS SCENE I PROMISED YOU GUYS!!! WORTH THE WAIT, AMIRIGHT!?

So I started writing this story over two years ago in July 2016. The first draft took me about two months to write, the second draft has now taken me about two years to finish.

TSS is officially the longest story I've successfully finished, being longer than the first Harry Potter book!! Which is huge for me because it means that if I can write a fanfic this long then maybe I can write an original story this long and maybe even get it published, which is what I'm working towards!! 

Thank you all so much for any and all feedback I've received!! It's my favourite thing to see notifications pop up, telling me about votes and comments on my story. It would have been so much harder for me to find the encouragement to finish TSS without you guys!! I love you all!! 💕

It's been a hell of a ride and I'm incredibly grateful you guys could join me on it. I look forward to seeing you all again for TSR! 😁

And finally:

The Shadow's Secret 

60 CHAPTERS

336 PAGES

92,128 WORDS

fuck yeah

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AfterDaybreak  xoxo