Thirteen billion years ago, all the matter in the universe was compressed into a single point.

Then the Big Bang happened. Everything spread outward, becoming all that we see and know and dream about on star-filled nights.

Sooner or later, though, the momentum from that event will become weaker than the force of gravity, and the universe will collapse back into an infinitely dense speck.

We'll all be dead long before then.

But gravity works on our scale too. Most of the time we see it draw things down, smash them against the floor, destroy them.

And then there are times when gravity, or something like it, draws things together, melds them, makes them more whole than they were before.

This is one of those times.

Every morning I poured Mikey's cereal for him.

He always insisted he could do it himself, but whenever he beat me to the box it was as likely as not that his hand would shake and he would spill sugary puffs all over the floor.

So I did it for him.

He dug into the cereal, and I let him get those first few spoonfuls into his mouth before I spoke.

"Mikey."

He looked up at me, spoon poised in midair, cheeks bulging with half-chewed breakfast.

I sat in the chair opposite him, and held his gaze. "Mikey, do you remember what we're doing today?"

His eyes slipped downwards, and he masticated thoughtfully. After a moment, he swallowed and said: "Cleaning my room."

"No, Mikey," I said patiently. "That was yesterday. Remember, I told you we were doing something special today."

He frowned at his cereal, concentrating so intently that he couldn't hold his spoon steady. It trembled, then shook, clattering against the rim of the bowl as Mike tried to dredge today's plans from the shifting ground of his memory.

"I forgot," he admitted finally.

"Raphael is coming to visit," I reminded him.

He brightened instantly. "Raph? I haven't seen him in - in a long time."

"Since before the accident."

"Yeah, the accident," Mike echoed. Then he frowned again. "He - he hit me in the head, right?"

"That's right," I said quietly.

This didn't seem to perturb Michelangelo very much. "When's he comin', Donnie?"

"This afternoon," I said. "After you do your exercises."

Mike smiled broadly. "I do them good today, Donnie."

"I know you will, Mikey." I returned his smile, then rose and moved out of the room, leaving my own breakfast untouched on the table.

There were a lot of reasons I had invited Raph to the Lair. It had been four years since the accident. Time had dulled the pain, and Raph's quiet contrition every time I met him had melted the anger. We had healed a lot, the two of us, but we weren't finished yet. There was still a long road ahead of us, and I knew that we wouldn't be able to go much further as a twosome. We couldn't be four anymore, not after that terrible night, but we could still be three. And I knew that the way forward started with Raph finally being allowed to apologize to Mike, to be with him, to be part of who Mike was now.

There were pragmatic reasons too. Time healed, but it also destroyed. Master Splinter was getting old, and I could tell that he was approaching the tipping point where he would change from a capable person who could share the burden of taking care of Mikey, to a person who needed to be taken care of himself. I knew I was going to need help.

And, in moments when I was being less coldly logical, I thought of meeting Raph in the junkyard one night - telling him Master Splinter had passed on; telling him he was not invited to the funeral, because I still couldn't trust him around Mikey - and I knew I wouldn't be able to do it.

It was time for Raph to come home.

Splinter only had one pupil now, and his lessons were harder than ever. For those few hours every morning, it was hard to believe he was the same rat whose joints creaked whenever he stood up, sat down, or turned his neck too fast. I was convinced that, even after retiring to his deathbed, he would still manage to get up for a quick show-Donatello-just-how-much-he-still-has-to-learn-about-ninjutsu session.

And I did still have a lot to learn. I was training compulsively, desperately, trying to devour everything Splinter had to teach before it was too late. And still it seemed too slow, not enough, and I was terrified of the day when I would find myself without a master and still needing to know one more thing that might make the difference between life and death for myself or someone I loved.

At noon I limped out of the dojo, stretched my aching limbs, and then limped right back in again. In the morning I was student, but in the afternoon I was master. Mike knew that when the little device I had made for him beeped, it was time to show up for his exercises.

He bounded in, remembered to bow, and I knew it would be a good day.

"Raph now," Mike demanded, when he had completed the last task I had set for him.

"Soon," I promised. "Let's eat lunch first." And take a shower, lay down for a little while, finish that project that's been sitting around all month, maybe read a good book... Okay, back to reality.

"Raph now," Mike insisted.

"Later, Mike," I said firmly.

His eyes started to well up with tears, and he fidgeted uneasily. "Donnie, you said."

"I know." I pressed a steadying finger against his plastron. "Settle, Mikey."

He reined in his agitation almost immediately, knowing I would not continue until he was calm.

"We're going to eat lunch," I told him. "I will clean up the kitchen, and then Master Splinter will stay with you while I get Raph."

Mikey watched me intently, gauging whether I could be persuaded to move "get Raph" to the top of the list. I allowed no weakness into my gaze.

"Okay," he said finally.

I gave him an affectionate slap on the cheek. "Come on. I'll make you a sandwich."

I was delighted to see Mike be agitated all through lunch, because it meant he remembered what was happening later. At his insistence, I let him wipe down the table. He did it fastidiously, put the sponge back in the sink, and then looked at me with hope in his eyes.

I put the last dish in the drainboard and shook off my wet hands. "Okay," I said. "What did I say happens now?"

"I wait with Splinter while you get Raph," Mike said.

"Perfect."

Normally he would beam at such praise, but today he was too intent on the delayed gratification, the reward he knew was coming. He followed me into the main room, but stopped five feet from the door, knowing he was not allowed to go with me.

I glanced at Master Splinter, sitting in his chair, his own lunch cleared from the tray table. "I won't be long," I said.

He nodded. "Come, Michelangelo. Sit by me."

Mike gave me one more look, then went to sit on the floor by Splinter's chair. I worked the complicated mechanism that unlocked the door, and then I was out in the sewers, heading to bring home a brother who had been gone too long.

I waited for Raph at the appointed spot.

I had already given him the rules for this visit, the last time we met. Don't talk too much about the accident; it confuses him. Don't touch him unless he initiates. Don't comment on his tremors, slurring, memory lapses. Don't pursue a subject if it's frustrating him.

"He's really looking forward to this, Raph," I had said, before I left. "Don't disappoint him."

I glanced up through the grating.

"During the day?" Raph had said. "You sure?"

"Routine is paramount, Raph," I said. "If I let him stay up late, the next day is awful. It's never worth it."

"It doesn't have to be that late."

"Raph," I sighed, "this is how things are. You can come in the afternoon or not at all."

I swished my toes through the shallow water, and waited.

Raph was twenty minutes late. A few months ago, I would have given up on him.

"You're late," I said.

"Don, I'm sorry." He gestured to the grate. "Somebody was fishin' for their keys; I had to go around the long way."

I narrowed my eyes at him, but his face held only sincerity.

"Come on," I said.

He knew where the Lair was - we hadn't moved since he left - but he walked behind me anyway.

"It's been a good day," I commented as we walked. I wasn't sure why. Maybe just to break the silence. Maybe to let Raph know that he would be seeing Mikey at his best, that my life was a lot harder than it would appear from this visit.

Raph didn't reply. We walked on, until we reached the door of the Lair.

"Are you ready for this?" I asked.

Raph looked at the floor, and his mouth tightened. "Six months ago I woulda said yes," he started, "and I woulda been wrong. Today I hope I'm right."

"Good answer," I said, and opened the door.

My second rule turned out to be about as pointless as I had suspected it would be. Raph had barely crossed the threshold before Mike leaped forward to wrap him in an enthusiastic hug.

"I missed you, Raphie," he sang.

Raph hugged him back, but loosely, his forearms barely brushing Mike's carapace, and he watched me over Mike's shoulder the whole time.

"It's good to see you too, Mikey," he said.

After a long moment, Mike pulled back, and Raph turned to face Splinter.

They regarded each other, and then Raph bowed deeply. "Sensei."

Splinter moved forward, putting a hand under Raph's chin to make him rise. His expression was gentle. "Welcome home, my son."

And they embraced.

I watched, there but not a part of it. I knew that Raphael and Master Splinter had seen each other over the past years; Splinter had probably given Raph a second set of rules for this visit. But I hadn't seen them together since Raph had moved out, because for the three of us to be in the same place would have meant for Mike to be home without us, and it was only in recent weeks that he had learned to accept April or Casey as his companion while both Splinter and I were out.

"Come," Splinter said. "Let us sit down."

We moved to the couches. Splinter sat in his recliner; I sat on the sofa and Mike perched next to me. Raph chose the other armchair, and folded himself into it, knees together, shoulders hunched forward, a complete change from his former possessive sprawl.

"This is awesome," Mike chattered, as we made ourselves something resembling comfortable. "Raph, I haven't seen you in - in forever. Not in -" He trailed off, then nudged me with his elbow. "Donnie, how long?"

"Four years," I said softly.

"Yeah, four years." Mike pointed a finger at Raph. "Dude, you owe me so many birthday presents."

"I -" Raph's gaze flicked to me. "I brought you somethin', actually."

I caught the implied question in his eyes. Can I give it to him?

I made a tiny motion with my finger. Raph got up, came towards us, knelt at Mike's feet. He rummaged in the little satchel he had taken to carrying, and held up his gift. "Don told me you still like comic books."

The first comment that came to my mind was How did you get that?

Mike's reaction was more simple.

"Justice Force #18! Dude, this is limited edition! I've been looking for it since - since really forever!" Mike hugged the rare issue carefully to his chest, then pressed it to his forehead. "You're the best, Raph!"

Then he grabbed my arm. "Donnie, I gotta put this in my album right now."

"Okay," I said. "Go."

He scrambled over the back of the couch and took off up the stairs.

"How did you get that, Raph," I said quietly, as he closed his bag and stood up.

"Casey, a lucky eBay bid, and working my ass off for three months," he said.

This answer didn't quite satisfy me.

"It's totally legit," he said.

"You never mentioned it."

"Donatello," Splinter said from his chair. "Raphael has done a nice thing for your brother. Do not interrogate him."

I looked at the floor for a moment, just long enough to rein in my baseless suspicion. Then I raised my eyes again. "It's a great gift."

"Thanks," Raph muttered.

"Come on." I stood up. "Want to see his room?"

Mike was sitting on the floor, surrounded by his comic albums.

"Hey, guys," he said as we came in. He leaned over something, then twisted around to show us what he had made.

Raph got you Justice Force #18! It's in here! the paper proclaimed, in Mike's shaky handwriting. Beside the words was an arrow, which presumably would point to the album that held the revered issue, once Mike had put everything back in its proper place.

"Now I won't forget," he said. He turned back to his comics, and, moving very slowly, closed the book and slotted it back onto the shelf. "There."

He replaced the other books with similar care, then leaped to his feet and handed me the sign. "Donnie, hang that for me? I wanna show Raph my stuff."

"Sure," I said, and rummaged through his craft basket for the scotch tape while he excitedly pointed out his artwork to Raphael.

"I'm gettin' better with the markers," he said. "I can almost draw a straight line again."

"That's great, Mikey," Raph said uncertainly.

I noticed the way he used the diminutive of Mike's name - the way he hadn't used mine since he moved out - but I didn't comment.

I taped the sign to the wall, lining it up carefully so it would point to the right album.

"And I'm writing my own comic books, see?" I knew that, behind my back, Mike was showing Raph his notebook. "I can write the stories, and soon I'll be able to draw 'em too."

"Yeah, you will," Raph said. A pause. "Hey, Mike, what's this?"

I turned.

He was pointing to a box with a complex lock, a box that had stood by Mike's bed since a few weeks after the accident.

"That's my Someday box," Mike said. "Someday I'll be allowed to touch that stuff again." He ran his hand over the wooden lid. "My nunchucks are in there..." he added wistfully.

Raph glanced at me. I returned his gaze. Mike's coordination problems made it too dangerous for him to handle any weapons, and this was a point I would not be undermined on.

"But Donnie says I might almost be ready to start with tonfa again," Mike continued brightly, and the cloud of tension passed and a moment later we were heading back downstairs.

For the rest of the afternoon, Mike was happier and more focused than I had seen him in a long time. In some ways this was worse than the alternative, and I tuned out of the conversation to make a mental damage control to-do list.

Figure out a way to have Mike be like this more often.

Explain to Raph again that this is not typical.

Re-visit existential crisis on whether to let Raph come home.

I tuned back in when someone poked my leg, and looked down to see Mike trying to get my attention. "Focus, Donnie," he chided me - role reversal always gave him great delight - and gestured to Raph.

"I should get going," Raph said, and I was impressed by his maturity in being the one to end the visit, even as I registered Mike's shock and disappointment. "It's late."

"Indeed," Splinter said over Mike's protests, rising stiffly from his chair. "Let us all see you out."

The four of us walked to the door. Mike demanded another hug, then reluctantly stayed with Sensei while Raph and I went out into the sewers. I walked with him as far as the grate where we had met earlier.

"So, uh," Raph said, as we stood in the moonlight. "That was a good day?"

"That was a very good day," I replied.

Raph rubbed his head: changing his mental image of what my life was like, I guessed. "Don, I…" He trailed off, then tried again. "How can I help?"

"Let's see how things go," I said. Life with Mike was always unpredictable, and I really didn't know how seeing Raph again would affect him. "I'll call you."

We said our good night's, and went our separate ways.

"Raph today," Mike announced the next morning at breakfast.

"No," I said, as I kicked closed the refrigerator. "Raph -"

"Was yesterday," Mike said. "I know. But today also."

"No -" I began.

"Today also," Mike repeated, and I realized this was not a memory error but a demand.

"No," I said, setting the bottle of juice on the table. "Not negotiable, Mikey."

His lip wobbled, but he reined it in and stood firm. "I want Raph, Donnie! I want him every day!"

I crossed my arms. "You know why that can't happen, Michelangelo. We are not discussing this."

"Yes we are!" He pounded a fist on the table. "I don't care what happened. Leo was your best friend and you can't have him back. But not letting me have my best friend back doesn't make anything any better."

It took a lot of self-control to look calm while pouring the juice, but I did it anyway. "Eat your breakfast and get ready for training."

"No training," Mike said, ignoring the breakfast as well. "I'm on -" He made a vague grasping motion. "What am I on, Donnie? When people won't go to work."

I blinked at him. "Strike? You're going on strike?"

He nodded decisively. "Yeah. I'm on strike from training. Until Raph comes home."

I looked at him a long moment, my brother with the mind of a child, who sometimes reminded me he was just as much of an adult as I was. "But you like training. And you need to keep up with it to recover your abilities."

"Don't care."

I considered the options, and threw up my hands. "All right. Have it your way."

The next morning when I went to wake Mikey, I found a note taped to his nightstand.

I am on strike from training! ! !

I let him sleep, and called April to find out if she was free later in the day. Time with her was one of my few indulgences, and it didn't happen nearly as often as I would have liked. We were both busy. I had Mike and Master Splinter, and April… well, April had Casey Jones.

Casey and April had gotten married, and two years in the honeymoon period was already definitively over. I kept expecting them to announce that the entire relationship was over.

Not that I wished them any ill. Not that I was in any way jealous of Casey or harboring illusions that there could ever be anything between me and April. They were just together for all the wrong reasons. They really had nothing in common, except for us.

Except for that one little detail they couldn't share with anybody else.

They'd ended up together almost by default, in that way that happens to people who have shared a traumatic experience or a particularly intense business venture, and it wasn't working out.

I generally avoided asking about the subject, but April had never had any qualms about discussing my personal affairs. When I showed up at the apartment, she had a cup of hot chocolate and a question waiting for me.

"How did the visit with Raph go?"

"How do you know about that?" I countered.

"Raph told Casey and Casey told me."

I sipped the cocoa, taking a moment to restrategize. Back when my brothers and I practically shared a brain, it hardly mattered who April heard things from. Now the situation was more complicated. "They told you how Raph thought it went, or they told you it was going to happen?"

"They told me that Raph really wanted it to go well," she said gently.

"It… it wasn't bad," I admitted. "Mike had a good time." I thought, swirling the cocoa in the mug. "Mike may have had too much of a good time."

"Oh?"

"He wants Raph to come home to stay," I explained. "He's… unusually adamant about it."

"And?"

"And why is everyone against me?" I said. "I do not want Raphael back home. I really do not want him around at all. But I can't seem to get rid of him."

April's hand moved to cover mine, which had formed itself into a fist on the table. "Don," she said. For a moment she didn't say anything more, only looking at me with an expression that came too close to pity for my liking. Then she continued: "You and Raph are like an old divorced couple. You will always be an important part of each other's lives, and at some point, trying to pretend that isn't true only hurts you more."

I looked back at her reproachfully. It might have been petty, childish, even selfish, but when I visited April I wanted to be made to feel better. I visited her for hot chocolate and intellectual conversation and sympathy, to pretend I was still sixteen and my biggest problem was how to get a new invention to work properly. I didn't want her to tell me I was wrong, even on the occasions when deep down I knew I deserved it.

"I'm sorry," April said, when the silence grew long and uncomfortable. "I know that isn't what you want to hear."

A frown creased my brow. April could be sympathetic and she could be opinionated, but never both at the same time. Thoughts and feelings and beliefs all merged into one for her, and she never apologized for any of them.

"April," I said, swallowing past a sudden knot in my throat, "is something wrong?"

The answer was immediate, direct, and not at all what I expected.

"Don, I'm pregnant." Her hand slid from mine and went to her stomach. "Casey doesn't know."

It took me far too long to string two simple words together. "April, why…?"

"I don't know if I'm going to keep it," she said.

There must have been a thousand words left unsaid, but it took me hardly any time at all to figure out what they were. April O'Neil - the human whose genes I most would have liked to see propagated into the next generation - didn't know if she could bring a child into her life, when she was so busy taking care of a bunch of disabled and dysfunctional mutants.

It was absolutely heartbreaking. At the same time, it felt completely inappropriate for me to express an opinion one way or the other.

"I really just wanted to tell someone," April said quietly, and I was unspeakably relieved to realize that I didn't have to come up with a response.

"I won't tell anyone else," I promised, and not long after that I went home.

The next day was a bad one, and when Mike finally went to bed, I gratefully slipped into the living room to code by the light of Master Splinter's candle.

I was deep into the techie version of a meditative trance when Master Splinter cleared his throat to get my attention. I hummed an acknowledgement, expecting him to ask for a glass of water or an extra blanket. Instead, he posed me a question.

"How do you feel about Michelangelo's behavior recently?"

"Mm." I minimized the code window, flipping over to my files of notes. "He's gained a lot of ground towards being able to handle weapons again, but he's probably losing some with this training boycott. Not having an appropriate outlet for his energy also means he's been edgy and hyperactive. On the other hand, he's making spontaneous use of his memory strategies to keep track of long-term goals from one day to the next, and he's certainly expressing his will more than I've seen in a while."

"I did not ask for a status report, Donatello," Splinter said, and I raised a brow. "I asked how you felt about your brother."

"I don't know what you mean," I said. "It is what it is."

There was no other answer to the question. All my brothers were dead, in their own ways. Feelings no longer entered into the equation.

I had told Raph I would call, and before too many more days passed, I needed to make good on that. But I still didn't know what I wanted to say to him.

I helped Master Splinter bathe, and I waited out one of Michelangelo's tantrums, and then I stole a few minutes to meditate.

Clearing my mind and working through the problem methodically, I saw that unanswered questions were blocking me from action. This wasn't unusual for me, but most of the time the questions in my way were objectively answerable, and the path through them was clear.

I reviewed the list of questions again, and saw one that I knew how to solve.

I cooked dinner and helped Mike eat it and prepared Master Splinter's nightly menu of herbal medicines.

Then I called Casey.

"Hey," I said. "Listen, did Raph ask you to help him buy something recently?"

"Yeah," Casey replied immediately. "Justice Force #18. 'Jones, there's a fucking mint condition Justice Force #18 on eBay, and you need to bid on it. Not Justice Force #8. Not Hero Squad #18. Not the Cleon Jones autographed baseball you won't shut up about. Justice Force #18. You need to win it and bring it to me and it had better still be in mint condition or your ass is -'"

"Okay," I interrupted. "That's all I needed to know." Then I added: "How's April?"

"Been a little sick," Casey replied. "Thinks she ate some bad spinach."

"I hope she feels better," I said, and hung up.

The next day I really did mean to call Raph, but there was one catastrophe after another, and to make matters worse, we seemed to have run out of everything. As soon as it was late enough, I headed to the junkyard to see what I could find in the way of supplies.

I couldn't seem to shake the bad luck, though. Every time I saw something that looked useful, it turned out to be completely used up, irreparably broken, or not what I had thought it was. After an hour of searching, my bag was still nearly empty.

I was standing at a sort of intersection between the giant mounds of garbage, trying to decide which way I should go, when an answer came suddenly into my head.

Turn left.

It was the Leo-voice again, the one that had been there since the funeral. I had clung to it desperately then, not knowing whether it would last - but it had, and over the past four years it had become as familiar to me, as reliable, as breathing. It told me things like Go there or Don't touch that or, on one memorable occasion, Be careful, there's a third ninja. I was never entirely sure whether it was my brother's spirit guiding me, or just my subconscious layering Leo's voice over my own instincts, but it was comforting and it was usually right.

Either way, I was so used to this I didn't even think about it as I turned left.

And walked straight into disaster.

The next thing I knew, I was in a lot of pain, and there were voices, muffled as though I were underwater.

I had occasionally woken up underwater before, despite Master Splinter's discomfort with some of the more aquatic habits of turtles, but that didn't seem to be my situation now. Shaking away the irrelevant thought, I groaned a little, in case the voices wanted to help me.

Immediately, the cadence of the voices changed, and I felt the familiar slide of warm fur over my arm.

"Dona… hear me?"

I fought to be able to say yes to that. I struggled to open my eyes and organize my limbs and think a clear thought. Master Splinter held my hand and talked quietly, giving me something to focus on.

"You have a concussion, my son. You were injured in the junkyard. You are safe now. Please try to stay awake."

Even with my reasoning skills completely shot, this story didn't seem to add up. "How'd I… get home?" I forced out.

"Open your eyes and you will see."

It took me a moment to comprehend the answer and a moment more to comply with it. My vision swam slowly into focus and I tried to understand why I was looking at Raphael.

"Saw the junk pile collapse on you," he mumbled, when being the object of my blank stare became uncomfortable. "Took an hour to dig you out."

My expression probably looked even more confused than I felt as I tried to form a response. "Why… were you there?"

Raph shrugged awkwardly. "Leo told me to go. Or, y'know," he spun a finger by his ear. "Voice in my head that sounds a lot like him."

We hadn't talked about that before - at least, not that I could remember at that moment. I didn't like suddenly hearing about it. "Well, thanks," I said, and it came out sounding cold.

Raph glanced at Master Splinter. "Maybe I should go."

"Maybe you should not," Splinter replied, and I was too busy trying to stay conscious to get involved in that conversation.

My memories didn't begin again until sometime later, when I found myself already halfway through a bowl of soup. Master Splinter was feeding it to me, spoonful by spoonful. When I pulled away and looked around in confusion, he lowered the spoon back into the bowl.

"Welcome back, my son," he said. "How do you feel?"

I rubbed my head with a hand that felt like a lead weight. "Like I got hit by a truck."

"Raphael says that is approximately what happened, notwithstanding that the truck was entirely disassembled at the time."

I grunted something noncommittal.

Splinter set the bowl on the counter, a gracefully precise movement. "Are you aware that you reacted rudely to him?"

I pulled the blankets closer to my stomach, glancing away from my father. "Yes."

"He likely saved your life tonight."

"It was just a pile of junk."

"He says he does not think you could have gotten out on your own, even once you regained consciousness."

"Then I…" I closed my eyes, trying to think of what I could have done. "I would have called Casey."

"My son…" The phrase always carried deep nuance and meaning no matter how often Sensei used it, but this time it just sounded old, worn out, tired. "Why do you continue to harbor these feelings towards your brother? You have always valued reason and compassion. It is not usual for you to be so ruled by emotion, especially by anger." He paused, and I sensed he was searching for something he had not already said to me over the years. "If the Donatello you most want to be were here, what would he advise you to do?"

I tried to answer the question. I really did. But I no longer had any sense of who that other Donatello was. "Thanks, Sensei," I said, "but there's only one person's advice I really want."

"And whose would that be?"

I drew a slow breath. "Leo's."

Splinter sighed that sigh that meant he thought my ideas were too big for reality. But I had proved him wrong before. And, maybe it was just the concussion talking, but I was beginning to think this was possible too.

All I had to do was kill myself.

I didn't know whether Master Splinter had asked Mike to babysit me after I got out of the infirmary, but that's how it happened. I settled into my lab and a moment later he was there, hovering.

"They said you got a concussion." He perched on the edge of his designated chair, carefully not touching anything else. "Are you gonna… have challenges now?"

"No, Mikey." I began pulling small bottles out of the chemical cabinet, one at a time. "I'm going to make a full recovery."

"Oh," he said, and he sounded a little disappointed.

"Why?" I asked, setting a tiny vial of pentobarbital on the desk. "You want me to… be like you?"

"Nnooo…" he said, a drawn-out sound that implied there was more to the story. I didn't have to wait long to find out what it was. Mike's next words came out in a rush, badly slurred and hard to understand. "Only Master Splinter said that you said that Raph could stay until you got better, and I thought maybe if you didn't get better, then Raph could stay forever. And take care of us." He fidgeted. "Like you take care of me."

I opened a drawer, and pretended to have trouble finding what I wanted, to buy time for parsing Mike's words before I had to respond to them.

"We'll see, Mikey," I said, as I pulled out two beakers.

Mike sat with me for hours, until I made him leave. Some time after that I exited the lab myself, made a beeline for Raph, and pressed a syringe into his hand.

"This is the antidote to a compound that will stop my heart," I said, without preamble. "Give it to me ninety seconds after I pass out. Administer it sooner and the ingredients won't have activated yet; it won't do anything. Later and I could suffer permanent brain damage. Do you understand?"

He looked at me in shock, and in something that was either fear or anger. "Don, you can't -"

"I already did," I said shakily, and collapsed.

I didn't exactly come to. It was more like I had been standing there for a while, and had only just noticed where I was.

The first thing I noticed was Leo, looking more furious than I had ever seen him.

"Donatello, consider yourself lucky we only have ninety seconds."

"You are there," I breathed. "You heard us."

His arms were already crossed, but he managed to make it look as though he were crossing them again. "Yes, I heard you, and now you can hear me, so listen carefully. You have to forgive Raphael."

"Why -" I started, but he didn't let me talk.

"Because it could have been any of us," he said, and there was only harsh reality in his tone. "I could have gotten you killed with a wrong order in battle."

"That was different," I said, feeling sure of it even as I struggled to come up with a reason why. Please don't let me come out of this with brain damage…

"Was it?" Leo's intense gaze dragged my focus back. "Was your lab different?"

I blinked. "I don't see what -"

He didn't let me finish that either. "How many times did you yell at Mike for being in your lab? How much of that was because there were things in there that could have killed him? What if, just once, he had touched the wrong thing? What should we have done with you, Donatello?"

"I -"

"You have to forgive Raphael," Leo said again, and his tone was much gentler this time. "But you have to forgive yourself first."

"I don't understand."

"You'll have to figure it out on your own," Leo replied.

"Why can't -"

"Because it's been seventy-five seconds and I'm helping Raph save your life," Leo said, the harshness creeping back into his voice. "Be quiet if you want to live, Donatello."

I shut my mouth and watched Leo focus, narrowing his eyes and steadying his breathing. Five seconds, and then he looked up at me.

"I love you, Don," he said. "I am with you. But I don't want to see you here again for a long time." He studied me for a moment, and I looked back at him, trying to re-memorize his face. "Take care of -"

I woke up coughing. Something tore across my shoulder as my limbs spasmed, and as the static cleared from my senses I realized Raph was swearing at me in every language he knew.

"Give me - give me an orientation test," I demanded.

Raph cut off his diatribe with a huffed breath. "What's your fucking name?"

"Hamato Donatello."

"What's the pinche date?"

"It's almost the new moon in October of 2015."

"Where are you, ketsunoana?"

"In the Lair."

"God help me, Donatello, I know this ain't gonna do anything for my status around here, but try that again and I will murder you."

"Fine." I tried to sit up, but my elbows had the strength of watery Jell-o and I got absolutely nowhere. "Did - did Leo talk to you just now?"

"Yeah. I dunno. Maybe." He pulled off his mask and pressed it to my bleeding shoulder. "Whatever I did worked, that's all I care about."

I closed my eyes. My plan had worked, and that was all I cared about.

When I woke up again Raph was still there, sitting next to me on the stone floor. He insisted on testing me again, and this time he made me recite the alphabet backwards, do some arithmetic, answer questions about historical facts, perform some motor tasks, and give him the short version of my own life story. When he was finally satisfied that I had escaped brain damage, he got to the real questions.

"What the fuck was that about?"

"I -" I tried to sit up again, and this time he took pity on me and helped. "I had to talk to Leo."

Raph gave me the most incredulous look I had ever seen on anyone's face, and didn't seem to know what to say next.

"It worked," I said, as Sensei and Mike, seeing that I was awake, quietly came and sat next to me.

"Okayyy…" Raph said slowly. "And what did he tell you?"

"He told me…" I sighed and threw my hands up, though it was more of a weak flop than the dramatic gesture I had intended. "He told me what everyone else has been telling me. I don't entirely understand everything he said, but… I am officially outvoted." I looked at Master Splinter, at Mikey, and then at Raph. "You can stay."

Even after years of living apart, I could still read the Like I would leave you alone after that stunt in every line of his body. But all he said was, "It's good to be back."

I recovered from my temporary death. I helped Raph move his stuff into the Lair, and I started teaching him all the things he would have to help with now that he was part of the family again.

One evening, after Mike and Sensei had gone to bed, I was showing him how to read Master Splinter's medication chart. I was describing each drug and its purpose, when I realized I had lost his attention.

I reached across the kitchen table to rap his knuckles. "Hey. Pay attention."

"Yeah, I'm listening." He rubbed his eyes and shook his head. "No, I'm not. Two things I gotta know, Don."

I put down the bottle I was holding. "What?"

"First, why did you take that poison if the antidote wasn't ready yet?"

"I didn't," I said calmly. "I lied about the antidote needing time to activate. Second question?"

He shot me a dark look, letting me know there would be further discussion later, but let it go for now. "Why'd you ask me to revive you? Why not give the cure to Splinter?"

I picked up the pill bottle again, turning my gaze to the printed label. "Splinter always knows when I'm lying. Now, this is..."

I hadn't sensed Leo's presence since I came back from - from wherever we had met.

That night, I lay in bed and stared at the ceiling. "I don't understand," I whispered into the blackness.

But there was no answer.