Chapter Thirty

"Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it." - Helen Keller

"Healing takes courage, and we all have courage, even if we have to dig a little to find it." - Tori Amos

"I'm touched by the idea that when we do things that are useful and helpful - collecting these shards of spirituality - that we may be helping to bring about a healing." - Leonard Nimoy

"Healing may not be so much about getting better, as about letting go of everything that isn't you - all of the expectations, all of the beliefs - and becoming who you are." - Rachel Naomi Remen

"If there's no breaking then there's no healing, and if there's no healing then there's no learning." - One Tree Hill

"Our sorrows and wounds are healed only when we touch them with compassion." - Buddha

"Love one another and help others to rise to the higher levels, simply by pouring out love. Love is infectious and the greatest healing energy." - Sai Baba

"Humor is healing." - Brad Garrett

Sometimes, he wanted to just let go. Let it all go, and break loose, go into the wind, and not shoulder any responsibilities. But it wasn't in him. He had been born to lead. Instinct. Natural. Environment shaping and nurturing. He couldn't stop.

But he could rest. Resting was easy.

He rested.

His brother was understandably very confused, poking and prodding, making snarky comments, taking shots at his skills. He just sat on the couch, comfortable, watching his favorite show. Finally, the tirade stopped and he felt his brother sit next to him with a huff.

"You need to teach me that."

Not taking his eyes from the screen, Leonardo asked, "Teach you what?"

Raphael gestured. "How to stay so calm like that. You could've stood up and challenged me."

"I told you, I'm resting." Leonardo flicked his eyes over, then back. "When I'm resting, I'm not fighting."

"You're always fighting."

Leo closed his eyes and smiled. "True. But inner peace is never made without inner war."

"Ugh. Thank you, Sun Tzu."

He opened his eyes to see Raph staring at him, arms folded, mouth in a pout. "Anyway. Our geek brothers went out to get pizza. I got bored. We should try that new game Casey got and try to beat Mikey's score."

Leo snickered. "Good luck. Mikey even beat Donnie at Tetris and that was only because Donnie kept throwing words over his head so he took it as a challenge."

"Oh, I remember that. They both refused to sleep and we had to literally feed them every few hours. That was epic."

Raph was already on hands and knees, searching the pile of video games.

The sounds of arguing hovered in the air near the lair's entrance and echoed around the turnstiles.

"Yes, you are a geek! You're a comic book nerd, you're an otaku, you memorize the most absurd facts and tidbits that relate to nothing but trivial fantasy stuff-"

"Hey, my knowing stuff about Tolkein got very useful when we were fighting off Dregg, thank you!"

"But it was too trivial!"

"Will you stop saying that? Okay, fine, so what makes me a geek and you a nerd and why can't we both be, like, gnerds? Neeks?"

"What?"

"You heard me!"

"Don't drop the boxes!"

"D, I have never dropped pizza in my life. Here, watch this!"

"No, Mikey don't—how the hell did you do that? That's not fair! Hey, wait up?"

Familiar giggles grew closer, and Michelangelo came into view holding three pizza boxes, leaping gracefully over the turnstiles and sliding down the stairs. He held the boxes above his head and began dancing. Donatello muttered, shifting his two boxes. As Leonardo came and took one box, Don grumbled something like "nerdy gazelle". Leo blinked at him shrugged, and took the pizza to the table, tapping Mikey on the back of the head. "We get it, Misty Copeland, put the pizza on the table."

Mikey struck a theatric ballet-style pose, then slid the pizza boxes down his straightened arm and toward the table. "Hey, Leo?" His voice took on a lengthened, child-like tilt.

"Yes, Mikey?"

"Am I a nerd or a geek?"

"You're a geek, Mikey."

"What about Donnie?"

"He's both, Mikey."

"Told ya! Gnerd!"

Don, sitting at the table, propped his face in his hand. "Could you use a different word? Gnerd makes me think of Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease. Which something the toppings you ordered might give all of us. Which I don't wanna consider."

"Nah, I like it. Gnerd!"

"Mikey, just eat your pizza."

"Fine, I'll just take all the jalapeno pepperoni cinnamon candy slices for myself."

"No you won't, runt, shove over."

"Raph, stop using your sai to eat your food!"

"Make me."

Leonardo stood back for a minute, watching his brothers happily eat and bicker. He felt the air behind him shift with weight but remained still, waiting until the brush of silk and fur on his carapace had moved. He turned his head just enough to nod at his sensei.

"I believe I will join you," Splinter said. "What are the toppings?"

As the turtles quickly made room, Splinter carefully, elegantly selected a slice of six cheese and mushroom and folded it, not taking his eyes off Raphael and Michelangelo while they were arguing about comic book battles. When a can of soda threatened to spill, Splinter caught it while his tail nudged Raph's tilting chair back in place. Leo smiled, remembering when this would happen. Leo smiled and remembered all the times this would happen in their childhood, and none of them really paid attention. He grabbed a chair next to Donnie and took a slice of green pepper and olives, letting himself fully relax. It had been a while.

As casual chats and banter happened, Leo became aware of metal against metal, wood against wood. Splinter, as well, frowned and twitched. It was coming from the dojo.

Leo pushed his chair back. "What on earth is that?"

"Sshh," a whisper cut across the table. "I'm sparring. I need to concentrate."

All eyes fell on Mikey, who was leaning back in his chair, arms behind his head, eyes closed. He was smiling.

Raph stared at him. "You're not—but—what—what?"

As one, they ran into the dojo. Two katanas, a naginata, two sai, and two nunchaku were dancing in the air, clashing against each other randomly. Donatello rolled his eyes, turned around, and yelled, "Mikey, this is not an excuse to get out of training!"

"Awwww!" came the reply, "but I'm working so haaard!"

"Mikey, get in here," Leo called, folding his arms.

"Can I still-"

"No!"

"Awww!"

Michelangelo joined them, looking flippantly dejected. Don and Leo sighed. Mikey raised his eyes to them and smirked. The weapons floated back to the wall, to their proper places.

"My son," Splinter said, head tilted. "Are you enjoying yourself?"

"I totally am, sensei."

"Would you like to spar against me, then?"

Mikey blinked.

They all blinked.

"With," Splinter added, "your telekinesis."

Jaws dropped.

"Uhh, Master? You sure that's-"

Splinter held up a hand. "It will be fine, Raphael. You and Donatello with spar together with Leonardo when we are finished."

The three looked at each other.

"I kinda want to see how this turns out," Donnie said with a very small grin. Leo just slapped his hand over his face.

Michelangelo had been feeling confident and cheeky up until this point.

Wait, he what?

A flash of a dream, perhaps a memory.

You will be overconfident and arrogant. Hecate had told him that. Damn it!

He worried his lower lip, looked into his sensei's eyes, and nodded.

"Mikeeeyy…" came Raph's growling purr, and he held up his hand, breathing deeply.

Splinter, nodding back, held out his hand, Mikey gave him one of his nunchaku. He sat carefully on the floor, cross-legged, mindful of the throbbing in his left leg.

Master Splinter, taking several steps back, began to slowly work the nunchuck, whipping it and curving it around his lithe body. Mikey took the other one and released it, letting it hover. He pushed, feeling that unique bizarre brain muscle tighten and flex, feeling that cool rush of energy flow outward. He let the 'chuck spin. His sensei remained completely silent.

Splinter rushed quickly at a familiar angle, and Mikey had done this trick before, when Daddy learned of his littlest son's alarming speed and agility, when the little one had jumped gracefully away from reaching arms, giggling. His hands clenched and unclenched as he felt that strike of wood on wood, felt his father's own spiritual energy push against him. Oh. Oh. So, like that.

He closed his eyes, and the world fell away as the indigo outlines of weapons and bodies shimmered. He fought as precisely and fluidly as he could, but the strikes were getting faster and stronger, and Dad really wasn't pulling punches. Screw precision, then, this was time for performance.

He spread out his arms, palms outward, and clenched his teeth, pushing more power, more muscle, into the force radiating. His weapon spun and spun, struck and slammed and hit, and he sensed how his master was wordlessly dancing across the dojo with his energy swirling around him. He flexed and stretched and contracted that absurd muscle as many times as he could…and slowly, the headache grew, branching out from the base of his skull and wrapping like branches and fingers around his head, closing in toward the center of his forehead. The pain, burning, beginning to stab, was getting worse the closer those fingers got to each other on every side of his skull. He felt his teeth clench, he felt sweat streaming down his face. The rat wasn't slowing down and the dance became a whirlwind. Michelangelo felt warmth seep into his power, or perhaps coolness bleeding out. His fists gripped nothing but air. A sudden whine escaped him.

The battle slowed. He felt Splinter stalk toward him, still hitting his weapon, but gentler and gentler as those fingers reached his forehead. He felt tears in his eyes, spilling and mixing with his sweat, he felt his lungs start to ache. Someone, suddenly, screamed. He could hear both nunchucks drop to the floor, and the outlines faded into nothing.

The fingers, the branches, closed their circuit, gripping his forehead, and his head burst into hot and cold, and someone was still screaming, and the space behind his eyelids went white.

There were voices fading in and out. He couldn't move. He didn't want to move. It was too comfortable, here in this soft whiteness, so different from the darkness. He blinked a few times. In the middle of the whiteness, a bonsai tree was twisting up, leaning toward him. He circled it, and every time, it seemed to follow him, leaning. When he looked up, he couldn't see how far it went.

A presence stirred, somewhere to his right, but he had forgotten where his right side was. He turned, and turned, and the tree turned with him. Still, it was comfortable and comforting, and he looked back at the tree.

"I told you about overconfidence."

Finally he figured out where right side was, and looked at her, and he sighed. "But I wasn't being arrogant, at least?"

She smiled, hands on her hips. "Not this time, no. Paths, remember."

Hecate looked very dark in all of the white, very pale and dark and covered in shining glimmering light the way distant planets and galaxies littered the sky. "Come here," And she opened her arms, and he leaned into her, resting his head on her shoulder, and she held him very tightly, smiling against him, and "Silly boy," she said, "I told you I would be here when you came."

His headache which he hadn't even noticed, flared and burned and bit, and he felt her whisper something in very old Greek, and coolness, night time, swept through his head and the pain vanished.

"What did that mean, what you just said?" he asked.

"Healing and love in the very moment," she said. "Similar to your victory cry."

They separated. He massaged his temples. "Thanks. Um. Are you…like…always gonna be here, in my head, like this?"

Hecate shrugged. "Right now I am here until you recover, or some aspect of me is. Remember, this is all in your mind, and none of this might even be real. I can't really give you a straight answer. I could be a god from myths and stories, I could be an invented simulation in your consciousness, I could be a dream."

"Stop confusing him," a familiar raspy voice called out, "that's my job."

Michelangelo sighed and rolled his eyes. The goddess just smiled and vanished.

Neural Mike appeared in front of him, arms crossed, grinning.

"Now what?" Mikey sighed.

"Oh, so just because the shiny deities get to you first means I'm not welcome? How hurtful. Come on, you need to see something."

He grabbed Mikey's wrist and snapped his fingers, and they were in the red darkness, surrounded by webs of neural network, indigo flashes lighting up synapses everywhere.

"Hey, check it out. Your arm brace is reacting!" Neural Mike pointed, and Mikey raised his right arm. The carved animal shapes were pulsating blue and purple, like heartbeats.

"Seriously though," he asked, "what does this brace do?"

Neural Mike gave him that look of incredulity, the "weren't you paying attention in class because I'm not giving you my notes" kind of look.

"Don't you remember what Pan said? The animal figures represent aspects of you. The brace is a symbol of protection, against yourself and against the world. Also a power amplifier. Like that pendant the kid gave you. Your higher psychic consciousness merged with your subconscious is a powerful force by itself. It created a connection to these gods just so you'd have someone to talk to who knows about ancient talismans and junk. I mean, you know what happened to Perseus and all those Greek heroes who used literal gods-given items to defeat monsters. Most of it is allegory, since gods and monsters are a human idea, only known if there is an observer to know them and make stories. It's like the cat in the box. You know the cat in the box. Funny how people forget that it's satire about chaos theory."

Mikey let him ramble. He glanced at the massive neural web, impossibly high, spiraling like a spiderweb wrapping around a staircase with no stairs.

"For example," Neural Mike went on, "say it's true that there really are creator gods, like Raven, and Gaia with Ouranos, and Odin and Yahweh and Pangu and Krishna and Atum and Flying Spaghetti Monster, and dude, do you know how many creator gods are crammed into one dimension? It's like little kids fighting over who gets to make the biggest sand castle. Anyway, pretend you're one of them, and…"

"Beg pardon? I'm a who with the what now?"

"Just…just go with it. Okay? And suddenly you're able to make huge huge things, like planets and stars, I guess, although that just seems so fucking weird, you know? But you can. You create things and with that comes the ability to destroy. So, after a few billion years you get bored, and you decide to peek around various other dimensions and universes to see what else is going on with your buddies, and there's this one young universe that has this particular specific tiny planet that seems insignificant until you realize that the inhabitants are weirder than the Greek pantheon partying at Ibiza, and you hang out with them for a while. And maybe some of them find out about you and decide to form a cult around you, and maybe it turns into a religion because they really want you to stay and be close to them, and they're already full of the arrogant idea that they can talk to you, and you're bored anyway and their worship feeds you and it's less boring and it's a very happy feeling. But after a while you miss your home dimension, and soon your followers are needy and whiny and blaming you for all the horrific crap they're doing to each other, like you even bother to talk to them. So you leave messages for a few that you really liked, and their brains kind of implode from it anyway, but you're too busy packing for the trip to the interdimensional wormhole. And by the time you're almost ready to leave, you realize that this whole planet is the most fucked up mess you've ever seen and you think, well, hey, maybe I should stay and see if they clean themselves up and get better, but they don't, and they keep killing each other, saying you made them do it, and they even call your best friend the bad guy when he's not even in the same place you are, like what the fuck. So you decide to destroy the entire planet and just make a new one, completely identical, except that these new people have more common sense and also, ta daaa, psionics built in! And you step back and see what happens. And they thrive for like a million years, and then they realize that they're going too far, too fast. So one day, a bunch of the strongest psionics get together and call you long distance and you're like, "the fuck do you want and how did you get this number?" And they're all like, "Hey, so, we're done here, we're tired, we don't want to exist anymore, and can we live with you?" And so you wipe out their whole civilization and stuff except for a few bits of technology because it's funny to watch historians and anthropologists wring their hands, right? And the planet itself does its thing, it keeps growing life because it doesn't need help. And so on and so forth. And you just sit back in your dimension and drink pina coladas with your best friend, and you watch everything grow, and you figure that smaller gods can check in and maintain."

Mikey frowned. "So that was Cadran? The M'Kari?"

"Yup. And Earth is very similar, except it's been wiped out and destroyed a lot already. The current batch of humans are exactly like Cadran's first batch. But more stubborn. And really, they're just children. Someone needs to keep them from sticking forks in electrical sockets. All the gods like randomly watching and sometimes playing with Earth. Humans are absurd and absolutely arbitrary. They invent different versions and incarnations of gods to pretend they have invisible comforting parents and they invent the weirdest religions to try and hold their deity incarnations close, while yelling at each other about what's better and more true. It's like the greatest reality show ever. Or that game about sinking battleships, I guess. So of course your subconscious would let in incarnations of bored small actual gods, since that's the best way for gods to poke people when they're bored. And they like you."

"Yeah, I picked up on that…"

"Okay. I'm not saying that a god has anything to do with your M'Kari powers, but they had a lot to do with M'Kari history and I figured you should understand where that part of you came from. You are now part alien in your brain. I mean, beyond Kraang mutagen, which was already alien. So I think you deserve to know what your brain is. And even with your Shinto upbringing, you seem to get a kick out of Greek and Norse deities. And they picked up on that. Watch what you think about." Neural Mike lowered his voice to a hissing whisper. "They can tell when you think hard enough about them. Sneaky bastards."

Mikey just stared at the glowing webs around him. Some looked dull and weak. He wondered if he had been stressing them too much. He wondered how intensely and how often he could pull power before it became too much and he stressed himself. This was very finite, even with recovery.

"Yeah," Neural Mike said, "forget about saving the world. Unless you want to sacrifice your brain."

"I like my brain," Mikey said in a small voice.

"I'm glad, because I like living in your brain. But here's what you need to keep in mind, kid: The M'Kari were unbelievably, unfathomably wise, they realized they could be their own downfall. Psionics isn't a toy or a game or a test. It's an ability, and it has limits. Burnout comes easy. This is why you have random imaginary friends checking up on you. I had a chat with Apollo and he's genuinely worried the way you keep stressing the temporal lobes, the amygdala, and eventually maybe the entire damn limbic system. You gotta stop being excited and arrogant. You'll only make the intuitions and visions that much more painful to bear."

Mikey whipped his head around, eyes narrowing. "I am not arrogant! I'm learning!"

"That's adorable, keep thinking that. Slow down a little. How long did it take for you to master all your shinobi moves and poses and whatnot?"

Mikey bit his lip. "Almost fifteen years."

"And you're still learning. See? Same thing applies. You have to go slower! Lesser! Making food and clashing weapons together and healing a wound is all excellent, but it drains you. You're nowhere near where the M'Kari were. You're a baby. You can barely walk in psionics, let alone skip merrily down telekinesis road. And since there are no M'Kari around to teach you, it falls to me, and maybe Hecate since she has perfect memory of the M'Kari."

"What, wait, what? How?"

"I told you, different incarnations. Different names. Time is a river. The thing about being a supernatural entity like a deity is that you get to travel in spacetime if you know what you're doing. Hecate's really good at that. When she was very young, she observed Cadran during M'Kari rule. Near the end, but just enough. You can ask her stuff."

"But…she's not real, right? Loki, Pan, Apollo, they're in my own mind."

"Technically yes. But you might as well have fun with it."

Mikey inhaled sharply and swayed a bit. Kami and spirits help me, I have no idea what to do.

Neural Mike patted his hand, as if in solidarity. "Hey, wanna go web climbing with me?"

Mikey blinked, shook his head, stared at Neural Mike, the web, Neural Mike, his own hands. "Um. Sure?"

"Trust me, this web is stable and super solid. We'll be fine. It's fun! And you get to play with how fast the neurons jump between synapses."

Mikey shrugged, unable to think of anything else to do. He watched Neural Mike get a foothold on an axon and then a handhold on an axon and then Neural Mike glanced at him. Mikey came up behind him and grabbed an axon. He paused, eyes wide, not prepared for the steel cable strength. "Told ya," said Neural Mike.

They climbed and climbed, not race or competition, and Michelangelo was grinning at the humming that spread through his feet and hands, thrumming up and around his body, spilling into the center of his forehead, the supposed third eye, branching up into a tiny whirlpool that he assumed was the crown chakra. He recalled his last words to The Alchemist, about sleeping with one eye open. He knew he had been talking about the third eye, and now wondered if it would always remain open.

He barely realized they had reached the supposed top of the web. Neural Mike casually sat on a glowing axon, careful not to disturb the myelin sheath and the gentle rush of neuronal activity. Mikey did the same, next to him.

"So, now that I've explained how you work a little better, how do you feel?" Neural Mike asked.

"Mmm," Mikey mused. "A little less puzzled. Thankful. Weirded out because now I can't stop thinking of gods as aliens from other dimensions or other universes."

"Yeah, it's getting weirdly spiritual. It shouldn't but there ya go. Aliens helped reshape your brain, kid. Just go easy on it. That's all we want."

Mikey looked down at the glittering web. "So what happens now? I assume I'm asleep, so I assume I'll wake up."

"Yeah. You'll wake up. Don't blame me if you're all weird and foggy for a while. Transitioning between various states back toward reality will leave you will a fuck of a headache."

"So, would Apollo or Hecate-"

"Not in reality, nope."

"Bummer. Okay, I'm ready to wake up."

Neural Mike smirked "Have fun!" And he shoved Mikey off, and Mikey fell down the web, breath slow, arms out, until he felt the wind that was not wind, and the gray shining light that covered him, and very very slowly, he became aware of a piercing, pulsating pain in his entire head, and fought his way toward a hole torn in red darkness, a crack in a ceiling that led to a bright summer sky, the color of his own eyes.

The heart monitor had done odd, fascinating things. Tachycardia for a whole day until Donatello managed to increase the Ativan dosage, especially after a unique tonic clonic seizure that had caused various objects to fly around the room spinning and dipping in dances, followed by several partial complex seizures that gave them all headaches. Brachycardia for hours after that, and so Donatello didn't eat or sleep, just stared at the heart monitor and tensed all his muscles so tightly that Raphael had to help stretch him out.

Splinter, with the help of April and her quick thinking, managed to obtain a three-month prescription for an SNRI prescribed for both depression/anxiety and chronic pain. April had tried to get an ADHD medication, but the process was too intense and controlled. The pharmacist did, however, tell her that the anti-depressant was often prescribed off-label for ADHD and in many patients it did help.

Donatello took the orange bottle that read "April O'Neil" and put a sticker with his little brother's name on it. He put it in the lab on his desk, before checking on his unconscious little brother. He thanked April, and Kirby, so much that April said "If you don't stop being thankful, Leatherhead will grab you by the face again. We're family. My dad's a psychologist. It wasn't hard. I just hope it helps Mikey." Donnie then asked her what she wanted in return, as payment. April just smiled. "Mikey's home cooking, and you helping me with my computers and my homework."

"But we already do that," Donnie said.

"Exactly," April said. "He's my little brother too, you know."

Raph settled on the couch with a huff. "Are we really sure Mikey should be on anti-depressants? His brain is, like, the polar opposite."

April smiled tenderly. "Oh, Raph."

He narrowed his eyes. "Oh, what?"

"Do you know the saying, 'The funniest people are sometimes the saddest'?"

Raph shook his head. Then his eyes widened. "Wait, you saying the kid's actually depressed? Even though he's, like, organically happy?"

"That's just it," April said gently. "You can be happy and depressed. You can be bouncy, full of joy, making jokes, pulling pranks, laughing at the world, and you can still be depressed. It's not about feeling sad. It's about feeling sad stretched out into an actual sickness. In the brain. Like, well, seizure disorders and migraines. And it's not so much feeling sad as it is feeling… worthless, useless, empty, hollow." She looked down, twisting her clasped hands. "And that's Mikey, don't you think? He often feels worthless."

Raph growled. "And we don't exactly deny or discourage that feeling, don't we. I don't." Leonardo put a hand on his shoulder. Raph tensed up, then reluctantly leaned into Leo's arm. "I call him pointless, stupid, a waste of time. He smiles through everything, he's always hopeful and so chill about every fucking situation we're put into."

"Which" Leo said, "is probably the reasons why he chooses to shove all that bad negativity into a tiny corner of his mind, so he doesn't have to think about them and we don't have to worry."

Leo shifted and draped both arms around Raph, dropping his head onto his arm that hung from Raph's shoulder. "We fucked up, guys."

Don was picking at a thread in the couch padding. "We're going to make it right. We'll make it…more okay for Mikey. He was doing really well at letting out his emotions from the trauma; the crying helped purge it. But now he's withdrawing and putting on more fake smiles just for us. I just want our Mikey back. Annoying and weird and absurd and chaotically brilliant. But mostly perpetually joyful. I miss him."

Silence stretched across the living room.

"I miss him coming into the lab and annoying me," Donnie continued. "But when he was done poking me, he'd sit and ask questions, and he'd sometimes help me with experiments. He's really good with chemistry, because he's a cook. And he's good at seeing several things at once, pointing our errors just by feel, correcting me when I calculate a formula wrong, which sounds amazing, but to him it feels obvious."

Leo nodded. "Sometimes he'll come to the dojo and watch me to katas, and then he'll come over and do them better than me. I have to pretend I'm not jealous."

Raphael snorted, and Don covered up a giggle, April too.

"I just miss watchin' TV and playin' games with him," Raph shrugged. "He doesn't bother me unless he wants me to talk about how I'm feelin'. And ya know what? He's an awesome listener. He sometimes takes me to the kitchen and takes out Ice Cream Kitty and puts her in a bowl and makes me tell her my deepest thoughts. She's kinda like Spike was."

That earned surprised, grateful smiles all around.

Raphael pulled his knees to his chest and rested his chin on them. "Don, any idea when he'll wake up?"

Don could only shrug. "His mind is working to replenish the exhausted energy, plus he had multiple seizures, status epilepticus, which sometimes means coma. Or…or death. So I don't want to take him off the respirator just yet. He'll come back when he's ready."

"I can try to talk to him, see how far down in his mind he is," April said.

Donnie bit his lower lip. "I'm more worried about Neural Mike hurting you."

April rolled her eyes. "He won't hurt me. I'll be fine." The other turtles merely smirked.

Minutes later, April sat by the infirmary bed, watching Michelangelo breathe slowly under the oxygen mask. She placed on hand on his forehead and held his left hand in her own.

Taking a deep breath, April grasped and readied her power, but immediately stopped when she sensed something powerful and rapid rising from Mikey's mind. Blinking, she leaned over. "Mikey? Is that you?"

Eyelids twitched. April yelled out, "Guys! He's waking up!" And they spilled into the infirmary followed by Spinter.

Mike slowly opened his eyes, squinting. "Hey, April," he smiled, "What's up?"

She caught a glimpse of his mind and grinned. "Ceilings and skies and bonsai trees."

He winked. "Damn right."

They gathered around the television, a nest of blankets, pillows, bodies, pizza boxes. Mikey in the center, Raph and Leo on either side and Don directly behind. Donnie's arms were wrapped around Mikey's shoulders, his chin on his little brother's head. Leo and Raph were both pressed against their baby brother, sharing their warmth. April was on one end of the couch, occasionally tossing popcorn at the boys just to see who could snatch it up quicker. Casey was in the middle of the couch, watching the current movie intently and occasionally looking at Mikey whenever he thought of his little sister. On the other end of the couch, Splinter leaned forward and gazed lovingly at his sons, cuddling and happy. His keen senses kept track of his youngest boy's breathing, his heartbeat. His baby was happy, snuggled against the only family he'd known, the only one that mattered. Splinter had a flash of Neural Mike and Hecate, and realized that his baby's mind had its very own personal guards. That was fine with Splinter. His boys were growing up, after all. That was all he could ask for.

"Hey, Mike," Don said, nuzzling him. "Wanna try the duloxetine drug April got for you?"

"Mmkay," Mikey said cheerfully, with a hint of excitement and hope. "Hope it works." Don separated, shifted, and stood to go to the lab.

Donnie shook out one blue and green capsule, refilled Mikey's water bottle, and got back into the pile. After handing Mikey the pill and the water, he went back to hugging him from behind.

Two weeks later, Mikey was somehow much less bouncily annoying, his pranks more clever and interesting, even for Raph. He became more active in training, more focused, less distracted. When he played video games, his focus and solemn attention meant slightly less excited yelling and bragging. He seemed happier in a different way, his eyes sparkling brighter, his expression no longer hiding something. In patrol and battle, he was silent and stealthy, crying out "Booyakasha!" only after victories. A few times a month, Michelangelo would have powerful visions or intuitions that crime was happening, often Foot or Dragons. He would know exactly when and where to lead the group. Sometimes the group didn't have the leap into action; sometimes Mikey took great fun in telepathically terrifying Purple Dragons and telekinetically destroying Foot robots. The turtles began taking bets on how long the news would reach Shredder headquarters. Mikey smiled like a bright young sun and laughed with the ease of a flowing river.

His small seizures and migraines were treated easily now that Splinter and Donnie both helped with meditative and medical therapy, and Don eventually found that the SNRI had cut down the seizure activity. Mikey just smiled, as though he already knew. He even said that his new intuition and empathic sensitivity told him whenever Don got excited in the lab, but Mikey had promised to never peek unless his family wanted.

Nightmares and night terrors struck him less frequently, and with less intensity. But regardless, all three brothers raced to get through his doorway and jump onto his bed, throwing their arms around him and reminding him that they were all there and safe, he was safe.

One afternoon, during a horror movie marathon that had Mikey and Raph yelling at the television, Donatello and April were thrilled the anti-depressant was working and were already discussing how long he should be on it.

Splinter, upon hearing this, went to the freezer, fist-bumped Ice Cream Kitty, and got a cheesicle, carefully yet happily licking Ice Cream Kitty before he shut the freezer door on her delighted meow.

His four sons and two human children stared at the trail of strawberry ice cream along his rat nose. Splinter smiled and deftly licked it off. He winked. "You are correct, Michelangelo. She is indeed delicious."

He smiled even wider when his youngest child's squeals of delight made the whole room laugh.

And this, Splinter thought, satisfied and proud, was healing.

"Healing requires us to stop struggling, to enjoy life more and endure it less." - Darina Stoyanova

"The sun shall always rise upon a new day and there shall always be a rose garden within me. Yes, there is a part of me that is broken, but my broken soil gives way to my wild roses." ― C. JoyBell C.

"I want to be the best version of myself for anyone who is going to someday walk into my life and need someone to love them beyond reason." ― Jennifer Elisabeth

"Wounding and healing are not opposites. They're part of the same thing. It is our wounds that enable us to be compassionate with the wounds of others. It is our limitations that make us kind to the limitations of other people. It is our loneliness that helps us to to find other people or to even know they're alone with an illness. I think I have served people perfectly with parts of myself I used to be ashamed of. " ― Rachel Naomi Remen

(Author's Note: I honestly don't know if this is the final chapter. It is certainly the longest. It feels like an ending.
I also feel like I have a lot more tiny 'stories' to write, maybe as a collection of stories that could be seen as a sequel, and maybe they'll happen in time as a "Part 2: Short Stories and Vignettes" story. For now, I'll call it, say, a mid-season finale. I've decided to make the whole story Complete. Anything I write after would be a sequel. Now that I've established this as an AU of sorts, I think I could go many places. Also note: I changed descriptors, so it's now under Hurt/Comfort and Drama, with Angst and Fluff in my summary.
Despite the story being finished, I'd like people to let me know if they want to see things added or changed in any chapters; I am always happy to go back and edit content.)