A/N: Just a quick little character study that wouldn't leave my head unless I wrote it down. Any mistakes in quotes/continuity are my fault.

Leo loves silence. He wears it like a cloak, trusts it like a friend — but in the past week, he's learned that there's more than one kind of silence, and while he can still love the silence that conceals and guards, he needs to be wary of the silence that separates.

He thinks he heard it first last year, strung up on display in Sacks' lab. Mikey and Donnie were inches away, and he could do nothing to reach them while their voices faded.

So far away, so very quiet.

Ironic how Sacks chose that moment to tell him to speak. Leo made sure Sacks paid for it — but the silence lingered, patient and hungry, for its next chance.

And it learned while it waited.

You may know a lot about strategy —

Leo counts the silent hours on the plane ride home. Nine hours, eighteen minutes, thirty-seven seconds. Mikey tries to break it, and gets as far as standing up and opening his mouth before he deflates, eyes dull, and curls back into his corner.

Raph and Donnie don't look at Leo, not even once.

By the time they get off the plane, they're been miles away from each other. Leo watches them walk, shoulders hunched under the weight of failure, and remembers Raph screaming his name from the other side of the glass.

Even then, even dying —

(They chained us up and watched us die. This is who we're meant to save?

The righteous can rarely choose their battles, my son. But as long as you stand together, you will not falter.)

— his brothers hadn't felt as far away as they do now.

It should have been easy. Sensei had made him leader, put the katana in his hands and smiled, proud and sad all at once. What was so hard about unity?

The lair's blessedly cool after the hold of the plane. Leo waits until everyone else heads for the showers, then slumps in a corner with his forehead against the wall. Unity. What a joke. They may be brothers, they may be trained as warriors, but that's all they've got in common. What really holds them together when it comes down to it?

He waits for the answer, holds his breath until his head aches, but there's only silence, filling every inch of the lair.

"Shower's free," says Donnie. "Better move fast, before Mikey uses all the hot water."

Leo opens his eyes to find Donnie hovering on the other side of the room, towel hitched around his waist. He's so much smaller without the rig, but he still slouches, as if the weight still remains.

Leo pushes to his feet. "Thanks," he says.

"No problem." Donnie hesitates, mouth thin, his gaze anywhere but on Leo's face. When he meets Leo's eyes again, there's nothing in his expression at all, just empty neutrality.

No, that's not true. The longer Leo watches his brother, the more he sees, and what's hiding under that careful mask is exhaustion. Disappointment.

Pain.

There's only one vote that counts in this family — mine.

Had he really looked Raph in the face and said that? Had he believed it?

No wonder unity sounds like a joke. All this time, he thought it was the same as obedience, and left behind anyone who didn't fall in line. If Leo and his brothers aren't a team, it's because Leo didn't give them the chance to be.

Donnie shifts in the doorway, half a second from walking away. There has to be something Leo can say — to make him stay while Leo finds better, truer words, while Leo apologizes for this colossal abuse of trust — but if the words exist, they're too far away to do any good.

The lair is so quiet, silence oozing out of the cracks in the bricks and crawling through the ventilation shafts.

Donnie blinks at him through still-fogged glasses, then sighs. "Right," he murmurs as he turns away.

"Donnie —" says Leo, but Donnie's already gone, footsteps muffled in the great, inescapable quiet.

It's easy to forget about silence when there's an alien war machine crackling over New York. For a shameful heartbeat, Leo's glad he doesn't have to think about what he's not hearing. There's work to be done, a city to save and evil to destroy — no matter what's between them now, he and his brothers can pull together long enough to save the world.

Again.

The thing is, Leo does know a lot about strategy. There is no impossible scenario in his mind, no victory out of his reach. There's always a chance, for those brave enough and skilled enough to try.

Donnie, what are the odds of surviving this?

0.00000003%!

I'll take it.

Leo finally understands when they're high above the city, arms around each other's shoulders and laughing — unity doesn't mean obedience. It doesn't mean making his brothers extensions of his will. It means nothing more than this: four brothers, in balance, against whatever the world throws at them.

It's so simple he nearly missed it at first. Leo throws back his head and laughs, loudest of all, and pulls his brothers into a hug.

He still has so much to learn.

The fractures might heal on their own, with a little time and distance. Leo could stay hands-off, treat everything like business as usual, and in a month or two, they'll find balance again. They'll be unified, for the first time.

And until then, the silence in the lair would grow, lay down roots, and wait for the next time Leo messed up.

No, it comes out now.

For this, at least, he can plan.

Leo gives it forty-eight hours after the key ceremony before putting his plan into motion. Then, while Raph is lifting and Mikey's recounting the key ceremony for Splinter — for the third time — Leo taps Donnie on the shoulder, and jerks his head toward the exit.

"Take a walk with me?" he asks. His control's too strong for his voice to shake, but it still takes an effort to not shuffle his feet. If Donnie clocks he's nervous for any reason, the whole plan will fall apart, and Leo's bridges will stay burned.

Not burned, he thinks. Donnie pushes out of his chair, not looking up from his tablet, and follows Leo with an agreeable murmur. But damaged.

"So, does this little trip have a point?" Donnie says, ten steps and a maintenance shaft from their destination. He glances up and pushes his glasses up on his nose with a small smile. "Not that I mind the chance to get out for a bit —"

Leo snorts. "Come on, Donnie. You'd live at your desk if Dad would let you."

A pointed sniff. "Well, he won't, but you're avoiding the question. And why just me? Why not —"

"Because I wanted to talk to you," Leo says. He's got to rip off the bandage, that's the only way this will work. "Look, I…" He licks his lips, then turns around to face Donnie. His brother's face is lit by the blue-green glow from the tablet, wary but hopeful, and Leo's heart gives a vicious, sideways twist. "I owe you an apology."

Donnie's face closes over at the speed of light. Leo chews the inside of his cheek. This is why Donnie had to be first; he's too canny not to realize what Leo will want to say, and he's smart enough to avoid having this conversation unless it comes by ambush. "Oh. Well. No, it's fine, Leo. You had — you had your reasons. My timing was bad, and I just —" Donnie shrugs, tapping at his tablet. The light flares yellow, then white, then fades out completely. "You didn't have to take me out for an evening stroll just to apologize," he says. "It's fine. We're fine," he adds, his voice breaking a little on the last word.

Leo's heart twists again. Of course Donnie would see through to the center of the problem, unerringly, his mind like the edge of a blade. And of course Donnie had known, right away, why Leo shut him down when he came running with his eyedropper of possibilities.

"It's not fine," Leo says. He reaches out and squeezes Donnie's shoulder, shaking Donnie gently until his brother meets his eyes. "I — I shut you down, Donnie, and then I asked you to lie about it."

"You asked me not to say anything," Donnie interrupts, eyes sliding away. "Big difference."

"A lie of omission's still a lie." Leo has to be ruthless with himself, because Donnie won't be. "I was wrong. I should have listened, not just…not just said no, and then let you make my excuses for me."

Our strategic advantage, Donnie had said, just like Leo would have, if he hadn't left the silence for Donnie to fill.

"You had your reasons," Donnie murmurs again, but he doesn't sound quite convinced.

Leo takes a deep breath, and plunges forward. "I was rough on all of you," he says, "and I was…unfair. Your votes count, same as mine. I was wrong, and —"

"You've had a lot going on the past few days," Donnie says, looking up with a glimmer of a smile that fades a second later. "You don't have to do this — this big apology trip. Raph and Mikey are over it, I'm over it — we're fine, Leo."

"Don't," Leo says, punctuating his words with another gentle shake. "Don't make more excuses for me." I've taken advantage, don't you see? "I put you in an impossible position. And I —"

He swallows. This truth hurts most of all, tied up as it is with how quickly Donnie fell in line, all his enthusiasm gone, when Leo said no. Snuffed out like one of Sensei's candles, with no light left to show it had ever been there.

"I failed you. I should have listened. Even if we decided not to use it — we should have decided, not just me. I'm sorry."

Donnie stares at him for a long time, eyes huge and blurred behind his glasses, and then that quick glimmer of a smile comes back. "You let us choose in the end," he points out.

"Yeah, well, better late than never doesn't really count here." Leo gives Donnie's shoulders one last squeeze, then lets go and steps back. "I'm sorry."

"Heard you the first time." Donnie bumps his shoulder into Leo's, still smiling. "But Leo? Thanks."

It's a sappy Lifetime movie thing to think, but all that goes through Leo's head in that moment is that he doesn't deserve his brothers. He won't say it — not today, at least — so he just bumps Donnie's shoulder back and then points a few feet ahead. "Come on, we got a ways to climb," he says.

Donnie frowns at him over his glasses. "What, there's more?" he asks. "The apology trip isn't over?"

"The apology part of the trip is," Leo says. He pulls the cover off a vent shaft, hoping he's got the right one, and then waves Donnie inside. "Now, we're at the unrepentant scavengers part."

"Unrepentant —" Donnie freezes, then backs out of the shaft, his mouth and eyes round o's. "You sly dog," he says, beaming. "We're under TCRI. You're sneaking us into TCRI."

"I thought," Leo says, giving Donnie's shell a shove to get him going, "we should make the most of our new friends in blue, and take this time to make sure that Baxter Stockman didn't leave any dangerous tech lying around. It's…" He lets himself savor this silence, because Donnie looks like Christmas just arrived. "It's a public service."

"Oh, wow," Donnie breathes — the effect would be charming, if he wasn't smiling quite so maniacally. "Oh, wow. I mean, yes, public service, great idea, Leo." He launches himself back into the shaft, but peels out one last time just as Leo squats down to follow him. "Uh, not to look gift tech in the mouth, but what does Chief Vincent think about this?"

Leo grins down at his brother. "Chief Vincent decided what she doesn't know won't give her an ulcer," he says. "So we have till five am. Let's go, Donnie."

Donnie hoots all the way up the maintenance shaft.

"Don't get me wrong," Donnie says, staggering a little under the weight of not one but three centrifuges and clinking with about fifty pounds of glass labware, "I'm grateful, but…why?"

Leo moves the microscope from his right arm to his left. "Why what?" It's going to take them an hour to get home, but he doesn't mind a second of it.

He minds the weight, a little, but Donnie spent a solid fifteen minutes cackling over what he found on Stockman's databases, and that's worth a few strained muscles.

"Why the trip?" Donnie gives Leo a curious look, his face warped through a beaker. "We could have talked in the lair, and I could have come on my own, or with Mikey. Tech's not…really your thing."

"I like my Xbox." When Donnie's look turns wry, he sighs, and hitches the box of hard drives a little higher in the curve of his arm. "You were right, when you said I didn't know anything about feelings."

"Oh, wait, Leo, I didn't —"

"You were right," Leo says. "At least, I didn't care about them, right then. I just…cared about being right. Not about anything you guys had to say. And that's the problem. So…"

"So you wanted to fix it with some brotherly theft?" Donnie laughs softly. "I don't think I see the connection."

"Tech's not my thing," Leo says. "But it's yours."

Donnie makes a thoughtful noise, but doesn't reply until they're in sight of the lair. "Good plan," he says, finally. "So you've got Raph and Mikey stops on the apology trip?"

"It's more of a tour, really," Leo says, grinning at the lights of home. He doesn't deserve it — not really, not yet — but the silence between them is gone, banished by Donnie's bright laugh.