Emma Lamb had never paid much attention to the weather report. When work and home were separated by no more than a staircase, the weather hardly mattered. But that fall, she watched the forecast for western Massachusetts religiously, waiting for the first snowflake icon to make its appearance.

The weeks seemed to drag on. Emma hadn't been away from her son for more than a few hours since he came into her life. She'd given up veterinary medicine conferences and overnight visits to friends who had moved out of town in order to stay with him and make sure he was safe. As David had gotten older, he had promised he would be fine on his own, and had urged her to go, but she just couldn't bring herself to do it.

And now, the apartment was too quiet. Mealtimes were lonely; mornings jarring without David's assistance in the clinic. Between the increased workload and, more importantly, the distraction and worry, Emma felt that her patient care was suffering. She tried to focus on her work, but for the first time in her life - David's worst health crises notwithstanding - it seemed meaningless and could not hold her attention.

("How is he?" she had demanded, when April came back from dropping off the suitcase.

"I don't know," April had said. "The others wouldn't let me see him."

Since then, Emma had called the Massachusetts farmhouse at least once a week. David always came to the phone, but he would never tell her any more than "Mom, I'm fine. I'll see you when I get home.")

And so she watched the weather report. The overnight lows began to dip below freezing. A few flurries came, but they didn't stick. Emma worried about how her thermally-sensitive son was getting along.

And then, there it was. A sunny day in the Pioneer Valley, the meteorologist said, with highs near 60. But temperatures would plummet thirty degrees overnight, bringing six inches of snow by morning.

"Time to break out the winter gear," the smiling weatherman concluded. "And now, your weekly planner."

Emma called April.

She didn't know how Splinter found out what the weather would be a hundred and fifty miles away and twenty-four hours later, but he presented himself at the alley door in the middle of the morning, and by lunchtime the clinic was "Closed Due To Family Emergency" and they were on their way to Northampton.

When April eased the van up the gravel drive and they all climbed out, the weather was perfect. It was hard to believe that tomorrow people would be pulling on their boots and firing up their snowblowers. Today, the temperature was just right for David's peculiar internal thermostat.

But Emma had not come here to enjoy the sunshine and the scenery.

"Where is my son," she demanded, of the first green teenager she encountered.

"He's out in the woods," the startled youngster replied. "I'll -"

Emma did not wait around to hear his plan. She went in the direction he indicated at a fast walk, almost a jog, calling her son's name into the trees.

And then, he was coming towards her. He was wearing slacks and a blue dress shirt and a joyful expression, barefoot and at ease in the rural surroundings.

"David!" she shouted, and now she was running. "David!"

"Mom!" he called back, and caught her against his plated chest. "Mom. Mom," he kept saying, as she in turn repeated his name over and over. But he wasn't saying it insistently, like he normally did, like he was trying to get her attention. Rather, he sounded like he was trying to reassure her.

"What?" she said finally.

"Mom," he said, one more time, with a laugh on his lips. "It's 'Donatello' now."

Her brow furrowed as she pulled back, holding his shoulders and looking at him. "What?"

"I go by 'Donatello' now," he repeated softly. He smiled, and it crinkled the skin around his eyes. "I guess you can still call me 'D'."

Emma took him in. Even under the clothes, she could tell he had filled out. He didn't look like a bodybuilder, not like his brothers, but he had gained muscle mass and confidence. He was beginning to look like a man.

"What happened here…?" she asked.

David - Donatello - glanced at one of his brothers, whom Emma almost hadn't noticed come up beside him, watching the reunion silently. "Raph, ie ni iku, okay?"

Raph tossed off a salute and sauntered towards the house, leaving them alone again.

"Mom, walk with me," David said, and he led her deeper into the woods, along the narrow trail he had just come from. "They're teaching me Japanese," he said, sensing her confusion over what he had said to his brother a moment ago. "They're teaching me about ninjutsu. They're teaching me how to meditate, how to swim, how to walk in the woods and not get lost. They're -" He glanced at her, smiling again. "No offense, but they're teaching me what food is supposed to look like."

"Yeah, yeah," said Emma. She was no stranger to derogatory comments about her cooking. She ran a palm over David's sleeve, tracing the smooth new curves there, making him squirm in embarrassment. "Where did this come from?"

"Claims that exercise is good for you, highly accurate," David said. "Also…" He hesitated. "Mikey's brown stuff is surprisingly effective."

"No," Emma said.

"I'm off my meds," David said, his voice rising in a strange mix of fear and courage. "Everything but the insulin."

"David!"

He spun to face her, and she noticed that he planted his feet in a very specific way. "Mom, I don't need them! Ron and the team were wrong about everything!" He pressed a hand to his chest. "I feel better now than I ever have. The guys are teaching me how to take care of myself. I -" His eyes dropped away, then found hers again as he steeled himself to speak to his mother as no longer a child, but nearly an adult. "I like being a Turtle."

Emma ran a hand through her hair. She had not been prepared to deal with anything David had done at any stage of his life - not when he began speaking, not when he began speaking intelligently, not when he began having opinions that differed from hers, not when he started having friends she didn't know - and certainly she was not prepared for him to make such weighty decisions about his own medical care.

"I don't know how I feel about this," she said finally. "I mean, it's a big change. Have you -"

"Mom, don't you dare ask if I've tried not being a Turtle," David bit out. "One, obviously yes, and two, the question delegitimizes the struggle for a stable, integrated identity that is the core task of the developing individual in the adolescent phase."

She stared at him, wondering for a brief moment if perhaps she was talking to one of Splinter's by mistake. "Where do you learn this stuff?"

"Honestly, open a Piaget book." He shook his head. "I'm sorry. I'm trying not to say things like that anymore. It's… a long story."

She laid a hand on his arm again, needing the physical contact to begin to come to grips with the changes he had gone through. "David…"

"Don't call me that," he sighed. "It's -"

"Do not say 'my slave name.'"

"I was going for something like 'disempowering'," he muttered, and glanced at the sky. "Let's go pack. We need to get out of here before it starts snowing."

"How do you know it's going to snow?" Emma asked, as she followed her son back to the house.

"Logical deduction from your having suddenly arrived," David replied. "Also, meteorology is one of the eighteen disciplines of ninjutsu. Who would have guessed?"

The boys were efficient packers. Without even seeming to exchange any words, they gathered up everything they had brought with them from New York, and brought it down to the front porch, from where they began transferring it into April's van.

David took a moment to transfer himself into April's arms.

"It's so good to see you again!" April exclaimed, after they had embraced for a long moment. "I feel like you'd disown me if I said something as cliché as 'You've gotten so big', but…"

"But I'm not eight years old anymore?" David said, with a wry smile.

"Too bad," April said, with a matching twinkle in her eye. "You were cute then."

"So they were," Splinter agreed, before David could get off a witty comeback. "More obedient, too."

All the boys simultaneously pretended they were in no way associated with these old people.

They got back on the road with the four boys and Splinter all sitting in the rear of the van, along with the suitcase and some duffel bags and the IV pole and Snowflake. They were carefully avoiding the topic of who was going to be in what kind of trouble when they got home, and instead they were talking about some of their more innocent adventures at the farm.

"You know what?" Emma said. She reached for the buckle of her seatbelt. "I'm coming back there with all of you."

She climbed over the center console, careful not to jog April's elbow as they cruised down the highway at 65 miles per hour, and the boys made room for her to swing in behind the driver's seat.

"And then we put the cores in the ground and marked the spots," Michelangelo concluded. "When we go back, we'll see if trees grew."

"Thereby learning about botany and showing a faculty for long-term planning," David added, by way of justifying how his prolonged summer vacation counted towards his homeschool coursework.

"You're going to have to talk to the program about that one," Emma said. She put an arm around her son, tentatively, and he let her pull him to her. Leonardo put a hand on his knee, and he rested like that, stretched between two families, and seeming to be remarkably calm in how he was handling the whole thing.

They got back to New York after dark. April backed into the alley, and they all climbed out, taking David's things with them.

"After you," Emma said, unlocking the alley door and holding it open for her son.

But David was looking up. "You go on ahead," he said. "Open the window for me, okay?"

"Absolutely not," Emma replied. She shifted her grip on the door and gestured through it. "Let's go."

David took a half step back. "Leo…"

"It's all right, Dr. Lamb," Leonardo said, in that voice that was way too certain for a teenager. "We'll make sure he gets there safely." He glanced at his brothers. "Michelangelo, help him up. Raphael, take his things inside. I'll keep watch."

"You heard him," Raphael said, leaning towards her in a very subtly intimidating way as he juggled the things David was passing to him.

And before she could argue, Michelangelo was boosting David up the fire escape ladder, and if she didn't move, he was going to be sitting up there with no way to get inside.

Raphael followed her up the stairs, taking almost everything in one load. She pushed through the apartment door, flicked on the light, and crossed to the window, where David was crouched just beyond the pane, obviously trying to impress her with an exaggerated pose.

She slid up the sash, and Michelangelo helped him climb over the sill.

"Okay, I totally get why you guys do that," he said, grinning with delight.

Leonardo and Splinter materialized behind him, carrying the last of his things, and then they all stood there, a little uncertainly.

"Thank you," David said finally. "I mean it."

"It was our pleasure," Leonardo said, pressing one fist into the opposite palm.

"Keep up with your exercises, kohai," said Raphael.

"Write to us!" Michelangelo pleaded.

David rolled his eyes, but it was more affectionate than exasperated. "I will. I… need to research something, and then I'll get in touch with you."

Emma raised a brow. "Should I be worried?"

"I would say… cautiously optimistic," David replied.

"We look forward to whatever you do next, my son," Splinter said. He took a step back, and the three who would go with him followed in kind. "Be well."

Then they were gone, and Emma sensed that a whole new chapter of life with her son was just beginning.