AN: I had a conversation similar to this with myself yesterday, and rather than acknowledge my latent schizophrenic tendencies, I decided to change a few details and call it a plot bunny. I pried this little 'bunny' out of my head and pinned it to the metaphorical paper rather quickly, so please feel free to point out any grammar errors or fiddly bits I might have missed.

I hope you enjoy, gentle readers.

The grandfather clock in the living room chimed three a.m., and Donatello was the only one awake to hear it.

At any other time the sound might have been soothing, but right now all it did was remind him of the sleep he wanted but could not attain. It reminded him of the restlessness that made his mind spin with all the useless energy of a hamster's wheel, forcing him out of his room and into the dojo, where he had spent the last hour trying to still his thoughts through physical activity. Unfortunately, it had done nothing but make him sweaty and irritable, and the wooden practice dummy was looking more and more like a genuine enemy with each passing moment.

Don grimaced and adjusted his grip on the corded hilt of the bokken. The wooden weapon was not one he preferred to practice with, but it had been close at hand, and the unfamiliarity of it required extra concentration to wield properly. Another method that he'd hoped would quell the mire of his thoughts, and another method that had failed entirely.

His foot slid across the tatami matt as Don shifted his weight, and he attacked the dummy with an upward cut that hit it under the chin with a resonate 'thwack.' If nothing else, the sound was satisfying, and so he twisted his wrist and sliced downward, creating a visible indent on the pocked wood of the dummy's chest. Even though its supporting pole had been designed with struts to minimize movement, the pitiable thing still vibrated and danced, inching back and forth across the matt as Don struck it again and again, each blow a little harder than the last.

After a short while, it would have become apparent to an observer that Don had given up on actual practice. His attacks rained down on the hapless simulacrum with little regard for grace or form, but the tight smile on his face said that he was deriving a base satisfaction from the sound of punished wood. The easy flexing of his muscles and the vibration that sang up his arms on impact were both indicative of a body that bent readily to his will, even though his treacherous mind would not.

It was immediately after delivering a particularly punishing blow to the dummy's shoulder that Don realized he'd gone too far. The bokken vibrated furiously on contact, and then there came the sudden, sharp sound of breaking wood. A long shard of the wooden sword forcibly separated from the main body, where it ricocheted off the concrete floor and spun like a miniature comet toward the dojo door. The entryway turned out to be occupied, and Don looked up just in time to see Raphael duck with an abortive cry of surprise, the shard of wood missing the side of his head by millimeters.

Raph straightened with a growl and reflexively touched his temple. "What the hell was that for?"

"Sorry." The word sounded more clipped than he'd intended, so Don forced himself to relax, despite the blood that still pounded in his ears. "Are you okay? I didn't know anyone else was up."

"I'll live," Raph replied. His hand dropped back to his side, and he gave Don a look that was a mixture of equal parts curiosity and annoyance. "What's up with you tonight? Your pounding could've woken the dead."

"Nothing. I got a little carried away, and my hand slipped. That's all."

"Yeah, right. You haven't smashed a bokken since you were nine, and that was only 'cause Mike fell on you."

Irritation flared up like a brush fire, and Don turned away before the unaccustomed emotion could show in his eyes. With the hilt of the broken weapon still clutched in his hand, he began walking towards the bench, where his water bottle still wept cool beads of condensation. "I'm permitted to make a mistake once a decade, you know. It's-" He stepped off the tatami matt, and a rouge splinter from the shattered bokken drove like a lance through the hard callus of his heel. The unexpected pain stopped him in his tracks, making him drop the hilt and grip his stricken appendage in both hands. "Damn it!"

His brother watched with some amusement as Don hissed like a snapper and hopped awkwardly over to the bench. He sat down hard, exasperation in his every movement, and pulled up his foot to get a good look at the damage. The splinter had slid in deep, burying itself almost entirely into his skin, and his halfhearted attempts to pull it out manually were met without success. The urge to curse again was strong, and he might have given in to the temptation if Raph hadn't chosen that moment to speak.

"You're freaking clumsy tonight, bro. Now I know something's up." Raph walked across the matt without incident and sat down with considerably more grace than Don had displayed, before waving a hand at his wounded sibling. "Gimme your foot."

"Thanks," Don said curtly, "but I got it. All I need is a needle."

An eye roll told the world exactly what Raph thought of that idea. "Yeah, yeah. You can either hop to the infirmary like a stoned rabbit, or you can let me get it out now. Your choice."

Don had a very Raph-like urge to tell him were he could stuff his offer, but fortunately the compulsion faded quickly. Shrugging with exaggerated indifference, he turned and let his brother pull his foot into his lap. Raph rotated Don's heel, whistled at the damage revealed in the dojo's dim light, and then carefully tried to hook a thumbnail under the offending bit of wood. After a moment, he said, "So what's got your panties in a twist?"

"You have quite a bedside manner," Don said with a weak edge of laughter. The anger was draining fast, taking with it the restless energy that had prompted his late night 'training' session. The sweat was drying fast on his brow, thanks to the cool, musty air in the room, and he felt the hard lines of muscle across his shoulders begin to relax. Once he got over the slightly surreal aspect of it all, it was kind of nice to have Raph here, especially when the perpetual fire of his brother's anger had dimmed to banked embers. They really didn't talk often enough…

"Have you ever felt- I mean-" The words had tumbled out without thought, only to stutter on his tongue and die almost immediately. He paused and glanced upward, as if hoping to derive the appropriate words from the pattern of ancient brickwork. After a while, he seemed to give up, and looked down at his hands with a sigh. "Oh, never mind. I can't explain it."

Raph's eyes never strayed from his task, and the mild tone in his voice didn't change an iota when he said, "You're a smart guy, Don. Give it a shot."

Unsure how to put words to a mess of emotions he had only begun to analyze himself, Don shrugged uncomfortably. "It's nothing major, really. I ordered a book online, which deals with geometric and quaternionic treatment of rotation operators. It finally came in this afternoon, and since I couldn't get to sleep tonight, I thought I'd start on the first chapter. Unfortunately, I couldn't seem to concentrate on what the author was saying. I read the same paragraph three times, and I couldn't remember a word of it." Don dug the heels of his hands into his eyes, as if to force out a headache. "This isn't the first time it's happened, either. No matter what I do nowadays, I feel scattered and unfocused and itchy."

"There's Benadryl in the medicine cabinet," Raph deadpanned.

Don snorted and muttered something uncomplimentary about literal-minded siblings. His cheek earned him a rap across the instep, courtesy of one of his brother's boney knuckles.

"I'm just restless, I suppose," he finally said, his voice sobering as his attention turned inward. "Anxious and uneasy, you know? I have been for a while now, and it seems to get worse every week. My skin is starting to feel too tight, and sometimes all I want to do is scratch at it until it rips away, so I can crawl out and… and become someone else for a while."

This time Raph did glance up. "That's rather dark, bro. That emo shit is usually my department."

Don closed his eyes and grinned crookedly, willing himself not to flush from embarrassment. "Heh… that's what happens when you couple depression with an overactive imagination."

His brother's eyes slid back down to the foot held between his hands, and his expression tightened in annoyance when the splinter eluded his grasp yet again. "So that's the diagnosis, eh? The brainiac is depressed."

"I'm not usually prone to that kind of thing, but all the symptoms are there. I'm tired all the time, and yet I can't seem to shut my mind off long enough to sleep. My concentration's shot, I'm getting headaches for no apparent reason, I'm irritable, and I'm starting to lose interest in things." He gave his companion a penetrating look, trying to make him understand. "I haven't picked up a soldering iron in three days, Raph. Do you have any idea how rare that is for me?"

"You've been pretty good at hiding it. I don't think even Splinter's figured out that something's up."

"He'll catch on soon enough, I'm sure. The whole thing's been getting harder to hide. I nearly lost it today when Leo started lecturing us about the importance of stealth during our trips topside. As if the concept hadn't been drilled into us since we were old enough to walk."

There was a tug and a sharp pain in his heel that made him pause, and an instant later Raph let out a 'Ha!' of triumph. He held up a bloody sliver of wood about an inch long, letting Don take a look at it before sending it spinning away into a dark corner of the dojo. Don pulled his foot out of his brother's lap with a murmured 'thanks,' and then pressed his thumb against the pinprick hole in his flesh, stopping the blood before it had a chance to flow. "Christ, I don't know," he continued with a sigh. "Maybe it has a simple medical explanation, like a neurotransmitter imbalance or hypothyroidism."

The medical terminology flew over Raph's head with barely a whisper of displaced air. He shrugged indifferently and commandeered Don's water bottle, using a little of the liquid to clean his hands. He dried off with one of the towels that were stacked neatly beside the bench, took a swig of water, and then set the bottle down between them. "Tell me something," he said. "Where are you when you feel the most normal? Recently, I mean."

"It's hard to say. Sometimes when I'm in my lab, or when we're relaxing topside."

"And during those times, are you alone?"

"No. On the surface, all of you guys are there, and usually Casey and April, too. And when I'm in my lab, April will stop by sometimes to help me out." Don grinned suddenly and gave his usually reclusive brother an amused look. "So are you saying that I need hang out with people more often?"

"Well, I always did think you had an unhealthy fascination with your gadgets, but that's not what I meant." The wryness faded away, and Raph's voice took on a more solemn edge. "One more question. When you're lying in bed and you can't sleep, what are you thinking about?"

"A lot of things," Don said curiously, unsure where this interrogation was heading. "It would take too long to list them all."

"I bet they all have something in common, though. Or someone."

Perhaps it was the subtle way his shoulders drew back, or the way his eyes hardened slightly, but Don quickly became aware of a shift in Raph's mood. There was no explosion of anger or string of heated words, but he felt their potential hanging in the air like an autumn chill. His brother was angry, and he didn't have a clue what he'd done to set him off. The change was abrupt and disconcerting, and Don felt himself begin to tense again.

"What are you implying?"

"I'm not implying anything. I'm flat out telling you what the problem is, and I'm telling you to stop it. Right now." Raph stood up in a quick, irritated motion and stabbed at Don with the blade of his index finger. "I won't have my brother brought down by a woman."

He drew back slightly from the heat in Raph's voice, feeling more confused by the second. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Yes, you do. I've seen how your eyes light up when you're around her, and how you get quiet for a while after she leaves. Give me some credit, Donnie. I don't have that big brain of yours, but that doesn't mean I don't notice things."

"You're noticing things that aren't there!" he protested. "I care for April a great deal; we all do. It doesn't mean that I have any special feelings for her. What kind of sense would that make?"

The overhead light tinted Raph's biceps with panels of emerald green as he crossed his arms. His eyes were piercing, as if they could stab through Don's skull and read the truth written inside. "That's the real kick in the crotch, isn't it? It doesn't make sense, 'cause you know damn well nothing could ever come of it. She's human, and you're not. End of story."

A chill shot through Don like miniature shockwave, and he found himself on his feet and bristling in automatic defense. "You think I don't know that? You think I'm not reminded every time I have to hide behind a dumpster, because the person we just rescued would scream at the sight of me? You think I'm not reminded every time I have to manipulate a tool meant for five fingers? Do you really think I'm not reminded every time…"

"Every time Casey takes her out on a date, and the only thing you can offer her is leftover pizza in the middle of a stinking sewer."

Fury curled his hands into fists, tightening the tendons in his arms until he was unable to unclench his fingers. "You're an asshole sometimes, Raphael," he said thinly. "I'm leaving."

He turned sharply on his heel, the lingering pain of the splinter easily ignored, and would have left then if Raph hadn't reached out and snagged his shoulder. Don twisted around to knock the hand away, but his brother pulled his arm back and stepped out of reach with an enviable turn of speed. When he spoke a moment later, the intensity in his voice had not changed, but some of the anger had disappeared, replaced by an emotion that was dangerously close to compassion.

"You can kill it, you know. That feeling."

With ire still coursing through his veins like a drug, Don did not feel inclined to continue the discussion. But since he could do nothing to quell his curiosity, he found himself grudgingly asking, "What do you mean? What's with you tonight?"

"It's like a lead weight in your chest sometimes, isn't it? It weighs you down and tires you out, and it gets heavier every day. After a while, it gets hard to breathe around it." He raised an inquiring eye ridge, and in a gesture as natural as breathing, curled his hands over the pommels of his sais. "Well? Have I hit the nail on the head yet, or should I keep swinging?"

"You're not even in the same ballpark," he replied, mixing metaphors with a vengeance.

"Bet you a dollar."

Don had a brief, vivid fantasy of drawing back his fist and attempting to drive it through Raph's face. The compulsion was so unfamiliar it was jarring, and so he unclenched his hands with an effort, shaking out the tension in his arms and struggling for calm. "I don't know what you want me to say. What do you want from me?"

"Nothing, except for you to listen. You don't have to lie down and take this crap, Donnie. You can kill it and burn it and scatter the ashes, so that you never have to feel this way again."

Don's heart tightened like a vise, and he turned his face away before the pain of it could show in his eyes. "It's not that simple."

"Yes, it is. All those useless feelings are only permanent if you want them to be. If you want free of them badly enough, you can drive them away. It'll hurt like hell for a while, but you can wall them away with steel and concrete, and trap them in the darkest corner of your soul."

Poetic turns of phrase were not usually Raph's forte, and that more than anything else forced Don not to reject his words out of hand. If his brother felt the need to use 'frou-frou speech,' as he so mockingly called it, then it meant that what he was trying to convey was important to him, and that it had probably been on his mind for a long time.

Feeling strange, as if he were listening to this conversation from the safety of another room, Don heard himself ask, "And then what?"

"You wait for them to die."

Those probing amber eyes suddenly became too much to bear, and Don turned away, his own eyes roaming over the sparse interior of the room. He spotted the broken practice weapon lying a few feet away, and he immediately scooped it up and walked over to the trash barrel, where he interred the bokken hilt with exaggerated care.

Needing a moment to collect himself, he ran one finger absently over the ribbed rim of the barrel. Not surprisingly, he found himself thinking of the way she talked, of the slimness of her fingers, and of her 'secret' collection of Transformer VHS tapes… and he couldn't help but laugh at the absurdity of it all.

"If you're telling me to hate her, then that's not going to happen."

Raph seemed to find the idea just as improbable, for he snorted and said, "Nah. You couldn't even if you wanted to, and April doesn't deserve that. Especially not from you. But if you keep at it long enough, you can achieve something better than hate."

"What?"

"Indifference."

The way Raph said the word gave it a resonance, an importance that its actual meaning lacked. Quite unwillingly, it made Don think of her again. Of her love affair with physics, of her corn snake Hexadecimal, and of the way she could cut him down or build him up with a single word.

He shook his head and struggled with an unfamiliar emotion; that frustrated, resentful feeling of a student who cannot comprehend what everyone else in the class seemed to understand intuitively.

Indifference? He simply could not imagine it.

"It's not possible," he finally said. "How can you just wall away something like that? And waiting for them to die? Emotions can't be killed like people can."

"Go with whatever you wanna believe, bro," Raph said cavalierly, as if he hadn't spent the past ten minutes tearing down Don's defenses brick by brick. "I'm just saying that a little self-denial might come in handy."

"Self-denial? How remarkably Zen."

The sardonicism in Don's tone prompted Raph to roll his eyes and turn away. He might have left then, but Don stopped him a touch on his arm. He kept his grip light and apologetic as he stared at the back of his brother's head; his hot-tempered, simplistic brother, who he thought he understood so well, but obviously didn't get at all.

"Look, Raph, I'm sorry. I really am. But all of this is a little hard to swallow, coming from you."

"A few months after we first met her, I asked April if I could touch her hair." Raph turned his head, grimaced at the expression on Don's face, and pulled his arm out of the other's unresisting grasp. "Don't give me that look. I was curious, okay? I wanted to know if a human's hair was as soft as it looked on television.

"Funny thing was; she let me do it. She just sat down beside me without a lick of hesitation, and let me run my grubby fingers through her hair. I was nervous and my hands were rough, so I had to've ripped out a dozen strands in the process… but she wasn't disgusted, and she didn't pull away. She just looked at me through the mess of tangles I'd made and smiled."

Raph shook his head at the memory, and the movement made light play down his bandanna tails in little waves of crimson. With an air of finality, he walked away, pausing at the doorway only long enough to fix his brother with one last penetrating look. His expression was eloquent when he said, in a parting shot that hit Don like a slap, "April is one in a million. Did you think you were the first person to realize that?"