It's not quite a year before Mikey stumbled into their sewers again, but it's still far too long. He'd filled out in the meantime, muscle making him thicker around the neck, arms, and torso, but all Raph can see when he looks at him is how unprotected he is, how easily a hard fall or particularly brutal beating could tear him from their lives again.

And he's furious that his little brother led him on a wild goose chase for a year, making him worried out of his mind, but while anger isn't anything new, he knows Don and Leo can handle him when things start to get a little out of hand. He doesn't know that with Mikey. If he marched right up to him, grabbed him by those ridiculous shoulder pads, and shook him… How could he be sure that he wouldn't snap his neck?

So when the others rush forward to greet him, meeting nervous, bright blue eyes and a tentative smile with the open arms and acceptance Mike had hoped for but hardly dared to expect, Raph turned his back on the group, intending to stalk back into their den, give himself a second to think before he let his emotions get away with him and did or said something he'd regret.

He didn't get far. A sharp, stinging pain brought him up short.

Raph spun on the spot, the back of his head smarting something fierce, to see a young, blond-haired ninja with a wry smirk twisting his features and a dark undercurrent to the easygoing, devil-may-care attitude he exuded. "I'm pretty partial to the goofball, so do you think maybe you could stick around?" Who was this guy? Had they even met? "Course, if that's too much of a hassle, we could always come back in another year or so." The smirk grew into a full punch-me-in-face grin. Raph wasn't going anywhere now.

His sai were out and spinning, teeth bared in a snarl, ready to smack some of this stranger's pretty boy good looks into mush, when Mikey, having somehow managed to disentangle himself from Don and Leo, deftly stepped between them without even the slightest hint that he was aware of the situation,"Zack!" There was a frustration in his tone that Raph was more used to hearing come from their fearless leader. It sounded foreign coming from his knucklehead little brother. "I asked you to wait until I smoothed things over a little first."

Zack shrugged, entirely unrepentant. "I got bored."

Mikey let out an amused huff, rolling his eyes in fond exasperation. "You're impossible, you know that?" He slung an arm over the his friend's shoulders, anxiety already fading to little more than a dull flutter in his chest, and turned to face the rest of his family with the exaggeratedly pleading expression of a child asking for a puppy. "Can I keep him?"

Raph couldn't believe it when Leo actually seemed to consider the idea, or when Donnie wryly commented on the audacity of asking for a pet, "Hey!" when he'd only just come home, and stalked off, the last words the ninja had spoken to him replaying over and over like a demented nursery rhyme in his mind.

"Raph, wait!" A heavy hand on Mikey's shoulder stopped him from following him immediately. He peered back to see Leo shaking his head.

"Give him some time to get adjusted. He'll come around."

Mikey had known it wouldn't be as simple as just showing up on their doorstep and everything would return to normal, but he'd allowed himself to hope, regardless. There were things he'd done and learned and seen over the past several months that he wouldn't give up, because all those experiences were a part of him now. But it hurt to see that, with the time he'd spent away from home, the place where he'd used to fit in so snuggly might not exist, anymore.

Seeing the light slowly eek from his eyes, Leo sighed, then gently cuffed him upside the head. While rubbing the area gingerly, Mikey fixed him with a wounded expression. "Come on. There's a few slices of leftover pizza that should stave you two off until dinner time." He hesitated, mulling over his next words carefully. "And we're going to have to explain to sensei how you and Zack got acquainted, somehow."

A gravely bellow from further down the tunnel interjected, "He's not staying here!"

Upon hearing that, Zack took several confident strides forward, announcing with the knowing airs of a prophet, "Me and him, we're gonna be friends." He flashed a winning grin at the disconcerted trio behind him. "I can already tell."

A/N: *shows up five years late with Starbucks*