Disclaimer: I don't own turtles! Or Casey! Or April! Or Splinter! Or Karai OR ANYTHING IN THIS STORY!

A:N: Mike-centricish. Short one shot. Boredom, character analysis...yay. Oh right. Takes place between seasons 3 and 4.

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Healing Wounds

The ride was silent except for the sound of the truck grumbling down the dirt roads. Michelangelo looked behind him into the window of Casey's truck. The goofball didn't even have the heart to be a goofball. And how could he blame him? Not even he really had the heart to make a joke right now.

The recent events had been for all intents and purposes, a cheer-killer. After all that had happened, the betrayal, the pain, the closure...all of the stress and pain had just burst and instead of being enclosed in a bubble, they were all awash in it. Karai had betrayed them, and while he had never fully trusted the woman, Leonardo did; and that was good enough for him. And then, she went and did that. Betrayal! That alone was enough to infuriate the turtle.

But it wasn't just that. Injuries were given and taken to everyone. Not just physical, emotional injuries, deeper as any of the cuts that they may have sustained. Pride, ego, trust, hope; why would they hold onto these after each and every one of them were stabbed in the back. Some more literally than most.

Michelangelo was surrounded by the faces of these evident pains. Leonardo, most notably bore the look of anguish, and not just that: rage. A face common on Raph, but the likes of which he would have never expected to see on his brother. That alone gave Mike reason to doubt his own ideas that things would be okay again. Leo was bandaged, but that was just a flesh wound. The scars Karai really left would lie inside; grow, take root, and perhaps rot him from the inside.

Raph was opposite him, and he looked like he had lost just about everything. A person like Raph could deal with the pains of battle, broken bones but the injuries he could not handle came to the ego. Raph was embarrassed at how laughably the five of them had done. He could care less about his ribs, those were nothing to that which plagued him most: They were destroyed. Completely. Karai, he had never trusted the woman and he was right not to have, she had shown her true self at last. This wasn't startling, but it was still a major slap in the face.

Even Donatello, who sat next to Michelangelo bore a look of sadness, a look which not often accompanied those thoughtful, far off eyes. But today, those eyes were strictly grounded, stuck in the real world, not into far off places, not his tools, not the skies. Among the many other losses and injuries, Leatherhead may very well be gone. The loss of a friend was no easy thing to live with, and Donatello especially had trouble dealing with the idea he may be gone for good.

In the center of the turtles was their master, their sensei, no. Their father. He sat before them, legs folded below him, eyes closed. His fur was blackened and burnt, and his injuries ran deep as any of his sons. That solemn look, the furrowed brow. He was not upset for his own sake, his sons being as injured as they were took as much out of him, or perhaps more as anything else.

And then there he sat; Michelangelo, the wiseguy, the jokester. Admittedly, he had gotten off easier than some of the others, but he had as much a right as they to be sitting there brooding. But, he could not. Michelangelo had to put on his stupid grin and make his stupid jokes. Why? Because it was what was expected of him. If he weren't joking, if he didn't keep lighthearted, there would be no sense of normalcy, a sense that was sorely needed. He had to keep his happy face on, because it was his job to be the happy one.

And so, the turtle cracked a smile, and let out a groan inducing, "Are we there yet?"