Donnie remembers the look in his little brother's eyes the minute he ceased to exist and wishes he didn't.

Mikey sits on his desk and swings his legs back and forth; nervous tick obviously, because his brother was watching his face, and how he moved and if he breathed. Donnie checks Mikey sixteen and a half times and Mikey promptly stops Don from making it a seventeenth, shrugging is brother away, keeping his eyes low so he doesn't have to see the pain Dee's got in is face, screwing it up tight.

"'S fine, Dee…barely even a scratch- honest," he mumbles and keeps kicking his legs out, pulling them back, glancing up to watch his brother drop into his desk chair.

So here they were, and this was dumb, and Donnie purses his lips, shakes his hanging head.

"No, Mikey, it's really not."

Okay, so it isn't. But thinking about it, and letting the adrenaline die and subside enough so that they felt this- so that all the crazy things they were feeling then register- was the worst. Because they go fast and they are warriors and crazy things were just side-effects of war, and so was being afraid.

Donnie was- and, god, maybe he still is- afraid. Even if they didn't have time to be.

"You were there, and then you weren't," Don says, above a whisper, and drags his hands down his face, scrubbing at the lines and creases, "And it was….scary- e-every particle and…a-and molecule…gone-? and then you decided stay behind-"

The lab is quiet besides the whirring machines, and Donnie's croaking words get caught in his throat. But Mikey pushes that all aside, loosens his grip on the desk and shrugs.

"Well, what else was I s'possed ta do, Dee? Let everyone just…" he looks at his hands and lets them unfold on his làp, pushing hìs breaths out, "Y'know?" he winces and scratches his neck, "Guess you know….It felt totally weird. Trippy, I guess. I was here- o-or there? But I wasn't? I dunno, I never felt that before…"

And Donnie rests his head in his hands, elbows on his knees. He knows how it feels to be torn apart, and Mikey shouldn't.

"You shouldn't," Donnie says, "You…that shouldn't have…have happened, Mikey."

But it did, and here they are with the side-effects of war. Again.

Mikey folds his arms, twists his lips and stares at the ceiling, "You guys totes do that, though. Like, all the time-"

"Doesn't matter," Donnie cuts in, standing up to put his supplies into the rusted metal drawers, "It's…that's not your job, Mikey."

"Okay, dude, we don't have jobs. We're a freaking team first out there, brothers second, right?"

"No," Donnie closes the drawer roughly, pressing is palm against his desk, "No, we're brothers first- brothers here and out there. Mikey, we're never not…brothers. A-and….and you just don't get to go and almost die like that. We need you, okay?"

And in their silence, and in the way that Donnie's words hang in the air, in this shared space, Mikey sees his brother's fear, his paranoia, and everything that manifested itself as his brotherly love. But they're not who they were last year, or even yesterday; they're newer and life is rougher and Mikey can't promise he'll stay in his place anymore.

"We need you too, Dee," he says, quiet and hurt, catching Donnie's eyes before he lies back on the desk, watching dust float under the poor lights of the lab, sighing, "Holy cats, we do almost die a lot, though," he breathes, thinking of Leo and the farmhouse and Donnie every other week, and Raph and casey, April- his father.

And Donnie calms down, sighing too as he watches whatever Mikey's looking at, "Yep."

"Do you think it'll, like, ever not be that way?"

"Maybe…but, ah, I'm…I'm- I not too hopeful."

"Well I'm tired now, dude…" Mikey yawns, and yet somehow his words hold more depth than that, than anything their minds want to comprehend right now.

So Donnie agrees all the same and they stay quiet, listening to Casey come in with pizza they weren't really hungry for anyway, and hope beyond hope that this would br the last time, knowing they'll be here again, talking bout dying and almost dying and how unpleasant and messed up it all was.

So here they are, wishing to be better things, and tallying up the unfair, unfortunate things of life like counting stars and dust that falls from the ceiling and onto tired, worn faces.