Disclaimer: Unless you don't recognize them, I don't own them. No money or other profits are being made from this attempt at entertainment.
Fair warning, this is going to be an Alternate Universe fic. It takes place not too long after the 2007 CGI movie, but the Shredder is still alive and well and in charge of the Foot. Other details of the original timeline may or may not also be altered as I go along.
Also, for the purpose of my world the ages of the Turtles are Leo, Raph, Don then Mikey (from eldest to youngest). Personally, I just find Leo and Raph being the two eldest makes the most sense based on personalities and the interactions between the Turtles.
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Question – Do you guys prefer shorter, more frequent chapters or longer ones that would take a bit longer to publish? I typically prefer to write longer chapters, but so far at least this story is shaping up in such a way that I am comfortable with how the shorter chapters are working.
I could stick with the longer chapters as well, though.
Please let me know which you prefer in a review. Thanks!
Also, thanks for all the great reviews so far. Hearing positive feedback from you all really means a lot to me!
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Now that Leonardo was back and had reinstituted, and increased, their training and the patrolling of the city Donatello had even less time to spend in keeping up the systems around the lair and in making all the repairs that became necessary in a house full of rambunctious, teenage ninja. It made for many long nights and very little sleep.
He was currently in the middle of one of those long nights, as he worked to finish an update to the lair's security system that would, theoretically, increase its sensitivity to, for instance, enemy ninja sneaking up on them while decreasing the number of false alarms caused by the random sewer rat and other non-hostile creatures.
It was approaching eleven, and he was only making slow headway in his debugging efforts, when the lab door opened up and his eldest brother looked in, a frown on his face. "Donatello, what are you still doing up? We have training tomorrow morning."
Donatello held in a sigh; really, did Leonardo think he was a total idiot? "Yes, Leonardo. I'm aware of that. You've had us train every morning for the last month."
"Only because you need it! Seriously Donnie, what did you do while I was gone? All of you have become so rusty it's not funny. If we're to have any chance of defeating the Shredder and his Foot, we have to stay in top shape."
Donatello froze briefly after those words left his brother's mouth, thoughts racing through his head. What did I do while you were gone?! Oh, I don't know…how about tried to keep this family together, Splinter alive, and Raph from going over the deep end. What did YOU do while you were away, Leo? Besides become a Grade A asshole…
Of course, he didn't actually say any of it out loud. With the way Leonardo had been acting since he came back, it would only fall on deaf ears anyway.
He counted backwards from twenty in his head in Latin to help regain some of his calm before answering. "I apologize, Leonardo. I tried my best. That obviously was not adequate for this family, however. It was certainly most excellent fortune that you returned when you did. Now, if you will excuse me, it's late and, as you said, we do have training tomorrow."
He then moved as if to shut down his computers, really only putting them into standby mode, stood up from his desk chair and made his way past Leonardo and out the door of the lab. As he moved down the hall towards his bedroom he heard Leonardo call out to him, "Donnie, wait! That's not what I…"
Arriving safely at his bedroom door, he entered without so much as glancing at his brother. "Good night, Leonardo." The door closed between them, adding a physical presence to the barrier between him and his family.
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Several hours later, when Donatello was certain that everyone was asleep, he silently left his bedroom and returned to his lab. He had attempted to lose himself in some reading while waiting, but he hadn't been able to concentrate on the pages in front of him.
He was so very tired of it all. He was tired of being constantly compared to his brothers and never matching up; tired of working his shell off without so much as a 'thanks'; tired of being expected to bear the brunt of everyone's anger and unhappiness because, after all, he was the 'understanding one' and so shouldn't mind it when they took out their problems on him. It was all becoming too much to bear, yet there was no one to whom he could go to discuss his own problems; he was just met with uncaring attitudes and basically told to stop whining and be more like his brothers.
He closed the lab door firmly behind himself and walked over to his desk, sighing deeply as he sat down in his chair. He jiggled the mouse to wake up the computer and then entered his password. He stared blankly at the screen before him for several heartbeats before taking a determined, cleansing breath and forcing himself to concentrate on the programming strings in front of him. He had to get this project done tonight, and he had already lost several hours thanks to his brother's interruption. He didn't have the time for self-pity.
He wasn't allowed such a privilege.
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Finally, after hours of slouching in the same position in front of his computer screen, with only the occasional tapping on his keyboard to show that he was in fact still conscious, Donatello had completed, he hoped, the debugging of the upgrade. Stretching his arms high above his head and not bothering to stifle a large yawn, he felt the satisfying 'pop' of several bones moving back into place.
He gave a lopsided grin as he made a final pass through the program, thrilled when no new error messages appeared on the screen. Of course, he was certain that some tweaking would be required when he propagated the program over the network and ran it through the last batch of testing, but that could wait for tomorrow…or rather later today he realized as he glanced up at the clock in the bottom corner of his computer screen.
He did a final save, backing up his work on the separate hard drive designated for all the security system updates, and nearly cracked his jaw on another yawn as he waited for the back-up to finish.
Still wearing a small smile, he shut down the computer and made his way to his bedroom, collapsing on the bed as soon as he was close enough and, for the first time in several weeks, fell into a peaceful sleep.