A Million Miles Apart

A/N: Okay, here's the first, real chapter of this chapter and I hope that you'll like this chapter! I was listening to 'The Moon Rises' to get inspiration for the argument between the brothers and Donnie's thoughts, so if you've heard the song, you might recognise some things. And a little scene from Brave is also in there somewhere.

About my poll, so far seven people have voted and it's six against one so the plot from here would most likely be alternative number 1, which you can find on my profile. So, with one chapter left before the 'tragedy' happens, you can still vote before I delete the poll and write chapter three! So, if you haven't you can still check the poll out and vote. As many times as you'd like!

Anyway, hope you'll like this chapter and please review, favorite and follow!


Chapter 1, Big fights and three words

I walked around in my lab, thinking over the situation. Over the past few weeks I've been feeling more like a handy-man and less like a brother. And my brothers don't even seem to notice what they're doing. I mean, Raph and Leo never listen, they boss me around and/or give me a pounding if I don't obey them. Mikey hasn't really done anything out of the ordinary, just become maybe a little more thoughtless and clumsy. Nothing I can't handle. But that doesn't mean I should have to.

"I don't know, Timothy. It feels like they don't care about me anymore. I mean, I can do things no human can. Seriously, I can hack computers years ahead of our Earth's technology! I can make a cure for mutations! And I've made most our weapons out of garbage and made them fantastic! So why do they treat me like dirt and boss me around like a little kid who doesn't know anything?" I sat down in my computer chair and placed my face in my hands. I snuck a peek between my fingers at the frozen Timothy, who just stared out into the air. Anger started to boil up in me and I stood up, clenched my hands into fists and frowned at the closed the door that led to the living room where my brothers were watching TV.

"Is it so wrong to ask for a little consent? And is it so wrong to ask them to think of me as their brother and not as their personal assistant? I mean, why shouldn't they? Isn't it my right to feel like I'm loved by my own family? I've waited long enough for them to ease up and apologize for what they're doing, and I'm sick of it!" I placed my hands over my face and took deep breaths to calm down. Anger just clouds your mind, so much had I learned after living with Raph for fifteen years. If I wanted to talk with the others about this, I had to be calm and collected. I decided to go and try to talk with Leo about this, since he was the most mature and calm out of my brothers.

I walked out of the lab and into the living room and saw Leo, Raph and Mikey sitting and watching TV lazily. Mikey was sitting inches away from the TV screen and his blue eyes were filled with excitement and happiness. Raph and Leo also seemed rather pulled into the show as well. I decided to start slowly and not go right at the problem, wait until the show was over and then start to talk about the issue at hand. Leo smiled lightly at me when I sat down, but Raph and Mikey didn't even seem to notice me. The awkward tension between us felt so thick that you cut it with a knife, and I felt like I couldn't breathe with it clouding the atmosphere.

When the show was finally over, Leo stood up and said that it was time for patrol. But I was quick to interrupt.

"Uh, Leo? Can we talk for a second? I just wanna ask something." Leo looked sternly at me and raised an eyebrow, and for a moment I thought that he was suspicious about what I had to say.

"It's getting late, Donnie. If we don't go now, we'll get home late tonight." I nodded. I had expected this. Leo was always like this, he didn't want to waste time when it came to patrolling. It had been like that even before all this happened.

"I know, but it's really quick, I promise!" Raph rolled his eyes at me, picked up his sai from the couch and spun them between his fingers a few times before he secured them on his belt and sneered at me.

"Oh, come on, Leo! Stop wasting time talking, and let's go! He's probably just gonna complain again, like he always does." I stopped for a second, blinked twice and it took a few seconds to process what Raph had said. But when I understood what Raph was implying, I glared at him angrily and put on my hand on my hip.

"Excuse me? You wanna run that by me again? What do you mean, I always complain?!" Raph turned to me, a little surprised to see me so angry, but recovered himself and glared right back at me.

"Only that all you seem to do lately is complain. 'Oh, Leo and Raph, you never listen to me! Mikey, you're in the way when I try to work on my experiments! Can't you just try to treat me with respect?' Ugh! Donnie, I'm gonna give you some advice: nobody wants to listen to a whiner!" I felt my own anger build up inside and instead of ignoring Raph, like I should have, I yelled right back at him.

"Oh, so that means I have to put up with Leo never listening to me, you disrespecting me and Mikey being in the way when I try to work? I am trying to create more retromutagen, create more smoke bombs- that you requested, by the way- and also try to come up with new weapons to help us defeat Shredder and Kraang! How can I do that when you guys always interrupt or give me other things to do?!" Raph was about to yell back when Leo stepped between us and glared- at me! In the corner of my eye I saw that Mikey looked pretty hurt, but right now my eyes were glued on Raph and Leo.

"Okay, that's enough, Donnie, you're way out of line!" I almost didn't believe what I was hearing. Leo was defending Raph and accusing me of being too harsh. I turned my anger towards Leo instead.

"ME? What have I done to-" Leo interrupted and grabbed his swords, putting them on his back.

"Come on team, let's go on patrol. And Donnie, we'll have to talk about this new attitude of yours later." I was furious! How was this fair? Why was I made the bad guy here? They were the ones that didn't treat me fairly! I groaned loudly and drew my staff out of the strap on my back, swinging it around in frustration.

"Ugh! This is so unfair!" Leo turned to me and raised an eyebrow. Raph looked mildly amused, but at the same time incredibly bored, and Mikey just looked confused. Leo looked me in the eyes, placed both hands on his sides and put on a stern face.

"Oh? How is this unfair?" I turned to him again and I had to blink a few times so I wouldn't start crying. I had been ridiculed, insulted and disrespected by my brothers. I was not about to give them the satisfaction of seeing me break down crying.

"You've never been there for me! All that I'm doing in the lab, that I'm building, inventing and creating, is for you guys! But you never ever ask me if I have any ideas of my own or if I want anything from you! And you always expect me to fix everything in this home without any second thoughts! That is unfair!" Leo scoffed, rolled his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest.

"Ugh, Donnie do you even hear yourself? We're all putting our lives on the lines everyday in order to fight the evil in this city and even this world, and you're complaining about not getting enough respect? You're acting like a baby! I get teased, ridiculed and disrespected by you three and you don't hear me complaining!" I took a deep breath, closed my eyes for a second and tried to calm down a little.

"Yeah, you do. Remember that time in China Town? You wanted us to fight the way you did when the point of the exercise was to get past you in any way we could. You complained then, didn't you?" Leo growled, walked up to me and dropped his arms to his sides.

"Yeah? Well, just because I was wrong about wanting you guys to fight like I did and I shouldn't force you to be like me, doesn't mean I should have to deal with you treating me like dirt and complain about how I act as your leader!" Okay, talk about a hypocrite right there! He was saying that I shouldn't complain about being disrespected when he does the exact same thing. In fact, he was complaining and whining right when he was scolding me for doing it!

"You're such a hypocrite, you know that? You felt the same way I do right now, and you tell me to not react the same way you did?" Leo glared at me, and I could see he was trying to calm down.

"Donnie, I learned that doing the right thing is more important than to earn respect and glory, maybe you should learn that too and not go around looking for admiration or love. Like you do with April." My jaw fell to the floor. How could this be Leonardo? My big brother, who always strove to make us happy and keep us all safe? But I didn't loose my footing.

"Oh, you mean like how you're obsessed with Karai and making her come over to our side?" Leo was taken back and for a moment I thought he was gonna yell at me, but we got interrupted. Raph rolled his eyes, pushed Leo out of the way and shoved his face up by mine. A little closer than I liked, but I was too angry to care.

"Okay, Donnie; if you're gonna stand here and try to convince us that we're the bad guys here, then maybe you should take a look in the mirror yourself! You ditched us when April was in danger before, even though you knew we needed you! You released that monster of yours in your lab because you couldn't keep your mouth shut! You haven't exactly been doing nothing but great things lately either!" Anger clouded my head and I couldn't think clearly. I shoved Raph away from me and glared at him.

"Oh, sure, I'm the only one who's done horrible things! I saved one of our friends from being killed and you sent your pet turtle out to kill us, after you spilled mutagen in your room! Why did you take that mutagen again? Oh yeah, 'for safe keeping'. A great idea, by the way, Raph!" Raph growled at me and pushed me back.

"You were firing explosive fireworks around the lair and almost killed us and Spike! You've done nothing but mess up and have almost killed us more than once!" I pressed my finger into his plastron and pressed my face closer to his.

"At least I'm doing something to help the situation! You've done nothing lately other than give me pointless things to do here in the lair!" Raph's face showed nothing but pure rage, and he was about to yell back at me when Mikey interrupted us.

"Guys, come on, don't fight." He stepped forward and stretched out his arms. "Can't we all just get along? We're all bros here, no need to be jerks to each other."

He turned to me. "Donnie, I'm sorry that I've messed up some of your experiments. I just wanted to hang out with you, but your experiments kept getting in the way." And for a second I almost bougt his apology and felt my anger cool down a little. But then I processed what Mikey was saying, that he didn't respect my work enough to leave it alone or be careful around it, and I was about to question Mikey about it, when Raph interrupted.

"Don't apologize, Mikey. He's just fishing for sympathy, just ignore him!" Immediately the anger returned to me and I seethed at Raph again.

"I am not! I'm just asking for a little respect! Is that a crime?" Leo shook his head, placed his hand on Raph's shoulder and gently pushed him aside. He walked up in front of me and talked calmly.

"Of course not, but you're acting like you want us to look up to you or worship your work, and granted, your inventions are really cool, but you can't force us to think you're awesome or something like that. It doesn't work like that!" Yeah, but wasn't what I meant. If I were a little calmer, then maybe this discussion could've turned out better, but sadly I was furious and couldn't help myself.

"Have you been listening to anything that I've been telling you?! I'm not asking for you to admire me, I just-" Leo interrupted again, held up his hand in a 'stop, there's no point in arguing with me' way and looked sternly at me.

"That is enough, Donatello! I will hear no more of this!" I felt the tears burn in my eyes, so I looked down at my feet, blinked hard to get rid of them and bit my lower lip. Three small words managed to slip out of my mouth. Three words that I thought I would never say to any of my brothers, ever. But still, they came out my mouth, not louder than a whisper but still loud enough so everyone in the room could hear them.

"I hate you..." I looked up for a second to see the reactions, and I felt a small twinge of victory in my chest. Leo took a step back and looked both a bit shocked and hurt, and his glare had melted into a sad and hurt face. Raph's narrowed his eyes and looked away, but he looked a little hurt as well, but he tried to cover it up with a glare, folded his arms over his chest and looked down at the floor, trying to look unfazed. Mikey looked most shocked, like he hadn't expected that I would say something like that, but I refused to feel bad for what I said. It had to be said or I would explode from the anger built up in my heart.

"Boys? What is going on in here? Why haven't you gone out for your evening patrol?" We all turned to Master Splinter, who stood in the doorway to the dojo and looked at us with stern but concerned eyes. I quickly dried away the few tears that had managed to slip out from my eyes, turned to Splinter again and tried to smile.

"It's okay, Sensei, we were just about to leave. Right, bros?" It took all the strength and willpower I had to say the word 'bros', since I was still mad at them, but I couldn't let Master Splinter know that. Leo nodded slowly and looked up at Splinter, but didn't even bother to try and smile. He sighed sadly.

"Yeah, right..." He looked down at the floor immediately after and we all started to walk out of the lair. Before I walked out of the lair I turned to look over my shoulder, at Splinter, and looked at his face. I could see that he saw that something was wrong, but I decided to tell him about what happened when we got back, and ran out of the lair to catch up with the others.

Even though it felt so good to get it all off my chest, I couldn't help but feel guilty over what I had said just a few seconds ago. I knew that we all got into fights sometimes, and we had all said things we didn't mean before. But the words 'I hate you' had never, ever been brought into those fights. Not even between Leo and Raph. Not even when we were kids. I walked behind my brothers and saw that none of them were smiling or even trying to look normal.

In a way, I had won the fight. But this victory didn't feel the least bit good, as I had hoped that it would.


A/N: Wow, that was a tense chapter. I actually started to write this last night, cause I knew the argument had to be good, so that it would be all the more heartbreaking when tragedy strikes, and you know it will. I hope I didn't villanize any of the turtles, cause that wasn't the intention. The intention is make both sides have flaws, not see things that clearly and in the end learn a lesson about how they're acting. Not just Leo, Raph and Mikey.

Well, I hope you liked this chapter and please review, favorite and follow! G'night everybody!