"What the SHELL is wrong with you?!" Raph's voice was loud, yet it didn't startle Leonardo who was only reveling in the peaceful quiet that came after destroying that terrible radio. There was no more pressure in his head. No more noise that seemed to invade his head and swell his brain. Everything was new once again and Donatello… he wasn't there, sitting on the edge of his vision like a feverish nightmare.

Not understanding Leonardo's relaxed form, Raphael became angrier. He shoved Leonardo in the shoulder as hard as he could. A sense of satisfaction crept over the red banded turtle when his older brother tensed and frowned.

"Do I have your attention now?"

Leo narrowed his eyes. "You didn't need to shove me."

"No, I didn't, but I wanted to. I want to do a lot more than that to you too."

"Don't start-"

"Start what Leo?! Start losing it, like you? Do you have any idea what kind of damage you just did?! It took me months to get Mikey to be okay enough to help me in the kitchen and you just come in acting all crazy and breaking Donnie's stuff!"

Leo opened his mouth only to have whatever he would have said be cut off by his brother continuing his angry rant.

"At first I thought you just needed your space after Donnie died."

The eldest turtle flinched at that last word. Died. He was but…

"I gave you that space. I thought you needed time, I gave you that time. I know you blame yourself for Donnie's death but really, none of us knew that was going to happen. But now… now you need to face reality, Leo. Donnie's dead."

Leo dropped his head, feeling a twitching anger building. He hated it when people talked about Donatello like that. Dead. He couldn't...

"He's GONE, Leo."

"Don't say that." Dead… Donnie wasn't...

"He's DEAD!" Raph growled, pain and anger in his eyes.

"Shut up!"

"Face reality, Leo!" Raph shoved at his brother's shoulder again.

This time it was Leo who threw the first punch, leaning fully into it as his knuckles connected with his brother's jaw. The room fell quiet for two breaths before Leonardo let out a primal scream. He threw another punch at Raphael, followed by another and another. Each punch weakened a little more than the last as all Raph could do was block against the different blows that turned into a suffering flail. Eventually the deep green turtle was able to struggle to catch his older brother's wrists. He held on tight, feeling how thin Leo had gotten. His heart beat painfully as he realilzed how his once brave and strong brother had gotten so weak. And though it hurt to hear it, Leo's sorrowful wails gave Raph a sense of relief. Leo was finally getting it out, everything he had bottled up.

The frustration.

The hopelessness.

The helplessness.

The poison it all made when bottled up.

Raph let go of Leo in favor of holding onto his shoulders as his brother's knees started to buckle. He could see the tears running down leaf green cheeks.

"I should have… I could have…" Leo's voice broke.

All Raph could do was shake his head. "No, Leo." He felt a familiar thickness in his throat. He did the same thing, blaming himself, believing if he could only turn back time he could have prevented everything. But, as Donnie would say, "the facts are the facts". They had no idea what was to happen. If they had, would Donnie have even fallen in love with April? Would Splinter have trained her? Would they have stayed her friend or watched her carefully like a volatile chemical? All of these questions had no answers. They only existed to torment them making them doubt so much bringing into play the most haunting phrases; I would have… I could have… I should have...

Leonardo curled in on himself as he felt everything finally collapse around him.

Donatello was gone.

His brother was dead.

No longer would he wake up to the sounds of late night tinkering, hear his funny, infectious laugh. He wouldn't smell freshly brewed coffee. He wouldn't hear love sick ramblings, flow charts, random lectures as to why certain things worked.

Beautiful eyes.

Goofy smile.

It was all gone.

While it pressed into him, he curled up onto his knees on the floor of the dojo, screaming and crying, desperately clawing his hands over Raphael's legs with his head on his lap as he brother curled up over him as if Raph's shell could spare him from being crushed by this loss.

"DONNIE!" Leo wailed.

Raph pressed his cheek against his brother's shell. Squeezing his eyes so tightly closed they hurt, telling himself to desperately that he wouldn't cry, Leo needed him strong. Tears were weakness, not strength. Even with coaching himself to stay strong, he found tears on his cheeks later.

Casey Jones was many things, he was arrogant, reckless, academically challenged, and even what the one corner store owner calls him a "punk kid". He was also faithful, loyal, family oriented, strong, and highly adaptive. It was these very traits that helped him make his decision on "who's side" he was on. April was his girl, or at least she was until that terrible night.

He could still remember her kneeling in the middle of the street, rain soaking her as she tried and tried to use the remainder of her abilities to "bring back" Donnie. He remembered how she hung back and shut down, eyes perpetually staring at the ground while Leo shook and choked on his words. It was Mikey and Raph who finally managed to tell their father what had happened. Splinter had such a small voice for such a strong mutant when he told the humans to leave. It was the first time April spoke, saying only, "But I was possessed by-" Casey had cringed at Splinter's raging voice that seemed to shake the whole lair.

"We had warned you of that crystal! You made the decision to continue to covet it at the cost of the life of one my sons!" He had stormed forward, towering, frightening. "Go! Leave! And never return!"

"But… dad…" Mikey sounded like a small child, unsure of how to deal with the situation, moving next to his friends.

"Michelangelo!" Splinter grabbed Mikey's arm and yanked him away as if April was toxic.

Casey couldn't remember much more after that, besides taking April home. The next few days was hard on him as he tried to keep his head together. He was friends with Donnie. Donnie was his love rival. He was super smart, helpful, hopeful. And when he would go and talk with April all she could do was make it about her, how it was unfair of them to kick her out, unfair of them that they didn't understand her side of it. It wasn't long after that that Casey had to tell her to "reflect" on what she was saying and until then, he wasn't talking to her. He found out that Splinter simply didn't want April around, Casey was okay to visit, but they were officially done with venturing out into the surface world. Casey couldn't blame Splinter for it either, he looked older, tired… almost as if Donatello's loss had nearly snuffed him out.

Casey tried what he could to help them out in their recovery. It worried him that Leo was acting so strange, in the same hand he was happy and proud that Raph was stepping up. Mikey worried him the most though. He barely functioned and if he was honest with himself, Raph was the only one functioning. Which placed so much weight on green shoulders. So when Raph met up with him down in the sewers, eyes blood shot, tear stains on his cheeks and holding a plastic sack full of radio parts, Casey acted like everything was normal. Raph asked if Casey would repair the radio, stuttering over his words while explaining that it was something that Donnie had made. The human took the radio and smiled his toothless grin. "I'll get it back to you, two days, tops." He winked his promise. "I'll pick up some pizzas and bring a new game."

"Thanks man." Raph tried to smile. It looked like it hurt.

"Raph?"

"Yeah?"

"...If any of you need to get out, there's this old military place outside of the city. It's not much, something from the 40's or 50's. It's been abandoned for years… and I know it's no farm house but it's a really cool place, maybe you could… I don't know, get out of the "house" for a bit, you know what I'm saying?"

The turtle sighed, rubbing a hand over his head and down to his neck. "I don't know. Things are kinda like a rollercoaster right now. Everyone acts out in different times and I gotta-"

Casey interrupted, "You got to be there for them. Yeah… I know. I went through it with my little sister and my dad." He looked down to the plastic sack he now held. "... when mom died, you know?"

Raph kept quiet. Casey never spoke about his mother. It was no wonder why, if she had died, it would have been… just as hard as losing Donnie.

"How… How did you handle it?" Raph asked.

"A lot of time… beating up meat heads and punks on the streets when Dad and Sis were asleep. But I remember this one time, Dad took us camping for a whole month. It was really weird to be out of the city for that long but it was good, you know? It was just us, no one else. We talked a lot about mom and ate marshmallows and hotdogs until we puked. After that, things got better."

The turtle's green eyes turned down as Raph folded his arms in thought. His eyes shifted from side to side subtly as if reading. They stood in silence for what felt like an hour before Raph looked up at his friend, "Where did you say this place was?"