8. MIND OVER MATTER

The days wore on in a grind. After the episode with the apparition of his brother Raphael, Leonardo had set himself to doing menial tasks in order to gain some control on his decaying reality. First and foremost was preparing for the coming winter. The days were beginning to grow shorter and cooler, and even the ever present soup of insects had seemed to thin. He had no idea of what to expect living so close to the water. He would not have enough wood here to burn, that was for certain, and if it grew cold enough to ice the water over, he would not survive. He began patching up the thinning outer walls with handfuls of fresh mud, focusing on strengthening the structure. He had also started drying woven reed mats on the A-frame, to eventually to be pinned on the inside of his hut. On the second day of repairs, during the stillness of noon, he stopped short.

'If I don't work faster, I'm going to need to move further to the east.'

He dropped the bale of dried hemp he had gathered near the entrance to his home. When it came down to it, the main reason he had chosen to stay so long at the hut boiled down to sentimentality. But now it would be necessary to move closer to the low ranges: more wood, more caves…more things with sharp teeth. But it was here, here that he had arrived. If any kind of rescue was coming, it would likely to trace him to the very spot he had awoken, and despite the thought it would never come, the hut served a touchstone of his former life and a link to his hope of rescue.

'One more week.' he decided. 'I'll winterize the hut, just in case I need to return.'

Only days later Leonardo was returning from a scout to the north having collected some supplies for the winter. He still had a half day of travel to go, and he was glad to have found a ready supply of what he was seeking: tea, iron wood, and sticky amber which helped fortify many of his utensils, ropes and tools. A strong gale laden with sand was at his back and had been for most of the journey, scouring into any soft spots left on his skin. He stopped to rest alongside a randomly placed rock, large enough to sit alongside and out of the wind. Little else could be spotted on the hillock and he took it was a sign to rest and get rid of the headache that had snuck up on him in the last hour. He procured his water sac from his bag, and tipped his head back to drink deeply; hoping the stabbings of pain at his temples would right themselves quickly. Looking back up he saw a sight which at first he could not believe. The dusty sky only gave clue to who it was as the figure approached closer.

"No." he said under his breath. "It can't be."

Approaching steadily was Donatello – a mutant with a mind like the sharpest of incisors. Analytical, logical, Donatello. That he would appear as an apparition seemed an abomination to what he knew his brother to be.

"Leo!" his brother yelped, equally surprised.

"Not you, too."

He pressed hard onto his eyes at the splitting pain. With a cry he flipped himself onto his feet, katana held firmly at his side.

"GO AWAY!" Leonardo yelled out to the phantom of his brother.

"Leo…what are you-" Donatello was cut short by a slice aimed directly at his abdomen. He dodged at the last crucial second, simultaneously freeing his bo.

Donatello swung the staff into a defensive position, swatting away the blows.

"Leo, will you stop it!"

A whir of katana seemed to pass by Donatello's side in slow motion, the arc of the blow slicing the electrical equipment that he had just brought with him. Donatello looked on in horror.

"The locater!"

"There is no locater!" Leonardo screamed. "There is nothing! NOTHING! So just GO!"

"Not anymore there isn't." Donatello snapped.

An infuriated growl escaped Leonardo, "You are NOT my BROTHER!"

"What?!"

Leonardo growled, charging back into an attack. Seeing his chance, Donatello swung his bo low to the ground, knocking his brother onto his back. He thudded painfully onto the mud, sinking into a dirty puddle with a groan. Just as quickly, Donatello repositioned his bo defensively before him.

"Leonardo, it's me! Donnie! What the heck are you trying to do?"

As quick as lightning, Leonardo flipped himself up, kicking his katana back into his grip. Donatello breathed in sharply, recognizing an imminent strike as Leonardo raised his swords and began charging.

"No wait!" he gasped. "Octopus!"

Leonardo froze within striking distance.

"You don't like octopus!" Donatello continued frantically, "Mikey cooks it with chili peppers, but you never eat it... Raph likes watching old kung fu films and has torn apart his punching bag at least five times...Splinter makes us do knuckle push-ups every time we drop a dish, and…and it wasn't Raph that broke your bokken when we were kids, it was me!"

Leonardo frowned, relaxing his swords.

"What?"

"I'm trying to convince you that it's me - I installed the lair security system eight years ago… I like anything covered in cheese… my favorite book is-"

"Stop it. You'll just disappear like Mikey and Raph. I can't take the false hope anymore. Not anymore."

"False hope? Leonardo, I'm real, I'm here. I promise." Donatello pleaded, "How can I prove to it you?"

Leonardo rolled onto his feet, wiping the mud from himself, "You have no idea how much I want to believe that."

Nodding, Donatello answered: "Well, try me."

"Okay." Leonardo breathed in sharply as he considered a question, "Who won the world series?"

"Uh, I don't really follow-"

"Sports. I get it. What about the President?"

"Same guy, actually."

Leonardo shook his head, "This is somewhat asinine, isn't it?"

"Yeah, pretty much. I could tell you anything, real or not. How would you prove it, right? I could perhaps lecture you on the finer details of the recent engineering marvels of Utrom technology-" he paused to consider this, "…but I guess whether or not I was actually accurate would almost be incidental– it would probably all sound like gobbledy gook to you - if I may presume that you are not up to scratch on intra-dimensional transference biotech, that is."

Leonardo squinted hard at his brother, his shoulders visibly relaxed.

"Don't worry. I think you convinced me."

"That's a shame. I was really looking forward to using my lecture voice."

"So." he braced himself warily, "You're really here?"

Donatello gave his brother an even stare.

"I'm here. I'm really here." he confirmed in a monotone voice as a small smile crept on his face.

Leonardo stepped toward his brother, capturing him in a strong hug, Donatello returning it with equal vigor. Finally, he held him back at arm's length, making sure that this time that he would not fade into the mists of his corrupted reality.

"It took you long enough."

Donatello grinned, "It is really good to see you too, Leo."

"I'm so sorry. I don't know my own mind anymore. It's this place - I've been seeing things."

He began picking up his provisions left near his resting place. Frowning, Donatello bent down to pick up the mangled shards of the locator beacon.

"What, exactly, have you been seeing?"

Shaking his head, he answered: "Ghosts, I guess. It doesn't matter anymore."

Donatello's voice softened. "I can't say I'm surprised. You've been stranded here for over a year now. That does things to your mind."

"Has it been that long already?"

Donatello nodded sadly. "Fourteen months, eight days. In our time, anyway. I'm not exactly sure for you."

"It feels like forever." Leonardo sighed wearily, his heart heavy. "I just want to go home."

It was Donatello's turn to look stricken, "I hate to say this but we have an unforeseen problem with getting home" he held up the broken beacon pieces before stashing them in his knapsack, "But I brought some medical supplies, maybe I can help with your hallucinations."

Leonardo nodded with a restrained smile, the kind Donatello knew that reached all the way to his core.

"Let's walk and talk."

Leonardo recounted his visions as they began pacing through the mud towards the slightly drier earth where a short smooth grass had blanketed the ground. Listening, Donatello mulled on his brother's words.

"It could be caused by a variety of factors." he concluded, "Not just the isolation. You've also been through a major temporal disturbance. It could be affecting the function of your hypothalamus gland and the way your brain has been chemically processing the environment around you. Not to mention all the strange things you've been eating to survive. These kinds of experiences have been vigorously documented by the-" he paused for breath, "and you probably don't want to hear a sermon on this, right?"

"Donnie." Leonardo said, practically choking on his own voice with happiness. "You have no idea how good it is to hear you again."

Donatello looked at his elder brother askance.

"I missed you too, Leo. All of us did."

They walked in silence for a bit, Donatello occasionally distracted by the strangeness of his surroundings.

Leonardo broke the silence.

"So it was you that broke my bokken, huh? All this time I was sure it was Raph." he chuckled lightly to himself.

Donatello stopped in his tracks, his face riddled with guilt

"It's my fault that you're here, Leo. My fault." His face contorted as he held back tears, "When you came to the lab, one of the temporal experiments must have overloaded. It sent out a blast of residual energy and your katana must have attracted the electrical surge. If only I hadn't forgotten those notes, if only I could just have gone back myself – this never would have happened."

Leonardo furrowed his brow as the missing pieces finally came together.

"The professor and I have been wracking our brains from the moment of the implosion to find you. And also - we've tried reaching out to you, Leo. Mikey, Raph, Splinter… all of us. We didn't think…we didn't know if…" Donatello stopped, swallowing hard. He snorted disdainfully, "I can't even string a set of words together. What does that tell you?"

Leonardo rested a comforting hand on his brother's shoulder.

"It tells me we have a lot of catching up to do. Besides, look around. It's ancient history."

With just those words he managed to graciously diffuse his brother's pain. Donatello shook his head, the weight of untold guilt easing up.

"You could forgive me that easy? After being trapped here all this time?"

"There's nothing that needs forgiving." he answered gently, "C'mon. Let's move before this sand wears us down to nothing."

Leonardo began walking towards the hut, Donatello managing a weak smile before following in his brother's steps. They travelled the remaining hours in deep conversation before at last they arrived at the hut which Donatello had been admiring since it had caught his sight on the horizon.

"Well, we're here." Leonardo unhooked the wooden door, and pushed back the netted curtain, "Welcome to my humble home."

Inside the hut it was cozy yet Spartan; various useful household items adorned the living space, fashioned from the animals, plants and mud from the land around them.

"Heck Leo, if I had known you could do like this, maybe I would have put you to work in the lab more."

Leonardo grinned, the first in a long, long time.

"Right."

...