Chapter Eight – The Crossroads

Leo is first into the dojo Thursday morning also. As he stands in the room that is rapidly becoming familiar, doing exercises he has known his whole life, he wonders what this new day will bring.

Raph comes in, calm and silent, with no indication as to why he hadn't been there the day before. No indication that he hadn't been there.

For a while, Leo says nothing. There's nothing he can say, in this place of truce. Nothing that won't be taken the wrong way. Nothing that won't drag both of them back into the fight of two nights ago.

Nothing except "Good morning."

He says the words, and then he replays them quickly, several times, inside his head. Yes. He had managed to keep all sarcasm and accusation out of them.

Still, there's a guardedness in Raph's voice when he replies, "Morning."

And they say nothing more.

The silence hurts, but it's better than the alternative.


Michelangelo listens carefully to the instructions for the day's training and then, like an idiot, he opens his mouth and gives his opinion.

"You're kidding, right?"

Splinter regards him calmly from atop his upturned tire. "Michelangelo, please step up."

Mike groans inwardly, but he knows he was asking for it. He gamely mounts the other tire, and faces his father.

Three seconds later he is facing the ceiling, a dull sensation in his plastron where Splinter hit him. He turns his head to watch as his tire rolls away and wobbles to a halt in the far corner. The straw mats crunch under his cheek.

"As you can see," Splinter says, "this will be a difficult exercise. Donatello, if you would kindly bring back that tire."

Mike doesn't bother to get up. Feet pad past his head.

"Thank you," Splinter says, when Don returns. "If you would stand there, then, and Raphael –" He steps down from his tire, yielding his place. "Leonardo, if you would spar against your horizontal brother."

"Geez, okay," Mike says. He gets to his feet, goes over to the other set of tires, and stands up opposite Leo.

Leo is standing stock-still and plumb-line vertical, as though he balances on round objects every moment of his life. Mike shifts his weight back and forth, the tire rolling right and left as his center of gravity moves over one leg and then the other.

He smiles.

Leo doesn't.

This was going to hurt.


It hurts a lot.

Mike has natural agility on his side, but Leo handily demonstrates the virtues of good form and a rock-solid steadiness earned from years of disciplined practice. Both of them wind up on the floor a lot, frequently with runaway tires bouncing off parts of their anatomy.

When Splinter calls a halt, Mike is vertical, but he's so tired that he just collapses to the ground, letting his tire roll where it will.

Lying on the mats, listening to his brothers pant and groan around him, Mike thinks they've come a long way towards making this place feel like home. But as he tries to get his breath back through the acrid stench of lemon and old rubber, he thinks of one more thing they really need to do.


Raph won almost all of his rounds, and feels pretty good about it. That presumptuous little brat deserved to have his face rubbed in some tatami.

When he gets to the kitchen, he glances at the basket. At first he thinks it's empty, but on second look he sees there's one thing left.

It's the peach.

"Geez, guys," he says, even as he snatches it. "What happened to equal distribution?"

"You didn't show up," Don says.

But Raph knows it was no accident which piece got left over.

Presumptuous little brats.

"Okay, so," Mike says, around a mouthful of some breakfast bar crap. "Announcement."

Raph rolls his eyes, but makes a "go ahead" gesture.

Mike has at least enough manners to swallow before continuing. "I'm getting some incense. Cuz this place smells bad. And now you won't be surprised and freak out if you start smelling jasmine or sandalwood or whatever."

"Sounds good to me," Don says.

"Yes," Leo agrees, with great feeling.

"Yeah, fine," Raph says. "And I smell bad too, so nobody better be surprised when they march their lazy butts to the bathroom and find me already usin' the shower." He throws the peach pit in the garbage, turns on his heel, and stalks out of the kitchen.

Geez, he thinks, as he heads for the bathroom. INCENSE. As if our biggest problem is what the damn Lair SMELLS like.


"You meant buy incense, right?" Leo asks, after Don has also left the kitchen.

"Um, yeah," Mike says. "That's how things work now, right? We're all honest Turtles."

Leo doesn't answer immediately. Mike watches him think. He makes a strange sight, standing there with flecks of rubber and tire tracks all over him, as though he's just come back from a fight against a monster truck. Mike would giggle at the thought, if Leo didn't have such a serious expression on his face.

"Let's…" Leo pauses, seeming to need another moment to complete mental calculations before he shares his decision. "Let's use the family money, okay? Not yours."

Mike tilts his head. "You sure?"

Leo only smiles, and turns to go.

Then he turns back. "Cinnamon, right?"

Mike melts, at just the thought of his favorite scent. "I love you, bro."

Leo echoes the words, but Mike doesn't need to hear them. He already did, in those other
eight letters.

Cinnamon.

Mmm.


After his shower, Raph paces his room, trying to figure out what he's going to say to Leo. He lines the words up in his head, rehearses them, throws them out, starts again.

He's never been good at this. He's never been able to find enough words, in English or in Japanese or in any other language, to capture and name and know the myriad things that bubble up inside him. He can't say how he feels and he can't say why he feels that way and it's just so damn frustrating.

Words, and words, and more words, and all of them fly wide of the mark. Feelings are the only target he can't hit.

"Fuck it," he growls, to the walls. It's Leo. Leo has a way of seeing through his verbal fumbling, and figuring out what he's really trying to say. The words will be good enough.

He throws the door open, stomps to the next room, and barges in without bothering to knock.

Only to find that Leo is on the phone.

Leo looks up at him in surprise. "What?" he mouths.

"Get off the damn phone," Raph says, trying desperately not to let the last of the words escape. "I wanna talk to you."

Leo doesn't drop his gaze, even as he speaks into the shell-cell. "April, I have to go. I'll see you tomorrow, okay? … Yes. 'Bye." He sits up, reaching to place the phone on his shelf. As soon as it's put down, he says, "I'm all yours."

Something boils up inside him. The useless words flee before it, and all he knows is, "That's a damn lie."

Leo blinks at him, opens his mouth, but for once it seems like he doesn't have any words either.

"Listen, Raph…" he says, after a moment. "I'm sorry about -"

And this is the other reason he doesn't bother to talk when he's angry about something. Because his brothers never freaking listen. But Leo sure is reading the expression on his face right now.

Leo sighs. "Right. Not allowed to say that."

Raph relaxes fractionally. "Damn straight."

"I just don't understand." Leo props his heel on the edge of the bedframe, where it sticks out under the mattress. He rests his arms on his bent knee, and hangs his head low over them. "I thought things were okay between us. I thought we were doing better."

"We were doing better," Raph says. "You were doing better. You were comin' outta your funk. But then this thing with the ghosts blew over, and you went right back in again."

Leo raises his head. "I'm not in a funk! I -"

"No?" Raph cuts in. "Then I must be the one who doesn't understand. Enlighten me, Leo, cuz I don't get it."

A long pause.

"I can't," Leo says softly.

Raph turns away.

"I can't, Raph!" Leo says, to his back. "I had to go halfway around the world, and stay there for six months, to learn this! I can't teach it to you in an afternoon!"

Raph whirls. "You could start! Shit, Leo. You've been home almost three months, and I ain't learned a damn thing."

Leo presses his forehead into his kneepad. "Raph… I know it's hard. Just please, please, trust me. I know that's asking a lot, because I haven't been the most trustworthy person lately. But I need you to do this."

I need you to do this. Two possible meanings for that sentence, and Raph's mind flip-flops between them, trying to decide which Leo intended and which was just an accident.

"Whaddya mean?" he asks, when neither sense captures enough ground in the mental battle to make it a decisive winner. "You need for me to trust you, or you need me, in order to do... whatever you're doing?"

For a long time, Leo stays how he is, staring into the stitching of his kneepad. When he finally raises his head, there's a small smile on his face.

"... Both."

Raph fights down the hope that rises in his chest. If Leo really needed him, really cared about him, he wouldn't have stayed away so long. He wouldn't have written only one letter.

One goddamn letter.

But he needs to hear this, so he crosses his arms and stays where he is. "I'm listenin'."

Leo doesn't answer immediately. Instead, he reaches out, picks up the carved dragon sitting on his shelf, and sets it on his lap. "I don't know where to start…" He smoothes his fingers over the dragon's unfinished head. "Raph… do you know it took me six weeks to make yours?"

"What?" Raph blinks at the change in topic, and at the unexpected information. "But it's only –" He cups his hand to show the size of the figurine. "The hell were you doing for six weeks?"

Leo's hand stills. "I made nineteen of them."

"What?"

Leo looks up. "It's the nineteenth dragon, Raph. The first eighteen… weren't good enough."

Raph throws up his hands. "You gotta be kiddin' me. Even at arts-and-crafts you're a perfectionist."

Leo shakes his head. "They weren't good enough, Raph. Not for you."

Raph crosses his arms again, letting them rest against his plastron. "It's a frickin' toy, Leo."

Leo ignores him, lost in his own reverie. "I left the first eighteen in Japan. But the nineteenth… I had it in my bag all the way home. Every night I would take it out, look at it, and wonder if I would give it to you."

"Right," Raph mutters. "Cuz the nineteenth wasn't good enough either."

Leo's head jerks up. "Because I didn't know if you would be there, Raph! I didn't know if you would be alive! I thought –" His hand comes up to wipe at his eyes. "I thought I would be putting it on an altar…"

Raph freezes.

"I didn't know –" Leo's voice shakes. "- what I would find."

"Shit, bro," Raph breathes. He almost doesn't notice his feet carrying him across the room, his knees bending to seat him on the bed, his arm snaking around Leo's shoulders. "'s okay."

Leo turns his head, burying his face against Raph's neck. "I never would have forgiven myself," he whispers. "For not being here. For not being good enough."

Raph just sits, and waits. He can't speak. His head is full of the image of a death altar dedicated to himself, and there's no room for words.

"Sometimes things don't work out right on the first try," Leo says quietly. "Sometimes they don't work on the second or third try either. But you have to keep trying." He pulls back, so he can look his brother in the eye. "Can we start again, Raph? Can we put this behind us?"

"Yeah," is all Raph can say. "Yeah."

Leo puts his head back on Raph's shoulder, and they sit like that.

"Okay," Raph says, when the moment has gone on long enough and the thought of his own demise is starting to make him queasy. "Enough o' that. Pull yerself t'gether." Leo sits up, as Raph pulls his arm back. "You wanna start over –" It's not exactly a question, but Leo nods. "- then here's how it's gonna go. You're gonna stop bein' a damn idiot. When you are a damn idiot, cuz you always do manage to be one, I'm gonna tell you you're a damn idiot."

"I don't want to -"

Raph ignores him. "Seriously, Leo. It's not an imposition. When have I ever not told you when you were bein' a damn idiot?"

Leo's mouth quirks up, though he keeps his eyes averted.

"So, as I was sayin'," Raph goes on, "when I tell you you're bein' a damn idiot, you're gonna stop what you're doin' and do somethin' else."

"I –"

"And we will do that," Raph says loudly, "until you get it right."

Leo's hands steady the dragon in his lap. "Okay," he says. "Just one thing."

"What?" Raph asks guardedly.

Leo turns his head slowly, to look at him. The little smile is still on his face. "You're not allowed to use the phrase damn idiot."

Raph can't help the laugh that explodes from him. "Yeah, okay."

Leo's smile widens a little, in Raph's direction, before he turns to put the dragon back on the shelf.

"So, uh," Raph says. "You seein' April tomorrow? Finished somethin' else?"

Leo freezes, his arms still outstretched.

And just like that, Raph closes down. "What?"

Leo draws his hands in slowly, rubs them together in his lap. "It's… for a special reason."

"Shit." Raph pushes to his feet and paces across the room.

"Raph –" Leo hesitates. "I may not be doing a very good job of telling you things, but I've never lied to you." He takes a deep breath. "I'm going to April's because a journalist from the Post is interviewing me."

Tension creeps through every muscle. Arms, shoulders, neck, his fingers curling into his palms. "Whatever phrase you want me to use in place of damn idiot," he says to the wall, "imagine me sayin' it now."

"Raph, no," Leo says. He sounds hurt. Good. "I'm not. It's a phone interview. She won't see anything, she won't know anything… I asked Master Splinter and he said it was okay." With every sentence he sounds more desperate. "It will be good for business. The money… We'll get a couch, a TV, motorcycle parts, whatever you want…"

"I don't. Want. The damn. Money," Raph grits.

He slams the door behind him when he leaves.


Don hears a door slam upstairs.

He's already learned the different sounds made by each of the doors in the Lair, so he knows the noise is coming from Leo's room. This is strange, since Leo is not usually given to slamming doors.

He hums thoughtfully, and returns to his work.


Sometime later, Don surfaces from his program and realizes Leo is sitting on the edge of his desk.

"How did you do it?" Leo asks, without preamble.

"Seventy thousand lines of code." He saves his work compulsively before leaning back in his chair. "But I think all the systems are finally talking to each other."

"You know what I mean."

Don pushes the keyboard back, and rubs his aching eyes. "I just… gave him space." He peels one eye open, even as he presses a palm into the other. "He does better with freedom, you know."

"Does he?" Leo asks, in a strangely blank tone of voice.

With his free hand, Don pushes some leftover electronica around the desk. "He really does. He makes better decisions when nobody is following him around, second-guessing him."

Leo looks out across the Lair, and doesn't reply.

"So how did it go?" Don asks.

Leo sighs. He reaches absently for a circuit board by his hip, but catches himself and returns his hand to his lap. "Mixed bag," he says. "I thought we were making progress, but then I – set him off again."

Don removes his hand from his face, opens a drawer, sweeps the circuit board into it.

"All right," Leo says. The same all right he uses when he has outlined a plan of battle, and is steeling himself to execute it. "I agreed to do an interview for a newspaper, about my art." His shoulders drop, without the tension of nerves to hold them up. "There. Now everyone knows."

"Okay," Don says. "I can think of several reasons why that would make a certain brother of ours angry."

Leo's gaze remains directed to the floor. "So can I," he says. "I just wish I knew which of them it was. He wouldn't talk to me anymore, after I told him."

Don's hand finds its way back to his face, and he rests his cheek in it. "Give him time, Leo. He processes these things slowly. He probably doesn't know which reason it is, yet."

Leo raises his eyes to glance at the computer. "Donnie… how could he have been leader? He reasons so badly under pressure."

Don follows Leo's gaze, knows his brother is seeing the Rules of the Hamato Family superimposed over the dense lines of code that fill the screen. "He also rises to challenges." He takes a deep breath, and says what he didn't dare to say back in August. "He was a good leader, while you were gone."

"I know," Leo says. He gestures to the computer, as if what Don and Mike had written for him is really displayed there. "He had a lot of smart strategies. This idea of pretending to be me - very clever." He drops his hand. "I just don't understand how. Where did it come from, Donnie? Has that always been in him?"

"You know," Don says, "if it has been, you're not the only one who missed it. I really didn't think anyone would be fooled by that ruse. But he insisted on it, and… it worked surprisingly well. When he pretended to be you, when he put on your spare gear - it changed him. It was like he was you." He regards Leo thoughtfully. "I'm beginning to think there's something magical about a blue mask and a pair of katana."

Wordlessly, Leo reaches up and unknots his mask. He slips Don's bandana off over the top of his head, and ties his own across his brother's eyes.

"There is no magic," he says softly. He leaves Don's mask draped over one of the computer speakers, and walks away.