A/N: This is now officially my most reviewed story! I want to thank all you guys for your wonderful feedback, you know who you are guys, including those who weren't logged in- I can't send a reply, but thanks just the same!
Okay, enough of that, on with the story! read, relax, and enjoy!
"Come on Raph," said Mikey, directing the other down a right handed branch of the sewer, "We brought the Sewer Slider, but it's too big to get down the access tunnels- but it's not far."
"Good," grunted Raph gruffly but not unkindly. For Raphael. "Lead on, Mikey." Michelangelo scampered ahead, eager to get back to the Lair and their Sensei. He yearned for the complete reunion of their family, no matter how battered- and subconsciously part of him still maintained the belief that if they were all together, nothing really terrible could happen. As Mikey lead the group onwards, Raph half turned his body towards Donatello as the younger turtle walked up beside him.
"I could carry 'im all the way back to the Lair- he don't weigh a thing. Don, what en the shell did they do to 'im?" Don could only shake his head for he too noticed the almost nonexistent weight of their brother.
The trip home was much expedited by the Slider but it was still was far too slow for Donatello who spent every second monitoring Leonardo's condition. As soon as they made it back to the Lair Don gathered Leo into his own arms and all three turtles swept through the main room with all possible haste, right by one very disturbed Master Splinter who had been coming to meet them at the door, and directly into Donatello's lab.
Ever since Leonardo's last run in with the Elite of the Foot ninja, Donatello, with April's help, had been stocking up on first aid supplies and reading up on biology, physiology, and anatomy. Unfortunately there wasn't much in the medical references materials on giant, mutated, teenage turtles, ninja or otherwise. Their blood also had several unique properties when compared with textbook examples and samples procured from April and Casey- Casey under substantial duress. Because of this new information, Donny had begun storing their own blood against the time of unexpected attack and substantial blood loss. That and he just didn't think that any hospital would willingly hand over the keys to their blood bank to a bunch of 'freaks' even if their blood was compatible.
His brothers had complained good naturedly whenever they were called on and Don had to put up with vampire jokes for months afterwards. Right now though he was very glad that he insisted.
They lay Leo out on the makeshift examination table in Donatello's lab that they habitually used for medical purposes. This was where Don had set Mikey's leg after a particularly ill conceived skating trick and where he had stitched Raph up after he and Casey had been ambushed by a bunch of PD's. He just hoped that this would not be where Leo died. He was just getting used to him being alive.
Putting all other thoughts aside, Donatello got to work setting up the blood transfusion and hanging the bag on the nail that Raph had hammered in and bent upward just for that purpose. He set the other two the task of boiling water and cleaning the dried blood off their brother. As more of the green flesh was exposed, the extent of the abuse Leo had received became agonizingly clear. Leonardo had always placed himself between his brothers and danger, but he had never had so many scars.
.o0o.o0o.o0o.
Michelangelo watched in growing horror as Donatello carefully cleaned Leo's limbs and moved to his torso. Never before had the youngest turtle ever been grateful for blood. They had all been hurt before- they were ninjas- but this, this was something else, far worse even then Leo's defeat at the hands of the Foot Elite. It looked like his shell was cracked, scored, and spider webbed. Mikey didn't even know that they could break. 'Hadn't Donny had once told him that a turtle would die if their shell was broken,' he thought frantically,' And his chest, his plastron…' Mikey mentally trailed off. There were two deep gashes running from Leo's right shoulder to the middle of his chest. Two parallel lines, noticeably deeper then the others as if wanting to be seen. Any doubt as to the identity of those who had taken their brother evaporated into the air and tried to re condense in the back of their throats, burning there and making it hard to breath. Michelangelo stared dumbly as those two gash marks rose and fell with each of Leo's hesitant and hitching breaths. He noted distractedly that they still gleamed red even though Don had already wiped them clean.
"Mikey," said Don calmly, shattering the orange clad turtle's scrutiny of Leonardo's every breath. "Go tell Master Splinter what happened, okay? Go tell him for me. He shouldn't be left to worry."
Michelangelo blinked at Donny, who had yet to look up from his examination. The youngest turtle did not want to leave Leonardo's side, not so soon after finding him, but he could feel a hysteria scrabbling at the edges of his slightly numbed mind and bile clawing up the base of his throat. He swallowed convulsively. 'This is so wrong,' he thought, even his inner voice sounding unusually high, ' so wrong. Nothing should have been able to do that to Leo, not to my oldest brother.' His thoughts kept circling like a drain, 'Not even the Elite were this bad.'
In the end he offered only a token protest when Don reiterated the need to explain the situation to their Sensei. He told himself that someone needed to talk to their father, and someone did, but the truth was that Donatello had offered him an escape, and he was ashamed that he had taken it. Still, it was better than being sick on the lab floor.
When he exited the lab Michelangelo paused and took as deep a breath as he was able. Opening his eyes, he found himself staring into the very worried brown eyes of their Sensei and father.
"Michelangelo, my son, what has happened?"
"We, uh, we found Leo, Master Splinter," replied Mikey, unable to force the level of joy and happiness he felt that such a statement deserved.
"He is- badly wounded?" asked their father cautiously. He had been sure that his eldest son was no more and the brief glimpse he was able to catch as his sons hurried by him did little to change that belief. Yet their actions had been frantic, actions of those fighting for life, and, while upset, his youngest did not seem as one who had carried the corpse of his brother home.
"Uh, yeah, I suppose you could say that…" Mikey stood awkwardly in front of the closed door fighting desperately with himself. Splinter looked at his youngest son knowingly. He consciously put aside his own feelings of shock, disbelief, worry and even failure at being told that the son he had given up for dead, that he had felt die, was fighting for his life one door away.
"Oh, my son," he said softly, holding out his arms. "It is alright, Michelangelo." With this permission, Michelangelo sobbed and dropped to his knees, flinging himself at the old rat. He buried his face in his father's furry neck and let the rat's loving presence support him as his fears spilled from him.
.o0o.o0o.o0o.
"Okay, Don, what is it?" demanded Raphael as soon as Michelangelo closed the door of the lab. He'd known his brother's for fifteen years, and while not the student of nature that Leo was, he knew when Donatello was trying to get rid of someone. Donatello for his part did not bother to look up from the wound he was disinfecting and treating.
"This wasn't simply revenge or interrogation, Raph," said Donatello tightly. "This was," his mouth screwed up as though tasting something vile, "research," he spat.
"What?" gasped Raphael.
"These wounds, and those," Don said, gesturing stiffly, "those were systematic, logical, and… treated." Donatello ran careful fingers over stitchwork that was not his. "They didn't want him to die, bro, not then." A growl grew in Raph's throat and his fingers clenched as he surveyed his unconscious brother with new eyes. 'Those bas-'
"Raph!" Don interrupted his older brother's thoughts abruptly. Maybe telling Raph had been a bad idea. No, telling Raph had been a bad idea, but Don had to tell someone, and it wasn't going to be Mikey. Their little brother did not need to see or hear this yet. "Raph, leave it, please. For now. I need you here, Leo needs you here." It wasn't till then that Raphael realized that he had taken several steps towards the door. He consciously relaxed and turned back to his brothers. Retribution could wait.
Several minutes later Master Splinter entered the room. He did not disturb the working brothers but simply stood gazing at the living form of his eldest son, feeling the warmth of his breath.
"Your brother, Michelangelo," Splinter informed his middle children calmly, "is going to clean the main room, then make an evening meal. I am sure that by then we will all be grateful for his efforts." Both text and subtext were taken in without commentary, as were Splinter's actions when he took up his own needle and thread and set to tending Leonardo's remaining wounds with the ease of long practice.
A/N: Well, how was it? I hate writing medicalish parts of stories; I'm completely out of my depth. Anyway, please tell me what you think!