It's late afternoon by the time they plod back into the suite, Don feeling embarrassingly winded from lugging the heavy medical bag. There's no denying that while they do wonders for the pain, the medication has made them sluggish. Maybe even downright lazy, he thinks, as Mike makes a beeline for the sofa, rips open a bag of snacks and starts flipping through the channels. The mood is low, and he can already sense the second coming of last night's binge eating session.
Dumping the bag on the other end of the couch, Don starts taking stock of its contents-Endless rolls of bandage materials. Antiseptic. Gels that numb and stimulate healing. And skin glue, just in case.
He fingers the tiny bottle, frowning. Something tells him it will get some use before this is over.
"You gonna do Leo?" Mikey asks, crunching loudly.
"Yeah," he sighs. Everything is ready and accounted for. There's nothing left to procrastinate with. "Here goes nothing."
"Good luck."
He knows he's gonna need it.
Leo's door is predictably closed, but this time, Don pays him the courtesy of knocking. It's a pleasant surprise when the door pulls back a few inches and Leo's there, staring at him through the narrow space.
"We're back," he says, offering a weak smile. "How are you feeling?"
"Fine."
Fine. Yes, he shouldn't have expected anything more than "Fine". Though Don doesn't need words to know the truth. Leo looks less himself than ever. His face is pale and haggard, dark circles bruised deep under his eyes. And though he's standing straighter than before, he's still painfully hunched, carefully guarding his wounded shoulder.
"I talked to Dr. X," he says, lifting the medical bag like a peace offering. "We really should change the ones you have."
He shifts awkwardly, waiting for a reply. Leo only stares.
"Maybe we should do it in the bathroom..."
When he opens the door wider, Don lets out a breath he didn't know he was holding, but an anxious knot is still tight in his chest.
Leo sets the pace, Don trailing a couple steps behind as he makes his slow, stiff crawl down the narrow hallway. He seems to be faring better than when Don left him, and he's grateful, because it means Leo took their bargain seriously.
It makes him sick to think that he doubted him at all. But times have changed. Leo has changed. It's hard to even fathom how much.
In the bathroom, Leo struggles to sit on the edge of the tub. But Don waits with all the patience he can muster, fighting hard against the need to lend a steadying hand. Instead, he busies himself with laying out the supplies, arranging the white bandages and tubes of salve along the dark countertop. Clips of Dr. X's lesson replay in his head.
For now, he has to try to see Leo as a project. Not his brother, but something that needs to be fixed. The wound he can handle. But the broken look behind his brother's eyes can't be repaired with a salve or a pill. All he can do is give him the space he needs and hope that time will let it heal.
Though that's impossible when the room is filled with his brother's ragged breathing. When he dares to look, Leo's finally managed to sit, hunched painfully forward, his good hand in a white-knuckled grip on the edge of the tub. His face has gone ashen and a sheen of sweat coats his scalp.
"Do you need more meds?" He asks gently. "You can take more if you need to."
"Just get it over with," Leo grits. His eyes are dark and fixed on the wall.
"Okay."
Don reaches for his shoulder with a feather-light touch.
It's a long, careful process. He takes his time unwinding the bandages by hand, too nervous to cut them away. They have the arm of his broken shoulder bound up against his shell to immobilize it and he doesn't dare to compromise that.
During it all, Leo sits still as a stone, staring at the wall in meditative silence.
When he hits the last layers, it's a relief to see the first peek of green. Then there's the expected ache of worry when he reveals the more sickly colors-the yellows and reds, blues and purples that have spread across his skin like a stain. But it all looks normal. Just part of the natural healing process.
With the gauze heaped in piles on the floor, a hand-sized, blood-soaked pad still sticks to the worst of the wound, held by old black clots and serosanguinous discharge. Peeling it off is the only time Leo flinches. They both pretend it didn't happen.
The wound beneath is an impressively thin red line, crusted with blood and bruised dark around the edges. He tips the bottle of antiseptic onto a sponge and begins to gently blot it clean.
"So Dr. X wants you to fill out some paperwork," he murmurs, afraid to speak too loudly after the long stretch of silence. "They're just some release forms saying you don't want to go back to the hospital." Leo says nothing, but Don doesn't pause, reaching for the bottle of numbing gel. "I have it here if you want to fill it out when we're done."
He presses a fresh, gel-soaked pad onto the wound and waits. Waits for the sting of the antiseptic to ebb. Waits for his brother to come back to him. Wherever he's gone, it's far away from here. But he can wait. He's a patient turtle.
"All right."
Don nods and continues his work in silence, the tightness in his chest easing just a little.
It isn't until he's re-dressing the wound that doing everything one-handed starts to get frustrating. The first roll of bandages gets fumbled and dropped among the soiled ones. On the second try, he has to ask Leo to hold the pad and the tail of the new roll in place with a thumb and finger. Only a few seconds in and his brother is trembling, even the slightest strain from his fine arm aggravating the damage on the other side.
For a second, he thinks of calling in Mikey. He has two fine arms and could hold this all together nicely. But something tells him Leo wouldn't be so receptive. He's already unhappy with the bargain he had to make so he could do this much.
When the job is done, it isn't pretty, and they're both left shaking and exhausted. Don sinks down cross-legged amidst the soiled bandages and breathes through the ache crawling through his own injured shoulders. For a moment, they sit in an odd survivor's silence.
He feels like he just lived through the collapse of a building. The detonation of a bomb.
This was going to be harder than he thought.
"The paperwork," Leo snaps, his words tight and halting. "Where is it?"
"Right," he says. Right. No time for moments of weakness. Not with Leo. Not anymore.
It takes him a second to rummage through the medical bag, finding the smooth metal orb. It activates the moment it's cradled in his palm and the hologram streams from it like a fountain, producing the thin stylus pen.
Dr. X had explained that universal translation doesn't turn the Utromian text into English, but fools the brain into seeing a language it understands. The only side-effect is an odd tingle in the cortices telling the senses that something is just left of right.
Don watches Leo blink in confusion, still holding the stylus as his mind adjusts, but says nothing as the words become clear. And then he signs his own life away.
When it's done, neither of them say a word. Don silently packs the orb and starts gathering up the soiled bandages. Doesn't look as Leo struggles to his feet and limps out of the room.
Alone, with only the echoes of the TV ghosting in from down the hall, surrounded by blood-stained gauze, Don feels like he's been left with the wreckage. He feels like he is the only one left to fix it.
On the way back to the living room, he stops in front of Leo's closed door and speaks through the metal.
"Mr. Mortu will be coming over for dinner soon. He said he had something to talk to us about." He pauses, waiting for another answer he doesn't expect to come. "He wants you there, Leo. Even if it's just for a little bit. I think it's important."
Silence, but he knows Leo heard him. That's all that matters.
Re-emerging into the living room, still rattled as a soldier stumbling home from war, he finds Mikey right where he left him, working through his second bag of chips. He resists the urge to whack him upside the head out of sheer jealousy.
"How'd it go?" He asks as Don plops down heavily beside him.
"Largely uneventful."
"Well that's good, I guess." He changes the channel, chewing noisily. "What'd it look like?"
"A stab wound."
"No duh. I mean, is it bad?"
"From the outside, it doesn't look particularly awful, no. Aside from the bruising you can hardly tell anything's there."
Mike nods into the depths of his snack bag, his mouth a solemn line. "Good."
Then it's quiet. The TV flashes images of strange faces and weird places in a language more noise than words. But Don finds himself lost in its comfort. It's like how watching TV was like when they were kids, when it was all just the pink hairless people in their bright world speaking a language they could just barely understand. But for a moment, Don wishes the TV had the same translation capabilities as Dr. X's orb. It probably does, he thinks. He'll just have to activate it. When he has time. When he isn't so exhausted he could fall... asleep... right here...
"When do you think Mortu's gonna be here?" Mikey whines, crumpling up the now-empty chip bag. "I'm starving."
Don blinks drowsily out of his half-doze, rubbing the side of his face.
"You're always starving. And you've eaten two bags of chips already. You know what Master Splinter thinks about that."
Mike only scrunches up his face like a petulant five-year-old.
"Don't say I didn't warn you when you've eaten yourself sick."
"'It's just chips," he sulks, sinking back against the cushions.
"Mmm-hmm. Sure."
The stress-eating was a new thing, brought on by the bounty of snacks and groceries dropped off regularly by their human friends. Of course they had all indulged a little at first, but Mikey always had a special talent for eating. And when times got tough, it was hard to keep Mike away from the snacks.
Over the last year or two, it had started to show in his brother's face, his cheeks rounding out, his legs and arms a little thicker than they used to be. It wasn't a bad thing. It never seemed to cause any real harm. It's just not a very healthy thing for a well-trained ninja warrior to be doing with his time and body. Not to mention it puts a tax on the generosity of their friends. Master Splinter always felt the need to make that clear.
Mikey, however, just never seems to care. And if that's the one thing his brother is going to be stubborn about, so be it. They all deserve their little indulgences after an entire lifetime of having so little. And here, there was no tax on the generosity of their friends' strained pocketbooks. Here, there was more than plenty to go around. So Don won't bring it up again.
Something chimes somewhere by the entranceway, and they both snap into focus.
"What was that?" Mike chirps.
"It sounded like the elevator."
Like clockwork, the elevator doors pull open, revealing Mortu and his entourage, sending the delicious smell of food pouring into the suite. Don gets up, half expecting his brother to vault over the back of the couch and greet them like an excited dog. Then he remembers his broken leg.
"Finally! I'm starving!" He crows from the couch, scrabbling to gather his crutches.
"I am glad," Mortu smiles warmly from across the room. He's still wearing his human skin, and the expression isn't any less uncanny. "The moment I told Kroegon who the meal was for, he made sure to prepare his finest dishes."
Suddenly, the suite is filled with a flurry of utrom in metal exosuits. They flood out of the elevator and into the kitchen like water bursting from a dam, opening boxes containing an alarming amount of tableware and trays piled with strange, delicious-smelling food.
"This is the most food I've ever seen!" Mikey calls from the kitchen.
"This really is too much," Don says quietly, his hand gripping his casted arm. "The suite, the medical care, now this… I mean. I'm not ungrateful, but..."
"Don't worry, Donatello," Mortu assures. "After everything your family has done, we are eager to show our gratitude."
He wants to respond, but Don's words have finally failed him. The lavishness of the display is overwhelming. But Mortu's human face smiles calmly as they move into the kitchen. Inside, the efficient bustle has almost calmed, and a staggering display of food is spread over every surface.
"I hope you three have had a chance to rest," Mortu says, scanning the room as if taking a headcount. "I assume Leonardo is here?"
"I'm here," says a voice that chills the air like a cold wind. And there's Leo, standing in the threshold, hunched and sickly in the full light.
"Leo!" Mikey yells, his crutches scrambling across the slick kitchen floor. "Whaddya think? Crazy, right?"
But Leo says nothing, doesn't even seem to notice the food or Mikey's desperate scrabbling for attention. Instead, he fixes Mortu with a frigid stare.
The utrom only nods in greeting. "I'm glad you are able to join us."
"You said you had something to discuss with us," Don cuts in, his eyes darting nervously between the utrom and his brother's icy look.
"Yes, of course," Mortu says smoothly, beckoning them to the table. "But please, sit. Let's eat before we get down to matters of business."
Obediently, they take their seats, and all but one of the crowd of utrom pile back into the elevator, disappearing just as quickly as they came.
"I trust you've been making yourselves at home," Mortu says as the remaining utrom starts serving them their plates.
"As much as we can be," Don says, fiddling anxiously with his silverware. A plate of food is deposited in front of him, but he has no interest in eating. "The technology here is amazing, and everyone has been so generous."
"Yeah. It's pretty nice to be on a planet where no one's trying to kill us for a change," Mikey adds, his mouth already full of food. "It's like we're heroes or something. Everybody knows us."
"That is very true, Michelangelo," Mortu says, fiddling with the buttons of his suit coat. "As you know, the Shredder has been an enemy of many worlds for thousands of years. He had begun ravaging planets long before we crash-landed on Earth."
Working his hands under the seam of his exosuit, Mortu pulls open the flesh with a disgusting squelch, revealing the glistening pink utrom underneath.
Mikey pulls a face. "I don't care how many times I see that, it still really, really grosses me out."
The alien wriggles his tentacles against the controls from the depths of the suit, and the human arms begin to politely slice a hunk of meat.
"I'm sorry, Michelangelo," the utrom says from the open abdomen, his human face no longer mouthing along, but staring still and unblinking. "Eating is a much more pleasant experience without the suit."
"Why are you still wearing one, anyway?" Mikey asks, picking up another forkful of yellow mush. "It's not like you still have to hide or anything."
"That's true, but the suit also offers sensory information my body cannot experience alone. Ever since we brought them to the homeworld, wearing an exosuit has become a popular method of sensory exploration."
"But I thought you guys hated wearing them. When we broke into your building Donny and I saw a bunch of guys peel out of them and get like, hosed down with acid. All they did was complain."
"They can be confining, yes. But the more advanced homeworld technology has made them much more comfortable than our earlier models." A far-away look overtakes his alien eyes. "Over the years, wearing an exosuit has become familiar to me. I enjoy wearing one for the same reason I have enjoyed building this suite. Though I am glad to be home, I will always think back fondly to certain memories of my time on Earth."
"Yeah, I guess that makes sense," Mike says, his eyes dropping to his plate. He's getting tired of carrying on the conversation. It really isn't doing anything to cut the tension, so he might as well stop trying.
It's hard to miss the way Don shifts nervously in his seat, pushing his food around but hardly eating any of it. And Leo. All Leo's done since he walked in is give Mortu the evil-eye. He doesn't even care about the food or the conversation or anything.
He looks wound like a spring, hunched forward in his seat. Like a predator waiting for the right moment to attack.
Even with Mikey's valiant efforts at conversation, Don can't shake the bad feeling that's nestled in his chest since they met Mortu in the lobby. Something isn't right and they all know it. He's just afraid of what Leo might do once he drops whatever bad news he's so busy dancing around.
"I… have an unrelated question," Don ventures after a lapse of awkward silence, trying to tear his attention away from that feeling of impending doom. "Have you heard any news about Professor Honeycutt? Glurin told me they were trying to reprogram him."
"Ah, yes," Mortu answers. "Our technicians have been able to restore the majority of his data, and are in the final stages of constructing him a new robotic body. I'm sorry you haven't been told sooner."
"No, it's fine. We've had a lot to deal with," Don says, relief easing some of the anxious fluttering in his chest. "I'm glad."
"As am I," Mortu says, his expression suddenly grim. "And so is the Utrom High Council. It's imperative that he is fully functional by the date of the trial."
"Trial?" Don asks. "What trial?"
"That, Donatello, is why I'm joining you tonight. We need to discuss exactly what happened on the Shredder's ship. In two days the High Council will be gathering leaders of the Allied Planets to hold trial against Ch'rell and his accomplices. They are being held in our prisoner holding facility until-"
"WHAT!?" In a dizzying blur of motion, Leo is out of his chair, fisting the slimy edges of Mortu's exosuit. The utrom gasps in shock, flinching away as the turtle seethes inches from his alien face. "You let him LIVE!?"
"Leo!" Don bolts out of his seat and starts pulling gently at his brother's uninjured arm. "Let go!"
At the same time, the remaining utrom server rushes into action, brandishing the taser rod out of nowhere. "Sir!"
Don shoves himself between Leo and the other utrom. "No! Don't hurt him!"
He knows Leo attacking Mortu is wrong, but the utroms saving the Shredder after they went through all the trouble to get rid of him for good… he can't believe he's still alive.
Mortu's exosuit pushes at Leo's unwounded shoulder, his alien face cringing at the green hands so close to his sensitive flesh. "Please don't touch me..."
"Do you understand what you've done!? We got rid of him! We ended it!"
"Leo, stop!" Mikey barks from across the table, his face dangerously serious.
Leo freezes, turns his head and stares at Mikey long and hard. For a long, breathless moment, they only glare at each other. Then, Mikey's expression softens. "Just let him go, okay?"
Leo's hands release. Mortu's exosuit thumps back in his seat. Then Leo turns and storms out of the room without another word.
It's Mortu that breaks the long, tense silence that follows.
"He has a point," he says, smoothing the edges of his suit. "But the Intergalactic Alliance is still a democracy. We do not believe in execution or punishment without fair trial, no matter how heinous the crimes. In two days Ch'rell and his accomplices will be held at trial, and the Council is requesting that you attend."
Don sinks gingerly back into his seat, hanging his head and massaging his temple against the headache exploding in his skull. "I can't believe this is happening."
"So it was all for nothing?" Mike groans, flopping heavily back into his own seat.
"I understand that this wasn't your intention."
Don's head snaps up again, a manic light in his eyes. "You think?" He laughs. "You think we intended any of this?"
"No, I believe you did not," the utrom cringes. "And I sincerely apologize for the pain and suffering your family has endured. I assure you that we will continue to offer your family the best medical care available and a comfortable place to recuperate until you are able to safely make it back to Earth."
Another heavy silence falls over the kitchen. Don looks ready to say something, but only manages a pained look. Mikey can only wince in sympathy.
"Glurin told me you've been asking about immigration laws. I mentioned it during my meeting with the High Council, and I'm afraid they are not willing to permit you permanent residence."
"What do you mean?" Don chokes. "Why?"
"They do not feel as though the choices made on Ch'rell's ship match those of the Utrom moral code."
"Because we blew up the ship."
"That is correct." Mortu glances between the two turtles, his eyes brimming with sympathy. "I am so sorry. Your family has done so much for the protection of my people on Earth. And I believe what you have done was necessary. But I'm not the High Council. This is not my decision to make."
"Okay. You know what, fine," Don snaps, banging his fist on the table. "We've had a very stressful last couple days, and I think I'm done with this conversation. But I need you and your High Council to understand one thing."
"And what is that, Donatello?"
"I will do everything I can to protect my family," he promises fiercely. "We're not leaving until every one of us can walk out that door, and not a day sooner. Understand?"
"I understand."
"Good. Have a nice night, Mr. Mortu. We'll see you at the trial."
Under Don's piercing gaze, Mortu stands, briskly seals up his exosuit and straightens his tie.
"Yes. Of course," he clips. "Rest well."
He stiffly marches out of the room, his comrade following close behind.
The moment the elevator doors slide closed, Don thunks his head down hard on the table and moans.
"Shit."