Hello everybody! Sorry it took me so long to get back! I've been enjoying my first week and a half of school free-ness! Hopefully I'll now be updating more frequently, and not just this but all my stories!

(and yes, I am still working on the sequel to Picky Portals, but it is insanely complicated and will probably take a while longer.)

Also, now that I'm free, I plan to finish several of my other efforts over the break, including:

Silent Partner

Walk the Line

Sleeping Death (no it hasn't been abandoned!)

and 6738 Miles

I know, I know, it's a lot, but I think I can do it. Plus I hope to get as many of these out as possible. I'm currently working on three right now that are at least a fourth of the way done. So hang in there, and bear with me!

Ch. 21-Deception

Raphael staggered forward, brokenly. His stomach tied itself into knots, his knees wobbled, and his voice shook. "Splinter dead, our home destroyed, and you expect me to pretend it never happened?!"

A hand gripped his shoulder softly and tugged him back around. Leo was cool and collected as ever. "It didn't happen, Raph. We turned it around."

"That doesn't change the fact that it happened the first time! Our father died in our arms, Leo! Our world got sucked into a black hole right in front of our eyes! We were powerless to stop it, Leo! Powerless!"

"But we did stop it, Raph, it's okay—"

"None of this is okay, Leo! None of it! Because the next time something like that happens we might not be lucky enough to have a second chance!"

And there it was, out in the open. Raphael's bad mood and insane efforts at overworking himself finally made sense. Leo's hand left his younger sibling's shoulder as he paused to assess the situation. This was never easy with Raphael. Donnie and Mikey's moods could usually be easily dealt with by a good swift whack on the head, but Raph was different. He was more emotional, and likely to dwell on things. After a week of watching Raph working himself into this apocalyptic funk, Leo had finally decided to approach the hothead. And, after being on the receiving end of his brother's insults for over an hour now, it looked like they'd finally gotten to the root of the problem.

Leo coughed, the intense shouting match now coming back to bite him. That Raph managed to yell all the time and never once lost his voice always amazed him.

He didn't reach out this time. Now that they were breaking very tender ground, any kind of physical contact could lead to deep cuts or broken bones, neither of which Leo wanted to deal with this late in the evening.

"But we did have a second chance Raph, we fixed everything. It's alright now."

"Until it happens again."

"Don't think like that, Raph."

Raph turned on him and snarled. "The shell am I supposed to think, Leo? You think I want to think about this stuff? I wouldn't, but someone in this family has to!"

"Raph—"

"Shredder's still out there, Leo and he's gonna keep coming after Master Splinter! He's never going to stop trying to kill him!"

Leo's eyes flashed dangerously. "I know that, Raph. You really think that I haven't thought about that?"

"So you admit it! Everything's not alright, Leo! It might never be! We might run around in circles for years! Shredder, the Kraang, the Utrom, space missions and aliens and Foot clan and humans and sticking to the shadows and never being seen. It could go on forever! Until we kill Shredder, or he kills us, or we kill each other, or someone else finishes the job for us!"

Leo's heart was racing. Raph's words rang in his ears. He felt as though a swift punch to the gut had knocked the wind out of him. The words were haunting, hanging between them dividing them like a giant metal wall.

For the first time in his life, Leonardo could see what Raph meant by 'nobody understands me', because for the first time, he understood. His blind eyes were finally able to see the truth:

He, Leonardo, could live from one day to the next. He could accept what happened, acknowledge it, and move on. Raphael, could not.

Raphael was a creature of the past. He dwelled on it and he practically lived in it. Every decision Raphael made, he made based upon past experience. Everything he excelled in, he had been good at for a long time.

New things disturbed him, made him wary and suspicious. Space had made him uncomfortable and sick. He'd immediately been attached to Chompy Picasso because the little alien turtle reminded him of Spike.

Of course, how on Earth had he not seen it? Telling Raph to ignore the past was like telling him to stop breathing. Saying that everything was alright just wouldn't fly.

Leo's silence had Raphael convinced that the eldest turtle had given up trying to talk to him. He sighed and slumped.

"I'm tired, Leo," he said, wearily. "Every day I wake up thinking I'll make the same stupid mistake and that it'll start all over again."

Leo looked up at Raph, confused. He'd only been listening long enough to catch the end of the sentence as he'd been lost in his own thoughts. He raised an eye-ridge and leaned forward.

"What mistake?"

Posture softening, Raph stared tiredly at his older brother.

The hothead looked horrible. There were dark circles under his eyes and their bright green irises were duller than usual.

"When was the last time you slept?" Leo asked softly, daring to step a little closer.

A brief flicker of amusement swept over Raph's stony face. "When was the last time you saw stars out your window?"

Raph hadn't slept at all in the week since they'd been back? How had he not noticed? He should have known. But, then again, Raph was very good at keeping them from noticing things he didn't want them to notice. Each of the four turtles had their own set of skills, and they had each mastered certain aspects of their training more than others. Donatello's cunning intelligence was undisputable, Michelangelo's aloofness was his saving grace, Leonardo's precision was unparalleled, but Raphael…

Oh, how Leo envied Raphael. At first glance, everyone assumed that Raphael's strength was his greatest asset, but they were all wrong. Though it had been obvious for a very long time, Leonardo had only realized Raph's true ability when his brother's words had slapped him in the face on the planet of the Aeons.

"You were always Splinter's favorite!"

He'd heard Raph say it plenty of times in the past, that was for certain. Especially when they were children. Leo had always denied it, feeling embarrassed and cornered. But it wasn't until that moment that Leo realized how much admitting it hurt his younger sibling.

That day, Leonardo had seen the truth. Yes, Raphael was strongest of the four of them, but that wasn't the gift he had been born with. Raph's strength was something he had worked for and compounded over time.

Of all the great ninja virtues, Raphael was an inherent master of deception.

He lied easily and without hesitation. His mind skillfully spewed out excuses and explanations with such efficacy that no one had any reason to doubt their honesty. Only those who were incredibly close to him could catch him in a lie, and usually it was only under unique circumstances.

Since that visit to the anger-inducing planet of the Aeons, every time Leonardo had actually been able to coax out Raph's true feelings only showed him how much deeper and deeper and deeper he had to probe to reach the real Raphael. It was difficult to know now, when Raph was telling the truth. It wasn't that he doubted Raph. Leo trusted his brother with his life. It was his own ability to understand his sibling that Leo doubted.

"Don't tell Mikey and Donnie." Raph murmured softly, rubbing his hands over his face.

A small smile crept onto Leo's face. Right now, though, Raph was being honest, and that was the only thing keeping Leo from hauling the hothead to his room and locking him in.

Raph yawned a little and Leo's smile grew.

"Of course not," Raph looked less than convinced, "You can trust this face, can't you?" He pouted, leaning closer to Raph.

With a grin Raph's hand shoved Leo's face away. Then a cloud swept over him and he turned away a little.

Leo felt the change and his smile dimmed.

"That's exactly the problem."

The eldest canted his head. "That you trust me? I'm your brother, Raph."

"Not you." Raph said, his voice getting sharp and dangerous once again. "I trust people, Leo! The wrong people! Way more than I should and it always ends up getting you guys in trouble! I've made that mistake more than once and look what happened!"

"Raph, what are you talking abou—"

Raph's voice dropped to a whisper, "If I hadn't trusted Zog, none of it would have happened in the first place. It was my fault, Leo."

Leo's head snapped up.

"It was my mistake. If it happens again, we might not get a second chance."

Once again, a green hand grabbed Raph's shoulder and squeezed reassuringly, but this time, Leo felt the powerful muscle flinch beneath the skin.

"It won't happen again, Raph. Not if we learn from the past."

"But can we, Leo? Can we really? Or are we only destined to repeat it?"

Blue eyes searched his sibling's face, hoping that somehow, Raph wasn't being serious. The longer he searched, the more he found himself wanting to despair, but he knew that he couldn't. First he had to pull his brother back to him, somehow.

"Raph, I know you."

The statement made Raphael look up and probe Leo's expression. "Do you?"

Leo bit his lip a little. In truth, he felt more lost around Raph than he had in a long time. Of all his brothers, Raph had changed the most since childhood, and with all these recent revelations, Leo truly had no idea where he and his brother stood.

"I think I do."

That made Raph smile. "You think?" He parroted.

The blue-masked turtle grinned back and said, playfully, "I recently discovered that I don't know you as well as I actually thought I did."

"Oh really?" Raph said, patronizingly.

"Really. You're a master of deception."

Raph's head turned slightly and he crossed his arms over his chest. "Am I?"

"Yes. You've been hiding form us." Leo said softly.

"Am I?" Raph repeated, his voice lowered, "Maybe you just haven't been looking."

"I have been."

"Then you must not have known what to look for."

Leo opened his mouth to protest, but Raph's hand flew up in a silencing gesture. The red-masked ninja swept past him into the hall that led to their rooms.

"I'm going to bed. Goodnight, Fearless."

"Love ya, bro," Leo whispered.

Raph didn't turn around. "Yeah, yeah. G'night, Leo."

Six months ago, Leo would have smiled. He would have believed that that was Raph's way of saying, 'love you too, big bro'. But now…what he saw frightened him. Leo, the fearless leader, was scared.

Raph was hurting, had been hurting for so long, craving any form of love and attention, good or bad, that he no longer knew how to respond to one of his brothers saying that they loved him. Leo couldn't even bring himself to think about how long it had been since Raph had believed them.

Now alone in the darkened center of the lair, Leo dropped the strong leader exterior, crumpled, and allowed a few silent tears to drip down his cheeks.

But, unbeknownst to him, there was a witness to his tears. A witness whose tears had long since dried. They thought he didn't know. They thought he didn't see the pain that they went through everyday. But they were wrong. He saw.

He saw everything. And he remembered.

That was why he had to stay strong.

That was why he always tried to hard to make them smile.

Didn't originally intend for it to end up going in the direction it did. Not sure how I feel about this one.

What do you guys think? Review Please!

Also, to guest Die In a Hole, who requested a chapter dealing with more of what Slash didn't tell Leo in Swap, I will do my best to make it happen, but it might be a little while before I get to it.