Disclaimer: I do not own Ninja Turtles; Peter Laird, Kevin Eastman and Mirage comics do…And whoever else.

Donnie came to Mikey's side; the currently mask-less turtle was staring at Raph and Leo with his blue eyes distant and glazed over. His mind returning to his flashbacks.

"Mikey," Don said and gently shook his brothers shoulders "Don't space out, you might have an episode." Over withdrawal did not mean no episodes; the pills he took were made so that he would stop having episodes after all.

Slowly a look of consciousness returned to Mikey's features. When he glanced at Raph and Leo again he tensed up and dark gray shades clouded his eyes up again. Before Don could stop him, he snarled and jumped at the two fighting turtles. He barreled Raph over, off of Leo and ripped one of Raph's sai off of his belt.

The distant look was again contained in Mikey's eyes; definite episode, he must have been re-enacting another flashback. Like Zeus holding a lightning bolt to strike down the disobedient, Mikey raised Raph's sai high up and slammed it down.

The sai was dangerously close to Raph's throat; luckily Don took a swift hold of Mikey's wrist to stop him from gutting Raph. "Mikey! Get a hold of yourself! Remember where you are!"

In response Mikey jumped Donnie and attempted to attack him. Leo, though a little bruised up from Raph's assault, was instantly on his feet. He flung himself at Mikey and held him tightly in a sort of embrace.

Mikey kept trying to attempting to break free, squirming frequently and twisting around. Leo kept firm held and continually whispered "Its okay Mikey, you're not in the Foot anymore. You're with us, you're safe." Gradually Mikey's protests weakened and he went limp when Leo started rocking a little.

Blue-gray eyes regained the shine of consciousness, the episode was over.

Don helped the shocked Raphael back onto his feet.

A growl tore from Raph's throat as he angrily pointed at Leo "Mind tellin' me why ya mouth was all ova' our little brotha's neck? What's wrong wit' you?"

Leo glared back at Raph and tightened his grip around Mikey in a almost possessive way. "What's wrong with me? What's wrong with you is a better question! You attacked me!"

Raph took out his remaining sai and got into an offensive stance "Because ya were tryin' ta force yaself on Mikey!"

Don flinched when anger crossed Leo usually calm demeanor. "I WOULD NEVER DO THAT!" Leo shouted, Mikey flinched a little too (Then again, that probably had something to do with Leo shouting literally next to his ear….err, whatever the Hell it is they use to hear.)

"Actions speak louda' den words, Leo! I saw what ya were doin'!" Raph shouted back. Don didn't have time to break the news to Raph, he didn't have to: Leo did it for him.

"HE'S MY MATE, SHELL-FOR-BRAINS!" Leo roared.

There was a clatter as Raph dropped his remaining sai; disbelief written all over his face; he seemingly lost control in his legs because he wobbled a bit when he took a step back. "W-What did'ja just say?"

Mikey suddenly thrust one of his arms out and pushed Leo away rudely. Ferociously he glared at Raph. "You heard right." He stated lowly "I'm Leo's mate now, got a problem with it?" He challenged.

"Mikey-!" Don warned.

"Shut up." Mikey cut him off rudely, and then walked away towards the stairs.

"Where are you going?" Don asked, puzzled and a little hurt.

"Leave me alone! I can handle myself; I'm not made of fucking glass.." Mikey snapped and like a bullet was off; seconds later they heard the front door slam shut.

Don whirled around angrily and glared at his two older brothers. "You idiots." He hissed with his hands curled into fists.

At that moment, Raph would rather have taken his chances with the Shredder again rather than his over-protective genius brother. No really, if he had a choice he would have chosen the Shredder.

Angelo was swiftly dashing in the forest; past the trees and over shrubs; occasionally leaping to create more distance. Tears burned his eyes but he refused to let them fall; he'd humiliated himself in front of them enough times when he was going through withdrawal he wasn't going to lose any more pride over more water works.

Damn, what had he become anyways?

Angelo came to a firm stop and sat on a conveniently placed boulder and withdrew into his thoughts.

What had he become? Was he Homato Michaelangelo; son of Splinter, the youngest of the Hamato clan and the most immature of his team? Or was he still Oroku Angelo; terror of the Foot clan, cold Foot ninja and brother of Oroku Karai?

He wasn't who he was over a year ago; his personality wounded by Raph and finally destroyed by the Shredder; he hated comics now, Junk food is considered a sin, video games are pointless, TV is boring, being lazy and he was 'trained' to feel that being lazy or immature would bear punishment.

But weeks ago he had been Angelo: Cold, borderline psychotic and sadistic, more than willing to hurt his family in a quest for revenge. Mostly quiet, sarcastic, insensitive and uncaring if he was dead or alive. Loyal Foot ninja, trained to be far ahead of his brothers.

In all honesty; he didn't want to lose his Angelo personality; it was the only personality he had left since his former one was impossible to regain. Literally, every time he had failed a move or made a one-liner he could feel the electricity burn his wrists.

Unconsciously, Angelo pulled one of his wristbands off and stared at his wrist; in the entire area the metal bands once where the skin was badly burn-scarred, it had scared him just as much as it had Donnie and Leo.

He felt like he was losing control of himself again; like he was letting those around him influence and change his personality again, make him different enough that he wouldn't recognize himself.

Angelo shut his eyes and unwilling tears streamed down his cheeks; it wasn't fair, in the Foot clan they forced him to be 'Angelo', but now back with his family they were trying to change him too; try to make him become his former self even though that feat would be impossible. He didn't trust them enough to willingly change.

Seeing Leo and Raph fight like that, it brought back bad memories: being pinned was Angelo's #1 weakness, it either made him freeze up in horror and go extremely ballistic with rage. All of the Foot knew it, only Karai and Chaplin understood it. Seeing other people get pinned also made him ballistic; first he'd flashback to that day and without thinking he would then tear the person pinning someone down off. The Foot lost several of their ninja that way, because unlike here, there was no one in the Foot clan to hold him back like Don had.

Even if he was afraid of Raph, that fear was over-ruled by his protectiveness when seeing people pinned; it was heightened by an overbearing need to protect his mate. Who the hell did Raph think he was anyways? Angelo was just finally being a bit more physical with Leo and Raph freaks out.

Raph reacted like that because he still loves you, a familiar voice rang in his head; great, his Donnie-sounding conscience was back.

Love doesn't exist, Angelo mentally replied coldly, choosing to not listen to the voice. Angelo hopped off of the rock. Why should he care about Raph anyways? Leo was his mate and Raph won't ruin that: it was bad enough that Angelo can't get physically far because of him, he wasn't going to lose his mate too.

"Mikey?" Don's somewhat distant voice called from somewhere else in the forest.

Shaking his head, Angelo started off towards the direction of Don's voice.

Love doesn't exist, he reminded himself, just to assure himself it was true. He wasn't sure anymore.

Great, just great he was losing even more control of his current personality.

So this is Raph's reaction: Yeah, good luck with that Leo.

The plot point of this chapter was to bring into light that it's even harder for Angelo to open up towards him family and change because he isn't willing to lose control of his personality again because the last time he 'let' someone do that, it was the Shredder and he became Angelo.