049. Brainiac

"Hey, Donnie," Leo said, his voice soft and gentle, "It's time for breakfast."

Don's head turned slowly, as though he were underwater.

"Mm? Oh…hey. Is it…food?"

Leo cringed inwardly, but forced himself to smile.

"Yep. Time for food."

Don nodded, slowly, a slight frown on his features.

"There was something…I needed to…do," he said, slowly, "Let me just…"

He raised his hand and began tracing invisible numbers in the air with a finger.

"I'm sure you'll think of it," Leo said, warmly, "But it's time for breakfast now, so why don't you put that away?"

Don looked at Leo suspiciously.

"Prove you're real."

"Remember what Mr. O'Neil told us? About grounding?"

Don nodded slowly.

"Your mask is blue. And…I hear the clock ticking. And the sheets are…warm. And itchy. And…"

Don took a big whiff through his nose.

"Oatmeal?"

"Oatmeal," Leo smiled, "With raisins. I'm real. And it's time for breakfast."

There was no clock in Donnie's room. Leo added that to the list of things to tell Mr. O'Neil.

Don's shook his head slowly.

"I hate this," he said, sadly.

Leo's chest ached, like his soul was battering its fists on his rib cage, like it was an actual cage…but he forced his face to stay calm and impassive.

"I know, Dee. Here."

He sat next to him on the bed and put the tray in Donnie's lap.

"Can't I just…take a little break from the meds? Just for a day?"

"That's not how the medication works, Don."

"I miss thinking."

Leo sighed.

When Donnie told them he was working on decrypting code from the Kraang sphere, they had no reason not to believe him. When he insisted the work he was doing was critical to the salvation of the world, it was par for the course, as far as they were concerned. Saving the world with his brain was pretty much what Donatello did.

But gradually, things made less and less sense. The Kraang sphere didn't seem to be lighting up or making noise, but he insisted he was receiving transmissions near-constantly. He demanded copies of each day's newspaper, clipping out certain words and glueing them together in new orders, pasting them directly onto the walls of his lab. He had always been a bit fussy with his food, but now there were strange new rules - nothing green could touch anything else on the plate. Everything had to be in multiples of four. Mikey learned to cut his sandwich into four equal parts.

Then came the accusations. Raph was trying to undermine his work because he was being mind-controlled by the Kraang. Leo kept trying to get him to sleep because that's when he would sneak into the lab and undo all of his work. April was in mortal danger because Casey wasn't really Casey, but a Casey clone, created in a laboratory by the CIA for the express purpose of spying on them. Attempts to refute these claims would send Don scurrying to his marker board, writing line after line of illegible equations as "proof," almost faster than he could speak.

Despite this, he was incredibly prolific. New inventions materialized in a single day, improvements to the Shellraiser were constantly ongoing…his "Idea" journal was overflowing, filled with page and pages of scribbled concepts, schematics. At the beginning, it said things like, "Kevlar for shell? fireproofing spray. Gyroscopic implant, cyborg, improve balance?" By the end they said things like, "SUICIDE PILL CAN'T LET THEM TAKE ME CIA KNOWS HIDE APRIL SHE KNOWS TOO MUCH."

One day, a terrified Raph had called Leo's name, and he instantly knew it was about Donnie, and he equally knew that as long as he lived, he never wanted to hear Raph say his name with that kind of fear in his voice - never again. He came running into the room to find Raph holding back a struggling Don while Mikey tearfully pried a bloody pair of scissors out of his fist one finger at a time, Don still trying to dig into his own arm, ranting that they didn't understand, if he didn't remove the tracking chip, the Triceratons would destroy them from space with mass drivers.

That was the day he finally gave in, took April's advice, and asked Mr. O'Neil about the meds.

Donnie's brain was so much a part of him - it was uniquely cruel that it would betray him this way; and even crueler that the medication Mr. O'Neil had recommended had such unpleasant side effects. He struggled to stay focused, struggled to put sentences together. Everything he did was slow, sluggish, like moving through molasses. He had no interest in anything - not even April.

"It's a process. It's not an exact science. It takes time. We'll try adjusting his levels. There's another drug we could try."

Leo had become accustomed to the platitudes from Mr. O'Neil. He knew he was a research psychologist, not a practicing psychiatrist - knew that he was trying his best, knew he had nowhere else to turn; but his best wasn't good enough, and he hated him for it, even though it was completely irrational and unfair.

Well, at least he wasn't trying to dig invisible objects out of his body anymore.

"I miss thinking, Leo," Don said, his voice flat and tired, "I miss being me."

"You're still you, Donnie," Leo said, firmly, "You're more you now than you were before."

"Can't I just…take a little break from the meds? Just for a day?"

"No, Donnie," Leo repeated, gently, "That's not how the medication works."

"Oh," Don said, meekly, "Okay."

He looked down at his lap in surprise.

"Hey, oatmeal. Is it time for breakfast?"

"Yeah," Leo smiled, "Time for breakfast."

A/N: With respect to John Nash, and all those who suffer from mental illness.