Chapter Fifteen

Five days later, Leo was cleared to go back to Raph's apartment "and rest," his doctor ordered sternly. The twenty-eight year old begrudgingly agreed to the directive, but not without shooting a puppy-dog-eyed look at Raph that put even Mikey's baby blues to shame.

The first night that the four mutants stayed in the apartment, it took some maneuvering to get everyone settled. Raph once again claimed the sofa (against the wishes of his three guests); Donnie and Mikey agreed to share the guest room, which put Leo in the master bedroom.

Though the space wasn't much larger than any of the other rooms in the apartment, the emerald turtle was grateful that he at least had his own bathroom - his own space.

The twenty-eight year old reached for his phone, thanked the gods above that he still had battery left, and winced at all of the missed calls and unread messages. Most of them were from Usagi, it seemed, but a few of the voicemails were from his boss, who'd seen the news footage and wanted to inform the young doctor that he was being given an "extended leave of absence" - i.e. he was being furloughed indefinitely.

Hot tears stung at Leo's eyes and he wanted to collapse right then and there. All that kept him from doing so was the knowledge that if he so much as whimpered, one or more of the Hamatos was sure to be at his side within seconds.

He'd worked so long and hard to get that job, poured countless hours and effort into it, pulled himself out of the statistics of the foster kids who'd fallen just short of the mark-

And look where it had gotten him. He was the broken, bloody survivor of an airplane explosion, miles away from his home, with no job and no future in sight. Saki Industries was a bust - they would've called by now, surely - and Leo had no luggage, no money, and no way to get back to his own apartment in Washington.

For the first time in a long time, Leonardo tasted the bitterness of helplessness, of fear, of failure.

He had failed.

The next couple of days were solemn; Leo barely spoke two words together at any given time, and wouldn't explain to the others what had happened no matter how much they pressed him. Mikey finally managed to get the blue-eyed terrapin to open up, one broken syllable at a time, and by the time he was finished Mikey was crying along with him.

It seemed that the youngest Hamato knew all too well what it meant to claw your way to the top, only to be knocked down again with little to no warning.

"But why does it matter?" Raph asked them both the next morning, when the four mutants were sitting in the living room together to eat breakfast. He'd tried, really tried to understand the logic behind showing that much emotion over a job - being a policeman was one thing, he risked his life on the front lines of a never-ending war - but being a doctor? "There are hospitals all over the place. It should be easy enough to find a new job."

"It's not about that." Leo huffed in frustration and scrubbed at his face. "It's about...well...getting that job was one of the only times I actually felt accomplished. That my life meant something. That I wasn't just another statistic."

Donnie frowned and steepled his fingers together as he leaned forward over the coffee table. "What do you mean by statistic?"

For the second time that week, Leonardo was forced to confront his own bitter thoughts on the subject, and he found he was tired of doing so. "I didn't want to be one of the kids who amounted to nothing," he admitted. Heat flooded his cheeks and he looked down at the floor to avoid Donnie's prying gaze. "The other foster kids were already so messed up. I don't blame them, but I never wanted to become one of them."

His shoulders drooped as he continued his thought. "I was sent to enough foster homes to realize that people didn't actually want me. Didn't matter that I was a good kid, that I followed the rules to the letter. I was a freak. Nobody wanted to take in a mutant turtle kid." The doctor's face hardened and he suddenly looked up, meeting their eyes.

"I was determined to prove everyone wrong. I got straight A's in high school, went to college on a scholarship. Graduated from college and went right into med school. When I came out, I applied for my old job and they hired me for a probationary period. I worked my way up through the ranks. I worked for everything I had. And now it's gone."

The room was silent for a very long time while the three Hamato brothers processed - or in Mikey's case, reprocessed - the information that had just been revealed. Raph exchanged a glance with Donnie as a certain fact struck him; by the look on the brainy turtle's face, he was thinking the same thing.

"You were in the foster system?" Raph repeated, more of a statement than a question, and Leo scowled.

"Yeah, what of it? Does that change the way you see me? Now you know I'm not some privileged rich kid who bought his way into med school?"

The detective was interrupted before he could form a response; the sound of a stairwell door slamming shut echoed loudly in the hall outside, and all four turtles stiffened at the pounding feet that followed.

Leo flinched and reached for Mikey's hand; the freckled mutant gripped it tight in response as his two older brothers exchanged glances and silently moved towards the door.

There was the rattling of the door handle and then the unmistakable sound of the lock releasing. Raph and Donnie stepped forward, tensing, and-

"Raph? Where th'hell have you been, man?! I've been trying to call you for days. Did you hear that the airport exploded?! It looked like somethin' straight out of a…holy shit."

Any other words died on Casey Jones' lips as he took in the tableau before him: not his best friend alone in the modest apartment, but three other mutant turtles - two of which had a very serious falling out with said best friend, and the other being the same one he'd seen so very briefly only a few short weeks ago. "You were at the hospital!" the raven-haired man burst out, pointing an accusing finger at Leonardo.

Leo blinked in response, momentarily stunned speechless as he tried to remember exactly when they'd apparently met, but he didn't have to come up with a good response because the older man was already whirling to face Mikey and Donnie.

"And you two. What the hell are you doing here?! I thought you guys were on the outs with Raph!"

"We were," Donnie hedged, shifting uncomfortably. "Life intervened."

"What?"

"It's a long story," Raph cut in while exchanging a glance with his blue-eyed houseguest. "You'd better sit down."

A/N: I hope this long chapter kind of makes up for the whole "me being gone for ages" thing. Heh. Heh. Sorry. :/

Also, if the ending doesn't quite fit, that's because that's the part I'd had written a long time ago, and it's literally almost midnight here now, and I've been up since 6:45 this morning so I'm pretty dead lol.