AUTHORS NOTE:
Yay! Another chapter and I've actually posted it earlier than before!
Once again any criticisms are very much appreciated ^^
Leonardo awoke in the late hours of the morning with a foot being shoved into his face, he could only scowl at the smell as he pushed it aside and stretched, a small groan leaving from between his lips and he did so.
He moved his sights to his right side where he saw Mikey and Raph still sleeping away, Mikey's foot having been in his face a few moments prior. He stretched again and sat up fully making the blanket that had been placed upon him fall off.
Once he stood up, he checked the time on his phone and could feel the panic building up inside him quickly, they were all at least three hours late for training!
"Guys! We're late for training, get up!" He spoke in a panicked tone as he ripped the blankets off of his brothers, he ignored their complaints and rushed off to find Donnie.
To his surprise the genius was in the kitchen with their father, a cup of coffee placed before him on the table along with his laptop and a pile of papers. Leo found himself growing confused as Splinter looked at him and gave him a curt nod as he saw his eldest walk in.
"Good Morning, my sons. Did you all sleep well?" He had a mischievous glint in his eyes as he greeted the three brothers who had just woken up, Mikey and Raph following Leo after a few minutes.
"Morning Sensei!" Mikey chirped as he ran up to the stove to start cooking some pancakes for dinner, it was something he always made if they'd had a bad night.
"Mmm, Mornin'" Raph spoke in a soft voice as he sat down at the table placing his head on top of it, too sleepy to do anything else really.
"Good morning Father," Leonardo answered his father in a confused manner as he joined his immediate younger brother in sitting at the table.
Leo grabbed the teapot that had been sat in the middle of the table upon a cloth by his father, he also grabbed a small teacup that had also been placed there by the eldery rat and began to pour himself a cup of tea.
He breathed in softly as he smelt the earthiness of green tea and couldn't stop the peaceful look that crossed his face due to the smell of the tea, it had always been his favourite type of tea to drink when he woke up in the mornings. He just always found the earthy taste comforting and found it helped him to stay focused throughout the day.
Lifting the cup of freshly poured tea to his lips he took a small sip and sighed in contentment before asking the question that had been plaguing his mind since he had woken up a few moments prior.
"Why didn't you wake us up for training, sensei?" he tilted his head slightly as he asked this question and raised a brow as he saw his father smile gently.
"I decided it would be best to take the day off of training in light of what happened yesterday, however I didn't get the chance to tell you all since you had fallen asleep before I finished my meditation," the ninja master spoke as he placed his four fingered paw upon the table.
Leonardo nodded slowly and looked over to his genius brother who was looking over the results of the tests that he had done on Raph's blood last night and this morning, he found a knot of worry was growing in his chest as he saw the frown of confusion that was crossing over Donnie's face.
"What did you find Donnie?" the young leader placed a hand on the back of Raphael's shell as he waited for his other brother to speak.
"There is a high count of platelets in your blood Raph, this basically means that your body is trying to fight off some infection. I don't know what it could be though, I tested for the necessary things such as diabetes and certain cancers that can cause this to happen and thankfully all came back negative."
Donnie looked over at his brother to see his reaction. "You obviously haven't had any surgeries so you wouldn't have gotten an infection from one. I want to do a full body scan since the only other two options I can think of are, asplenia and a chronic inflammatory disease," he looked down at the sheets of paper again.
"Asplenia?" Raph looked over at Donnie as he questioned him, his voice shaking slightly from his nerves.
"It's significantly rare and is basically an absence of the spleen. It wouldn't be too dangerous if it wasn't for your weak immune system since the spleen is a main component in helping the immune system work, now that isn't to say that you couldn't live a full and happy life without a spleen since your liver can pretty much take over and function for the spleen."
"It's also known that you can take a longer amount of time to heal an injury or get over an illness without a spleen, however I don't think this is what's wrong here since you pretty much have the same healing capacity as the rest of us. Though I would still like to check," Donnie smiled at his brother gently trying not to freak him out.
Raphael nodded slowly as he listened to everything Donnie said, his head swimming with all of the information he had been told. He only calmed down when he felt the hand of his older brother rubbing soothing circles on the back of his shell.
"It's going to be just fine Raph, there's absolutely no reason for you to worry, you're in the best hands possible right now," Leo spoke in a confident tone trying to get rid of the nervousness his brother was feeling.
The red clad ninja could do nothing but nod and give his brother a thankful smile, he had promised himself that he would try to be more open about his feelings with his brothers. Especially since something was so obviously wrong with him.
Mikey had been listening to the conversation going on behind him as he made the final pancakes before slapping them gently on one of the five plates he had laid out. After this was done he spun around with the plates on a large tray and a bright smile on his face.
He placed a plate of four pancakes in front of each of his family members and in the place he would be sitting, he then put a plate with some more pancakes on it in the middle of the table next to the pot of tea before he sat down, grabbing the large bottle of maple syrup he had set down earlier.
Raphael watched as his brother poured an unhealthy amount of syrup over his pancakes and shook his head slightly at the giddy look that it made go across his brothers face, he silently reached over for the syrup bottle and poured a small amount upon his own pancakes before digging in.
"These are amazing Mikey!" Leo's voice rang out excitedly as he too dug into his pancakes.
A bright smile found its way onto Mikey's face as he gave his brothers a thumbs up, syrup dripping down his chin slightly as he wasn't the cleanest of eaters. This caused Leo to chuckle as he reached over with a napkin and gave his youngest brothers face a wipe.
"Jeez, as big as your mouth is, you still managed to miss it somehow." A playful glint shone in Leo's eyes as he mocked his brother.
Mikey glared at him slightly and swatted his hand away in a somewhat offended manner. "Leooooo, stooooppp."
Leo could do nothing but snort as his brother started to whine about how it wasn't funny to mock him about the way he eats or about how big his mouth supposedly is, he pushed his brother's head away gently as he laughed about how he was still managing to complain about his joke.
Once they finished with breakfast Raph and Donnie put their dishes into the sink and made their way into his lab, this was so Donnie could do the full body scan that he had mentioned earlier.
"Okay Raph, I want you to sit up on the cot while I get everything ready, the scan will only take a few minutes but looking through them will take me a bit longer," Donnie talked to his brother as he set up his x-ray machine in a way that would do the body scan.
Raph sat up on the cot as he watched what his brother was doing, he found himself growing a tad bit nervous and so forced himself to do the breathing techniques their father had taught them. In and out, In and out.
He continued to breathe this way until he felt his heartbeat slowing down to a normal rhythm and placed his hands upon his knee guards, he then looked over when Donnie called his name gently.
"Okay Raph, I'm ready for you to come over now. I just need you to take off your gear before we finally get started."
The hothead nodded and slid off the cot while taking off his ninja gear. Once it was off he walked over to his brother and waited for any instructions the young genius would give him, he had scans done before so he had a jist of what he should do but nothing along the lines of a full body one.
"Great! Now, I just want you to stand at the back of the screen and move when I tell you too. It's just like every other scan you've gotten done before so there's absolutely no reason to get nervous," he gave his brother a thumbs up and a big smile before starting the machine.
A hum left his lips as he looked at the results that were appearing on the screen before him, everything seemed to be fine but he wanted to print them off when they were done and take a better look at them. He didn't want to tell his brother all was well when it was in fact not.
So, it was with that thought in mind that he continued to move the machine in whatever place he needed to be scanned next, giving gentle instructions for his brother to move more to the left or more to the right. He also took one of the back of Raph's shell to be sure he could see everything.
When he figured that he had gotten all that he needed he gave a nod and turned the machine off, the low humming noise that it had created slowing down more and more before it became nonexistent.
"All done, Raphie! I'll take a look at these now and should have the results for you at dinner, or after patrol at the latest."
Raphael gave his brother a nod and started to put his gear back on slowly, wincing as a pinching pain began to form in his side. "Thanks Don." The young genius gave his brother a soft wave as he watched walk out before getting started on reviewing the scans.
After having his scans done Raph decided to go a few rounds with the dummy they had in the main room of the lair, he knew it was probably a bad idea and would most likely make the pain worse but he didn't know what other way to spend his time.
He twirled his sai in his hands as he began to land punch after punch upon the dummy, his face pulling back into a slight scowl as let out all of his frustrations. He just couldn't believe this was happening to him, he had been perfectly healthy this time the year before. So why was it so much different now?
The pain in his side grew more and more though he found himself ignoring it, he was far too caught up in his thoughts.
If only you hadn't been so dramatic about the whole thing. If only you had kept it to yourself, you wouldn't have your brother slaving after you in his lab, you wouldn't have had everyone worried after you fainted last night if you'd just been paying attention. You're a ninja for god sake!
Sweat began to bead on his forehead and arms as he continued to lash out all of his harsh feelings toward himself upon the dummy, small grunts leaving him every now and then as he threw a punch or lashed out with a kick to the dummies soft body and face.
He growled as he felt the eyes of someone watching him burning into the back of his head and rather than listen to the voice in his head telling him to stay calm, he spun around and glared daggers while baring his teeth at Mikey who had been watching him for the past few minutes.
"Dude, I don't think you should be doing that, you know since your like not 100 and all," the young freckled turtle had a look of worry that only served to piss off the angered turtle more.
"The fuck do you know, huh!? You don't know shit Mikey!" he winced on the inside not understanding why he was getting defensive, he knew his brother was right. So why was he arguing?
"Woah dude, chill! Sorry I was worried, good god. I won't worry about you anymore then!" Mikey turned around in a huff and focused his attention back on the telly ahead of him, his face molded into a slightly offended pout.
He knew Raph had been having a hard time lately but the guy didn't have to almost chew his head off for making sure that he was okay, he also knew that his brother's pride was most likely a factor and soon found himself feeling guilty.
With the guilt swirling around in the pit of his stomach, he turned back to face his brother only to see him missing. He frowned and got up to go look for him, his arms hanging loosely at his sides.