PRESENT
The scene inside the vault was a devastating blow to both the good father and the family friend. Donatello was near death but, with his last bit of strength, had begun to draw with his blood some letters on the floor. Rockwell, still clinging to hope, knelt near the young genius to help him but, the only thing he succeeded in doing with that action was to hear the last breath of the turtle in purple. Splinter, aghast at what his young boy had done, was breathless when he saw that the only eye of his son's face, the one that hadn't been shattered by the shot, had remained fixed on him as if begging for the forgiveness that he could no longer know would be granted.
"My child…"
Releasing his tears full of grief once again, the old master approached his little Donatello. With trembling hands, he gently touched the eyelid with his fingertips to close that pleading eye and then divested himself of his haori, he used it to cover the entire upper body of his son. Rockwell, after carefully looking at the letters that the smartest turtle had left as his final message, stood up and walked away a bit; his face showing not only a forced resignation but also the deepest respect for what had then become an early grave.
Splinter was the first one to get out of the vault with slow and insecure steps. Upon seeing his father's face wet with tears, Leonardo and Raphael didn't need more to know that they had lost another brother. Both sought refuge in each other's arms, only in that way they could protect themselves from the havoc of the agonizing reality. Both felt the weight of that dreadful feeling of having been a complete failure to keep their little brothers safe.
"AHHHHH" Raphael shouted at the top of his lungs and then listen to Leonardo murmur with the voice of a broken heart: "You have decided to free yourself from sadness, Donnie. You have decided to follow Mikey. I promise that the person responsible will pay dearly for it." The young leader moved away slightly from his brother in red who, after hearing those words that came out from his brother's lips, looked him in the eye and nodded with a determined look, instantly joining the promise Leonardo had made. At that moment, his eyes, besides the thick tears, shared an equal unequivocal reflection of avenging as his brother's. After that mute oath, Raphael continued to weep, but quietly, like his oldest brother, both surrounded by each other's arms, the best place in the world to regain their strength.
April's heart couldn't take it anymore. She fainted right away when she saw Rockwell coming out from the vault with Donnie's bandana in his hand, the distinctive piece of clothing stained with blood and imprisoned between the mutated scientist's fingers. Casey barely managed to hold her because he also had his eyes flooded with big, fat tears of sorrow.
Leatherhead and Slash sat together in one of the corners of the lab, both sharing the deep regret of having failed to get there in time and cursing their meager powers to avoid that tragedy. Both of them looked from one face to the other, weighing the devastating effects of everything that had just happened. So much in such a short time that it was impossible to accept.
Splinter dropped to his knees, feeling suffocated by what he had just seen. When they saw their father fall, his two remaining sons surrounded him with their arms, trying to comfort their father. Although Master Splinter was one of the most versed people in dealing with the vicissitudes of life, he also desperately needed that contact.
Everybody spent several minutes entirely dedicated to mourning the loss of two beings as unique as Donnie and Mikey. Rockwell breathed out a sigh which reflected a difficult decision. He approached Splinter, who upon seeing the doctor walking up to him, looked at the ex-human in surprise.
"Master Splinter, may I have a word with you?" The scientist's attitude made known to the wise father that it was something important.
"Go ahead, I'm listening, Doctor Rockwell."
"Could it be in private?"
The Doctor got everyone's attention by uttering those words.
"If you suggest secrecy because it could hurt us even more with what you can say, don't worry, Doctor, I've always told my children that there should be no secrets that can affect the whole family, so go ahead, you're free to speak in front of everyone."
NINE MONTHS EARLIER
It hadn't even been two weeks after Raphael's full recovery when the next mishap occurred. It was unthinkable that three of the guys could be in trouble at the same time, it was a one in a million chance, but it happened. Donatello, Michelangelo, and Raphael fell directly into a trap so perfectly planned and executed by a small group of kraangs that anyone could have bet that the youngest turtles had done it on purpose.
That not-so-numerous bunch of pink aliens was made up of a small group of survivors who had remained scattered due to various reasons after the defeat of their evil group in Dimension X. They had decided to fully obey their thirst for revenge on the group of heroes, to avenge the Supreme Kraang. Ordering the blue ninja to remain still if he didn't want to see his brothers die before their time, the kraangs placed Leo's little brothers on a small platform to teleport along with them.
But Leonardo wasn't going to allow his little brothers to be kidnapped right in front of his eyes to face the cruel fate that awaited them: extermination after torment. Weighing all the variables, the oldest brother found the best way to help the younger ones. Seeing their leader smile as he murmured two words after setting his eyes on them, the others undoubtedly knew that they were looking at the same face that Leonardo had when he asked them to escape from the Technodrome before sinking. That made their hearts skip a beat.
Just a few seconds before the kraangs activated the mechanism to teleport the three turtles tied together, Leonardo, with astonishing speed, leaped to pick up one of the kusarigamas that Mikey had dropped when he was captured and accurately aimed the blade at the platform. The energy of the device was diverted through the metal blade of the kusarigama, running all along the chain that touched the metal bodies of all enemies up to Leonardo. Both the group of kraangs and the turtle in blue disappeared in an instant, leaving the rest of the team looking at the spot where Leo had been standing a few seconds earlier.
The search for the missing turtle by all the members of his family and his friends went on for almost a month. It was thanks to April's faculties that they managed to find him. The young psychic had already lost count of her unsuccessful attempts to communicate telepathically with her friend. But one afternoon, when everyone was beginning to give up, the teenage girl had a fleeting vision of the future. They had to look for him somewhere near a known alley. There they would find Leonardo.
Just a couple of days later, they found him.
…..
"Now his feet, Mikey," Donnie pointed out to his baby brother, who, breathing out sad sighs, gently cleaned his oldest brother's feet to keep him neat, comfortable. Sometimes Donatello thought the prankster was afraid to touch Leo, and he was.
"I hope I'm not hurting him, Donnie," confessed the youngest, "he still looks so fragile... and I think that..."
"Don't worry, little brother, Leo will be fine," interrupted the smartest, soothing him with a loving look. "Doctor Rockwell helped me to synthesize the best analgesic for our mutated bodies. Thanks to that, our brother can rest without feeling anything at all."
Mikey looked sadly at the young genius when suddenly Raphael and Master Splinter entered.
"Is he going to wake up soon, Donnie?" Raphael, like everyone else, was waiting expectantly for the return of his older brother to consciousness after having found him almost on the verge of death.
"So... he feels nothing?" The little one asked again with a little bit of hesitation in his eyes.
"He can't feel a thing, Mikey," Donatello repeated, looking at his little brother with reassuring eyes. "I hope it will be very soon, Raph. The wounds that had battered our brother's body have already been treated. He is on the best path to complete healing," Donatello continued speaking with a voice that unquestionably mixed relief and an expectation as intense as Raphael's.
"You have taken good care of your brother, my son," the afflicted father was happy too, but he also was a little impatient.
"Nothing?" Mikey insisted.
"Nothing," replied again the smartest, but this time with a slightly more serious tone in his response to the insistent little turtle. "Thank you, Master, I have done my best. Leo will soon regain consciousness and will be happy to be back home with..." Donatello was interrupted by Mikey's voice.
"Those... wretched, miserable monsters... even without being present, they are still hurting my brother..." Mikey said as he clenched his fists.
"Mikey..."
"My son..."
Although Donatello didn't utter a word after hearing those words from Mikey's lips, a language full of deep hatred, he was as shocked as Raphael and his father. They looked at the youngest as if they were witnessing an inexplicable phenomenon.
"What's the matter, Mikey?" Donatello was the first to react because not even Splinter, petrified after witnessing how his youngest son express hatred in all its splendor, couldn't articulate a single word to rebuke him for the foul language.
"Leo's condition when Raph found him..." the little one began to speak with a dejected voice, "I've had nightmares ever since! In those bad dreams..." Mikey's voice trailed off, "Leo... our Leo... had to endure beatings... injuries... loneliness... surrounded by hate... and now that he's back... he can't even feel our cares... I know the new medicine Donnie gave him serves to stop him from suffering even more. But because of it, he can't feel anything! The actions of these evil ones continue to make Leo suffer!"
Mikey couldn't take it anymore and burst into tears.
"No, no, little brother!" Quickly, Donatello approached his baby brother and wrapped him in his arm, "forgive me, Mikey, that's not what I meant, Leo no longer suffers pain, but he can still feel your soft touches on his skin, your kisses and your hugs.
"And even if he couldn't," Raphael intervened, also approaching the freckled prankster, "Leo is stubborn enough to insist on feeling us, on enjoying all the love we give him, even if he had to do without the relief that medicine gives him. He continues to fight with all his might." His hot-headed brother assured him with a contagious conviction.
"There is no substance on the face of this world, my son, that can extinguish or diminish your brother's spiritual capacity. He knows you are here, worried about him as we all are, patiently waiting for an opportunity to return to consciousness. You shouldn't be sad because he can feel it too." His father added, succeeding to erase all the doubts in his youngest son's heart.
"I get it... Forgive me for the bad words, sensei," the little turtle wiped his tears as he apologized to his father, Donnie still hugging him, "but it's just that I thought our brother couldn't enjoy all the love that we give him."
The wise rat smiled at his son, full of understanding, just like Raphael, who placed one of his hands on Mikey's head, looking at his smart brother. Right away, Donnie released the youngest to Raphael to take him to sleep. Both turtles started to walk, followed by their old father. But before they walked through the door, Mikey ran back to his older brother's side.
"I'm so sorry, Leo, I didn't want to make you sad," the little turtle gently took one of Leo's hands and gave a soft yet loud kiss, "don't worry anymore, from now on, I will always be happy so, when you wake up, I will share all my happiness with you. Good night big brother. I'm going to sleep now."
After saying those candid words, the youngest turtle returned to the side of his brother in red. Proudly, the old sensei stroked his beard and nodded in approval. Their children gave love with full hands. Everyone, except for Donnie, left the infirmary.
The young scientist still had to change the bandages on one of Leo's arms, so Donatello got to work immediately. He removed the bandages from his brother´s arm, checked that the stitches that closed a brutal slash that had reached the bone weren´t getting infected, and began sterilizing all the skin in the area before bandaging it again.
Donatello was the only one who could, with the abilities with which he had been born, and had been brought to light by his mutation, treat the wounds of his brother with movements that at the same time merged softness and firmness in each of them.
"That feels so good," those words had been spoken by the faint voice of a weak but conscious Leonardo, surprising the smartest one. "Hello, little brother." Leonardo turned his head a bit towards his brother in purple, the corners of his lips arching slowly.
"Leo!... Oh, Leo... How do you feel?" Donnie asked him almost immediately as his breathing became anxious when he saw his brother awake. The smartest one pulled up a chair next to his brother to check him out.
"I feel... peachy...," Leo responded, trying to laugh but failing because of the weakness he was suffering because of not eating anything for a long time.
"Wow, then you're worse than I thought if someone as serious as you feel like making jokes." Donatello laughed as his eyes shed several tears.
Unable to contain himself any further, Donatello carefully embraced his big brother's head, touching his forehead with his own.
"Forgive me, Leo, if it hadn´t been because I followed Mikey instead of stopping him, we wouldn´t have fallen into that trap. I feel like a complete idiot." The turtle in purple whispered in his brother's ear, his words sometimes interrupted by his sobs.
"It's not your fault, Donnie," Leonardo whispered back, trying to comfort his young brother. The young scientist wanted to stand up to finish what he had started with his brother's arm.
"No..." Leonardo muttered again; he didn't want his brother to stop hugging him, "don't let me go, Donnie, please..." Donatello hugged Leo again.
For several minutes the young leader enjoyed the soft touch of skin against skin, succumbing to the charms of the sense of touch that filled with life all his other senses, satisfying his mind and spirit. That sensation facilitated the intensive communication, especially for the older turtle who, having only a fraction of his usual energy, gave himself in without hesitation to Donatello's experienced hands. Something that in many human societies would be unusual to see because of the culture of no contact that exists for people who confuse those acts as actions before sex.
"Can I... ask you a favor, Donnie?" Leo asked, feeling not only the warm moisture of his little brother's tears but also his loving concern for his well-being.
"Whatever you want, Leo, just say it."
"Can you keep hugging me until I fall asleep again?"
A loving smile was the response to the request of the turtle in blue.
Donatello felt as Leonardo breathed a deep sigh of relief, saw him close his eyes even with that faint smile on his lips, and stayed there. He could feel his arms not only filling his battered brother with love but also protecting his dream from painful memories of the ordeal he had to face. That simple token of affection healed his soul. Both souls.
Donatello also slept without ceasing to embrace his oldest brother, thinking: "Oh, Mikey... now I fully understand your fears. Leo, you are right, this feels so good..."
To be continued…