Alrighty, boys and girls, this is it, the final chapter, with a short epilogue to follow.

Chapter - 11

Shortly before arriving home, Leonardo stumbled and ripped Donatello and Michelangelo apart. Mike tensed in Leo's arms, but drifted back to his unconsciousness quite quickly. Donatello was another matter. He became agitated and kept fighting his way back toward Michelangelo. No attempts made by either Leo or Raph calmed him down or woke him up. It was obvious to both that, even though Don was fighting to get back to Mikey, he wasn't in the same place they were. The group in the sewers was forced to a halt for 5 minutes before Donnie grew exhausted and drifted off again. Leo and Raph were able to move much more quickly after that, and they hurried for home. After Mike and Don were safe under Master Splinter's watchful eye, Raphael confronted Leonardo.

"Now you are going to tell me what they shell your problem is, Leo."

"There is no problem." Leo answered flatly. As far as he was concerned he didn't have a problem.

"Don't you dare give me that. You've been acting like a jerk for days now and I, for one, am sick and tired of your crap."

"Raph, trust me. You don't want to do this." Leo warned.

"No, you don't want to do this. You know I'm right. Ever since that day when I took a swing at you and you went all chameleon with the wall you've been acting really weird, and I want to know why. I don't think your new mutation includes acting like a snot so that only leaves one other possibility." Raph got more up in Leo's face with each word.

Leo turned away from his brother. "Raph, drop it. I'm warning you." He started to leave the room.

That was all it took. At that moment Raphael knew exactly what Leo's problem was. "This isn't something you can hide from." He said quietly.

Leo whipped around and faced his brother. "Let it go, Raphael." He ordered icily before storming away from the fight.

Never one to listen when he felt differently Raph raised his voice and continued. "Pretending it never happened isn't going to make it go away." When Leo whipped around Raph knew that he had hit his mark dead center.

"What do you know, Raph? Your gifts just work. You are strong, and you somehow don't get blown up. They just do what they're supposed to do without you having to control them. You have no idea what it's like!"

"That may be true. My battle is an old one, but you are helping no one by acting the way you are! You need to figure out what your real issues are and deal with them. And you better do it quickly because, if you keep this up, someone is going to get hurt."

"Is that a threat?" Leo inquired darkly.

"No, it's a warning. It may not be you, but someone will get hurt. If you don't stop flashing random colors, you could give away our position. You have the perfect gift for a ninja and you're all ticked off about it and pretending it isn't there. Mike and Don aren't too fond of their new changes, but at least they accept them and are learning to use them. I don't know what you think you're doing, but you really have to pull yourself together, Leo." Raphael yelled before storming out of the room to calm down, leaving Leonardo alone in his wake.

Leo just stood where he had been left for a moment. He was just about to head to the dojo when Splinter emerged from the room that was serving as the infirmary.

"Leonardo, would you please watch over your brothers for a while."

"Will Mikey be okay, Sensei?" Leo asked in a small voice.

Splinter looked at his son with a raised eyebrow. He hadn't missed the wording of Leonardo's question. "Yes, Leonardo, both of your brothers should recover in time, but they need their rest." Splinter emphasized the fact that there were two turtles lying in the room and the flinch of his son's shoulders told him that Leonardo had recognized the subtle rebuke.

Leo started toward the room with his unconscious brothers.

"Leonardo," Splinter called, stopping his son in his tracks. "I do not know what Donatello did, nor do I understand how he did it, but whatever it was saved Michelangelo's life."

Closing his eyes, Leo took in Master Splinter's words. "I understand, Sensei." He made his way through the door and sat down beside Michelangelo's bed.

Don woke up first which, since he wasn't the one who'd had a sword put through his gut, was not surprising.

The first thing he noticed was that his head was pounding. The second thing was the shouting. He recalled that Master Splinter had shown him something… The shouting faded out and Don carefully opened his eyes. He had recognized the voice, if not the words being spoken, and it didn't take him long to find the owner of said voice perched on a chair on the far side of the other bed in the small room. Leo was holding Michelangelo's hand.

"Leo?" Don called out quietly.

"Donnie." Leo stated without emotion, never releasing Mikey's hand.

"Is Mikey okay?"

"He will be." Leo answered Don's question without letting go of Mike or even looking at his other brother. No matter what Master Splinter or Raphael told him, he couldn't change the way he felt.

"Are you still mad at me?" The purple masked turtle asked in a whisper. "Whatever I've done, I'm sorry."

Leo found himself becoming furious at his telepathic brother. He was certain that Don knew perfectly well that he was still angry. "You're the telepathic one. Why don't you just read me and figure it out for yourself."

Slightly shocked by the ice in his brother's voice it took Donatello a moment to recover his thought processes.

"Well?" Leo prompted.

"Leo, I won't read you because you don't really want me to." Don said finally.

"And how do you know that?" Leonardo barked as he leapt from Mikey's side and approached his wakeful brother.

"The look on your face, every thought that I was forced to hear since I woke up that day, the annoyance coming off you in waves right now. Leo, please understand, I never meant to read your mind. I hate that it has come between us like this."

Leo's expression relaxed a little but he was still angry.

"If this is about me reading your thoughts," Don continued, "Splinter showed me something. I can control it a little easier now and can stay out of your head. Please Leo. Please don't be angry with me."

Now, Leo softened. There was something very wrong with this situation and he realized rather forcefully that it was himself. It wasn't like him to hurt his brothers like this. It wasn't like him to tear them apart just because he could. And as much as he hated to admit it, Raphael was right.

"I don't know how to deal with this, Donnie."

"No one said you were supposed to. None of us did. It's something we each have to figure out for ourselves."

"You wouldn't understand, Don." Leo muttered. No one could possibly understand what it had been like to watch Mike and Raph go down twice, to know that they would, and be completely helpless to stop it.

"Try me."

Leo shook his head and stayed silent for a long time. He knew his brother was waiting for a response, but he wasn't sure what to say.

"I saw it. I saw it before it happened and there was nothing I could do to stop it either time. Nothing could stop Mike from getting ripped apart by that Foot ninja. Nothing could stop the building from falling in on Raph. But that didn't stop me from seeing it."

Don looked away for a moment, lost in thought. "If I told you that your vision probably saved Mike's life, would you believe me?"

All Leo could do was look at his brother in amazement. He hadn't done anything to save Mike. "I didn't do anything to save him. You saved him with whatever it was you did to him."

"You did." Don affirmed his previous statement. "I was just getting the last of the Foot soldiers out of my head when I heard the shout. It wasn't Mikey's. It was yours, the one when your precognition kicked in. "No one called out like that when he actually went down. If you hadn't had that vision I never would have been there, and you would have had to leave him alone and bleeding on the roof in order to fight the Foot away from him."

"What did you do to him anyway?" Leo asked.

Don looked confused for a moment. "You know? I'm not sure. I searched for his presence and when I found him I was in a spot of sunlight on a beach with a storm raging around me. I chased him into the storm and we fought our way back to the sun together." He tried to sit up and found he couldn't. Everything ached, and he was forced to lie back down. "Beyond that I don't know."

"Donnie, you ok?" Leo asked with genuine concern in his voice.

"Yeah, I think so. I just ache, that's all."

Leonardo looked back over at his orange masked brother who still lay unconscious on the other bed. "Mikey should have died from an injury like that." He paused a moment in thought then he spoke again. "I think I know what you did."

"Huh?" For once in his life, Donatello was at a complete loss for where Leo could possibly be going with this one.

"You healed him." Leo said quietly.

"No, Leo. I didn't do anything…"

"Ok, maybe that isn't quite the right word, you took his pain. You took some of his injuries away from him. And I think you spread his injuries throughout yourself."

Don continued to shake his head from his place on the bed.

"It's the only way to explain why you're hurting." Leo stated plainly. "You weren't injured in the fight, and you weren't burned in the explosion."

"Leo, what you're talking about..."

"Nevertheless, you did it. I don't know how, but you did." Leo let it drop there. He could see that his brother was tired and the conversation was agitating him. "You should get some sleep, Donnie."

Don nodded and shifted on the bed. "Leo," he called after a moment, "you should join us for our late night training sessions. It might help you learn to control the camouflage. And maybe the precognition too, you never know."

"Yeah, I think I'll do that. Sleep now, Donnie." Leo ordered then watched as his brother's eyes closed, the subconscious need for sleep winning over the conscious desire to continue their discussion. He sighed and continued his vigil over his brothers. Leonardo had moved to a position between the two beds; Donatello to his left and Michelangelo on the right. He sighed and closed his eyes for the briefest of moments.

Michelangelo clapped Raphael on the shell and smiled the way he did when he was trying to get away with something. "You're not gonna tell Leo about this are ya?" The orange masked turtle asked in an innocent tone of voice.

Raph seemed to be debating for a moment, probably just to let Mikey sweat for a moment. "Nah bro, I won't tell. It will be our little secret."

Leo opened his eyes and looked down at Mikey's still unconscious form. He recognized what he had just felt, that was his precognition kicking in again. Even though his brothers had obviously been trying to hide something from him, he couldn't find it in his heart to be even mildly annoyed at the moment. The only thing that stood out to him at the moment was that Michelangelo had been awake, and was his usual cheery self.

"Come on Mike, you have to wake up sometime. Might as well make it sooner rather than later!"