Chapter 4 – Makes You Stronger.

"Hey Donnie!" Mikey called as brightly as he could upon bounding into his brother's room. "Dinnertime!"

"Not hungry." Don muttered distantly as he picked up a circuit board from his desk and carefully placed it into the remote he had been working on.

"You're never hungry. You're going to make yourself sick, bro. Well anyway, tonight you don't get a choice." Mikey informed. "Because tonight is family night! Pizza and Cranium. Just you, me, Leo and Raph. And Splinter will be at dinner too, but the game will just be the four of us. Come on, what do you say? We can't play with three."

"Mikey... I don't..."

"You can't hide in here forever. Please come back to us, Donnie." Mike begged.

Donatello sighed. "It's just dinner and a game, right?"

Mikey nodded, Don was obviously psyching himself up to do what was asked of him.

"I can do that, right? I mean it's just dinner and a game."

"You can totally do it, Donnie. Come on, food's getting cold."

Don nodded and stood. He followed Mikey until they came to the main room. Don froze on the last step and tried to back up, but his brother stopped him. Mikey followed the other turtle's gaze to the box that sat in the far corner.

"Come on, bro. You have to do it sometime. I'm right here with you, we're just going to the kitchen. We're home now."

"But those things..."

"They." Mikey corrected quietly. "They're not going to hurt you, Donnie. They were trapped there, just like you. Come on, let's go to the kitchen." Gently pulling Don's arm, Mikey led the reluctant turtle to the table.

"Yo, Donnie!" Raphael greeted. "He tossed a couple slices of pizza in the air, caught them on a plate and handed it to Don. "Good to see you out of your room for something other than training!"

Don had started joining them in the dojo a couple weeks previous. He got there early to warm up a little on his own and performed the warm-up katas with his brothers, but that was almost more than his still recovering body could handle most days and Splinter forbade him from continuing the physical practice beyond the warm-ups. Don was sent to meditate for the rest of the time. Sometimes he did, but usually he just went back to his room.

"Uh huh," Don replied half-heartedly, in that same detached tone. Raph couldn't help but cringe whenever he heard Donnie speak like that.

They ate mostly in silence. A silence that was occasionally broken by Mikey's and Raph's attempts at humor, but the jokes usually fell flat and the silence returned. Leo noted that, in sharp contrast to the almost whole pie Mikey had put away, Donnie didn't eat more than a couple bites of the pizza Raph had given him, and that most of the toppings had been picked off. He made a mental note to make sure that there was something around that would be easier on Donnie's stomach than the heavy pizza next time around. Leo sighed, knowing that even now, three months after returning home, his brother still had trouble eating certain things, a lot of certain things. He shook his head and put a vitamin pill in Don's hand. A pill that Leo usually wound up almost literally forcing down his brother's throat, much to Mikey's dismay. If Don wasn't going to eat, he was darn well going to take the vitamins. In fact, given the repeated administration of unwanted vitamins and medication, it was a minor miracle that Donnie allowed Leo near him at all. Leo had quickly discovered that his brother was much more amenable to a chewable pill than something he had to swallow, and given what he'd been through, Leo couldn't quite blame him. The blue-masked turtle gave his brother a small smile when Don took the pill on his own and chased it with some orange juice.

After the awkward meal, they went into the main room for the game. Leo was slightly worried that the game would bomb the way dinner had, and it showed in his demeanor. Mike teamed up with Don and Leo paired with Raphael.

It was a little slow at first, but the game did start warming up. Every once in a while Leo would catch Donnie's worried glance to the corner of the room, but he had also seen Don smile. It hadn't been much, but it had been there when Raph had to draw a cow with his eyes closed and two of the cow's legs had ended up inside it's body, and its head was underneath it. Needless to say, Leo didn't get the answer. It was well known among the brothers that Raph's drawing skills left something to be desired, whether he had his eyes closed or not.

Donatello was the go to turtle for data head or word worm cards, but he was positively hopeless when it came to the singing cards. While Michelangelo usually knew the song, 7 times out of 10 Don didn't. He sighed as Mikey started humming yet another song that he didn't know.

"Come on, Donnie! You've gotta be kidding me! You know this one!"

"I don't know it, Mikey." Don insisted.

"It's 'We Are the Champions', how can you NOT know that song!" Raph asked as the timer ran out.

Don just shrugged and looked away. Again his eyes fell on that box in the corner.

Leo could feel his brother's apprehension level spike and quickly pulled attention back to the game. "Raph, who's turn is it to act?"

"Yours." Raphael answered without thinking.

Leo eagerly took the card from Mikey, but his brother's grin didn't give him much hope for what he had to do. Barney? Like the purple dinosaur? Terrific. Leo couldn't do a good imitation of that disturbing thing to save his life, and he wouldn't particularly want to be able to. The timer was about half gone when Don figured out who Leo was trying to imitate. In that moment, Leo felt like a real idiot. He never should have accepted the card. He stopped and just let Raph guess for the rest of the time, but the damage had been done.

"Maybe we should have gone through those cards." Raph said shortly after Don left.

There were parts of the story from here that even Mike deemed unfit for little girls' ears and while he remembered the conversations he left out insignificant pieces that he didn't feel like explaining to a five year old.

"Be glad it was just Barney and not the sperm card." Mikey replied, suddenly recalling the time that he'd had to do that particular charade when Master Splinter had been on his team. There was just something about acting out sperm for your father and sensei that was just a little wrong, whether you were the same species or not.

"Mikey, you and I are going through those cards tomorrow." Leo said. "I don't want this to happen again."

"Leo, he has to deal with it sometime." Raph insisted. "As much as he might wish it, those eggs aren't going anywhere."

"I know, but we're going to lose him if we're not careful."

"I hate to say this, Leo, but it's quite possible that we've already lost him. I don't think he knows who he is anymore. Maybe if we had intervened sooner..."

"Raphael!" Splinter scolded. "I do not want to hear talk like that again!" He rapped the red-masked turtle on the shoulder with his walking stick. "It is not too late until you believe it is too late. You have to believe in him." Once Raphael had been dealt with, Splinter left to find Donatello. "Leave that game right where it is. I will be back shortly."

"May I come in, my son?" Splinter asked as he knocked on Donatello's door.

Donatello didn't respond either way so Splinter took that as an invitation. "Why did you leave the game?" He asked gently as he came in and sat down on the bed beside the dangerously underweight turtle.

Sitting cross legged on the bed and fiddling with the remote he had been working on earlier, Don just shrugged.

"You cannot hide from your family forever." Splinter said. "I know that while in Bishop's custody you were subjected to abominable treatment and that what he did to you is unforgivable, but now you must find a way back to us, Donatello, a way back to yourself."

"I'm trying, really I am." Donnie said quietly.

Splinter nodded in understanding and put an arm around Donatello's shoulders. "I realize that playing a game with your brothers was a big step for you, but now I think you should see it through. Go back out there, and finish that game."

Don looked at Master Splinter. "I don't... I don't know if I can." He could feel himself start shaking again.

"And you will never know until you try." Splinter reassured the turtle. He pulled the confused young man into a gentle hug that wasn't immediately returned.

After a long moment Don dropped his head in defeat and accepted his father's embrace. He then nodded, stood and went back to the main room where his brothers were waiting.

When the game ended a short time later, Michelangelo even managed to talk Don into watching a movie with him. Mike pulled out The Dish. While he didn't find the movie all that wonderful, he couldn't think of anything in it that would disturb his brother. It was the only one they had that Mikey couldn't come up with anything upsetting. He wasn't even sure where they had gotten the movie from, though, considering what it was about, he had a feeling that Don had something to do with it's presence in the lair.

Mike couldn't help but smile when Donnie laughed slightly at Rudy's interrogation of a sheep. By the end of the movie, the purple-masked turtle had fallen asleep on his brother's shoulder.

Catherine giggled at the sheep comment. She had seen the movie and enjoyed that little moment too. Mike was glad that he could give her a little bit of a laugh in the story he was telling her. It was a time in his life that he didn't particularly want to remember.

A/N: For those of you who are curious about that sperm card, it is one of the charade cards. When I first came across it my teammate was my dad. To make matters worse I had to do a charade for the word 'nipple' a few turns later. My mom and sister found it hilarious. Me? Not so amused, really.