A/N: here's how it happened

Mikey wakes up slowly, to a string of colorful Christmas lights and his brother's scared brown eyes.

"Donnie?" He tries to sit up, but his body doesn't seem to agree with the idea. There's a dull, throbbing ache all down his left side, sharp spikes of pain lacing through him as he starts to move, and he winces. "Donnie, what – "

The room is fuzzy and dim – it must be nighttime – and there's faint music playing from somewhere else. Mikey's head tips to one side, and he gets an eyeful of sterile white walls and tile floors and a heavy blue separation curtain.

"The hospital?" he mumbles, trying to put it together. "But why'm I – Donnie?"

It takes more effort than he's willing to admit, to roll his head back to the other side. Donnie is perched in the armchair next to the bed, pale and wide-eyed, and his hand on Mikey's arm is so light Mikey can't even feel it.

"Did I miss Christmas?" he asks, and falls asleep again before he gets an answer.

The next time he wakes up, daylight is streaming through the blinds at the window next to his bed, and Raph is sitting in Donnie's chair. His elbows are on his knees, face buried in his hands, and Mikey croaks, "Raphie?"

The effect is instantaneous. Raph's head snaps up like someone shot him, and he looks like he hasn't slept in weeks.

"Oh my god," he says eloquently, lurching out of the chair and grabbing Mikey's arm in hands that hurt. If it were anyone else, that wet sheen in his eyes would have looked like tears, but Mikey knows better. It's Raph. "Mikey? Can you hear me?"

"Uh-huh," Mikey says, squinting at him. "You look tired."

Raph makes a painful-sounding noise, one that sounds like it was torn out of his throat, and in the space of a blink Mikey finds himself hauled carefully upright and cradled against Raph's solid chest. Raph isn't generally big on hugs, and Mikey knows better than to miss the opportunity. His arms around Raph's waist seem to take whole pounds of tension off the older man's shoulders, and Mikey blinks a few times against his worn-soft cotton sweater.

"S'goin' on, Raph? Where's Donnie?"

A dark shadow crosses his friend's face, and Mikey startles a little. He's seen shadows like that before, and they have no place in Raph's bright eyes. Unease coils sickly in the pit of his stomach, and he leans away.

"Raph?"

"Let me get the nurse," Raph says, reaching for the call button. He's not making eye contact anymore, his mouth pressed into a thin line. "You've been out for three days, kid. Scared the hell out of us."

Mikey looks past Raph to scan the rest of the room, trying to locate where his big brother is lurking. His body hurts with gusto, and the haze in his head is clearing—everything is gaining in quality, like he's driving toward a radio signal instead of farther away—and the heart rate monitor next to his bed starts to beep faster, giving his frazzled nerves away.

"Where's Donnie?" he asks again, more firmly this time.

"Mikey," Raph says, slowly, and Mikey shrinks away from the anguish in his voice.

"Just—can you just go get him?" Whatever it is that's so terrible, having Donnie nearby would make it easier to bear. Donnie always makes things easier. "He's probably not far away."

Raph jerks, like Mikey hit him. There's a long moment of weighted silence, and then Mikey can't stand it anymore.

"What's going on?" he blurts, too loud in the quiet room. "Where's my brother? He wouldn't have just left me here. He'll want to know I'm—"

"He's gone."

"Then go get him."

"Kid," Raph says hoarsely. "He's gone. You were—when you left our place, the roads were bad. Real bad. On your way home, a car at the intersection hit a patch of black ice, and—" Mikey isn't aware he's shaking his head until Raph's hands come up to hold him still. "Mikey. They hit the driver's side going sixty. The EMTs said he died on impact."

"That doesn't," Mikey says, and stops. Tries again. "No, that's not—he was just here. I saw him. I saw him, he's—" Raph is watching him in acute misery, and Mikey pushes him away—tries to push him away, except his try is kitten-like and weak, and Raph doesn't budge an inch. "He's not gone! Donnie!"

Mikey knows he saw him—but Donnie is nowhere to be found, now, and not even calling his name is enough to bring him running. The heart rate monitor is jumping even faster, and Mikey's breathing so fast and so hard it hurts, and by the time Casey and April make it into the room, hot on a doctor's heels, Mikey doesn't know what he knows.

The clock on the wall says it's two a.m. when a gentle, deliberate tapping brings Mikey out of a troubled sleep. Visiting hours are over, and so his room is empty—save the tall, bespectacled young man leaning over his bed. Mikey's charts are strewn haphazardly on the floor, and Donnie's prize—the ballpoint pen formerly attached to the clipboard—is clenched shakily in one determined hand. He taps it against the guard rail one more time, to make sure he has Mikey's attention, and then smiles tremulously.

It's enough to wake Mikey up the rest of the way in a heartbeat. He sits up, too fast—bruised ribs protest the rough treatment, and he ignores the ache in favor of reaching for his brother.

"Donnie! I knew you were—"

His hands slide right through his brother's waist, and he blinks. Donnie taps the pen carefully against Mikey's arm, bright eyes liquid and sad.

"Oh."

Mikey feels his eyes burn, and covers his mouth. When he sobs, it's a soft, muffled sound, and it tears through Donnie like a knife.

"Oh, no. Donnie, no."

Grief is finally dawning on him, huge and terrible and toothed, and fear winds cold fingers through his ribcage. Dad died when he was a baby, and they haven't seen their mother in close to five years. Donnie is Mikey's whole family, and now—

The pen raps sharply against the guardrail. Donnie looks like he wants to throw it at Mikey—maybe he would, too, if picking it back up wouldn't be such a pain. He points at himself with a jerk of his thumb, and then jabs a finger at Mikey, curled up like a miserable pillbug in the narrow hospital bed.

It takes a moment, and Mikey blinks watery eyes at him. "You're—with me?" Hope hurts his heart, ballooning violently in his chest. "You're staying with me?"

Donnie nods, and the scowl on his face goes soft. The room is bathed in a wash of cheerful Christmas colors, the multicolored fairy lights overhead twinkling slowly, and Mikey stares up at his brother.

And that terrifying heartbreak recedes slowly, like a tide pulling away from the shore. Of course Donnie would stay with him. Donnie would never leave him behind.

"Merry Christmas, kiddo," Casey says, when he and Raph come in the next morning. "You're gonna be stuck in here till you heal up a little more, so we bought you some yuletide joy."

Mikey beams at them, easing himself upright gingerly, and the nurse checking his vitals gives him a fond hair-ruffle before he leaves them to it.

"That's really cool of you guys, thanks! There's nothing on T.V. We can't even find a channel playing A Christmas Story."

They're looking at him oddly, like his good cheer is out of place. Casey sits his bags down slowly, and Raph's face is a careful neutral that speaks volumes.

"Mike?" Casey asks quietly. There are bags under his eyes, but he still looks right at Mikey with a tireless kind of caring, like he'd drop everything and run for miles if he thought it might help. "You okay?"

Donnie is sitting in the nook by the window, and he smiles when Mikey looks past Raph's shoulder at him. Mikey smiles back, and lets his friends think he's admiring the snow outside.

"I'm okay."