I know this is terribly late, and I'm very sorry. As my trig teacher'd say "Life got in the way". Between swim meets and other nonsense (education included)...life really did get in the way. So even though it's late, here it is...

Disclaimer: Don't own anything

He was tired.

He hadn't had any rest since Serling had talked some sense into him, but that didn't matter right now. What really mattered was that he had failed. Failed his mission, failed his friends, his brothers, his father…

Donatello hated failure.

So there was only one thing to do, throw his heart into his work…and against all odds, he'd found something. Their father was alive…somewhere out there in cyberspace. And if the others had had any chance of getting him to stop his work earlier, it had vanished at his first glimpse of Splinter; just because he hadn't stopped didn't mean he couldn't keep going, after all.

Don heard their words, but he remained oblivious to the concern his family expressed.

"Donnie, you can't blame yourself, it's not your fault"

In his own mind, it didn't matter; the only one who could relate at all was Serling, and it wasn't like the robot cared that much. What were they thinking, trying to tell him it wasn't his fault? Of course it was his fault! He'd been the one operating Turtle-X at the time, even if the systems had been taken over by Viral. He should have found a way to fight her off!

What did the others think he was doing?

He couldn't let Viral infect Serling again, and she definitely couldn't be allowed to access the lair's technology. If there was one thing to say about the turtle in purple, it was that he learned from his failures, and that was why they were so rare. He simply had to learn from them, because his mistakes always ended like this! They weren't little harmless things like Mikey tripping over his own cat or even Raph punching through the television...again; both those things could be fixed with relative ease.

Don sighed as the thought crossed his mind once more: His mistakes could be the end of them, or even cause the future to come crashing down. And his family honestly thought Leo was the perfectionist? There was simply no room for error in his work, as the slightest miscalculation could cause disaster.

Still...

Frustration was no excuse for treating his family so poorly... Now that he'd had the time to reflect on the day, he could see that his words had not been fair. What must they have thought as he'd snapped at them earlier? Again, that odd line drifted through his head. You must be strong when your brothers are weak...

Wasn't that what he was doing? Nobody else knew the technology well enough to do this sort of work...One weyward thought came to him for a moment; he was going about this wrong, he should listen to Leo. Who else had become consumed by guilt?

Leonardo had taken it to an extreme, too...and he'd been sent away because of it.

"Donnie, you can't blame yourself, it's not your fault"

Donatello dismissed the idea though...this was a completely different situation, after all.

...wasn't it?

"Yes it is."

Another weird ending, but I liked it, believe it or not. That's my favorite line from 'Karate Schooled', right there. Really looks like things are going 'Season-4-Leo', huh (That's not an insult! It's a good thing)? Neh... I'm not complaining...

...Believe me, I'll stick Mike in here sooner or later...

Reviews are appreciated, if you've got the time.