April watched Leo as he sat down on the sofa and stretched out, wincing as he did. "You okay?"

"Yeah." Leo poked gingerly at the fracture in his plastron. "Donnie really did a number me."

April cringed. If only she had spent less time fussing over the other guys, she might have gotten to Leo before he flat-lined. "Sorry about that."

Leo raised an eyebrow. "How is this your fault?"

"Well, if I'd gotten to you sooner, you wouldn't have needed a kiss from prince charming to wake you up."

Leo burst out laughing, then clutched at his chest. "Ow." He shook his head. "I'm telling him you called him prince charming, by the way."

"Don't. He'll be so embarrassed. I'm surprised you're not."

Leo flushed slightly. "Nah. I'm not embarrassed by that – I wasn't even awake for it."

"You're embarrassed about something, though."

"No, I'm not."

"You're terrible at lying, you know that?" April had seen the look on his face when Leo told Mikey about his dream. He might have meant some of it, but he was clearly not telling the whole story. "But I am sorry I put you on the spot like that. I just realized how personal of a question it was. I should've figured out from Donnie's reaction not to ask you, too."

Leo sighed. "You were there, April. You saw how willing I was to give up."

"I'm confused." April walked over to the sofa and sat down on the end; there was just enough space for her between the arm of the sofa and Leo's feet.

Nevertheless, Leo bent his legs, pulling up his feet so that April had more space. "What do you mean, you're confused? You were there, fighting off that giant beaver."

April couldn't keep her mouth from opening in surprise. "I was just holding your head and concentrating on you, trying to get you to wake up. Your subconscious must have filled in the rest."

"Really?"

"You sound disappointed."

"Well – it was just – you said some really nice things to me."

"Like what?"

"You called me your captain, and said I was the best leader you'd ever known."

April's heart melted. "I was actually thinking that while I was trying to reach you. That you're more than my friend, you're my leader."

A tiny smile crept on to Leo's face. "Really?"

"Yeah."

"I guess your thoughts reached me then." His smile faded, and he hung his head. "You kept telling me to hang on. Even after that, I was still ready to just give up and die. I'm pretty ashamed of that."

Oh, Leo, April thought. Ashamed? How bad had his dream been? "You have nothing to be ashamed of, Leo. None of this is on you – you were being attacked in your sleep by a demonic beaver."

Leo nodded, but he didn't seem very convinced. "If it hadn't been for you, April, I wouldn't have made it."

"What do you mean? You didn't make it because of me – you made it because of Donnie."

"Okay – Donnie said that technically, I was dead, right? Well, in my dream, I was bleeding out, and then there was this light, and you stopped me from going into it. You dragged me back to earth and started fighting off that beaver thing, but it wasn't enough…" Leo shuddered. "Sh-Shredder stabbed me through the throat, and then I was floating back to the light, and you stopped me. I wanted you to let go, but you wouldn't."

April swallowed. The pain in Leo's face made her want to cry.

"Then suddenly, you were gone. You were saying something to me, and you just vanished."

"That must have been when Casey asked me to smash the dream plug," April said. "Oh, Leo. I'm so sorry."

"That's not my point, April. If you hadn't been holding me back, I would have died way before the others woke up, and then Donnie wouldn't have been able to save me. I'm alive because of you." He nudged her with his foot and smiled. "Thanks."

April blinked tears out of her eyes and sniffed. "You were dreaming about Shredder?"

Leo was silent for a few minutes. When he finally spoke, his voice made him sound far away. "Yeah."

April knew he wasn't lying, but she could see from his face that the dream had been far, far more complicated than that. "If your dream was that bad, I'm glad you kept it from Mikey. He probably wouldn't have been able to handle it."

"Raph and Donnie were holding back, too."

"I knew Donnie was." April had suspected Raph was too, but she had gotten the vibe that he wasn't hiding as much as Donnie and Leo. "It's really sweet that you guys go to such lengths to protect Mikey."

"He deserves to be innocent."

The front door opened, and a moment later, Donnie walked into the living room with an old tackle box that had a red cross drawn on it. "All right, Leo. Let's get you checked out." Donnie took a small clip-like device and put it over the end of Leo's finger. "Oxygen levels are a little too low for comfort." He scribbled down a number on a notepad. "Mine were too, but not as low as yours. You'll want to work on some deep breathing."

Leo complied immediately by taking a deep breath; however, he winced halfway through. "It's hard with my chest hurting."

Donnie nodded as he pulled a stopwatch out of his. "I believe it. Here, give me your wrist." Holding Leo's wrist, Donnie counted under his breath until he clicked the stopwatch off. "Let's see…18 times three…that's only fifty-four. Okay for resting, but I'll check again later when you've moved around a little."

April watched with some amusement as Donnie switched to a stethoscope. He was so thorough. She had always admired that about him, even though sometimes it was annoying. But she could tell by the look on his face that he was still somewhat traumatized by almost losing his brother, and possibly from whatever horrors he had experienced in his own dreams.

"All right." Donnie put everything back into his tackle box. "Your vitals are good. I'll try to rig up an x-ray so that I can make sure I didn't damage your sternum in addition to your plastron."

"About that," Leo said, "I don't suppose you started up a batch of shellac?"

"Oh, yeah, I did, but it won't be ready 'til tomorrow."

"Shellac?" April raised an eyebrow. "You're going to varnish him?"

Donnie chuckled, though there was an edge of nervousness to it that reminded April of how he acted right after they'd escaped New York. "No. It's just what we call my calcification-promoting shell re-bonding agent. You know, that stuff that I made for him right after we got here. It accelerates the healing process by as much as 22.8 percent. I've actually been making that stuff for years – Mikey called it shellac once, and it just kind of stuck." He locked the tackle box shut.

"Are you doing okay, Donnie?"

"Me?" Donnie said, his voice leaping up in pitch. "Yeah. I'm fine. Why wouldn't I be fine?"

April opened her mouth to reply, but Leo shook his head at her. Just then, they heard the door open, followed by Raph's characteristically noisy, forceful footsteps going up the stairs.

Leo cringed at the noise. "You know, I never ceased to be amazed by the fact that Raph is actually as stealthy as he is."

"Should we check on him?"

"Bad idea," Leo and Donnie said in unison.

The rest of the day passed relatively normally, as if the turtles hadn't had a close brush with death. Casey and Mikey returned with several boxes of pizza, and all of the turtles ate an almost comical amount of it. Probably, April thought, because their dreams had drained them so much. Raph spent most of the evening alone and Donnie spent most of it in his lab, but this wasn't out of the realm of normality. Leo played some video games with Casey.

It wasn't until well after nightfall when Mikey announced that he was tired that things got strange again. All of them except Raph were in the living room, and Mikey stood up and declared that he was going to get ready for bed.

"You're kidding, right?" Leo said.

"No, I'm not kidding. I just ate six pizzas, dude. You know I pass out after four, usually."

"See? This is where your pizza-fuelled nightmares come from," Casey commented.

Mikey put a hand over his face. "Can we not talk about nightmares?" His voice had a slight edge to it.

Casey grinned sheepishly. "Yeah…sorry."

"Actually, sleep isn't a bad idea." Donnie put a hand on his chin. "I mean, I think we are all pretty exhausted – we need to regenerate a little. Especially you, Leo."

Leo scowled. "Really, Donnie? Really?"

"Yes, really!" Donnie snapped. "It will help re-oxygenate your blood – which, by the way, is still too low on dissolved gasses. Look, we ought to at least try to sleep. And we all know that the threat is gone now. It will be perfectly normal sleeping."

"Don't worry, Leo," April said. "Casey and I can check on you guys during the night."

Leo didn't seem overly convinced, but finally he agreed. "I'm not gonna be the one that tells Raph he needs to sleep, though."