After doing the dishes and cleaning up the living room, I collapsed in my chair at my computer.

I had sent April an e-mail earlier on, telling her that Leonardo still wasn't back. Her response made me crack a smile. "Cheer up! It could be worse!" I was smiling because I noticed that she didn't explain how things could be worse. She didn't need to use emoticons or anything else to relay to me that this was meant to be a joke. We knew each other well enough to practically be able to read one another's minds.

With a sigh, I opened up a game of free cell. With Leo gone and Splinter in bed and Raphael growing more distant while taking Mikey along for the ride, April was my only real contact. Well, her and the two million people who called me on the tech support line every day. The point is, things have started to get pretty lonely around the lair. I never thought that our entire way of life would be disrupted just by one brother being gone for a few hours longer than we thought he would.

I remembered about Raphael proclaiming that Leo had abandoned us, and I furrowed my brow in disdain. Raphael was wrong. He let anger blind him… again. There could be a million other reasons why Leo wasn't back yet. Maybe he met a group of people that needed his help. Maybe he lost track of the days and would be a few days late. Maybe—and this was the maybe that made me the most angry at Raphael—Leo was hurt. Just because Leo was our leader doesn't mean that he's indestructible. He could have very well encountered some danger out there in Central America that could have been too much for him to handle. After all, it's a jungle out there.

Ooh, look. I made a funny.

"Ugh, this is pointless," I murmured, resting my forehead down on what little of my desk wasn't occupied by equipment. I didn't know exactly what it was that I considered pointless, or why it was pointless to begin with, but I needed to say it. Maybe I just needed to hear someone say something out loud. It could start to grate on a guy, hearing nothing except computer complaints, angry outbursts, corny jokes, and lectures all day. Had we really fallen apart so badly just because of Leo's departure?

"Leo," I whispered, "why you? Why were you given all of the balance? Why do we need you so much… and why can't I be what this family needs me to be while you're gone? That's what it comes down to, isn't it? I'm not trying to take your place, but someone needs to keep Raphael in check." Swallowing with difficulty, I silently hoped that there was no empty place to try to take up.

I switched my computer into hibernate mode, letting the darkness wash over me. "He won't listen to me," I breathed. I realized that my nighttime discourse sounded dismally akin to a one-sided conversation a person may have with a recently-deceased loved one. "No matter what I do, no matter what I say, Raphael just won't listen. He listened to you, Leo. He might have yelled and argued and pushed, but he almost always did as you asked. Because he always knew you were right. So why won't he do the same for me? Could it be that… that I'm wrong? That Raphael knew what he was talking about earlier in the kitchen and that I'm… wrong? I don't mind so much being wrong, Leo… I just wish I had enough foresight to be able to tell when I'm mistaken. Raphael's wrong so much of the time… but at least he knows he's wrong. And that counts for something, right? 'In the land of the blind, the one-eyed turtle is king.'"

I laughed as I sat up and shook my head. "You'd think I was performing a monologue," I said, a little louder. Standing up, I remarked, "And yet, that doesn't stop me from doing it. Well, they always said that genius breeds insanity."

Adult Swim would help me relax. Adult Swim and a can of soda, along with the leftover chips I saw earlier in the cupboard. Cartoons, caffeine, and carbohydrates? Oy vey, I'm becoming another Mikey. Chuckling to myself, I turned on a small lamp and made my way to the kitchen.

As I was gathering the soda and chips, I heard someone entering the lair. Figuring that I'd need to get the bigger bag of chips because Mikey was liable to hog the majority of them, I went back to the cupboard. I heard a heavy thud in the main room and flinched. Leave it to Raph to bang around out there while Sensei was trying to sleep.

I heard someone coming up behind me and was about to say something as I closed the cupboard. Someone's hand covered my mouth though, scaring me with its implications. Even when I heard Raph's voice, I couldn't relax. "Don't say a word, Donnie. Not one… freakin'… word. Do ya understand me?"

Uncertain, I nodded my head. He paused for a moment before telling me, "I wouldn't ordinarily tell ya this, but I need ya to look to make sure it ain't too bad. Me 'n Mikey got into a little scuffle with some goons outside. You're gonna look him over and patch him up, and you ain't gonna breathe one word of this to Splinter. Do ya hear me?"

Hearing that Mikey's been hurt, I tried to say something, causing Raphael to clamp his hand tighter over my mouth. "Y'know, the next time you tell me somethin' about me not followin' orders," he said, "I'll remind ya about that sayin' about the pot callin' the kettle black."

I pulled myself away from him and asked in a hurried whisper how bad Mikey was. Pulling me out of the kitchen, he muttered, "Less talk, more medic." Seeing Raphael's lack of answer as a need for urgency, I sped out after him.

In the dim light, I could see that Mikey was strewn on the sofa, badly beaten and bruised. The only good thing about his condition was that he was still conscious, but that also meant that he was in pain. "Oh hell," I uttered, stunned. "Oh… oh hell."

Mikey propped his head up at the sound of my voice. Even as Raphael shushed me, Mikey offered me a lopsided grin. "No offense bro," he told me woozily, "but at this angle, you're not likely to win a beauty contest anytime soon, either."

I ran over to Mikey and knelt besides him. Unable to see anything, I told Raphael, "Turn on the light!"

"What, and wake up Splinter? Forget it!"

"Raph, turn on-"

"You keep a flashlight in your desk, right?" Raphael asked, already headed for my workspace. "And that's where your first aid kit is, too, right? So I'll kill two birds with one stone and Splinter's none the wiser."

Glaring at him, I asked, "Have you been prying through my desk?"

"Yes," he answered curtly, routing through the drawers. "If ya wanna make something of it, then go ahead 'n do it after you take a look at Mikey." He came back with the first aid kit, switching on the flashlight. "He's the important one right now."

"Shucks," Mikey murmured, his eyes drooping. "You guys sure know how to make a guy feel loved." Oh crud. A concussion. Please, not a concussion. Taking the flashlight away from Raphael, I was able to ascertain that yes, it was a concussion. Thankfully, it was a very minor one.

Spotting a cut on the side of his head, I opened the med supplies and asked how this happened. Raph told me about how they found a group of suspicious-looking figures and were forced into a fight. He managed to get off relatively easily, but Mikey got ambushed. "And hey, guess what, darlin' brother o' mine?" Crouching besides me, Raphael told me, "They were Foot ninjas."

Blinking up at him, I asked, "The Foot?" He nodded. I shook my head and returned my attention to Mikey's wounds. "I don't believe that. The Foot disbanded months ago-"

"The Shredder died months ago," Raphael corrected. "Nobody ever said that the Foot broke up. The first time we thought we creamed the Shredder, turned out there was still some secret store of Foot hidin' out somewhere. Why can't it be like that now?"

"Raph," I told him, putting a small bandage on Mikey's cut after disinfecting it. "Get real. Without a strong figurehead… I mean, who's going to organize a gang like the Foot? What you saw tonight were probably a bunch of copycats, especially if they did this to Mikey through sheer numbers rather than skill."

"Okay, so they're sloppier than we remember," Raphael admitted. Though he succeeded in not raising his voice, his argument became more heated. "But I'm tellin' you, they were still the Foot! Had the symbol 'n everything. They looked a little different, but they're the same old garbage in a shiny new package. Maybe the Foot's a whole lot bigger than we gave it credit for. Maybe… maybe it's a real professional crime syndicate with a hierarchy that we don't even know about it. Remember, they were big in Japan for centuries-"

"Major crime syndicate?" I interrupted. "Raphael, are you for real? You're comparing your common street thugs to a Japanese mafia?! We have no yakuza here in New York City, Raph."

"Yeah?" Raphael countered, standing up. "Lemme tell ya somethin', Donnie. I'd bet my shell that there are people in Tokyo who want to believe the same thing about their city. But it don't matter what you wanna believe, bro. The Foot's out there. And if you're not going to help take care 'a them, then maybe you're no better than the Foot themselves."

I stopped, realizing that his words were a veiled threat. Glancing up at him, I asked, "And what, Raphael, are you planning on doing to the people who aren't better than the Foot themselves?"

"What do ya think?" As he spoke, Raphael's hands seemed to subconsciously go for the hilt of his sai. "Take 'em out with the rest 'a the trash."

Laying my flashlight down, I glared up at him. In the dimness of the room, he seemed like nothing more than a shadow. In the end, that's all he was to me now. Not a brother. Just a shadow of that person I had grown up with. A very annoying shadow.

Rising, I looked him in the eye. "I thought you said Mikey was the important one here, Raph. But I guess that's not true, is it? It's all about you and your little vendettas. All about you and the fact that you can't run away from your anger. All about you and the fact that you can't stand knowing that you have faults."

"Shut up," he hissed, doing extraordinarily well with keeping quiet. He probably didn't want to face the major trouble he'd be in with Splinter if he woke up and found out what had happened. "Just shut up, Don! Or so help me God—or whatever other deity's in charge 'a this world—I'm gonna take my sai and ram it so far up your-"

"Woo, guys," Michelangelo said weakly. The two of us looked down at him as he attempted to sit up. "Everything's all fuzzy." He grabbed onto me in his attempt to make it up to his feet. "Heh. You smell like yellow."

With a weak sound, Mikey's knees went out from under him. I quickly helped him up and encouraged him to remain conscious until the concussion passed. Raphael moved in, meaning to help me with him, but I stepped away. With a grunt, I managed to lift Mikey up and turned around. As I headed to Mikey's room, I left Raphael with the following words:

"Get some sleep Raph. Because tomorrow, I'm going to rip you a new one."