Chapter 5:

The place that he had chosen was quiet, warm, and so unlike the damp, tense atmosphere of the lair.

The apartment was also abandoned. Always abandoned. Whether Leo liked it or not, it had to be that way; he couldn't very well move around on the streets at this point. There weren't many shadows at one o'clock in the afternoon in which he could cloak himself.

It didn't matter, he decided. This would have to do. In a way, he was lucky; the neglected old place seemed to have been unoccupied for a number of years, judging by the layer of dust that coated everything. His [blank] for neatness made him want to touch the place up a bit, but he knew he could live with it- if this worked out, and if he decided to "keep" the space until it found other occupants, it would only serve him good for the times that he wanted to be alone.

In other words, it would never serve as a home. Only a place of temporary peace provided no one found him here. He could deal with the mess. After living with three younger brothers in a sewer for sixteen years, he had seen his fair share of mildew.

He sat down on the hard wooden floor in a spot that he had cleared using his tattered sweatshirt. Folding his legs underneath him in to a lotus position, he tilted his head back, breathing in the luxurious fresh air that wafted from the open window above him.

Mikey. Leo couldn't stay mad at him. As if being truly angry was possible from the beginning. His youngest brother had a right to be as pissed as he was, given the amount of crap he had been pulled through. However… his insistence that they discontinue what they have been trained for was becoming tiresome. They were ninja, trained so that they may survive no matter what obstacle came their way.

Their training had been Splinter's way of ensuring that they were able to fight back if the world decided to try to snuff them out. Leo had been protective of his brothers his entire life; it went without saying that he considered it his priority to ensure their survival. With Splinter gone- not to age, but to the bullet of a gun- the fragility of life had become all the more obvious to the eldest turtle. With one swipe of her hand, Failure had slapped Leonardo across the face, taking Splinter with her, leaving ugly claw marks across his cheek. They burned, a constant and foreboding reminder that he needed to improve. If he didn't, he would doom the rest of his family to death.

Pain twanged from some deep cavern in his chest, accompanied by the mental image of his father. He suppressed it. There was no time or energy for self-pity. Taking the reins of his thought process, he steered himself back on track.

They had to continue their training. They had to make their own strides toward survival- it was plain that no one else was going to do that for them. And in order to continue with the correct training, they needed to venture out from time to time to practice in the fresh air, without the dull sewer walls to enclose and suffocate them.

And besides… the dojo kept them together. If only for a few hours, it was time that could be spent separate, brooding.

In the deepest realms of his mind, Leonardo knew that Michelangelo was right- he was partially acting on terms of revenge. However, though the inward debate as to whether he should keep it up always twisted and squirmed within him, he simply couldn't bring himself to stop. Though Shredder was dead, the instinct to fight still burned within him; with Splinter gone, the need to satisfy that lust had increased tenfold.

He had constructed a name for that lust- "training." For the most part, it served to get his brothers (two of whom were not yet ready to fully resume their lives as ninja) off his back about thug-clubbing- especially the infuriatingly smug Raphael. Most importantly, however, it gave Leo a way to lie to himself- to say that he was doing something that was best for the family.

No, wait. It wasn't a lie. It was a decision based on hours of meditation, built on a foundation of practicality. Survival, survival, survival…

He had never experienced such denial before, and as a result his conscience would often scream for reprieve. During the darkest hours of the night, his confusion would often lead to him running from himself, sick of only partly facing his grief and yet too afraid to fully address the extent of his anguish.

He had never felt such pain before, and had never felt so devoid of resources. His brothers were there for him, that he knew. But he couldn't lean on them. It was his job to be the sturdy one, not the other way around. Sometimes, this self-assigned duty helped. With the three of his brothers proving to be a handful he found that, situation permitted, he could easily push aside his personal battles in order to help them with their own.

Sometimes it worried him, the irony that he seemed to be acting so selfish as to keep himself from his brothers while he worked on the goal of being selfless. Whenever Don or Mike talked about Splinter, Leo could feel their disappointment as far as his refusal to completely open up was concerned. Don had mentioned time and time again the importance of honesty among the four of them, and Mike seemed to take his oldest brother's locked lips as a direct violation of the trust that he had always given.

Raph… he didn't give a flying fuck about talking.

Not that Leo had expected him to, and it wasn't as though the blue-masked turtle doubted his hotheaded brother's love for a second. Difficult times were always intensified with Raphael's dangerously flammable disposition, and with the loss of someone who had acted as such a firm supporter in all of their lives, it wasn't unexpected to see Raphael pushing away.

However, what bothered Leo the most was the anger they saw, the violence, the late-night screaming and nightmares and the red-masked turtle's sudden reliance on medication.

Normally, Raph hated even Tylenol.

However, with the relationship that he had with this particular brother there was little he could do to offer comfort- not like he could Mike and Don. The fights that resulted from these attempted brother-to-brother talks were no help; Raphael was stubborn and, to his chagrin, the stress of it all seemed to leave Leo in a state where he was easily provoked.

"You want to talk? Fine. You first."

The red-masked turtle's short responses were so crude, so Raph in a state of un-Raph- and the stress of it all pushed Leo over the edge. As a result, he found that with Raphael he vented frustrations… but mostly created new ones. Leo could hope that it helped his hot-tempered brother to argue it out, but he didn't need to lie to himself more than he already was.

If it truly helped, then it wouldn't leave Raph staring off into space; if it helped, the red-masked turtle wouldn't continue slaughtering punching bags. If it helped, the obvious truth about the gravity of the situation wouldn't have become apparent weeks ago, sending Leo and Don in to a nervous state where they jumped every time their hotheaded brother glared in their direction.

The Godhonest truth? Every time Mike yelled, Raph gave him a blank stare, or Don squeezed his shoulder in attempted reassurance, Leo wanted to break. He wanted to know what the hell it was that he was doing wrong so that he could fix it; there was absolutely nothing in this world that could bring him true solace like bringing his family back together again.

Failure is a puppet player, and I am her marionette. He was coming out of meditation now; his mental voice regained its familiar strength as he slowly brought himself back to the world. Everything that I do just digs a deeper hole. At the rate that I'm going, we'll end up in China before I find a way to fix this…

With a sigh, Leo opened his eyes to the semi-darkness of night, lit by the harsh electric lights of the city.

He could hear sirens in the distance.

Spotlight on: Leonardo! :D

Hope that wasn't too dull. I wanted to give the leader some stage time; kindof feel as though I've neglected him a bit as far as giving an accurate portrayal as to how he's feeling.