Michelangelo opened one eye halfway to glance at Woody sitting next to him. Woody's curly hair looked golden in the sunlight. He was sketching something, biting his lower lip as he concentrated, while his head went back and forth, looking at the distant horizon and then back to his paper. Mikey loved how even though Woody hadn't been to work at the pizza place for the past 3 days, he still managed to smell like tomato sauce. Mikey let out a contented sigh and closed his eye again.

The sigh drew Woody's attention and he glanced down at Mikey sprawled out next to him in the grass. For most people, Mike's actions would just be called relaxing in the sun, but Woody was pretty sure basking was the correct term for his turtle boyfriend. Woody watched Mikey basking and began to wonder why he was trying to sketch a landscape when this adorable creature was laid out next to him. He grinned, flipped his paper over and began to sketch the happy turtle instead.

"I've never seen him sit still for that long," April said.

"Unless he's asleep," Don said, "although even then he can be kind of fidgety."

"He's only that still when he's been knocked unconscious," Leo said.

"It's gotta be Woody," Raph said. "Maybe he slips him sleeping pills."

Sadie laughed, coming up to the group peering out one of the farmhouse windows. "Woody has a calming effect on most people. Completely natural. No drugs required," she said, laughing again.

Don reached over and grabbed her hand. "You still free to help me with the shellraiser, Raph?" he asked.

Raph nodded, kissing Leo quickly before he followed Don and Sadie out to the barn.

Leo turned to April and caught her staring at Don and Sadie's clasped hands as they walked away. "Where's Casey?" he asked, realizing he hadn't seen him all day. He hadn't shown up to have breakfast with the rest of the group. Leo had assumed he was still asleep upstairs.

"He slept in the barn last night," April said. "He's probably still out there. I'm sure whatever they're about to do with the shellraiser will wake him in no time." She turned and headed into the kitchen before Leo could ask any more questions.

Don watched Sadie plop down at his old makeshift lab desk there in the barn with her laptop before he popped the hood of the shellraiser so he and Raph could get to work fixing a belt that seemed to have come loose on the drive out to the farmhouse. Sadie had a senior thesis project due in a few weeks and she was still trying to put together her presentation. He glanced in Sadie's direction every once in a while, admiring the way she had twisted her hair up in a bun as well as the freckles that had appeared on her face after her time in the sun yesterday.

Finally, Raph had to resort to lightly knocking Don's hand with the socket he was trying to hand him while he smiled knowingly at him. He didn't really mind Donnie staring at the human girl, especially since this one seemed to reciprocate his feelings, but the sooner they were finished here, the sooner he could go find Leo again. In return, Donnie smiled sheepishly at him, took the socket and got back to work.

It wasn't particularly loud work but their eventual laughter was enough to wake Casey up and he trudged down from the barn loft, glaring squinty eyes at his mutant friends.

"What were you doing up there, Casey?" Donnie asked.

"I was sleeping," Casey said. He eyed Raphael in a way that made Raph slightly uncomfortable before heading out of the barn and towards the house.

"You want to tell me what's going on with you two?" Donnie asked.

Raph shrugged, feeling uneasy that Donnie had noticed anything strange.

"You haven't been out 'busting heads' for months, maybe longer – hey, you haven't been hanging out with Casey since you and Leo reconciled. I know Leo never liked it when you two were out patrolling without the rest of the team, but he wouldn't forbid you from running around with Casey, would he?"

"No!" Raph said, immediately insulted for both Leo and himself.

Donnie raised his hands in the air. "Ok, ok," he said, hoping to diffuse the sudden anger radiating off his brother. "Its peculiar timing is all. So then either you've decided not to spend time with him in favor of more time with Leo. Or maybe Casey didn't agree with the relationship and has distanced himself from you."

"You realize I'm standing right here while yer thinkin out loud, right?"

"Well I already asked you and you didn't respond, did you?"

Raph scowled at him again. "There's nothing strange goin on."

"Fine, don't tell me," Donnie said. He lowered the hood over the engine. "That should do it. Thanks for your help," he said over his shoulder as he moved to sit next to Sadie. She turned her laptop to him and immediately started asking his opinion on some graph she had pulled up.

Raph quickly exited the barn and found Leo sitting on the front porch with their father. They were both looking serious and as he closed in on them, Raph wondered if he should change course and let them have their discussion.

But Leo caught his eye and his face quickly shifted to a smile. He leaned into their father and murmured something before getting up and joining Raphael. He grabbed Raph's hand and pulled him as he took off in a sprint, letting go only to make running easier. They headed into the woods and only when they were out of sight of the farmhouse did Leo stop running.

Raph stood back and watched the smile fall from Leo's face as he began to stare off into the woods. Lines formed around his mouth and his brow furrowed.

Finally, Leo opened his mouth to speak, only to quickly shut it again. Raph stepped forward then and placed a hand on Leo's shoulder while tilting his head to the side in question. Leo glanced to his face before looking back to the trees.

"Master Splinter wants me to take over all of our training," he finally said, quietly. "I think that's why he wanted this time away. He wanted to talk about it someplace other than our home."

"That's what you were expectin to happen. He's been trainin you for this."

"At some point, yes," Leo said. "But I don't know if -," he paused.

"You better not be doubtin yerself," Raph said, squeezing Leo's shoulder hard. He tilted his head and eyed Leonardo.

"So you - you think it's a good decision?"

Raph flashed back to when they were 15 and Leo had asked him the same question after Master Splinter had decided to begin training Leo to be their leader in the first place. At the time, Raph had been an ass to Leo and he saw now a chance for redemption.

"Of course it's a good decision, Leo," he let go of Leo's shoulder so that he could square himself in front of him. "Master Splinter is not topside with us when we fight. He's taught us how to fight but yer brain somehow sees all four us as a team during a fight."

That finally got Leo's blue eyes on Raphael's face instead of the trees. Raph smiled. "Do you remember that night we first ran into the Mighty Mutanimals – before they showed up – we were being cornered by Kraang droids and we threw that piece of plywood up in the air for Don to use for cover so he could take down the first row of em – then you signaled Mike out with his chains to take down the flyin droid and he used their own droid to knock down the next row of em."

He grinned as he recalled the fight and watched Leo nod. "When I'm fightin, I tend to keep you in my sights, but I don't think about the next ten moves the way you do. You somehow watch all of us at the same time. You see the whole fight from beginning to end, includin what all four of should be doin. You know how we react in an actual fight. It's not always the way we would react in the safety of the dojo. It's probably past time that you took over the trainin."

Leo listened to Raph's words and stood up a little straighter. "I didn't know you saw me that way."

Raph reached forward and gripped the back of Leo's neck. "That's my mistake." He watched Leo take a deep breath, but then frowned as he watched Leo's eyes narrow at him.

"I meant it last night when I said I need you to pull me out of my own head. Don't you dare ever think that you don't do enough for me, Raphael," Leo said to him.

Raph smiled at him and then pulled him a little closer so he could kiss him. "I think we've got some time before lunch," Raph said. "So you won't mind if I sneak in some extra attention from our clan leader, will you?"

"You know how I feel about favoritism," Leo said, doing his best to keep a stern look on his face.

Raph nodded. "You frown upon it in battle," he said, his smile growing, "but not when you have me alone in the woods."

Leo went to say something else but it was swallowed up as Raph covered Leo's mouth with his own.

Leo's stomach was full from lunch and he lay sleepily in the grass by the pond on his plastron and watched Raphael strum on his guitar next to him.

"Raphie?" he murmured.

Raph hummed in response.

"I'm going to take a nap," he said, his voice trailed off at the end.

"I got it, Leo," Raph said, smiling as he watched Leo fall asleep in the sun. Leo's request was unspoken but Raphael heard it. Leo rarely let himself relax enough to fall asleep out in the open like this, especially with his family scattered about. Being at the farmhouse wasn't exactly equivalent to them all parading around the middle of Central Park in broad daylight, but Leo didn't tend to see it that way. Still, Raph felt a warmth in his chest knowing Leo would let himself nap because he trusted Raphael to keep an eye on things.

He strummed the guitar again, looked around to make sure they were truly alone and then began to softly sing.

"Cause honey your soul could never grow old, it's evergreen
And, baby, your smile's forever in my mind and memory
I'm thinking 'bout how people fall in love in mysterious ways
Maybe it's all part of a plan
Well, I'll just keep on making the same mistakes
Hoping that you'll understand

That, baby, now
Take me into your loving arms
Kiss me under the light of a thousand stars
Place your head on my beating heart
Thinking out loud
Maybe we found love right where we are"*

"Why are we going home tonight instead of tomorrow?" Raph asked, fully aware that he sounded like he was whining.

"Because Woody got called into work first thing in the morning so we're all heading back in solidarity," Donnie said.

"Woody feels terrible. He and Mike are making his special hot wings for dinner to apologize," Sadie said. She sat next to Donnie on the couch, both of them with their own laptops in their laps.

"Did you two take a break at all this weekend?" Raph asked, turning from the window to ask them. He watched them glance at each other quickly and smile. "Never mind, never mind. Please don't answer that." He rolled his eyes and headed upstairs to pack the few things that he and Leo had brought with them. He wished there was a way to bring the guitar home on the bike and maybe in the future he'd work out some kind of strap or something. Maybe Leo wouldn't mind wearing it on his back, even. But for this trip he'd have to let it ride home in the shellraiser.

He was so deep in thought on how to make a strap for the guitar case that he didn't notice Casey at the top of the stairs until he'd already been shoved into the wall. He felt the impact through his shell and heard drywall crumbling, which told him from experience that the wall now had a shell-shaped indent.

It was too hard a shove to be playful.

His hands instinctually flew up and although Casey was much taller, he was able to twist Casey by the shoulder in order to spin him around and away from him. Casey ducked out of the grip and spun back around towards Raph again.

"What the hell, Casey!" Raph growled, shoving a hand against the skinny man's chest.

"What are you two doing?!" April said, coming out of her room with her suitcase. She stared hard at both of them and then gasped. "You've damaged the wall!"

Raph stared hard at Casey who stood panting, staring hard back at Raphael.

Finally, Casey broke the staring contest to look towards April. Raphael turned and headed back down the stairs as he heard Casey tell April that he'd patch the wall. He rounded the corner and headed into the kitchen where he found Leo laughing at the kitchen table while Woody and Mikey were finishing up the their dinner.

Leo stopped laughing immediately when he saw Raph and raised an eye ridge to silently ask if Raph was ok.

Raph paused. Part of him wanted to tell Leo what had just happened. But he wasn't really sure himself what had just happened. He decided not to burden him. So instead he said, "I'm starving."

He watched Leo eye him before he seemed to accept what Raph had said, giving Raph more time to try to figure out what was going on with Casey.

"Start calling in the troops," Mike said to Raph. "Wings are ready."

Raph shifted on the bike and turned to look at Leo behind him. They were waiting for the last of the things to be loaded into the shellraiser before heading home. Leo's visor was up and Raph stared as Leo sat licking his lips.

"My lips are still burning," Leo said absently, semi-aware of Raph staring at him. "I'm probably going to taste like those chicken wings for the next few days."

"Are you tryin to get yerself nailed on this bike?" Raph finally said, feeling himself get aroused just watching Leo tongue over his lips repeatedly.

Leo looked up at him with a smirk.

*"Thinking Out Loud" by Ed Sheeran