Casey makes it through the hidden door in time to catch the tail end of Raph saying something along the lines of "probably his own damn fault anyway," and then Don's moving, with ninja-speed and sixteen odd years of lethal training and something wounded and furious in the edges of his thunderous glare.

His eyes are slitted and white with anger and Casey thinks, Woah. What the hell did he just walk in on?

"Donnie – " Mike tries to interject, looking pale. He's on his feet, but barely, clutching the side of the couch for support with a white-knuckled hand, and Casey's across the room before he makes any conscious decision to move, offering a much more helpful shoulder for Mike to lean against.

He's the reason Casey's here in the first place. Something about his honorary little brothers stitching each other up in his living room at one a.m. tends to get under his skin, and he's been downright useless at work these last couple days, worrying about the kid.

"You alright, freckles?" he asks, and Mike spares him a strained smile.

"I'm a hundred and ten percent, dude. Now just help me convince these two idiots that."

"You said you'd look at his damn van," Donnie's snapping, like a lion poked with a stick one too many times – looking almost ready to fight Raphael right there, in the middle of the warmly lit lair. "You told him you would, and you didn't. And it broke down on him in the middle of the Bronx, and he – "

"Donnie," Mike says again, and Casey notices the way his eyes skate right over Raph's face, like it isn't safe to linger there. Don glances over his shoulder, and Mike catches his gaze and holds onto it.

He's got some leader in him, Casey thinks with a faint sense of pride, because the kid is commanding the room in a simple and understated way that his siblings probably don't even recognize as an echo of their wayward blue-banded brother. Mike softens it up with a sideways grin, and beckons with the hand that isn't pressing desperate bruises into Casey's arm.

"C'mon, man, don't. You're gonna wake up Splinter. And you promised you'd watch A Cinderella Story with me."

"I never promised you anything like that," Don replies, with a softening of his own. But he's moving away from Raph and back towards his youngest brother, and seems to notice Casey Jones, Human Crutch, for the first time.

"Hi, Jones," he says, and "Thank you," which was thanks for probably a dozen things all at once, and Casey relinquishes his armful of Michelangelo with a flourish that makes the brown-eyed turtle laugh a little. And the Hilary Duff DVD goes in, after all, the intro starting by the time Casey hooks a hand around Raph's elbow and hauls him up the stairs.

"You can't be like this," is what he says the moment it's just the two of them alone. "Dude, you wanna go out and do your vigilante dance every night, go for it – ain't like I'm gonna stop you. And your brothers aren't stupid. They know what you're doing, and the fact that they're still covering for you means they ain't gonna stop you, either." He doesn't give Raph more than a second to ingest that before he's hurtling on. "So what the hell is with all the attitude? I mean, even for you, this is – "

"I know," Raph bites out, and there's something simmering in his gold eyes that looks like betrayal, but Casey will punch him in the mouth if he comes right out and says something stupid about picking sides.

Raph knows it, too, and depends on Casey to tell him like it is even when he doesn't want to hear it; so a few steadying breaths later, he says, "Look, I dunno, man. It's just – Don's always on my shell about shit lately, and tonight it's Mikey's stupid van. Cars that old break down all the time, it ain't like – "

"They didn't tell you he got shot, did they?" Casey asks plainly, without mercy, and only regrets it a little when the color drains out of Raph's face. "Yeah, I figured. Probably why Mikey wanted you goons to keep your voices down. I don't think he's planning on telling Splinter either. The really amazing thing, though," he continues, "is that a year ago, you would have known just by looking at the kid that something was wrong."

Raph is only still for a split second, the barest fraction of time, before he's bursting into motion. Heading towards the door in the direction of his only remaining brothers, like that part of himself that boasts protector and shield, the part of himself Casey knows he's the most proud of, is waking up from a long hibernation.

But there's something tight and ugly squeezing Casey's heart to a muddy pulp, and he grabs Raph by the arm before he can make it too far.

"Leo left them, too," he says. "And they're not okay." 'I need you to stay,' he can still hear them saying, soft and hurt and beseeching, bloody hands and bleeding hearts and no home left but one another. "You gotta stick around, man," he adds, letting go. "You gotta be here."

Something trembles for a moment, something too big for words, and god, this family is so fractured. But there's light like dying stars in Raph's eyes, something terrible and burning and so full of single-minded devotion it has to hurt.

And when Casey steps out to the landing, it's to find Raph easing onto the couch on Mike's free side, rubbing an uncertain hand over the crown of the youngest turtle's head – and Donnie is tense and angry but he's keeping the peace, and Mikey's voice only hitches a few times as he keeps his silly commentary going, accepting the apology Raph's gentle presence suggests for Raph's sake and despite his own. All three of them at least trying to make ends meet with one another.

And it's the trying that makes a difference. For the first time since the last time Leo wrote a letter home, Casey thinks they're gonna make it.