Michelangelo had done everything in his power to exhaust himself, but rest eluded him. It was morning, and he'd probably only had a couple of hours of uninterrupted sleep on the couch. Rebecca had removed herself so she would be able to care for Nathaniel, a responsibility that Mike was glad one of them could uphold.
He felt like he was on the verge of passing out, but when he closed his eyes the darkness shifted, creating images the turtle didn't want to see. That was how he came to be sitting in the middle of the controlled chaos in the living area, practically oblivious to it.
Olivia and Reina were up to no good, fighting over a single toy that Raphael had finally taken away from them, only for both girls to dissolve into tears. Mike's natural instinct was to pick one of them up when they were crying, but he couldn't bring himself to move.
The entrance of Molly and Noah into the living area provided all the distraction that was needed, and the babies were squealing with happiness once more. Mike rested his head against the back of the couch, ignoring the gaze he sensed coming from Raphael. He didn't want to talk about the night before. He didn't feel like speaking period.
Michelangelo turned his head as the kitchen door opened, noting his wife as she came out with a fussing Nate.
"Mikey, I think he wants you," she suggested.
The orange-masked turtle sat upright on the couch, accepting the baby into his outstretched arms. He braced Nathaniel against his shoulder, patting his shell lightly. "Its okay, Nate, Dad's still here." His eyes flicked back to Rebecca, who was hovering nearby. "I'm still here," he said pointedly.
"Of course you are, Mike," she returned. "Nate might be willing to lie down if you'd like to go with him."
"I'm all right, Beck."
Her expression suggested that she didn't seem convinced. "Are you sure I can't make you anything?"
"Thanks, I'm not hungry."
Michelangelo rocked back and forth as he soothed the baby, then cradled Nate against his plastron so he could see the little turtle's face. Rebecca's blue-green eyes peered up at him through Nathaniel, and the baby's small fingers latched onto his arm.
"You're a good boy, Nate, you're fine," Mike told him.
Mike felt a tap on his knee, and glanced down to see Reina. The blond girl was staring at him imploringly.
"Baby," she pronounced clearly.
"You wanna see your cousin, Reina?"
The human girl was struggling to climb onto the couch, and Mike caught the back of her shirt to help her up the rest of the way. Reina gave him a toothy grin as she leaned over Mike's lap.
"Baby!" she repeated.
"That's right, Reina," Mike told her. "You were this small once too. Do you wanna give your cousin a kiss?"
Michelangelo loved how easily Luke and Katherine's daughter took to Olivia, and now to Nate. It was nothing for the little girl to kiss the baby on the cheek, and she appeared to love doing it. It's all normal to Reina, we're normal. It's too bad more kids can't be raised this way. We might actually have a shot in this world.
A disapproving whine announced Olivia's presence at his feet. His niece was clearly not pleased with being left out of the party on the couch. Mike made sure that Reina was sitting down, then used his free hand to pull Olivia onto the cushion too. The little turtle steadied herself on the back of the couch, and immediately started bouncing up and down.
"No," Mike said firmly. "No jumping, Liv, or you have to get down."
Raphael shook his head from the chair. "Do you have some kind of magnet, Mikey?"
A small smile crept onto the orange-masked turtle's face. "What can I say? Kids are drawn to me."
"They know a good thing when they see it," Rebecca offered from behind him.
Mike hadn't realized that the young woman was still there. "You planned this," he said mock-accusingly.
"Mike, I'm not that smart." She grinned.
"Yes you are," he said affectionately.
The feeling of being surrounded by the young ones was one of the few things that could have made him smile. Unfortunately, Reina and Olivia were having far too much fun encouraging each other to jump on the couch for it to last long.
The red-masked turtle stepped over and swept Olivia off the couch as the baby squawked in protest. "I'm not gonna let you hurt yourself, Kouen; the docs are busy enough."
The door to the kitchen swung open again, and Karina met Raphael by the couch.
"It's about time the girls ate something," the Latin woman said. "And a few other people." Karina fixed Mike with a look. "Does anyone know where Kat is?"
"With Bran," Mike said flatly.
Karina nodded. "Well…we can start with the little ones. You want to bring Liv, Raph? I'll grab Reina."
"What about Nate, Beck?" Mike asked.
"He's fine," the young woman assured him. "He had a bottle a few minutes ago. Let me know when you're too tired, Mike. You don't have to hang onto him."
"I'm cool," he said, noticing the mighty yawn his son gave him. "He might be going to sleep on me."
"You could go together," Rebecca told him.
"Becky, I know what you're doing, okay? I'll be all right for a while longer. Greg's gonna be here any time, and I want to wait for him."
"Okay, Mike, I'll stop pushing," she said lightly. "I'm going to help Karina finish a few things, but I won't forget that you're out here."
He smiled at her faintly, and resumed cuddling a drowsy Nathaniel. As Mike rested against the back of the couch, his thoughts drifted to Donny once more. It was a surreal feeling to have his purple-masked brother lying in the next room, with a questionable chance for recovery.
In the back of his mind he kept expecting Don to come through the Lab door like normal to talk about his latest project, or to bug him for more chapters of the story Mike considered little more than a hobby. Donny saw his writing differently, and had often told him so. Besides Brandon, Donatello was the only one who'd read everything he'd written up to that point.
Mike's head lolled against his shoulder unhappily. I remember getting this same feeling after Sensei passed away. In my head I knew he was gone, but some part of me still kept expecting him to magically walk through the door. It's like my mind is playing tricks on me, and I don't like it.
He looked down and realized that Nate was sound asleep. Michelangelo carefully got to his feet and headed upstairs to the bedroom he shared with Rebecca. He laid Nate in the bassinet, and silently left the room. As soon as his feet touched the hallway, he heard a knock on the heavy door downstairs.
All caution nearly went to the wind, but the turtle remembered to be quiet as he descended the stairs to the first level. Mike threw open the door to meet a grim-faced Greg.
"Hey," the man greeted him dully.
Mike felt the man's eyes perusing him, as if making certain he was all right. He didn't bother with a greeting of his own, but simply wrapped his arms around his friend instead. The taller man embraced him fiercely in return.
"I'm sorry," Greg said. "I got here as soon as I could. Are you okay, Mikey?"
"Okay?" he echoed. "No, I can't say that I am." Mike let go of him, and backed up to allow Greg inside the Den. "But it's not about me."
Greg looked around the empty living area. "Where is everyone?"
"Around," Mike said vaguely. "Donny's in the Lab and Bran is set up in his and Jen's room. You're gonna need to prepare yourself before you see either of them."
The man nodded. "I guess…I'd rather do that up front." Greg stood still in the hallway, like he needed time to work up to moving.
"Maybe you can check in with Brandon first. Kat's in there with him, and I know she'd like to see you."
"Is he still out of it?"
"The last I knew. I'm going to go tell Leo you're here, and I'll catch up with you."
The sandy-haired man turned down the hall to go to the bedroom, and Mike went the opposite direction to the dojo. He pushed the door open to find his oldest brother stretching on the mat, with Calley sitting close by. Leonardo looked up expectantly as he entered.
"I thought you'd be asleep by now." There was a reproachful note to Leonardo's tone, but Mike ignored it.
"Greg is here," he told him.
Leo rose at once. "Good…we have a lot to talk about."
"He wants to visit with Donny and Brandon first."
The blue-masked turtle's shoulders slumped. "He knows what he's walking into?"
"Doc said he was detailed with Greg over the phone, Leo. No sense in surprising him."
"No," Leo murmured.
"Let's go wait for him, Leo," Calley suggested, resting a hand on his shoulder.
"Karina and Becky probably have lunch ready," Mike added. "I haven't told anyone else that Heff is here yet."
"We'll handle that. Do you want to make sure that Greg is okay?" Leo asked.
"That was my next stop," Mike replied.
They went their separate directions in the hall, and Mike hesitated outside the bedroom door that was partially ajar. Katherine pulled the door the rest of the way open, and stepped aside for the turtle.
"C'mon in, Mike."
As she looked like she was going to leave, he held up a hand to stop her. "Wait, Kat. You don't have to go because of me."
"I need some air, Mikey. I'm going for a walk. Take care of my brother while I'm gone?"
Mike blinked back the tears that the question produced. "Yeah, Kat. We won't leave him."
As he turned his head, he saw that Greg was already seated in the hard-backed chair close to the bed. His chin was resting in his hand so that Mike couldn't see the man's expression, but Greg's emotion was evidenced by his silence. Minutes passed before Greg said so much as a word.
"I…I don't understand," he said hoarsely. "Why? Why would they start this up again? How did Daichi escape their fortress on Yonaguni?"
"You can blame me for that," Mike replied bitterly. "I'm the one who let him off."
Greg's head jerked around to face him. "You didn't 'let him off', Mikey. You left him behind to face the flood or the police. If one didn't get him, the other one should have."
"They didn't," Mike said shortly. Shell, I'm glad Greg wasn't there with us yesterday. I'm glad he didn't have to see Bran the way we found him. I'm probably never gonna forget that.
For the moment Brandon appeared to be sleeping, and Mike was glad. He preferred the man to rest rather than to face his golden-brown eyes devoid of life.
"Doc said that he was…tortured?" Greg ventured.
Mike nodded, breathing deeply as rage seared through his veins. "We found him strapped to one of those things, the table they use for waterboarding somebody."
Greg appeared to be trying to hide further behind his hand. "They say that the average person can only withstand a few seconds of waterboarding before they start spilling their guts."
"The dude we took last night said that Brandon didn't talk."
Greg shook his head. "He's not an average person…and this is no average secret."
Michelangelo hung his head, unable to meet Greg's eyes. "It's wrong. Nobody should suffer like that, least of all one of you guys."
"Would it be better if it was one of you?" Greg caught what he'd inferred.
"We're the ones they want." Mike's voice rose unintentionally.
"You make it sound like you and your brothers are a team unto yourselves," Greg said. "We choose to throw in our lots with you, Mike, and we all understand what that means. Equal shares in loyalty and danger. If Bran got to decide, I don't think he would have wished that one of you were in his shoes."
"It isn't fair, Greg, nothing about this is fair! He didn't have to go through any of it – he shouldn't have! I knew when Donny was in trouble! Why didn't I catch it with Brandon?"
The man rose slowly. "My God, Mikey. You can't blame yourself for everything. You have to find some way to put the responsibility back where it actually lies, or this is going to drive you out of your mind."
Mike backed up against the wall with a sob. "You don't get what this is like, having someone suffer because of you."
Greg leaned against the wall beside him. "Evil doesn't exist because you do, Mike. The ultimate source of everything unholy isn't tied to you and your brothers. Bad things happen all over the globe that have nothing to do with you. This feels personal because it is. But at the root, it's just another story of evil men, treating other people however they please.
"In other words, it's the same story that's been acted out since the dawn of time. You're not the source of that evil. You're not responsible for it. Our lives intersect with these events, and our loved ones suffer. But you guys are not accountable for it.
"Going down this path won't help anyone, Mike. The best thing for you to do is to see the actions for what they are: an attack carried out on this family by bad people. Otherwise, you're never going to get over it."