Donatello's eyes slid open slowly. The Lab was dimmer than normal, which indicated the late hour. His natural urge was to go back to sleep, but a strong sensation of someone lingering nearby stopped him from shutting his eyes. It wasn't unusual for somebody to be watching over him, but this time felt a little different.

Don turned his head and was surprised to find Brandon sitting next to him. He's here for a reason. I'd better not waste this. The purple-masked turtle raised a hand in greeting.

Brandon shifted awkwardly in his chair as he reached for the two tablets that were sitting on the tray table where they were typically left. "I don't need to be here, Donny," he said soberly. "If I'm keeping you up, if I'm bothering you, just say the word."

Donatello turned on his side so he could face the man more easily, and adjusted the tablet in front of him. "Why would I want you to leave?" he asked.

"Because it's after 2 in the morning, and you should be resting? Because I'm almost unhinged? Take your pick, Donny."

"Did you come here to talk to me?" Donatello pressed. He'd seen the man a number of times since their disastrous meeting that had left the turtle questioning his friend's will to live, but the man had barely spoken to him.

"I want to talk to you, Don. I just don't know what to say," he replied honestly. "Geez, if you were inside my head and could see all of the mess going on, it wouldn't be this hard."

The statement struck Donatello as a half-hearted attempt at a joke, and it made him feel a little better about his friend. He studied Brandon's face for a few seconds before he typed a reply.

"I think you're going to have to let someone inside that head of yours if you ever hope to get over any of this."

Brandon exhaled sharply. "That's the thing, Don – I've tried. I've started to talk to someone, and screwed it up a couple of times. It's bad enough when I'm not focusing on it, but when I try to talk about what happened out loud…" He trailed off helplessly.

"It seems more real?" Donny suggested. "That makes sense. If it's locked inside your mind, it's just imagery, visions that may or may not have taken place. You might feel crazy, but you don't experience the pain as badly."

Brandon's shoulders sagged. "How on Earth do you see so much?"

"It's not as hard as you'd think. You're not the first person to deal with PTSD, Bran. In some form or other, all of my brothers and I have been forced to deal with serious trauma. We could tell you a lot of stories about what Raph went through from his ordeal with Stolle and amnesia. None of us can picture the magnitude of what you endured, but in a way, we do understand."

Brandon shook his head. "This is different, different than anything you guys faced, because I'm different."

"What does that mean? How are you different?"

"In a situation like that, survival instincts are supposed to kick in, right? Do you remember clinging to your own life, even when it seemed like you weren't going to be able to hang onto it?"

The purple-masked turtle nodded. "But I remember getting discouraged too."

The man lowered his head self-consciously. "There's getting discouraged, Donny, and there's giving up. I gave in to them."

Don's eye ridges rose. "That's not what their informant said. The warrior my brothers captured said that you never broke."

"I never told them anything," Brandon corrected. "But I broke into a million pieces. I gave up the hope that you guys were coming to save me. I gave up on the idea of getting out alive."

"Bran, we've all lost hope before."

"Did you ever try to die?" he asked bitterly.

Donatello didn't know what to say, but was saved from having to respond when Brandon continued.

"Did you know that it's possible to overcome your body's gag reflex? It's not easy; I had to get to a point where I was completely and utterly exhausted. When I realized the water treatment wasn't going to stop, I said to heck with it, and let it come."

Donny sat up further on his side as Brandon's breathing quickened.

"I wanted to die. I knew they were only playing games with me, and that they didn't want to kill me. I knew that in my head, but it still felt like I was drowning, over and over, again, and again…" The man paused to gulp fresh air, as if he'd been holding his breath.

"I can't get that sensation out of my mind. I go to sleep like a normal person, but I wake up out of breath, and straining like I've been running a marathon. I can't handle being alone for very long, because every shadow and every dark corner becomes somewhere they can hide, and then they'll find me. The demons are still there if someone else is in the room with me, but it's not as bad. I don't have to worry about being caught unaware.

"I don't want to tell you how long it took me to take a real shower. I don't enjoy them, but if I constantly remind myself that I can escape the water, I can get through it. I'm barely doing anything for myself, Donny. I'm not injured anywhere near as badly as you are, but my mind is far more messed up.

"There are still days when I wish they would have let me die on that rotten table, instead of using CPR to force the water out of my lungs. It didn't take them long to catch on to what I was doing. They couldn't even let me die with dignity."

Donatello hesitated for a long moment before typing a reply. "You've got to try and separate how you're feeling from what you actually want, Brandon. You're overwhelmed and your emotions are going haywire. They're not a reliable indicator of your deeper desires. If you take the time to search inside yourself and remember what's worth fighting for, you won't want to give up. That's not the kind of person you are."

"I already blew a hole in that theory," he muttered.

"Brandon. You were kidnapped, abused, and tortured. Do you think anyone would stay in their right mind in the middle of all that? They pushed you to the brink of what your mind and body could physically handle.

"There's something you need to understand about PTSD. It's not voluntary. It's not something you can wish away, or control with your mind. You're not dealing with this terror because you're weak. It's a psychological reaction that's been engrained in your head because of the trauma you endured.

"You're not alone, Bran. I know it seems like no one can understand what you've been through, but it doesn't change how we feel about you."

"It changed how I feel about me," Brandon returned. "And living daily in fear of my own shadow only makes things harder."

"Have you been to the surface since you were rescued?"

The man shook his head. "I haven't been anywhere. I'm barely functioning."

"I think you would do well to see some sunlight. I've heard the others say that our home closely mimics the basement they found you in. You need to get out of here and breathe the free air."

"I don't want to go anywhere, Don. I know I'm safe here."

"Even if you know that, the terror isn't going to let up on your mind. I think it could help, Brandon, that's all I'm saying. You're going to have to face it eventually, aren't you?"

The man ducked his head, and then gave him a half smile. "Are you telling me that I can't camp out in your room forever?"

Donny grinned. "No, I'm not. But I don't think you'll make much progress by hiding in the dark. You need to expose yourself to the light again, and you need to talk about this a whole lot more. As painful as it is, repressing it will only make it worse."

Brandon slowly reached out to grasp his arm. "I can tell you one thing for certain, Donny. I'm never going to storm out of somewhere like a raging bull again."

The turtle sighed inwardly. "Bran, you had every right to be upset with me. I should have been up front with you and Karina."

"You were only doing what Kat asked you to. She told me everything."

"She never twisted my arm."

"Don, please accept my apology. I need that from you."

"All right," he typed back. "I accept your apology. Please know how sorry I am for intruding in your affairs too."

"My Dad is the only one I was ever really upset with, Donny. Not knowing where he was meant I didn't have to deal with any of the old feelings. Now I do."

"We still don't technically know where he is," Don pointed out, enjoying the second small smile Brandon gave him. "You see, Brandon? Things will get better. You just have to keep opening back up every time you feel yourself closing down to people.

"I know you'd rather push people away because you feel ashamed, and you think you failed. But you didn't tell the bad guys anything! How many people do you think could have withstood what you went through without telling the interrogators what they wanted to know?" Donatello shivered as a strong current of emotion hit him.

"Do you know how it feels to be the reason that you were treated so poorly, Bran? I can barely describe it. It feels like getting punched in the gut, every time I think about it. No one should be subjected to that just because they're our friend. It isn't right." Donny tried to blink back rising tears, but he was unsuccessful.

Brandon broke his gaze for an instant. "Donny, I don't blame you guys for any of this, or even for not realizing I was missing. Daichi told me that they covered it up. I'm also aware of the tremendous risk your brothers took in chasing me down the instant they learned that something was off. I…I haven't even thanked them for that. I should probably get on it, huh?"

"Bran, just talk to them. Talk to someone. Anything's better than keeping it locked inside with nowhere to go. That will drive you crazy – I should know," he finished on an impish note.

"It's good to hear from you, Don. You have no idea how it felt to go from that awful state your brothers found me in, drowning in darkness, only to learn about what had happened to you."

Donatello shook his head. "I think we can both bounce back from this, if we want it badly enough. But neither of us can do it alone."

"No," Brandon agreed, looking at him more closely. "You look tired, Donny."

"I am tired. It's after 2AM," he reminded him, but made sure to smile so Brandon would know he was teasing.

"Yeah, I suppose this conversation could have waited for waking hours."

"It honestly doesn't matter to me, Bran, because I'm just happy it happened period. I've been worried about you, and I can't chase you down myself."

"I won't make you wait that long again, Donny. I want you to know that I'm trying. I'd like to be normal again."

"Who said you were normal to start with? Look at who you're constantly hanging out around."

Brandon chuckled openly, but then his eyes darkened slightly. "One of my biggest regrets is not getting to see Kat take out Daichi."

"I would have enjoyed that too, but it sounds like there may be more to deal with."

The man sighed heavily. "Man, I hope not. I hope everything that informant told the guys was a bunch of fairy tales, and Takashi never gets a taste of freedom again."

Donatello squirmed under a strong sense of foreboding. He knew about Leonardo's conversation with Sayuri earlier that day, but he didn't want to bring it up if Brandon was unaware.

"Are you okay?" Brandon asked. "Are you comfortable?"

"As comfortable as I can be, given the circumstances."

"I promise not to make myself a stranger anymore, Don. I probably won't make for good company, because I'm not good at faking it…but I don't want to avoid you."

"What about everyone else?"

"I can only do what I can do, Donny," he said vaguely. "I don't know how much I can talk about this. But I know I've definitely intruded long enough for tonight." Brandon put down his tablet, but glanced at the screen again for Donatello's response.

"It was good talking to you, Bran. Come back and see me."

"I will. Good night, Don."

The purple-masked turtle was about to hand the tablet back to him, when he noticed someone peering in the window of the Lab. "They're either looking for you, or checking up on me," Don told him.

Brandon shot him a smirk. "I gave Marc the slip when he fell asleep."

Donatello laughed inwardly and nodded his head when Marcus entered the room.

"Hey, you two," the dark-haired doctor said guardedly. "Everything okay in here?"

"Yep," Brandon replied. "Just getting some cheap therapy."

"Who's cheap? You haven't seen my bill yet. This was an overnight call, so I have to charge you extra."

That earned another chuckle from Brandon. "But I came to you. Don't I get a break for that?"

"If you want a break, you can take it on your own time."

Brandon shook his head. "Good night, Donny."

The turtle waved goodbye, and watched the man's retreating form. It took him a minute to realize that Marcus was staring at him.

"What did you do to him, Don?" Marcus picked up the spare tablet in his hand.

"I didn't do anything, Marc. I don't know why he came to me. Maybe it's because I'm the only one more helpless than he is. You need to find some way to get him above ground, and keep reaching out to him. Brandon wants to talk; he's just not sure how to let it out. There's life there. I can see it. He needs to rediscover it too."