Hope you all enjoy this one, the idea came to me and I had to write it!

Tea

Where did I go wrong?

This was the single thought running through Splinter's head as he sacrificed yet another part of his breakfast into the toilet. It wasn't the breakfast that had caused this, of that he was certain, the reason for this sudden fit of vomiting was most certainly from his mid morning cup of tea. Overall the lair had been relatively quiet that morning; training and breakfast had passed by without incident and the rat truly believed he would have some peace to enjoy his stories whilst his sons enjoyed their own pursuits.

"Are you feeling better Sensei?" questioned his red masked son, poking his head around the doorframe of the bathroom. Ah Raphael. The only son he believed was innocent. Sensing that the vomiting was finally at an end the rat shakily got to his feet and flushed the toilet whilst mentally preparing himself to hear the explanations from his sons this time.

"Yes thank you Raphael, are your brothers in the living room still?

"Yeah they're waiting for you" answered Raphael who was trying to hide a smirk at his brothers' situation. He knew they were in for it.

As he entered the living room, Master Splinter was met with three concerned faces; already the three of them were kneeling around his armchair, awaiting their chance to plead innocent no doubt. Still feeling shaky the ninja master who had been defeated by a cup of tea sat down heavily into his chair, whilst Raphael chose to lounge on the sofa in anticipation of his brothers' humiliation. Splinter saw no reason to make him leave, after all he was innocent

From where he sat, the rat could see the shame burning across Leonardo's face as well as the guilty look on Michelangelo's face. Donatello however looked curious, as if he couldn't figure out why something hadn't worked.

"I will ask only once, who added poison to my tea and more importantly why did you do it" said Splinter sternly, even though he still felt rather off after his bout of vomiting.

Silence.

Where had he gone wrong with them, did they not even have the decency to tell him why they tried to kill him? Since no one was forth coming with an answer Splinter decided to start with Donatello since he didn't even have the decency to look ashamed.

"Donatello perhaps you should start the explanation" This seemed to relieve Michelangelo somewhat since he was not called on to explain the attempted patricide. Leonardo however looked as if he had been presented with the electric chair, as his brother began his explanation.

"Well you see Master Splinter; I was researching poison in my lab when Mikey came in pestering me to find out what I was doing, so I started to explain to him about different poisons and how I was looking at cures. When Leo comes in, and after hearing what we were talking about tells us the best cure is prevention. By which he meant building up a tolerance to poison's. He told us he was going to try ingesting small amounts of different poisons to build up resistance like a true ninja. "

If anything Leonardo seemed more shame faced than before and continued to stare at his knee pads as Donatello continued his tale.

"I told Leo there was evidence to suggest doing that doesn't improve your immunity to poisons but only weakens your body. Leo insisted it did and that you had been doing it to yourself for years, which was why you never got food poisoning and vomiting bugs."

Donatello was explaining this like a science project noticed Splinter as his stomach twisted again, but thankfully he didn't feel the need to throw up. Whilst it was true the rat hadn't been very ill for years and didn't recall vomiting before, he believed it was more to do with a better diet and cleanliness than his sons had.

"I didn't think you had been building up a tolerance to poisons, I thought it was your mutated rat DNA that gave you the immunity to the bugs we pick up. Mikey agreed with Leo though, so Leo suggested we add some very mild poison to your tea and see if it affected you, since he was so confident in his theory and I was confident in mine, Leo added some of this non lethal poison to your cup when he made you both tea before you watch your stories" finished his purple masked son unashamedly.

"We didn't mean to make you sick Master Splinter! You're going to be ok right?" blurted out Michelangelo

"I think I will recover Michelangelo" answered Splinter sharply "Although you do not seem to have taken a large part in this plot, you also did nothing to prevent your brothers poisoning me and so for that you are to do extra training everyday for a week, and you are grounded for a week as well.

" Leonardo, although I admire your dedication to the ways of the Ninja if you had questions regarding poison you should have asked me yourself instead of just believing you were right. You are the leader, supposedly the most responsible and yet you add poison to my tea! Donatello you also should have known better than to test your theories on family!" Splinter lectured the two sons who were usually the least trouble.

"You are both grounded for two weeks and shall perform extra meditation sessions every night with me, and since you both seem so interested in poison I expect a three thousand word essay on the subject by the end of the week."

Leonardo had visibly deflated throughout his reprimand and he now stood and went to leave along with his brothers after bowing an apologising to Splinter, as did Michelangelo. Donatello however stood with a puzzled look on his face before he also apologised to the rat. "I'm sorry for the poison Master Splinter, but can I get a sample of your DNA? I was sure you would be immune to the poison Leo added into your tea."

"No, now go!" snapped Splinter as his purple clad son scurried off to his lab.

Sighing Splinter sunk further into his arm chair and closed his eyes.

"Can I get you anything Master Splinter" asked Raphael who had remained silent throughout his brothers' explanation and punishments, but Splinter knew he had enjoyed not being on the receiving end of this lecture. His innocence was proven by the fact he had only returned to the lair after visiting Mr Jones whilst the rat was vomiting in the toilet.

"No thank you Raphael, I think I will go for a lie down" Raphael only nodded before heading to the dojo.

At least Splinter had now learnt two important lessons. Firstly never take tea from Leonardo again, and secondly Raphael is the only son who didn't have a hand in poisoning him!