Leo let his breath out slowly. He stared at the door in front of him for a very long moment. Finally, he sighed and pushed it open with a firm shove. "Donnie." He called out, without preamble, "Practice in five. Let's go."

"Uhh, huh." Don muttered, distractedly from the other side of the room, his cluttered lab. "Okay."

"Did you hear me? You got to start putting that away now."

"Uh huh. In one minute okay?"

"That means, um, putting that kind of scary looking blowtorch, um, thing, down now."

"In a minute."
"which passed a minute ago."
"Right. I hear you"

"Don we got to go now. Put that stuff away right now."

"Sure thing. I hear you. Right away." Don said, as distracted as ever, as he continued working on his latest project. The sparks flew, and Leo's beak wrinkled at the smell of sulfur and over-heated metal. Then he got a slow-growing, wicked grin slowly creep along his mouth. "Donnie, Raph is standing on the kitchen table, wearing a frilly pink dress. He's singing "I feel pretty." He's blowing kisses at Mikey and me. Frankly, it's pretty freaky." He said in a normal conversational tone of voice.

"That's nice Leo." Don said, abstractly. Then his posture froze. 'gotcha." Leo thought with a victory pump of his fist, as Don turned to stare at him owlishly through enormous safety goggles. "Wait, what?" The torch was still on, blazing cheerfully from a clenched fist.

"Thought that would get your attention. Leo grinned, crossing his arms before his patron. "Turn that thing of before you burn yourself."

Donnie looked down, and belatedly flicked a switch. The flame died away. "what do you want, Leo?"

"Practice in two."

"Oh. Okay."

"Don, can we talk? About what happened yesterday? I'll explain to Splinter why we're late. I promise."

"Leo, let it go, already."

"I can't."
"I know, I know. You never let anything go." Don sighed, as he absently rubbed the area between his eyes where the bridge of his nose would have been, if they had a nose, that is. Leo cocked his head, with a curious expression for a second. When did Don develop that mannerism? And, more importantly, why? Did it help to calm him somehow? Or is it a milder version of the face palms he used to do all the time?

"Just tell me what I can do to make everything all right again."
"wow." Don sighed, looking between his fingers at Leo with a growing look of annoyance. "Wow. It's still all about you, isn't it? You really want to make amends?"
"Yes! I really do."

"Talk to Mikey."

"Mikey?" Leo blinked in surprise. Of all the possible things Don could have said, that was the one he least expected.

"Yes, Mikey." Don repeated, speaking in longsuffering tones.

"Leo frowned in confusion. "But…but Mikey seems fine to me. What do I need to talk to him about?"

"Mikey seems fine to me, you say." Don mocked grimly. "Yeah, I guess you would be completely qualified to make that assumption." His voice gradually took on a bitter sarcastic tone that made Leo's teeth grate. "I guess you would be qualified to make that assessment, despite being gone for two years, and virtually ignoring Mikey and me ever since you decided to once again grace us with your presence."

"That is…I wasn't ignoring either of you." Leo protested, eye ridges drawn down.

"whatever, fearless."

"I told you not to call me that! Sounds weird when you call me fearless."

Don shrugged, after a moment's thought, a reluctant smile tugging at his lips, as though against his will. "Okay, I guess that makes a strange sort of sense." He sobered from the hint of humor, and sighed. "Just, you know, talk to Mikey. I know he needs it. Then come talk to me. Maybe, just maybe, we can talk then."

"Okay, then!" Leo grinned. He was starting to feel rather hopeful. At least Don and he were starting to talk now. "I'll chat with Mikey after training, which, by the way, we are really late for, I'll tell Splinter, like I said before, that it's my fault we got late, so you shouldn't get in trouble."
"Your babbling." Don said, cutting into Leo's ramble, looking more like his old self than he had in a long time. "I'll be there in a minute. I promise."

"Good, see you then."

Leo smiled as he watched his younger brother turn to his desk and start to put things away in preparation of leaving for training. He was starting to feel a little hopeful. At least Don and he was starting to talk again. At least Don was starting to open up a bit. He turned and started for the door. With his hand on the handle, Leo glanced around the lab again. Something nagged at him, about it. Something about the lab...something missing. He frowned in thought. "Hey, by the way, where's mutagen man?"

He turned to face Don just in time to see his brother freeze in place. He turned slowly to face Leo. Leo's first clue that he did something wrong was Don's expression. It warned him about five seconds before Don started speaking that Leo had somehow said the worst possible thing he could have possibly said. That he had managed to loss all the ground he just gained, with interest.