Chapter 06: Walking Stick

His brothers had gone to bed an hour ago, but Raph still was up. After sleeping all day and tonight's events, he was too churned up to even think of sleep.

Leo was hurt, and although this still could have happened if Raph had been around, he couldn't stop feeling as if he should have been there to help his brother. Oh, he hated the Kraang even more than he had ever done before! Stupid Kraang and stupid ceilings coming down! He had been able to save Casey, his best friend, but he hadn't been careful enough. If he had, he wouldn't have gotten hurt, he would still have been able to be there and help Leo, to wrench this damned knife from this damned Purple Dragon's hand. And he would have succeeded! He knew it.

No one would hurt his brothers if he could help it.

But the terrible truth was he couldn't help at the moment, not for the next six weeks. Well, six weeks, if he was lucky. He still needed to get back in shape after that. But heck, as soon as he could stand on two legs again, he was so going to join them on their patrols. And he wanted to see Leo trying to stop him from that.

Raph took a deep breath and raised his hands to his temples as a terrible headache was trying to tear his head apart.

Well, no wonder after all this thinking, he said to himself. I wonder how Donnie manages to do this incredible amount of thinking every day without squirming in pain. His headaches must be unbearable.

Raph pondered on that for a moment.

Or maybe he doesn't have headaches at all. We're talking about Donnie here. I guess his brain is built differently from ours.

He groaned a little as another flash of pain rushed through his head.

Speaking of Donnie…

With that he got up and hopped to his office chair.

"D-…" He could stop most of his brother's name before it had left his mouth when he had opened the door to Donnie's room and found it dark. Donnie had already gone to sleep and only stirred a little in his sleep at Raph opening the door.

Raph watched this with a frown. It was unusual for Donnie going to sleep this early. It was only a little bit past midnight, and yes, he had checked beforehand. After a whole day of sleeping he knew that his sense of time wasn't the best at the moment.

And Donnie usually stayed up until one or two o'clock in the morning, working on his projects or reading. But apparently not today.

Raph choked a sigh, as he pushed the office chair backwards and closed the door again.

Looked like he had to take care of his medication himself tonight. He rolled over to the kitchen, fetching himself an aspirin.

Back in bed, he braced himself for a night of staring at the ceiling – and thinking.

No! No thinking!

He had had a month's amount of thinking today already. Well, his month's amount which probably was three times the thinking Mikey did, maybe a quarter of what Leo's monthly thinking-amount was, and most probably a very small amount of thinking Donnie did every day.

His hand rushed to his temples again.

Heck, when would that aspirin finally show affect?

No thinking, Raph! If Donnie can shut down his precious brain every now and then, you can do that for a night!

He must have fallen asleep over this eventually because when he opened his eyes again and glanced at his T-phone, it was already morning.

With a sigh he got up, rolling out of his room on the office chair.

On his way to the kitchen he heard noises coming from the dojo, and he was very relieved to hear that.

After waking up to complete silence yesterday, he had been afraid that would happen today as well, that his brothers would be gone again. He knew how stupid this was, how irrational. It was daytime, he had checked. Of course they were here! But a smile cracked his grumpy morning face nonetheless.

But it only lasted for as long as it took him to peek into the dojo, to catch a glimpse of Leo's bandaged arm, to make him frown again.

Without a word of greeting he left again.

All the anger from yesterday that had been gone this morning washed over him again and he gritted his teeth. There had to be something he could do. He needed to move, he needed to hit something. And he needed to do that now.

He had reached the living room and set eyes on the practice dummy. He wasn't sure if this would work. But he had to try.

It turned out that it worked better than he had hoped. Sitting on his office chair, his broken ankle resting on a stool, he was punching the practice dummy. And heck, it felt good!

With each punch he landed on the dummy, some of his anger faded away.

His punches had only been testing so far, but now he felt secure enough to give the dummy some proper punching.

He hauled off and hit the dummy with so much force, it swung backwards. What he had forgotten, though, was that it would swing back at him then as well. And unable to jump out of the way, all he could do was bringing up his hands to protect his face.

The dummy hit him and sent him twirling backwards on his office chair. And the next thing he remembered was the splashing of water as he and his office chair fell into the pool.

Being a turtle, water was no threat to him, but he swallowed some water nonetheless when he gasped in surprise.

But as soon as he had figured out what had happened he broke the surface and swam to the pool edge, heaving himself out of the water, coughing the little water he had swallowed out of his lungs.

At that moment his brothers and Splinter came running into the living room, and they figured out pretty soon what must have happened when the saw a drenched Raph sitting on the pool edge, a swinging practice dummy, and an office chair at the bottom of the pool.

Wordlessly, Donnie and Leo went to Raph, set him on his good foot and helped him to the couch. Mikey darted out of the living room only to return with a towel seconds later. He handed Raph the towel without saying anything – his brothers knew when it was better for them to remain silent, to not make any fun, Raph had to give them that.

Still coughing, Raph took the towel and started drying himself, and when he finally had stopped coughing, he realized Splinter was standing in front of him.

"I've let you get away with this office chair for way too long now, Raphael," he said. "No more rolling around on this thing. You will use crutches from now on. They are safer."

"No way!" Raph protested. "I hate crutches!"

"What about a walking stick?" Donnie suggested. "It could be enough if you don't move too much."

Raph blew a raspberry. "Walking sticks are for old people, Donnie!"

His brothers' eyes widened in shock and when Raph looked at Splinter resting his hands on his green walking stick, he knew why.

Splinter just raised a brow at him.

"N-not that I mean you're old, sensei!" he said quickly. "Just…uhm…older, you know."

Splinter tapped his walking stick on the floor.

"Walking stick or crutches, Raphael," he said. "It is your decision. But no more office chairs."

"But…"

"You heard me!"

Raph let out a deep breath. "Hai sensei."

Splinter just nodded and turned to leave, tapping his walking stick to the floor just a little louder than usual with each step.