A/N: This fic takes place a few hours after the end of Walking Wounded, and overlaps slightly with the events in Interlude: Simple Gifts. Miyamoto Usagi belongs to his eponymous series of comics by Stan Sakai.

Leo takes his time over breakfast, not speaking, barely listening to the voices around him as he cuts the cinnamon roll on his plate into tiny, tiny pieces. His throat aches with every swallow, but he keeps eating, one methodical bite after another. Usagi may not be looking at him, may only be a warm, implacable presence at his side, but his friend is paying attention, even if his focus seems to be completely absorbed by Mikey's never-ending monologue.

It's clear, even to Leo, that Mikey isn't actually saying anything. Oh, he's forming words and sentences, and some of them even make sense, but what he says doesn't matter. Doesn't even register. What Mikey's doing is filling the silence as only he can, distracting the dark tendrils trying to creep into their bright, worn kitchen with noise and laughter. Misdirection. Camouflage.

I don't thank him enough for this, Leo thinks, his hand shaking as he tries to lift a meager forkful to his mouth. I don't thank any of them enough.

He thought the worst of his anger washed away the night before, in the quiet minutes after April left him by the koi pond. Leo breathed the silty, heavy air, and imagined his rage and his grief and his longing dropping into the water, past the silent fish, to where light couldn't reach them. He wanted to leave them there, so no matter what shape the battle took, he could be pure when he faced it. Wash me clean, he prayed — not to any gods he could name, but to silent voices, vague shapes, distant shores — let me be whole as I face this. Let me be what my family needs.

Please.

Then he cried at his father's side, each tear like the lash of a whip, or the bite of a blade, and when he laid himself down to sleep, he felt clean, if not forgiven.

It hadn't lasted. He wasn't ready.

The way he'd reacted to Usagi appearing in his kitchen was proof of that. It wasn't like him to be so open with his need; he was a leader, his brothers and father came first, and if he had anything to spare after that, he would turn his focus to his friends.

And then Karai —

He drops his fork, and the clatter of metal against porcelain cuts across Mikey's words and leaves them all silent.

Leo doesn't flush or apologize. He picks up his fork, scoops up another piece of cinnamon roll, and lifts it to his mouth. He knows Usagi and Mikey are looking at their own plates, rather than him, and that Raph is staring at him with badly-concealed fury in his gaze, but Leo ignores them all. He chews, swallows, and doesn't taste.

"So then I said —" Mikey says, brightly, only to stop himself when Usagi lays a warm, heavy hand on Leo's shoulder.

"Don't," Leo chokes, his fists tightening on his fork. "Just — let's eat, it's fine."

"I disagree," says Usagi, with Mikey and Raph murmuring their agreement. "I do not know all that happened, Leonardo, but I know she was involved, and that what is coming is a storm you should not weather alone."

Leo will be indebted to Usagi forever, for many reasons, but not least of all because of the way he said she, without a twist or a sneer or any particular emphasis. It gives Leo the chance to look up from his plate, and meet everyone's eyes without flinching, the way he wouldn't have been able to if her name had been spoken.

It took him so long to realize what he felt for Karai wasn't a simple case of savior complex, or loyalty to Splinter. No, he'd gone ahead and fallen in love with her, as if he hadn't learned anything from watching Donnie. He loved her, and hated how he saw the Shredder's teachings in every word, every movement, every laugh, and oh, how had he thought it could be any other way? She didn't want to be saved, and not by him, most of all.

Really, the scars on his arms and neck were the best he could have hoped for. Leo was lucky to escape with so little. Karai always liked to take trophies.

"A storm," he says, to no one at all. "That's what Rahzar said, right before —"

"Perhaps," Usagi interrupts, squeezing his shoulder, "it is better if you tell me everything, from the beginning. After you have eaten. Where is Donatello? Is he occupied?"

"He's sleeping," Raph says, speaking over Mikey's "Occupied with April, if you know what I mean."

Usagi's nose twitches, the only sign that yes, he does know what Mikey means, and is choosing not to acknowledge it. Leo smiles, a sad ghost of a smile, but Mikey poking at reserved, fastidious Usagi will never not make him smile.

"And Casey Jones?" Usagi asks. "I thought you said he was here as well, Raphael. Is he not well?"

"It was —" Raph narrows his eyes. It's still a struggle for him, four years on, to talk about Casey except in the vaguest of terms, but Leo knows it's not from reluctance or shame. Raph left shame behind years ago — Raph likes himself now — but language fights him, every single time. As long as Raph can act, he's fine. But now, he's tongue-tied. "It was a bad night," he finally says. "I'm gonna go check on him." He shoves his chair back, the legs scraping on the tile floor, and stomps out of the kitchen without a backwards look.

Leo waits for Usagi to comment on Raph's abrupt exit, but Usagi only turns back to Leo, one brow arched at Leo's plate, which is still mostly covered with food, even though Leo thoroughly dissected everything on it. Leo sighs, and takes another bite. On a normal day, he'd consider it a minor sin to grudgingly shove Anna's cinnamon rolls into his mouth without tasting them, but he can't help feeling like he's swallowing mouthfuls of mud, over and over.

His throat still burns, his eyes are swollen, and Karai isn't dead.

Mikey mutters something about taking breakfast to Splinter, and leaves the table without another word. He scrapes his plate clean in the trash and leaves it in the sink before putting a tray together and slipping away.

Now Leo is alone with Usagi, and he can't think of a thing to say.

Leo remembers the earliest days of their friendship, when he was eighteen and all too eager to follow Usagi around, on the off-chance that they could spar, or talk philosophy, or just sit quietly and rest. Hero worship, plain and simple, and his brothers gave him hell for going all moon-eyed over a samurai — a rabbit samurai, to be precise. If Usagi heard their teasing, he never acknowledged it. Leo learned very quickly that Usagi's code of etiquette was just as rigid as his code of honor — though both, Leo also learned, were capable of bending. Just a little, just enough for them to form a friendship, despite the lines and dimensions between them.

Usagi came while Leo healed from the Shredder's game, saying little, content to sit quietly at Leo's bedside and read while Leo slept, letting his brothers and Splinter rest, sharing the burdens. And if he ever saw Leo in the grip of his nightmares — the blades, the teeth snapping at his heels, and the roar building under the fire — he never said anything, and never judged.

He's here now, thinks Leo, setting his fork aside. If he didn't judge me when I was an idiot, he won't now. He sends a silent thanks to his brothers for leaving him to tell this story in private, then clears his throat.

"There's something very wrong in New York," is how he begins.

It is clear from the very beginning that Leonardo is not a storyteller by nature. He stutters, breaks his sentences through the middle, and speaks more to his hands than to his audience. Usagi watches his friend's hands move in uncertain motions, like lamed birds attempting flight, and does his utmost to keep his rage from showing too plainly on his face.

He should focus on Leonardo's voice and not allow this rage to distract him, but it is difficult when he can so clearly count the lines in Leonardo's skin, drawn from fingers to neck, and clustering in a knot at the back of his skull. There is no curse dark enough for this rage; he has never met Karai, and the Shredder died soon after Usagi met the turtles, but he despises them. He prides himself on not allowing his emotions to overrule his control, or his sense of justice, but here is where he stumbles, confronting such vicious, gleeful malice. Those lines were not an act of war; if they had been, Usagi might have found it within himself to look at them with clarity.

Usagi cannot.

"But this malignancy, it did not start here," he says into the quiet kitchen, when Leonardo has fallen silent again after trying once more to begin his tale. The words resist all Leonardo's attempts to be spoken, and he sinks deeper into his shell with every failure. Soon, it will not be possible for him to speak at all, and Usagi cannot bear the thought of such silence. Karai, the Shredder, and the damned Foot have stolen so much already from this family. They will not reach out from the worm-ridden holes in which they hide to steal Leonardo's voice as well. So he will draw the words out himself, if need be, as gently as he can.

Leonardo's relief is clear in his gaze, and Usagi remembers how young Leonardo still is, a full ten years younger than Usagi's thirty-six. He still thinks the line between good and evil is a stark distinction — a struggle Usagi fought himself, what seems like a lifetime ago.

Were they ten years younger, and Leonardo still a boy trying to be a leader, Usagi would try to guide him through this struggle. No one should have to face it alone, as Usagi did, as no doubt Master Splinter did, but the time for Usagi to lead Leonardo has long passed. He cannot pinpoint where the change began, but Leonardo is no longer somewhat of a pupil, but an ally and comrade. A friend.

To deny that he misses those days of Leonardo's comparative innocence would be the most selfish of lies. The turtles were barely out of childhood when he met them, but they were already soldiers — indeed, their entire lives have been colored by war, and he mourned that in the early days of their acquaintance. For all that he too is a warrior, he has had the luck to choose a great many of his battles, and not have them thrust upon him. What innocence he once possessed is gone, but he chose the path he treads.

Whatever choices Leonardo and his brothers might have made, had things not been as they are — and Usagi believes, presented with a different path, Leonardo would have taken one without the constant threat or need for violence — are lost to time, and to wars that they had no business fighting.

Fathers, Usagi thinks, his lip curling. It is always the fathers and their legacies. Even now that one is dead, this poison lingers. Will it never be drawn out? How can I guide him through this maze?

The answer is simple enough: he cannot guide — but he can listen, and offer what counsel he has.

Leonardo shakes himself, and nods in response to Usagi's words. "No," he replies, still not looking away from his hands. "I think it started a long time ago. Not anywhere near here either, but…" He lifts one hand in a graceless, futile gesture, and lets it fall back to the table heavily enough to rattle the plates. "Usagi, it's ridiculous. I can't believe I'm about to tell you this. Karai —" Leonardo shudders, his eyes closing, before he forces himself to go on. "She claimed it was the White Boar. That it was real, but — it's just a story. A story I told her, so of course she'd have to throw that back in my face, after everything else. Because she can't even leave that alone, she has to take everything and turn it into —"

Usagi waits while Leonardo composes himself, reciting poetry silently to keep himself from rising at once and finding Karai, wherever she lurks, and extracting payment for her sins. He wishes he could feel pity for her, for Leonardo's sake and for Splinter's, but there is nothing in Usagi's heart for Karai save that which is hard and dry and merciless.

She chose, long ago and far away, and her path is etched into Leonardo's flesh for the rest of his life. If Usagi could mark her so deeply, he would — though it would matter little, for nothing he could do to her would erase the stain she has left upon this family. A family that could have beenhers, if she had chosen to be more than a weapon.

Fathers, Usagi thinks again, a red mist rising before his eyes. He wills it away, for this fury can benefit no one, least of all the friend before him.

When Leonardo has unclenched his fists and opened his eyes, Usagi pushes a bowl of fruit toward him. Leonardo makes to shove it away, but Usagi pins him with a stern glare — the age difference is still useful for something, provided Usagi does not abuse it — and Leonardo picks up a peach with a put-upon sigh. Usagi smiles, his heart lighter with every bite Leonardo takes. By the time nothing is left but the pit, Leonardo is smiling back, wiping the juices from his mouth and chin with the back of his arm.

"I have never heard this story," Usagi says. Once more, he pushes the bowl toward Leonardo until its rim bumps his arm, and softens the unspoken request by choosing an orange of his own. A long time ago, Michelangelo taught him the trick of peeling the orange in one long strip, and he practices now, slitting the rind and slowly pulling it away from the sweet flesh.

"What? You want me to tell it to you?" Leonardo asks, pausing with his hand over another peach. "Usagi, it's just one more lie. It doesn't matter."

"You told her the story," Usagi replies. "There is a reason why she chose to bring it up now."

"Yeah." Leonardo stares at the bowl, brow creasing, then shoves it away and leans back in his chair. "I'll tell you the reason. She wanted to mess with my head, again. It's what she does." He rubs the back of his neck. His mouth twists as he realizes what he is doing, and his hand falls to his lap as he gives Usagi a guilty, sad smile.

That smile is a keen blade sliding between Usagi's ribs. There is no escaping it, or the anger that follows. Leonardo may say he is free of her — he has said it for years, since his jaw healed enough for him to speak — but he is not free, and the lines in his flesh are only the least of the shackles that bind him to Karai. Usagi takes a deep breath, and focuses on the fruit in his hand, and its smell in the air.

"You really want to know?" Leonardo asks.

Usagi nods as the rinds falls to his lap, one long garish strip of orange. "Everything is useful," he says, and Leonardo laughs.

"Now you sound like Sensei," he says, and misses Usagi's little sneer of distaste as he reaches for his glass of water. He takes a long swallow, draining the glass completely, then turns to Usagi with that same guilty smile. "Once upon a time," he begins, then laughs again when Usagi frowns at him.

"Sorry, sorry. Stupid joke." Leonardo sighs, rolling his peach between his hands. "It's just…it's going to sound stupid no matter how I start. Figured I might as well start out as ridiculous as I could make it." He hesitates, his hands going still, and when he speaks again, his voice bears no resemblance to the voice of the boy Usagi met on a rainy night. This is the voice of a general, facing a new enemy when he thought his war was over.

"There's two of them, two gods. The White Boar and the Black Bull. And they've been fighting for — for as long as they've both existed. The Boar eats, and the Bull tries to stop it." Leonardo tosses the peach from one hand to the other. "That's the story. Pretty straight-forward, good-and-evil stuff. They weren't always gods, they started out as just animals, and then something happened to them, and turned them into gods."

"Something happened?" Usagi asks, before Leonardo can go on.

"Yeah, the story isn't really clear on a lot of details. But I always thought it had to do with hunger — the Boar eats, right? The story says the Boar eats everything. Not just food, but people — and worlds. Entire universes, gone bite by bite." Leonardo opens his mouth, like he wishes to take a bite of his peach, then sets the fruit aside. "And the Bull's the one who fights it, every inch of the way."

Usagi stares at the orange slices in his paws. The smell is still irresistibly sweet, but he no longer has any appetite. The story is no more horrifying than any other he has heard in his life, save for one idea: universe after universe, slipping down the throat of a monstrous, howling beast.

It is not simply horrifying, it is terrible beyond words to think of so many innocent lives snuffed out for the sake of sating a vast hunger. What could be so hungry that an entire universe is not enough to fill it? What kind of god would demand such sacrifice?

"The story doesn't tell us why they're fighting, or why the Bull cares, but I always thought it was —" Leonardo props his head on his hand, so thoughtful and so young that Usagi feels a thousand years old. "I thought it had to do with what they were. The Boar's a wild animal. Its life was always kill or be killed. So it eats. But the Bull? Humans domesticated cattle. Some cattle, at least. Humans fed them, cared for them, used them for work. There's a…covenant there." He picks up the peach again, and holds it close to his mouth. "Maybe enough loyalty for a god to care."

"I see," says Usagi. I see, though I do not want to. Even to himself, his voice is strained, and he buys himself a moment to think by eating a orange slice. Once he has chewed, and swallowed, he meets Leonardo's eyes. "This is a story Master Splinter told you?"

Leonardo laughs unexpectedly, leaning forward with his hand on Usagi's shoulder. The contact eases Usagi's heart, for Leonardo rarely reaches out, and these affectionate touches must be treasured when they occur. "Yeah, I know, right?" he says, still smiling as he straightens. "Telling scary stories to get four little kids to go to sleep. It shut us up, at least."

"I would think that getting children to sleep should not involve outright terror," Usagi says, and by the way Leonardo quirks a wry, sad smile at him, he knows that some of his ire at Master Splinter has shown through. Before he can apologize, Leonardo has turned his attention back to the peach and is speaking once more, in a quiet, musing voice.

"For gods, they're not too big on fighting their own battles. They get people to do it for them — the only difference between them is that the Boar tricks people, and the Bull's honest about it." Leonardo sighs. "That's what Karai said. The Boar asked her what she wanted, and she got it, but it took her heart as payment." He begins to roll the peach in his hands once more, and the motion sparks a low flame of irritation in Usagi's gut. Would that Leonardo would just eat the damned thing —

Usagi blinks. His rage is familiar, but this annoyance feels like an ill-fitting glove.

"The Boar offers you what you want," Leonardo continues. "Your heart is the cost. Rips it right out of your chest, then hides it away, and it owns you, forever and ever. Amen." He sounds like a dreamer, as far from Usagi as if Usagi were still in his own world. "Then the Bull…it doesn't trick you, not like the Boar does, but it just demands your help. It names you its Champion, and off you go to fight its war like a good little soldier." He smiles bitterly at his peach, then at Usagi. "Story of my life."

"Leonardo —" Usagi says, and gives up, because he has nothing to say, and nothing he can do can erase this stain from his friend's heart.

"At least it gives you your heart's desire, if you survive the fight." Now Leonardo's voice is bitter, as bitter as his smile. "But that's the trick. The Boar almost always wins, because there's always somebody ready to sell out everything they care about to get what they want. Some of them don't even care about the price. Hearts are so cheap these days."

Usagi does not know if Leonardo is speaking of his own, or of Karai's, and dares not argue, not with Leonardo as brittle as a badly-used blade.

"It's just a story," Leonardo says. "The Boar and Bull. Just a scary story to keep us quiet at night. To keep us afraid." He clenches his free hand into a fist as his mouth trembles. "Sometimes I wish we had never gone topside."

That is as close to an indictment of his father as Leonardo will ever come, and Usagi does not pretend to know what it has cost him.

To soften the blow, Usagi speaks. "If you had not, I would not have known you."

It is a paltry gesture, for there is so much more he could say, that he should say, and yet the words will not come. Leonardo stares at him as if he is a stranger.

"Right," says Leonardo. "That's true."

Usagi's annoyance rises again, as sharp as a spear, and still unfamiliar. "It is not all lost, not yet," he snaps, and immediately regrets it. "If this is a story, as you say, then you have nothing to fear but her lies, and those you have faced before."

"Right," says Leonardo again. "Those I have faced."

Neither of them look at his arms, where the scars are a livid green against the rest of his skin.

"That's all there is to the story. Just the fight, over and over." Leonardo lets out a long breath and stands. He still holds the peach, though he does not seem to remember it. "Just one more trick." He starts, then glances down at the peach, as if amazed by its presence.

The annoyance comes over Usagi again as he sees Leonardo's hesitancy, and once more, he speaks more sharply than he wishes. "And what if it is? Why should you care? One more lie from Karai is but a drop in the ocean, Leonardo."

"But what if it's not?" Leonardo blazes. "I know, I'm an idiot, and I deserve what I get if she fools me again, but she was terrified. She begged us not to send her back — she begged me, after everything. But — what if it's not a trick? What if she told the truth? Just this once?"

"Has she ever?" Usagi sneers. "She does not seem to understand the word."

"I know!" Leonardo cries, and throws the peach at the wall, full-force. It shatters, rich pink flesh glistening as it streaks the stones.

"I know," says Leonardo, long moments later. He slumps, shoulders and head down, and makes his way to the mess. "I'm sorry," he adds. "Usagi, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have —"

Leonardo makes a noise like he is choking, and staggers away from the wall, moaning and with his arms held up to shield his face. Usagi is out of his chair before he realizes he is moving, catching Leonardo before he can fall.

"Leonardo, Leonardo! What is it?"

Leonardo thrashes in his arms, crying out, and it takes some moments before Usagi realizes that Leonardo is pointing, and trying to form words.

On the floor of the kitchen, the pit of the peach has cracked open, and something white has spilled out. A lily, sweetly-scented and white as milk against the grey of the stone floor.

"Lilies," Leonardo says, struggling for breath as the bloom's scent fills the kitchen. Usagi knows that no flower should smell so strong, so cloying, filling his nose and his lungs. "She smelled like lilies, Karai did, she smelled like —"

This is madness, thinks Usagi, trying to hold Leonardo upright, trying to breathe through the smell and failing. We are all of us mad.

"It is not real!" he shouts, drawing Leonardo away from the flower — but the bloom is still growing, its petals a full hand-length long, and it will not stop growing. "Do not believe! It is not real, Leonardo!"

"It is," says a voice from behind him, as bleached as driftwood. Usagi turns as best he can, and over his shoulder sees Donatello and April in the doorway, Raphael and Michelangelo crowding in behind them.

"It's all real," says Donatello. "And I've seen it."

Leonardo goes very still, very still indeed, in Usagi's arms.

"You've seen it," Leo hears himself say. His voice seems to come from far across the kitchen, or maybe from under the cold stones, but not from him. He's freezing, every inch of his body, except for his scars, and those burn, slender veins of fire in his skin.

The lily's scent is everywhere, like sand in his mouth and lungs. He knows he's clutching Usagi's arm too tightly, but as long as the kitchen smells this way, he can't let go. With a little help from Usagi, he manages to pull himself upright, even though his legs tremble. At least he can put his back to the lily, and face Donnie.

Donnie, who looks about ten seconds from whiting out and tearing the lair down, like the only thing that's keeping him from destruction is April's grip on his hand.

"I've seen it," Donnie says again, and Leo has a horrible, dizzy moment where he thinks that they'll go back and forth like this forever, repeating themselves until the lily has overgrown the kitchen and swallowed them all. Then Donnie keeps speaking, and Leo feels the panic drain out of him, down past the fish and into the silty bottom. He breathes in, and even though he still smells the lily, he can loosen his grip on Usagi's arm — though he doesn't let go completely, not yet.

"The Boar was here," says Donnie, and that's as far as he gets before a shudder begins at his feet and works its way up through his legs. Leo watches, mesmerized, as the shudder reaches Donnie's neck and a rough, shapeless noise forces its way out of his mouth. He pulls away from April, veering off toward the sink, and slumps against the counter, his shell to all of them. Raph and Mikey try to follow him, but April stops them with a hard glare and they freeze in place.

"In the lab?" Leo asks. Donnie doesn't respond, doesn't move.

Something has broken his brother. Donnie never enjoyed the stories Splinter told them. He always wanted to be building, or tearing something apart so he could rebuild it, rather than listening to folk tales. Leo remembers his impatient sighs when it was time for bed, because time spent listening was time not spent working. Donnie hated magic and ghosts and spirits; what he loved were wires and screwdrivers, circuit boards, logic, black and white. He loved the truth, and stories never told the truth.

And now the story is real, even if their only proof is a tooth, the lily, and what Donnie can't say. Leo will have to say it for him.

Please, make me ready, he prays, and lets go of Usagi's arm. He still has to tell the rest of the story. Already the words are burning in his throat, erasing the smell of the lily.

"There's one thing I didn't tell you, Usagi," he says. He doesn't look at Usagi; he keeps his eyes on Donnie, who is cradling his head in his hands. "The Boar almost always wins because it makes the Champion an offer. Whatever they want, to trade sides and betray the Bull."

When he was a child, old enough to lean his head on his father's knee, Leo wondered: what if it was me? Would I be able to say no? Would I be able to beat the Boar?

Yes, I would. I have everything I want, right here.

In the end, there was so much he wanted, and he never had any of it. The story has put its roots down all around him, and no offer has come for him. He is not the Champion. He is not the chosen one.

He's still only himself.

Donnie doesn't make a sound when Leo crosses the kitchen and lays his hands on Donnie's shoulders.

"That's how you know who the Champion is," says Leo, his voice crumbling at the edges. He closes his eyes, unable to stop the unbearable, sour relief rising in him. He has rotten wood instead of a beating heart, and he can't blame this rot on anyone but himself. "Donnie, what did it say it would give you?"

Raph starts to protest, but a soft, disbelieving sound is all that comes out. It might be no, or not possible, but it doesn't matter. Donnie turns around, his hands still cradling his head, and faces Leo.

You've seen a god, Leo thinks, sick at the cold age crawling into Donnie's gaze, and sick to his soul at how easy it is to think I didn't, and I'm free.

Donnie says, "It won't kill you. It'll give me your lives if I go."

Leo waits for Mikey to whimper, or Raph to swear, but there is no sound in the kitchen but the steady, poisonous rustle of the lily's petals.

It's not him. He's just Leo.

It might be freedom he feels, or nothing at all. He can't tell.

Everyone is looking at him, waiting to follow his lead, and Leo wants to tell them that it doesn't matter, he's not the one who matters — but that means nothing. Donnie will not be alone in this fight.

Leo lets go of Donnie's shoulders slowly, reluctant to take away what little comfort he can give, but he must lead. He must be ready, and that means —

He crosses the kitchen with steady steps, his eyes forward, and picks up the lily. The petals feel like silk in his hand, and curl invitingly around his wrist. Karai, he thinks, all I ever wanted from you was the truth, and now you give it to me, and it's this.

His fist closes around the pit and the flower, and he crushes them both.

"Get Casey up," he says without turning around. "We need to get ready."