I don't own the TMNT

A/N: Sorry about the delay in updating, RL stuff was kicking me in the head like no tomorrow.

In this chapter I am responding to some requests to get the rest of the family's perspective. It is in third person and I'm doing it in Leo's POV, partly as a challenge since he's never been easy for me. That and I'm in the process of doing a oneshot featuring him. Ah, well, hope that you like the break from Don's perspective and enjoy this chapter!

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The entire scene seemed like something out of a spy movie. A group of underdog heroes up against the all powerful super villain, trying to use their combined power to somehow accomplish their goal.

It wasn't too far from the truth.

The encounter with Don weeks ago had spurred their desire to find their brother to a fever pitch. Before, after the first few months of trying to balance the 'give him some space' technique with aggressive action, they seemed to be going through the motions. As if they had simply given up. Too long had they searched and found nothing, worked and came up with nothing. It was beginning to wear on them. But now, with this fresh surge of energy they dove into the task. Their one fear had been both shot down and realized: When they finally found Don, would he accept them back? They all saw it in his eyes when they talked to him. He considered it. He actually considered it. But then she called and shattered everything. Their true goal, now, was to somehow separate him from that woman. They were all certain that he could never truly come back to them until she was out of the picture somehow, in some way.

Leo grimaced as the light above his head flickered. If this one went out completely, it would be the third one. Changing them didn't help, it was something about the wiring. None of them knew how to fix it. Not the first thing to break, of course. Everything about the Lair was slowly starting to suffer the ill effects of not being kept up. How they had taken Don's handy skills for granted...

Not that that mattered. What mattered was getting their brother back.

Looking back down at the map of the city, Leo pursed his lips. On it were marks indicating every murder that he was sure Don was responsible for. It was Mike's idea. After Don disappeared he started watching crime dramas. He knew that they didn't represent real life, but he also knew that they were based, if somewhat loosely, on fact. Though he initially scoffed at it as a waste of time, the little tidbits of knowledge that he was picking up from them were helping more than he thought they would. That was one thing that startled him.

Raph glared at him, baring his teeth. "We're FUCKING wasting FUCKING time! We need to search for him before he does something else! What if something happens to him! Think, Leo. Think!"

Leo glared right back at him before breaking the gaze. The tension between them was a tight thread, one that had been building steadily. Often Leo wondered exactly what would happen if that thread happened to break. Would they lose Raph too? His response, with support from Splinter, was to do his best to ignore it, no matter how much Raph deliberately jabbed at him, which was getting more and more violent lately. He refused to lose another brother.

Raph slammed his fist on the table. "We're wasting time!" He repeated, fixing each brother with a glare. Both Leo and Mike, however, had their gazes lowered, not meeting his eyes, tension reverberating through the very air. They both stood immobile, not wanting to incite him further. This was the only card they had left for dealing with Raphs outbursts. Raph's face twitched when they didn't react. If they didn't do anything, then he had a harder time responding. They knew it and he knew it. Yet he couldn't stand it. He wanted an outlet. He needed an outlet. His emotions were warring greatly within him. His aggravation and frustration were weighing heavily. Guilt, however, overpowered all of them. Guilt that this happened in the first place, that he couldn't help Don, that he couldn't even fucking find him. Being who he was, he couldn't say these things so they translated to his easiest emotion. In it he lashed out. His glare sharpened. Suddenly, in the Lair, amidst his family, he felt intensely claustrophobic. His mind switched tracks. Restless anxiety made him antsy. He couldn't stay here. "I'm not sitting here anymore while that demon bitch is fucking his brain. You guys are useless. Fucking useless! I'm going out to look for him myself!" He stalked out of the room, passing by Splinter on the way. He didn't look at him. The rat, hanging his head, did not lift a finger to stop him.

Leo winced, once again thinking on how much had happened, how much it had affected everyone. Everything seemed to be falling apart before his eyes, and he couldn't do anything to stop it. His first instinct was to storm after Raph, but he knew that that would be pointless. Beyond pointless, detrimental.

So many of them had changed in the months since Don's absence. The most noticeable was Raph. He had been getting more violent, more agitated, even quicker to anger than ever before which was really saying something. He would butt heads with Leo deliberately, and now their fights were not only more common but a lot more physical. They always ended in blood. It was only recently that Splinter had convinced Leo to hang back from him in order to avoid more bloodshed.

It didn't help that he could see the good points in what Don was doing. His first suggestion, one that led to an outcry from his family, was to offer to Don to join in the hunt. After all, who wasn't frustrated at seeing the same thugs on the street again and again? Of course, they couldn't let him do it. So Raph took longer and longer trips away from his family. Leo worried about him, worried that he would go too far like Don did, but Sensei assured him that if he wanted to keep his hothead brother safely esconsed in the group, he would have to give him more space during this troubled time. To be honest Leo was beginning to wonder if Splinter was just saying that because he didn't know what else to do. He used to be able to rely on Casey to buffer Raph, or at least be someone outside of the family that he could talk to, but with all that had happened their relationship was strained at best.

Mike surprised Leo the most. At first he was very eager to please, constantly inserting himself into the family squabbles in an attempt to keep the peace. He would laugh and joke even as Raph, in the heat of the argument, would hurl horrible insults and sometimes blows at his baby brother. Leo knew, in his own agitation, that he had thrown a few at him himself. He felt horrible about that. He knew that Raph did too. It was made even worse how Mike had brushed the abuse off as it was nothing. Lately, though, Mike seemed to have given up, resigning to himself that he couldn't do enough to keep the family peace. Instead he began throwing himself into the business of keeping the family alfoat. While his brothers were fighting about everything, he would go into Don's lab. He poured over the books, trying to see if he could figure out how to fix some of the many things that had begun breaking. For the most part he was unsuccessful but every once in a while he would figure it out and succeed and this seemed enough to keep him going. The other task that he had set for himself was infiltrating Don's computer. He spent hours in front of the screen, trying more passwords, trying anything in an attempt to gain access to it. They all had tried their hand at it, of course. After all, if they got ahold of what was inside, then they might get a more concrete idea of his plans, or even better find out where this mysterious female lived. Of course, none of them could truly match Don's prowess with that particular machine and none of them could gain access to his files.

The disturbing part was that all of this had served to make his happy, bubbly, sociable brother silent, brooding and introverted. Leo knew that Mike held more guilt than most of them. He strained under that guilt. It was breaking himm.

Splinter, however, disturbed Leo to no end. He seemed to constantly border between deep sorrow and explosive anger. He was beside himself. It was as if he didn't know what to do in that situation. One of his most stable, solid sons had struck out in the worst way. Then, of course, there was his nose. It added insult to injury. At first the brothers were certain that they could fix Splinter's nose after Don had broken it, but they were sadly mistaken. Leo remembered looking in the medical textbook and being shocked at how many curved, delicate looking bones were in the nose. But he convinced himself that he could do it. They reassured themselves, all they really needed to do was to make it straight, right? How wrong they were. They managed to put him out with some ether, but when they moved his nose, the way that it crunched in his hands, how even in his drug induced sleep Splinter moved...it all went so horribly wrong. Now he couldn't breath through it, whenever he wasn't locked in his room he was shuffling around the Lair panting through his mouth like a dog. He burrowed into himself, rarely leaving his room. It broke Leo's heart each time he looked at him. And though he brushed it off, Leo was sure that Splinter had some sort of infection. It was swollen and, though lately Splinter rarely allowed one of his sons close enough to feel it, Leo knew that he was getting feverish. Even while he told himself that everything would be fine, that Splinter was strong and that this was a closed wound, he had dreams of his father dying in his arms, screaming at him for his failure.

Don could fix this. He could fix almost everything. Even this family, which seemed to be falling apart before Leo's eyes.

If only they could find out where Sophia lived. Leo clenched his fist when he thought of her. The one that drove a wedge between them.

Something twisted within his gut. Tears threatened behind his eyes. He shut his lids against them. No. It wasn't her. Sure, she took advantage of the situation, but it was them. They didn't do what they should've done. He didn't do what was his duty. What he needed to do as a brother. For the millionth time he asked how he could've possibly missed it, how he didn't see what was happening to his brother. It was all his fault, despite what everyone felt he knew that it was all his fault.

He heard a shuffling of papers and opened his eyes to see Mike now stalking away from the table. He watched his silent, serious baby brother go without a word. Mike switched on the TV to the local new. Of course it was full of the latest work of The Butcher. The Butcher had been busy lately...nearly a different person every other week according to the news. The images of Don's murder victims paraded through the screens. Leo felt his stomach recoil.

Grimacing, he looked at Mike. "Do we have to watch this?"

Mike didn't say a word, just continued to watch the news, the images flickering across his face.

Something grew taut within Leo. He glanced over to Splinter, who had seen the television. The look on his father's face at the reminder of Don's actions crumpled him. Anger flared. He was tired. They were all tired. They didn't have time for this. Clenching his fists he approached the back of the couch. "Mike! Why do we have to watch this! Don't we see enough of this shit every day as it is?" He hissed. "Every day, you just have to watch this every damned day don't you?"

"Leave me alone, Leo." Mike grumbled.

"No."

Mike seemed to twitch at the word. Turning slightly he fixed the eldest with a glare. "Why don't you go after Raph again? Or try to get Sensei to talk? Or look at those stupid maps thinking up plans that we'll never be able to do! In fact, why bother with any of it? It doesn't matter what you do, all you'll do is fail."

The words hurt. Yes, he'd been thinking the same thing, but to have someone, especially his youngest say it out loud...Something snapped. He closed the space in two steps, seizing Mike by the shoulders, fingers digging into the flesh. He was ready for him, twisting his arm even as Leo touched his skin. "At least I'm trying something!" Leo snarled.

Grappling with him, Mike sneered even as tears brimmed to his eyes. "Like how you handled Don? How you believed his obvious lies? Like how we're wasting our time patrolling space where he never is? It was dumb luck that we found him near the Lair. And I listened to you. I listened to you and held myself back. Raph was right, we should've dragged him back. Now he's gone and it's all your fault!"

Gritting his teeth, Leo shook him. "I didn't MEAN FOR THAT TO HAPPEN!"

Mike's voice broke as his spoke. "YOU NEVER DO, DO YOU?" Fresh tears poured down his cheeks as he pushed him back, elbowing him in the chest. "I TRUSTED YOU!"

Blinking, Leo backed up. "You don't understand, I-"

"NO!" Mike yelled back. "I don't want to hear it! YOU are the one who doesn't understand! You act like you can handle everything! You made me believe that you could, but you can't! I trusted you to take care of us! WHY CAN'T YOU!" With that Mike collided with him once more, but the blows were weak an innefectual as a torrent of tears spilled forth. Sobbing, he clutched his brother's shoulders, pressing his face into his plastron.

Leo could feel his own tears welling out of his eyes as he stroked his brother's shell. He had to swallow hard before he was able to speak, and even then it was only in a hoarse whisper. "I'm so sorry, Mike. I never meant for any of this to happen. Especially with Don, especially like this..."

"How else are we supposed to know?" Mike whispered.

"What?"

"You asked me why I watch the news every day. It's the only way that I know. That...Don's still alive. That nothing happened to him yet."

He didn't know what to say. He just stared down at his brother. One of many brothers that he had failed. That he had let down, allowed to be brought down to...this... His fists clenched and he blinked hard. The expression on Mike's face softened.

Just then the mood on the screen changed. Both their heads swiveled to the screen. The reporter on the newscast smirked. "However, we have insider information that some additional evidence was found. Though we choose not to speculate on the findings, and naturally we cannot reveal our insider source, we are willing to say that the police have high hopes for the most recent case."

Both turtles gaped at the screen.

Mike was the first to speak. "They found evidence. I know it." He looked up at his brother.

Shit. Leo couldn't believe it. Shamefully, his first thought was whether the evidence implicated Don or that bitch that he was with. Maybe it was his state of mind, but Mike was the first to leap to the next logical conclusion.

"Don's going to know this. With his computer know-how, he'll probably know exactly what they found. Exactly where it is. Exactly when the test will be run." He got up, and began pacing, mind working. "We can use this."

It all came together in Leo's head. All the implications. If he were Don, what would he do?

He would prevent the evidence from being fully processed.

Leo and Mike's eyes met. They were both saying the same thing. This night, they likely knew exactly where Don was going to be. They could find him.

Leo looked at the clock even while Mike immediately flipped open his phone, trying to tell Raph the news. That they could finally take the action that he so desired. He could feel the excitement building. Was this their chance? He heard a shuffling by the kitchen and saw Splinter, leaning heavily on his staff, his swollen snout seeming to weigh down his very head. Fixing him with a slightly cloudy eye, Splinter nodded. "Bring our family back together, my son."

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A/N: So what did you think? Hope that you enjoyed it! Please leave a review and count the ways! LOL