I have been snowed in at my house for long enough, man. It's driving me crazy! No, not really. I'm actually enjoying it other than the whole inches of ice on the road making it nigh impossible for teenagers to be allowed to drive out in this weather. Man, if only I was the Batman or sumtin'. Then no one would stop me from doing stuff.

It means so very much to me that you all are liking this story. Thank you for the reviews and lovely support!

TMNT, Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo, Donatello, Splinter, and LeatherHead © Mirage Studios
story © Turtlefreak121

Flicker
Chapter Three: Blank

His eyes shifted, following the couple that walked by him.

She was in a black dress and heels. He was in a brown overcoat and shiny dress shoes.

They passed him.

Were they from a movie?

Don's head ached. He bent over, grasping the sides of his throbbing skull. He willed it to stop its painful beat.

Sitting in the shadows, he waited.

He felt like he had been waiting for such a very long time.

How long had it been again? Ages? Should he have moved? Should he have left?

He honestly didn't even know.

"I don't even know where I am," he muttered to himself as he looked around.

But that didn't make sense. Not in his city. Not after a lifetime of navigating those streets with his brothers – above ground and underground.

As his head and vision cleared, Don grew progressively more concerned with how he got there to begin with.

"Should I call Leo?" he asked himself as he rubbed his head gingerly.

Thinking straight again felt like such a relief.

Deciding to call his brothers became an increasingly obvious solution with the haze in his vision evaporating.

Almost without a second thought, he reached for his belt and produced his shellcell. But as he opened it, he began to experience the most bizarre sense of deja vu.

Curiously, he clicked to look at this most recently called numbers. His stomach ran cold as he saw that he had, in fact, dialed Leonardo's number nearly fifteen minutes beforehand.

Which posed the question: why didn't he remember doing it?

Growling with aggravation, Don held his head and shook. "Pull yourself together, Donatello!" he pleaded. "What's the matter with you?"

Looking toward the street again, he froze in horror.

His eyes shifted, following the couple that walked by him. She was in a black dress and heels. He was in a brown overcoat and shiny dress shoes.

They passed him.

Were they from a movie?

It was right at that moment that Don felt his whole body go numb.

He knew. He knew something was terribly, terribly wrong. In ways that he would never possibly express in a way others could understand, he knew that nothing was right with him in that cold, pressing instant.

"But what is wrong with me?" he demanded fiercely before covering his eyes with his hands.

His body curled up, trying bury into himself, trying to escape to that instinctive comfort of his shell when he could hear and feel the sounds of a rapidly approaching vehicle. One he knew so well that even in his state he could tell what it was and who was operating it.

Which was a good thing, because Don wasn't sure if he could bare to look at his brothers right then and there.

The vehicle slowed to a stop and Leo and Mikey wasted little time in leaping out and rushing to Don's sides.

Raph remained hesitantly behind them. He watched instead from a distance as they neared Don and began to coax him out of his near fetal position.

"Donny, c'mon," Mike begged as he got down on his knees by his brother. "It's okay, dude. Anybody can get lost. Especially when they get sick."

Don almost had to bite his tongue at that. He shook his head instead. "I don't get sick like this. We don't know… This isn't sick. This is… wrong."

Kneeling, Leo reached to feel Don's forehead with the back of his hand.

"Well, you're right there," he said. "You don't feel like you have a fever. But, I'd wager that headache you had before came back, didn't it?"

As Leo paused, Don came to realize that his head had been hurting the whole time. It was such a dull, constant throb that he had barely registered it as such. But it was there all the same, so Don nodded.

"Well, there. That explains it somewhat," Leo replied.

"I'm sorry," Don muttered miserably.

"For what, dude?" Mike smirked, looping one arm with Don while Leo took on the other.

They hoisted Don off the ground and he felt himself become slightly disoriented with the weightlessness. But his brother held fast and didn't let him fall until his wavering feet found their placement.

"For… calling you to pick me up," Don continued, a tight panic working its way into his chest. He could feel his breathing beginning to restrict. A panic attack. "I don't understand how any of this happened. I don't even know how I got here. Or why I got scared–"

"Don, you can call us any time," Leo reminded him, a worried look forming on his face. "You know that, right? That's what brothers are for." His eyes shifted toward Raphael.

Raph was still standing by the car door, his expression hard and unreadable.

Leo's teeth gritted. "It's not a big deal. Right, Raph?"

Almost despite himself, Don began looking to Raph, searching for his brother's answer.

Raphael in turn seemed fixated on Don as well. He finally broke eye contact, though and came to his senses. A worried look passed on his face for just an instant before dropping back into more of himself. He nodded to Don and started to get back in the car. "Yeah, sure. No big deal, Don."

Pulling his arms free from Leo and Mike, Don gave a very exhausted breath and shook his head. "Just take me home. Now." He bit down hard on his molars, reconsidered his words, and then pleaded, "Please."

Leo and Mike looked to each other and nodded.

Taking a hold of Don's shoulder, Leo took the initiative to guide him toward the van. "It's not a problem, Don," Leo assured him. "Is your head still hurting or anything? Do you need an aspirin or something?"

"No," Don muttered, feeling that fogginess growing over his vision again. "Just home, Leo. Please."

As he settled in a seat, Don could hardly bring himself to even take issue with Leo buckling him in. His eyes slid closed and he waited quietly as everything around him became slower, muffled. It was almost as if it was all playing to the tune of his head's throbbing.

"You get in the back with Leo and Don. I'll worry about driving."

"You sure–"

"Mikey, I don't know how to play therapist. Just do it."

There were two car door slams which made him flinch but Don didn't feel anything beyond the relief that washed over him when the vehicle finally began moving again.

He didn't open his eyes until Michelangelo was suddenly hugging him, seemingly out of nowhere.

When he opened his eyes to look, Don saw a beaming grin on Mikey's face – as if he couldn't have been happier with the simple fact that Don was alive and found.

"You worried us, Donny," Mike said, voice uncharacteristically small. "You look like shit, but, hey! You're alive! You're going to be okay."

"Okay?" Don repeated, feeling a sudden burst of outrage. "Mikey, what is okay about this?" He pulled out his shellcell and waved it to both Leo and Mike. "I don't even remember calling you guys to come."

When they stared back at him, both a little lost, Don felt his throat close off a muffled scream.

"I'm sorry, Donny," Mike responded, his joyous outlook quickly dissolving. "I mean, I was just saying it to… let you know I was happy you're alive. That you're not hurt. I didn't mean anything by it."

"We don't know I'm not hurt," Don said, looking away from his brothers. "We… we don't know anything about what's going on."

As if silencing his family had become Don's new super power, the entire van grew eerily silent.

After the air grew almost too tense to breathe, Leo let out a short sigh and looked to Don's face, searching it desperately.

"What?" Don asked testily.

"You don't remember this area at all, Don?" Leo pressed.

"No," Don said without hesitation.

"Not even a little bit?" Mike continued with Leo's lead.

"No," Don said again before drawing in a breath and looking back toward the window. "I… think I should. I know I should somehow recognize it but… I just can't place why. I see it all and I just draw… a blank. Or something. It's like there's a file deleted. But it's not a computer, it's my brain."

His brothers became quiet, their looks to each other desperate and lost.

Up front, Raphael kept driving. He didn't so much as look at them through the rearview mirror. He went faster.

There was something wrong with him. Don knew it. He knew it was something awful, something dreadful. But no knowledge of that fact drew him any closer to the real answers.

"Obviously I should know it," he said, looking to each of his brothers. "How bad is it? It's bad. You wouldn't be acting like this if it wasn't bad."

Leo stared at Don, not sure how to explain the truth.

Mike looked at his brother but could not suppress the facts nearly as easily as Leo did. "Donny, you have to know where we are right now. You just do."

"Why?" Don demanded. Where am I?"

"You're in the neighborhood we grew up in," Leo said, not looking at Don as he answered. "Our old Lair… it wasn't far from that alley. We once played in the dumpsters there as kids while Master Splinter gathered supplies."

Silence overwhelmed the vehicles.

Don stared at his brothers, waiting for them to tell him they were joking, that it wasn't serious. That he could not have possibly ever forgotten the very neighborhood they grew up in. That he got lost in the sewers he knew like the back of his hand.

There was no way Don would ever forget those.

"No it's not," Don said firmly. "Don't lie to me."

"We're not lying," Mikey explained somberly. "It's… it's really where we grew up. I promise – turtle's honor."

He leaned back into his seat, glaring at them. Don then slowly came to terms with the fact that their expressions never changed. That they were being serious.

"No," he said, more disbelieving. "No… no, that's just not possible. I can't… How does someone forget their home?"

They remained silent as Don consoled himself, drew further back into his seat and closed his eyes, muttering as he walked himself through what had happened before he woke up.

"Look, it's probably something very simple," Leo explained genuinely. "Do you remember anything between leaving the Lair and arriving here? Taking a wrong turn? Anything forcing you to surface."

Donatello shook his head. "No, I don't remember anything like that," he muttered, his composure at last coming back. "Just my head hurting and," he mused and looked up, gazing past them as if looking at a scene. "Wait, I do remember having to go to the surface because the tunnel was collapsed."

"Alright, good," Leo nodded. "That should be the tunnel right in front of our old lair." The leader's brow furrowed. "But why were you going there?"

There was a moment where Don remained quiet, his expression was more collected than before.

Finally, he said, "I don't know."

"Nothing at all?" Mike asked.

"It's like a blank spot in my brain," Don replied as he lowered his head. "What's the matter with me? It's like I'm staring into a fog all of the sudden. I know ofthings, like how I should be able to answer, but I have no ideas of what goes in between."

The explanation didn't seem to win any further understanding.

"It's like everything I thought I knew is disappearing before my eyes," Don continued, quieter. "And I don't know why."

As no one responded, Don realized that he was not the only one confused.

But more horrifying than that, he realized his brothers had no way of helping him.

"Don, don't be scared," Leo said softly. "It's not a big deal. You are stressed, I've been telling you that for weeks now, haven't I? Warning you about overwork and not taking care of yourself."

Reluctantly, Don nodded.

"When we get home, no lab," Leo prepared him. "Nap, watch a movie, just talk to us. It doesn't matter, we're just being calm about this. We'll tackle it as we understand it more."

"Alright, fine," he breathed out before looking to Mikey and Leo. "I'm just… how can you be so sure that it's only stress?"

"I'm not," Leo said truthfully. "I just can't allow it to be anything too serious."

Raph drove without a single additional input. He just drove.

Instead of worrying any more about Raph's reaction, however, Don kept himself centered, and tried desperately to think of any world in which Leo's suggestion of stress could be on the mark.