Sorry so much for the delays: to the say the least I've been pretty busy. Thank you all for your support and your patience!

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

Flicker
Chapter Eight: Keeping His Grip

It had been a long day.

When his eyes fluttered open again to his great disdain, he was not really surprised. He was even less surprised as he turned to his side and discovered that it was merely five in the morning – less than thirty minutes since the last time he had rolled over and tried to sleep.

Turning onto his shell, Leonardo folded his hands over his chest and stared at the ceiling above him.

He wished desperately that he had been more convincing to Don. Of course everyone knew that Leo worried enough for all four of them, none of them should have to fill in for him on that department. And no one, save maybe Don himself, could have worried more about the position they were in.

"I don't know what's wrong," he reminded himself. But even Leo didn't know if his own tone denoted cautious optimism or scornful disappointment.

Sometimes he and his brothers would have bits and pieces of a larger picture – that described more than enough of their adventures. Some questions didn't have answers.

But Don't precarious situation was different. It was the first time that not knowing truly disturbed Leo.

He didn't want to lose a brother and confidant. Leo might not have wanted to let his brothers take on any of his worries, but Don was the one person he could go to for answers. Answers, sometimes, to questions Leo hadn't even thought to ask.

So while Leo needed sleep, needed to stop thinking, it didn't look like his mind had any intention of letting him.

"I can't take this," he muttered to himself before finally pushing himself up to sit.

He glanced over his shoulder to the alarm clock – five fifteen – and grabbed the blue mask that was tossed across it.

Leaving the room felt like turning off a pressure cooker. His first true breath of fresh air came to his lungs once he was out in the halls, making the greater area of the lair far more uplifting for him than it had been since the strangeness with Don first reared its ugly head.

In the quiet, he strangely enough didn't feel alone. He felt like he could hear the things that only silence could appreciate, like the snores of his brothers or the breeze pelting the paper coverings of his father's door.

What silence meant to Leonardo was that nothing was disrupting their momentary peace.

Like all peace in their lives, though, Leo found it only lasted a few steps.

He leaned heavily on the doorframe to Don's lab and saw, to his disappointment and exhaustion, that Don had moved all the furniture to the center of the room. And a single light was on where Don was sitting in the office chair.

"It's a little early for redecorating, Don," Leo spoke up at last.

Don's eyes fluttered a few times, looking up from the desk as Leo cross into the room and pulled up a chair beside him. There was an uneasiness to Don's shoulders, like he was expecting to be scolded or corrected.

Leo didn't have the desire nor the energy. He simply sat beside his brother and straddled his chair backwards, leaning his arms and chin agains the back.

"Huh?" Don responded finally. He rubbed at his face, waking up a bit more, before shrugging off his very apparent concerns. "I guess it is. I don't now. What time is it?"

"A quarter after five," Leo said casually, looking over the stacks of furniture. "In the morning."

"Ah," Don said, looking at Leo, waiting for some other shoe to drop. "Well if it's early, why'd you wake me up?"

"What?" Leonardo blurted out before he could think better. But he quickly changed his tune, shaking his head. "Oh. Well, I think you're looking for something. Didn't tell me what, though I could make a decent guess at this point."

There was another silent stare down between them and Leo couldn't help but think of how frightful Don's eyes were in that time. They were observant yet lacked the warm understanding he was so used to seeing from his brother.

But the gaze eventually broke as Don nodded to Leo's words.

"Right," Don said as he looked to the laboratory and crossed his arms. "I was looking for my key. I know it's here somewhere, I just…"

"We'll find the keys someday, Don. When we're least expecting it," Leo said with a shift of his hand to his brother's shoulder. It earned him a confused glance. "If you keep stressing over it, though, we'll never find them. I bet you'd remember if you tried to think about something else for a while."

Shaking his head, Don attempted to get up and walk away from the conversation.

Somewhat despite himself, Leo followed.

"I want to find my key first," Don replied at last, bringing a finger up to his mouth and chewing on the knuckle.

"Why?" Leo asked.

Pausing for a moment, Don looked to his feet, dragging the knuckle of his finger across his teeth. He closed his eyes and shook his head again. "If I could find my key, I'll know I'm okay. That the problem's not me. Stress wouldn't make me lose the key. If I find the key I'll know whatever's wrong with me isn't permanent." He gritted his teeth and looked to Leo. "Wn't it?"

"I think, Don," Leo said slowly, thinking carefully over each word, "that if you want to get better then you need to stop obsessing over what's forgotten. So you fort something? Everyone has. Sometimes I still forget April and Casey's birthdays, and it's on the calendar in the kitchen. It's not a big deal. But you're working your every nerve and impulse over it for some reason."

Almost immediately, Don's eyes glazed over and he began to walk off mid-sentence. It was enough of a rejection to make Leo want to kick himself.

He was so bad at this.

"When it's not five in the morning, I will help you find your keys, okay?" Leo course corrected. He waited for a second but continued after getting no response from Don. "Right now, though, you should sleep or work on another project. Preferably one that doesn't fly through the Lair at the speed of light."

At the mention of projects, Don pulled himself back toward his chair. He grunted as though he had been suffering from aches and pains for years as he slid into it.

"I don't remember what to do in any of those projects," he admitted hollowly. "I keep looking at the blueprints and they don't even make sense. I tried to follow them one time. I really did. But all that I ended up doing was making a circle of circuit breakers. I couldn't even follow directions."

"So you're in a funk," Leo shrugged. "You've not been feeling in the right mood to do this stuff anyway. Maybe you shouldn't force it."

Sourly, Don looked to his brother. "I don't think that's the problem," he said slowly. "I don't know what to make of all this. I've never been like this before.

Leo looked at his brother painfully. "Are you scared?"

"No, I'm not," Don said quietly with a shake of his head. "I don't think so, anyway. I just want to know what's wrong. And, Leo, there's something wrong.But maybe knowing will be half the battle…"

There was a tense pause before Leo conceded. "It can be. But we can make arrangements to try to find out what's wrong. I'm sure LeatherHead could help. The two of you have made enough medical gear–"

"No," Don stopped him short, looking Leo sharply in the eyes. "Just let me find this key. If I find this key, whatever is wrong isn't permanent. It can go away. And I can make sense of everything I've been forgetting and seeing and feeling.I just need to do it myself."

Leo's glare hardened. "Seeing? You've been seeing things, Don?" Like what? What are you seeing?"

The look on Don's face told Leo immediately that he hadn't meant to reveal that level of detail.

He got up and began gathering objects from his desk indiscriminately. "It's nothing. Don't worry about it. If they were that big of a deal I'd have told you about them already, Leo. I'm more concerned about forgetting useful information at the moment. Just… just let me look for this key–"

"Don, i was the first one who started to get worried about you," Leo reminded his brother sternly. His voice was enough to get Don to at least look up at him. "I was worried before any of this happened. I thought you were off. Distracted maybe. And as it got worse, I was worried that me and everyone else drawing attention to it, stressing you more – we were somehow causing this or making it worse than it was. Because I trust your judgment, more than almost anyone outside of our father's. And I wanted to follow your lead first, only deterring when I was worried about your safety."

Don looked at him but said nothing, slowly lowering his things back to his desk.

"I can't ignore it anymore for that reason, I can't try to excuse the obvious," Leo continued. "Because I love you. And I will figure out what's wrong with you. Because something is wrong."

Weakly, Don looked almost wounded. "Don't say that, Leo. Please. There issomething wrong, but it's temporary. It has to be."

"Then we're going to make for sure it is," Leo said firmly. "And if that means getting help from our friends, then that's exactly what we're going to do."

Unhappy with that answer, Don left his chair and head out the lab and toward the stairs. Finally going to his room.

Leo took a deep breath and rubbed his face.

It was going to be a difficult journey, but if he had to be the one steering, then that's exactly what he was going to do.