Author's Note: I can't believe it has been that long since I started this story! How could I leave poor, hurt Mikey hopping away in a desperate attempt to avoid being recaptured so soon after he had finally managed to escape a suspicious laboratory?

At least April and Casey were here for him. And at least he found his three missing, now human brothers, including two who have sided with him and a third that… Uh…

Anyways. Here is the next chapter, and I do intend to update this story more often.

That I Love You

The trip back to the lair wasn't the worst Mikey had made, but it wasn't exactly enjoyable either. He was hurting, and his right leg was starting to get tired of all the hopping.

He sighed in relief when he finally reached the turnstiles and jumped over them, letting go of Casey's shoulder in his haste to be home. He was fully prepared to collapse against the familiar ground of the lair, but he collapsed right in his father's arms instead.

Splinter must have heard Mikey hopping back to the lair, or maybe it was April and Casey's yells that had alerted him. In any case, he had been ready for them.

"Hi, Dad," Mikey said. He offered him a smile that might not have been as bright as usual, but Mikey himself didn't feel as bright as usual.

Splinter's arms were holding him delicately, as if he was a fragile being like one of Raph's pigeons. Mikey wanted to be hugged tighter, and he wrapped his right arm around Splinter's body, ignoring the pain as his scratches grazed against Splinter's robe.

"Michelangelo, my son. I'm glad you came home."

Mike's smile widened. He was home, wasn't he? He was safe. It felt nice, even though his head throbbed. It felt like he didn't have to force his body to keep moving anymore, it felt…

…like he could finally allow himself to lose consciousness.

And so did he.

When Mikey woke up, he was lying on his back. He immediately recognized the dojo's ceiling from the countless times he had had the dubious honor to admire it at the end of a sparring session. The sight was deeply soothing. It meant that he wasn't a prisoner in some strange laboratory anymore, and that he had successfully avoided being dissected.

Mikey tried to turn his head, but the move was painful and he stilled with a whine.

Splinter hovered over him. Mikey's father looked worn out, but he still offered his son a loving smile. "How are you feeling, my son?"

"What happened?" Mikey said, his voice hoarse.

A glass of water appeared in front of him, held by a worried-looking April. Splinter helped him drink it.

"I used the Healing Hands mantra on you," Mikey's father said. "You had a very high fever. You must have caught an infection at some point during your escape."

"What? Why would I do that?" Mikey protested. His sight was adjusting to his surroundings. Now he could see that Casey was also here, kneeling on the side as if he didn't know what to do with himself.

"It wasn't intentional, Mikey", April said as she patted his arm. His left arm, which wasn't numb anymore. "With open wounds like yours, any unclean environment could have caused it."

Mikey scrunched up his face in concentration. "But the lab was very clean. And when I escaped, I only swam in sewer waters and hid into a dumpster, nothing out of the ordinary."

Splinter's whiskers twitched. "Neither sewer waters nor dumpsters can be considered clean, my son."

"But we go into them all the time!" Mikey protested.

Casey snorted. "Yeah, what he said."

April glared at him and Casey smiled sheepishly, as if he was apologizing. Mikey wasn't sure what there was to apologize for. Casey was only speaking the truth.

April turned to Mikey again, now smiling soothingly. "What's important is that you're safe now."

"Now I'm going to renew your bandages." Splinter stood up. "And then you'll need plenty of rest."

Mikey grabbed April's arm as soon as Splinter had left. "You must go back for Raph and Leo," he said. "I would come with you, but…"

But he had a feeling that his father wouldn't allow it.

April nodded. "We will."

"We already told the Mutanimals that we found you," Casey said. "They're going to investigate. We were waiting to know whether you were okay."

"I am okay." Mikey hoped his gaze adequately conveyed the feeling. He didn't think he could nod his head decisively enough to emphasize his words. "We can't lose my brothers' track now. You have to hurry!"

April and Casey both nodded, and left just as Splinter was coming back.

Splinter pressed the back of his hand against Mikey's forehead. "Michelangelo. Don't strain yourself."

Mikey leaned into the touch with a sigh. He let Splinter wrap his injuries in fresh bandages. His father's touch was even softer than Raph's had been.

"What happened, my son?" Splinter asked after he deemed Mikey beribboned enough. "April and Casey told me that you had found your brothers."

Mikey closed his eyes. "Yes, I did. And I lost them right away," he confessed.

His heart ached. He had been so close to bringing them all home. So close.

Granted, none of them had remembered him. But Donnie had helped him escape, and Raph had taken his side, and Leo had...been there. It meant something, right?

Splinter hummed and stroked Mikey's head. "Can you tell me what happened?"

Mikey nodded. With sentences that lacked his usual eloquence, he told Splinter everything he remembered from the moment he had received April's text to the moment he had escaped through the rooftops with Casey.

At some point, Splinter gathered him in his arms and started rocking him.

"I was so close, Dad," Mikey said, his voice hoarse. "I found them. I found them all, and…"

"Shh," Splinter said. "You've been incredibly brave, my son. I couldn't be more proud of you."

Mikey cuddled against his father's chest. "But I couldn't bring them back," he whispered.

"You will have another opportunity. What matters is that you made it home."

Mikey relaxed in his father's embrace. Splinter's tone left no room for doubt, which was exactly what he wanted to hear.

"Sleep, my son," Splinter added. You need to rest. We can talk more when you wake up."

Mikey obediently closed his eyes and let go.

When Mikey awoke, he was in his very own bed, in his very own room. Splinter was watching over him, and smiled at him as soon as Mikey's eyes met his.

"How are you feeling, my son?"

Mikey thought seriously about the question.

"I'm hungry," he finally said. Of all the various aches in his body, his stomach's plea was the most urgent matter to attend to.

"April and Casey brought pizza," Splinter said. "In fact, they've done it every day since you came back."

Mikey nodded. "They're very good friends." Then something in his brain clicked. "Days? I've slept for days?"

"Yes." Splinter stroked his beard. "You did wake up at regular intervals, so I was able to feed you soup, but you never seemed to be truly aware of your surroundings."

Mikey straightened up. The move made his head spin, but he couldn't have cared less. "What happened? Where are Donnie, Raph and Leo? Did the others find them? Are they alright? Why aren't they here with me?"

Splinter leaned forwards to prevent Mikey from fully standing. "Calm down, my son. You need to take it easy. I'll tell you everything I know."

The last thing Mikey wanted to do was to calm down, but he always made an extra effort to obey Splinter's commands. So he forced himself to stay mostly still while Splinter told him what had happened.

Contrary to Mikey's hopes, his friends hadn't been able to find his brothers. When Casey and April had gone back to Raph's place, the governmental agents had vanished along with Raph himself. The Mutanimals had arrived too late to see anything, which meant that the agents had retreated immediately after Mikey had left the scene. Mikey couldn't help thinking that Leo was behind the quick decision.

They had searched for the bug that had been used to track Mikey, as Rockwell had said it might be useful in learning more about whom they were dealing with, but they didn't have any luck. They had even tried to go back to the facility, in order to look for Donnie, but their stealth approach had ended in full-blown combat and Mondo Gecko had been injured, if only slightly. Donnie hadn't been seen again in the emerged part of the facility, that Rockwell was monitoring the best he could.

All in all, it wasn't very good news. Maybe someone a tad less optimistic than Mikey would even have called them terrible.

"I should have come with them," Mikey said once Splinter was done. He was wringing his quilt between the fingers that weren't busy pushing pizza in his mouth. "I would have found Donnie for sure."

"You needed to recover," Splinter said firmly. "Your friends did what they thought was best in your absence."

They remained silent for a while, at the notable exception of Mikey's deglutition noises.

"There is something I wanted to ask you about, my son," Splinter finally said.

Mikey swallowed the last of his pizzas and wiped his mouth with his quilt. Splinter's whiskers twitched ever so slightly.

"What is it, Father?"

"You said that you dreamed of Donatello. Can you tell me more about it?"

Mikey frowned and did his best to relate once more what he had felt. He remembered feeling his brother's presence, both so close and so far away, hidden behind pink smoke.

"Hmm," Splinter commented. "It seems that your connection to your brothers allows you to reach them in the spiritual plane."

Mikey's heart filled with hope. "So you think it really was Donnie?"

Not that he had doubted it, but it felt good to hear his father say it.

"Yes."

Splinter looked at Mikey for a while, his face unreadable.

"Get some more rest. Then meet me in the dojo."

Mikey managed to get maybe two minutes of rest before the urge to know what his father wanted to talk about got the best of his nerves. When he entered the dojo, Splinter was standing in front of his shrine.

Mikey didn't want to disturb Splinter while his father thought about the people he had lost, so he waited at the entrance, balancing his weight from foot to foot.

"Come in, my son," Splinter said, luckily quickly enough that Mikey didn't have too much time to think about the people he was missing.

Splinter motioned for him to sit, and Mikey immediately obeyed.

"I've given your story a lot of thought, Michelangelo," Splinter said, his hands crossed behind his back. "While we might not know much about the being that trapped your brothers, I believe they're using the spiritual plane to assert power over Donatello, Leonardo and Raphael."

"That's so not cool," Mikey complained.

"Indeed, my son." Splinter briefly closed his eyes. "In any way, I haven't been able to track them here. You, however, seem to have the ability–maybe because you've meet Donatello as a human, or because you were the one that the being tricked in the first place." He paused. "That means that you're the only one who can fight that being on the spiritual plane."

Mikey, who had been dutifully nodding through his father's speech, suddenly stilled. "What?"

"It might not become necessary," Splinter said. "But in the event that it does, I would like to teach you a trick or two."

Mikey's eyes widened. "Really? What tricks?" He grinned. "Can I use them against Raph when he's back?"

Splinter raised an eyebrow.

Mikey quickly amended his words. "I mean, of course I will only use this power with honor, because with great power comes great responsibility."

He hoped that his impression of Leo was good enough to disguise the fact he had no intention of not pranking his brothers with whatever Splinter intended to teach him.

Splinter sighed, as if he wasn't fooled at all.

"Very well. It works like this…"

Mikey listened intently to Splinter's explanation, memorizing everything the best he could.

"Do you get it, my son?" Splinter said once he was done.

"Yes," Mikey said.

Splinter tilted his head.

"No," Mikey admitted.

If he had to be honest, he hadn't understood what Splinter was talking about at all. To be fair, it was often the case and rarely prevented Mikey from using Splinter's teachings in life-or-death situations.

Mikey was comforted to hear that his father thought the same.

"It doesn't matter, my son. Just remember it. When the time is right, you will understand." Splinter smiled. "Now you should prepare for your friends' arrival. It is almost time for their daily visit."

Mikey had barely managed to collapse on the couch when April, Casey, Slash, Rockwell, Leatherhead and Mondo Gecko burst into the lair.

"Mikey!" Casey yelled. "How have you been, dude?"

"You had us worried," April said.

"That is true, my friend." Leatherhead smiled the toothy smile that Mikey found so relaxing.

"I'm alright." Mikey gracefully accepted their hugs. "What's the news?"

Casey shook his head, frustrated. "Raph, Donnie and Leo are nowhere to be found. It's like they've disappeared from New York!"

Mikey took one of the pizzas his friends had brought and ate it whole. The generous input in grease lighted several parts of his brain.

"I have a plan," he said, grinning in his enthusiasm. "If we can't find them, we'll let them find me. I'll be bait! After all, I'm the one they want!"

He had extensive experience on the topic, and it seemed only right to use it for such an important purpose.

To his disappointment, the others didn't seem as enthusiastic as he was.

"That… could work," April said hesitantly.

"There has to be another way." Casey shook his head. "It's too dangerous."

"We might not have enough time for another plan," Slash said seriously.

Everyone except Mikey exchanged glances, and Mikey frowned. He also had extensive experience with being left out of a conversation.

"What is it?" he demanded.

His friends looked at him as if they were about to deliver some terrible news, like Donnie when he said 'Time for a medical check-up, Mikey', and Mikey shivered.

"Now you're reaaaaally creeping me out. Like in a good old-fashioned Halloween movie."

"About that, my friend," Leatherhead started.

The wait was killing Mikey. He considered collapsing on the floor just to show them how much, but his friends might not catch the joke and actually worry.

Rockwell cleared his throat and moved a huge and dusty-smelling book in front of Mikey.

"I found something," he said. "Thanks to my superior intellect, and…"

"Just get to the point, dude," Casey said, and Mikey sent him a grateful look.

Rockwell huffed. "There is a pink genie mentioned in this particular volume. They're a spirit appearing during the month of Halloween, who offers wishes to mortals and tries to trick them."

"Really?" Mikey jumped at his neck. "That's it! That's exactly it! So how do we reverse a wish?"

"The wishes can indeed be reversed," Rockwell said, looking important and all-knowledgeable. "The book…" He cleared his throat. "It doesn't specify how."

Mikey's arms fell to his sides. "What? How is that useful?"

Rockwell ignored the comment. "The important point is, the person who made the wish has one month to reverse it. It they don't, the enchantment becomes permanent."

Mikey grabbed him again. "What do you mean, permanent?"

"I mean permanent as in persistent. Everlasting. Perpetual. Eternal," Rockwell said.

"He means that we have until Halloween to break the enchantment," April interjected.

Mikey turned to her. "But how do we do that?" he asked, his voice breaking just a little. The others didn't seem to notice, and Mikey fought against the sudden feeling that his brothers would have.

"I'm not sure." April frowned as she thought about Mikey's question. "But maybe if your brothers could remember who they are…"

"How much time do we have left?" Mikey knew he had slept for days, but he hadn't thought to ask Splinter how many. It hadn't mattered then.

"Two weeks." April put her hand on Mikey's arm. "We can do this, Mikey."

Mikey tried not to panic. They still had two weeks. It was more than enough, wasn't it?

It had to be.

"Of course," he said, giving the others an almost not trembling smile. "Piece of pizza."