For my sister, and everyone else who hasn't given up on me xo

Leo sat on the O'Neil's couch, limbs sprawled out and neck arched back until his head was mostly being supported by the curved rim of his shell. It was awkward - the couch was not designed for a human sized turtle with a shell to match, and the pose pulled on his throat uncomfortably - but the late afternoon sunlight beating down on his upturned face was glorious, even filtered through the pane of glass. He could just see the tops of the mountains that ringed the valley where April's family farm nestled, and above that, endless clear blue sky. Every now and then a small breeze rustled through the room, traveling from the front screen door to the back and carrying with it the smells of summer to permeate the old farmhouse. So much better than a cramped bathtub. Not that he remembered much of the three months he'd spent trapped in it, the recollections he had of the few hours after he'd awoken from his coma were plenty.

He found himself stretching his limbs out further, pushing against the ghostly sensation of the porcelain coffin he'd lain in for so long. Three months. On one hand he could scarcely believe so much time had passed. But then he could feel the truth of it throughout his entire body. His muscles were somehow heavy and light at the same time, difficult to move, lacking the strength he'd carefully and methodically built, yet somehow taken for granted all his life. He was completely drained, weak, unable to even stand unassisted. Almost a week had passed and he still needed Raph or Donnie's help just to get to the bathroom.

With a deep sigh Leo lifted his head, one hand coming to his throat with a pained grimace as it protested the change in position. He massaged the sore muscles lightly then gently rotated his neck to stretch out the kinks caused by his awkward pose. He rolled his shoulders a few times then sat up slowly, feeling the slight burn in his core muscles as they engaged. Despite being constrained to the couch during his waking hours he'd been kept fairly busy; Donnie had mapped out a carefully calibrated schedule for him that had him cycling though eating, exercising and resting. The exercises were what he looked forward to the most, although he was more than a little mortified both by their excruciatingly simple nature and the fact that they were still challenging enough to have him sweating and shaky by the end. The residual ache throughout his limbs was comfortingly familiar though, reassuring him that he was making progress, no matter how slow it felt and how far he had left to go to get back to where he'd been.

Leo's gaze fell on the coffee table, snagging on the empty plate and cup left over from lunch. Yet another reminder of how weak he'd become. The eating part of his day was almost as challenging as Donnie's physio, his stomach had shrunk considerably while he was unconscious and the damage done to his throat made swallowing food more difficult. In a million years he never could have anticipated the need to learn how to chew and swallow again and yet, after nearly choking on a bite of sandwich and giving both himself and everyone else in the room a heart attack, he'd quickly found himself doing just that.

His hand came up again, this time to his chest plate. His fingers shook a little as they traced the area where Shredder's gauntlet had pierced his plastron. The three large puncture marks had been slow to heal due to a lack of sunlight in the upstairs bathroom. His time on the couch had resulted in a noticeable improvement on a surface level, but beneath there was a deeper ache. He didn't remember receiving the injury, not really. It was all a jumbled blur of pain and flickering images as Rahzah had slowly crushed the life out of him. Scarlett had been there, her voice echoing as if from a great distance as she screamed his name…

"Hey."

April's voice startled him a little, pulling him back to the present. His hand dropped and he lifted his chin, meeting her worried gaze.

"Hey," His voice cracked and he winced, clearing his throat roughly and swallowing before trying again. "Hi, April."

A look flashed over the redhead's face so fast he almost missed it, the same look he'd been getting every time he opened his mouth to speak. A look that made him want to quit talking altogether. He felt his cheeks flush and dropped his chin, turning his face from his friend in an effort to hide the pulse of shame and grief he felt every time he was reminded of how different he sounded, how different he looked. How different he was from the Leo he'd been before.

"Hungry?" April asked gently as she placed the tray she was holding on the coffee table. On it was a fresh glass of chunky green liquid, the same bland food he'd been offered around this time yesterday and the day before that. Donnie had drawn up a strict diet for him to help him on the road to recovery, unfortunately it didn't seem to have been checked over by Mikey judging from the taste of most of the dishes he was being encouraged to consume. The thought of his youngest brother had him frowning at the unappetising smoothie.

"Where's Mikey?" Leo lifted his frown to April, "I've barely seen him since I woke up."

"He's around," April said vaguely, picking up the drink and circling around the low coffee table in his direction. She didn't quite meet his gaze as she pushed the liquid meal towards him with a wide smile.

"Around where?" Leo persisted, ignoring the glass and focusing on April's face instead. Her eyes flicked to his then dropped to the side.

"I, uh, I'm not completely sure. I think maybe he's doing some extra training or something?" She lowered herself to perch on the edge sofa next to him, angling her body to face him but still not quite meeting his eyes. A smile trembled at the edge of her mouth and the hand holding the glass quivered a little, knuckles white. Leo relented, taking the smoothie from her and reluctantly raising it to his lips.

As he forced down the first swallow of green slush he distracted himself from the taste by intensifying his scrutiny of his friend, narrowing his eyes at her over the rim of the glass. April's had been the first voice he'd heard when he'd woken. Her happy shout had felt like an air horn going off inside his skull, kicking off a confusing whirlwind of faces and emotions that had seemed to take an age to settle enough for him to understand where he was and what had happened. Her joy at his return to consciousness had seemed to light her up from the inside at first, the wide smile beaming out from her face so strongly it had mostly succeeded in masking the underlying, persistent gloom that shrouded the old farmhouse.

Gradually though that light had dimmed, the grin stretching her cheeks shrinking little by little over the last handful of days until her demeanour now matched everyone else's. Becoming tense, sad and almost secretive. Looking at her now he could see the lines around her mouth and eyes, practically feel the sadness emanating from her in palpable waves. April shifted uncomfortably under his inquisitive stare, fingers twisting in her lap even as she subtly tried to avoid his gaze.

Leo took pity on her, releasing her from his scrutiny to gamely take another swallow of his liquid snack and scan the room instead. His focus returned once again to the giant dent that marred the wall directly across from the staircase. It had been drawing his attention periodically since he'd been relocated to the couch and he'd been unable to ignore how the cracked, sagging plaster was suspiciously shaped like a turtle's shell. He remembered the raised voices he'd heard that night and the way his brothers had changed the topic when he'd asked them about it, the same way they avoided answering all of his questions. Avoided him.

Something was wrong with his family. A pang gripped his chest and he felt the hot flash of shame that heated his cheeks every time he thought about the events leading up to his final fight with Rahzar. Of course there was something wrong. The battle for New York had been lost, which meant they'd lost everything. Their father, their friends, their home. But on top of all that something even deeper and more fundamental was missing.

Leo tightened his grip around the glass, the smooth surface slowly warming against his palm as he focussed inward. Staring blindly into the murky contents he forced himself to stop shying away from the unsettling feeling of wrongness that gripped his guts, instead leaning into it in an effort to understand what was right there beneath the surface. It…it was as though a connection had been severed between himself and his brothers. A tether he hadn't really thought about until he'd woken up to find it missing. He could feel the aching emptiness deep in his heart, an absence of the knowledge that, no matter what came their way, they would stand to face it. Together.

The chasm between himself and his brothers had been revealing itself bit by bit, making itself felt every time Donnie came to check on him, caring for him physically with cool professionalism but never quite meeting his gaze or stopping long enough to actually talk to him. He'd felt it painfully every time Raph dropped by for one of his fleeting visits, his rough voice unnaturally gentle and his whole demeanour somehow deflated, as though he had no energy left for his usual brashness. And Mikey, his softhearted little brother, was the worst of all. There was no trace of the carefree, cheeky kid he'd been before the invasion. The occasional glimpse Leo had managed to snatch of the youngest turtle had hinted at barely contained anger, his clenched fists and a hard jaw as effective as a sign that read 'keep away'.

And it was all his fault. Every decision he'd made, however well intended, had led to this fracture. He'd broken his family, severing the ties between them when they needed each other most. Every instinct he'd had had been wrong, every choice pushing them that little bit closer to complete destruction. Now they all avoided him and he couldn't blame them in the least. He'd let them down, failed to be the leader his father had trained him to be. Raph had been right from the start, Master Splinter should never have put him in charge…

All at once Leo's throat tightened painfully and the smell of the smoothie threatened to make him gag. Tears sprang to his eyes as the reality of their situation crushed down on him and he hastily wiped his mouth with the back of his wrist, reaching forward blindly in an attempt to place the glass on the coffee table before he dropped it and made yet another mess. April was there, one hand landing softly on his shoulder to steady him while the other plucked the glass from his hand. "Leo?"

He shook his head, unable to speak past the lump in his throat. He pressed his palms against his eye sockets, fighting for composure as he took one shuddering breath quickly followed by a second. Beside him April made a distressed sound and he felt her shift closer. The hand on his shoulder tugged at him as she gently tried to turn him towards her but he resisted her efforts, instead hunching forward until his elbows rested on his thighs.

"What is it? What's wrong?" She ran her palm over his bicep in soothing circles for a few moments then slipped her arm around his shell, pressing her soft warmth into his side. Her attempts to comfort him caused the knot in his chest to force its way up until it erupted from his mouth in a shuddering sob that was immediately followed by another, then another, until his whole body shook.

April struggled against a wave of helpless dismay in the face of her friend's distress, at a loss of what to do. Leo had always been the strong one. He was the one who had a plan, who always knew what to do next and gave orders with quiet confidence. There seemed to be no trace of that confident leader left, in his place was a turtle who had curled in on himself completely, his entire body shuddering as he began to cry brokenly into his hands.

Tears clouded her own vision and, before she registered what she was doing, she found herself half standing so that she could force herself even closer to her friend. Somehow she managed to shove herself onto Leo's lap, using her body weight to move his arms out of the way then twisting to throw her limbs around his shoulders and squeezing him as tightly as she dared. For a moment she was terrified that she was hurting him, he was much frailer than before the invasion, but then he finally moved, enveloping her in a tight hug that stole the breath from her lungs. His wet face pushed into the side of her neck and she instinctively brought one hand up to cup the back of his head, his hot breath shuddering into what little space was left between them with every hitch of his chest. She could feel tears streaming down her own cheeks but let them fall unheeded, instead murmuring low words of comfort as she rocked gently from side to side.

April had known this was coming, she had felt it building like a storm on the horizon. At first she'd been so happy, so immensely relieved when Leo had woken up. Naively she'd thought that the pure miracle of Leo emerging from his coma would be more than enough to heal the brothers, bring them together again and free them from the horrible holding pattern of grief and anger that had been ensnaring them all. It hadn't taken long for cold reality to set in, bringing her back to earth with a bone jarring thud. Nothing had really changed when Leo had come back to them. If anything the underlying currents keeping each turtle trapped in their own personal bullshit had only grown stronger. Watching Leo's hurt and confusion grow day by day in response to the low thrumming tension broke her heart a little more each time she witnessed it but she felt frozen with indecision. How could she explain anything to him when she herself struggled to fully grasp what was going on? So she'd been avoiding the issue, focussing instead on the day to day of just keeping things running on a surface level. And didn't that make her part of the problem too?

All April could do was hold Leo as time became meaningless. Minutes ticked by unheeded as she listened to his breathing gradually slow by degrees, his chest hitching less and less frequently as he calmed. Eventually the room fell into a deep quiet but still she refused to let him go, keeping her arms firmly locked around him and absorbing the residual tremors that never quite left his limbs. He made no attempt to pull away from her, his arms keeping her firmly trapped against his plastron.

After what seemed like an eternity she felt him shift the tiniest bit within her grasp and she found herself holding her breath. Patiently she waited for him to speak first, almost able to feel him summoning the will to give voice to whatever had driven him to lose his composure so completely.

"They hate me."

April gave an involuntary twitch, her hold on Leo tightening even further in response to his statement, delivered with such sad certainty into the space between them. Desperately she floundered for something to say, searching for the right words to refute his statement. But what could she offer? She could so clearly see through his eyes in that moment and, with devastating clarity, saw what he saw.

"Maybe it would've been better if…" His voice trailed off but his meaning was painfully clear.

"No!" She pulled back, cupping his cheeks and forcing him to look at her, her heart thudding in her ears. "No Leo, don't you think that for even a second!"

He stared up at her with red rimmed eyes, light blue iris' swimming with renewed tears. "What am I supposed to think, April? No one can even look at me. They blame me for everything and they're right, I let them down in the worst way." He blinked, a fresh tear tracking down his cheek. "Dad, Scarlett, the whole city is lost because I wasn't strong enough."

Determinedly she held his gaze, for the first time meeting his eyes without the protection of a forced smile. "None of us could ever, ever hate you." She wiped the tear away with her thumb, refusing to look away and willing him to believe her. "You fought harder than anyone to keep us together, to keep us safe, and you nearly died for your efforts."

"I messed up." Leo's voice cracked, he tried to drop his chin but April didn't let him, keeping a firm hold of his cheeks.

"We all did," She waited until he met her gaze again before repeating herself fiercely. "We all did. I was the one who led that Irma bot to the lair, I'm the reason we got separated in the tunnels, I was the one who couldn't stop my dad from getting mutated again." Her voice cracked and she let go of him for a moment to wipe the moisture from her eyes.

This time Leo was the one who shook his head, "No, April. None of that was your fault, you didn't know…"

"It wasn't your fault either." She cut him off fiercely. "We all have stuff we can blame ourselves for but that's bullshit. It was the Kraang. It was the Foot Clan. It was Oraku Saki."

Leo blinked but didn't look away, meeting her stare even as doubt continued to swirl behind his eyes.

"She's right, Leo." They both looked up at the gruff statement to see Raph hovering at the base of the stairs just beyond the doorway. Shadows slanted across his face, hiding everything except the hard line of his mouth. "None of this is on you."

The red banded turtle stepped forward as he spoke, moving out of the dim hallway. He looked even more tired than usual, shoulders slumped as if the weight of the world weighed heavy on him. He stopped after a few steps, rubbing a hand roughly over his face before letting his arm drop back to his side.

April felt Leo go completely still as he absorbed Raph's words, barely seeming to breathe as he waited for his brother to say something more. She felt her own eyes widen in surprise at Raph's simple statement, such a far cry from the usual accusing barbs she'd heard him sling at Leo in the time she'd known them. The room fell back into a weighted silence, April willed Raph to keep going. Leo needed more, she needed more. She needed to understand what was behind the continued tension.

"Who is it on then, Raph?"

A harsh voice spoke up, cutting through the stillness and causing all of them to start in surprise. She saw Raph's face contort as he turned, taking a step back to face Mikey who had materialised behind him. The youngest turtle stood with fists and jaw clenched, eyes flashing with pure rage as he glared at his brother.

When Raph didn't answer he let out a low bark of laughter. "You still can't admit it can you? You can't just tell the truth, say what really happened." Mikey took a slow step into the room, ignoring everyone else to focus completely on his older sibling. "You're a coward." He spat deliberately.

Raph flinched openly at the accusation, shooting a quick glance at Leo. "Mikey…"

"You're a fucking coward!" Mikey's voice rose to a full throated shout. He stabbed a finger towards the other turtle and April wasn't surprised when Raph stumbled back a step even though it was nowhere near enough to actually make contact.

"You're pathetic." Mikey delivered the last in a venomous whisper before turning on his heel and vanishing.

"Mikey." Raph choked out his brother's name, but his only answer was the slam of the back screen door.

A shocked silence fell and April hardly dared to breathe, watching in fascination as a kaleidoscope of emotions played over the red banded turtle's face which had gone a sickly pale shade. Deep hurt tangled with frustration then morphed into an expression of such hopeless sadness that she felt the answering sting of tears. A shudder rippled over his body and for a moment April was convinced that he would simply sink to the floor beneath the weight of all those emotions. Then, incredibly, anger began to surface. Slowly at first. Raph's brow lowered by degrees, his chin jutting out as a muscle jumped in his jaw. He began to clench his first rhythmically by his sides as a flush worked its way up his neck, deepening the colour of his cheeks until all trace of pallor was completely gone. He seemed to be caught up in some kind of inward battle that she didn't dare interrupt for fear she would derail the transformation happening before her eyes.

Abruptly Raph snapped his head towards them and April found herself cringing back from the blistering heat that emanated from his amber eyes. It was as though she'd taken an enormous jump backwards in time, all trace of the turtle he'd been since the invasion was burned away beneath a wave of fury and before her was the old version of Raph she hadn't known she'd been missing quite this much until this very moment.

Raph only glared at them for a moment before his head swivelled in the direction Mikey had gone and he exploded into motion. Without a word he was gone, a second slam of the screen door confirming that he was hot on his little brother's heels.

Although the tension in the room didn't lesson with Raph and Mikey's absence, April felt her trembling muscles release just a fraction as she let out an unsteady breath. Against her side she felt Leo shift and she looked to him, almost surprised to see him there even though she had been perched on his lap this whole time, her arms still wrapped firmly around him. The eldest turtle wore an expression of complete confusion, his blue eyes darting between hers as though he could gain understanding if he studied her closely enough.

"April?"

All at once a grin broke out over her face and at the sight of it Leo became even more visibly confused. She knew she looked crazy, hell, maybe she was, maybe these last months of stress and grief had finally broken her, but as the adrenalin faded from her limbs she couldn't help wrapping her even further around Leo for a tight squeeze as an insane giggle escaped her. Raph was back, he was going after Mikey and that could only mean one thing. They were finally going to sort out whatever it was standing between them.

April drew back and cupped Leo's cheeks once more, dropping a kiss on his wide mouth before jumping to her feet. "I think everything is going to be ok, Leo." She said simply, grinning down at him as she held out her hand.

He took it with a startled air, allowing her to pull him up onto unsteady legs. She moved to his side, placing an arm around his shell as they began the slow process of shuffling across the room.

"What does that mean?"

Her grin faded in response to his quiet question. She took another breath, and this time when she lifted her chin to look at him, her expression was more serious. It was time to stop pretending, Leo deserved to know as much of the truth as she could give him. And, hopefully, by the time the brothers returned they would be able to fill in the rest.

"Come on, let's go sit on the porch and I'll tell you."

You guys have no idea how long I've been writing this chapter on and off…well, ok, maybe, if you've been following this story for a while, you do lol. I tried to hit the right balance between capturing all the angst flying around while still moving the story forward. Not easy and it involved a lot of rewriting. But, good news, I've been working on the next chapter at the same time and I have a sketch in my head ready for the one after that. I hope this is me getting myself back into the writing headspace.

It's been a long time and I feel a bit rusty so please drop a review and let me know what you think. Love you all!