Okay, So I have had the idea for this particular story for about three months now and have been working my way around actually writing for about a week but I’ve at LAST sat down to do this. Something about a book I read last year in school really touched me with just the layout of the story. I would tell you what the story was but I fear that would almost count as a spoiler so I refrained ;P

This one isn’t too bad, only ten chapters but I’m hoping you all will bear with me and come to enjoy it as much as I have enjoyed writing it out. Oh, and I’ll tell you the name of the story that inspired this in the last chapters where spoilers won’t really matter as much. Hope that’s okay!

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

Paradigm
Chapter One: Let me tell you a story…

I kinda flinch whenever the bags hit the carpeted lining of the trunk. I’m not really sure why, even I’m not all that jumpy usually, but it’s sort of aggravating me by this point. I think it’s just the loud noise that gets to me but that just doesn’t seem right.

Nothing really seems right.

It’s way too cold to be merely fall and I don’t care what Don or April say to me these stupid sweats aren’t really helping with the chills I’m getting. They’re too bunchy and loose and at the same time restricting! This could be the precise reason turtles aren’t supposed to wear clothes.

Casey grunts awkwardly and I repress the urge to joke about the workout as he tosses in the last of my bags into the trunk of April’s car. He straightens and smacks his hands together in a “job-well-done” fashion and seems rather proud that he managed to get all the crap in the trunk.

Man! Don must have backed enough stuff to keep me at the farm for a month!

This was just further conformation to me that my brothers had had simply too much free time during my recovery period. In retrospect, after they left Leo at the farmhouse, they still had a month or two before I ever woke up enough to be coherent.

My stomach sort of weakens by the mere thought of Leo. I really don’t want to see him. Not after what we did the last time we met.

But I have to see him. He’s waiting at the farm and I’m going to do my best to try to bring him back home. I don’t think he realizes how much we miss him around the Lair. I know he probably doesn’t know how much I miss him.

Like I said, we did something that is just hard for me to muster under the current circumstances. We got into a fight. A big one.

“That’s the last of it! Thanks for the help,” Casey teases us but doesn’t get much of a rouse. I don’t know why he expected one under these conditions but, then again, it was Bonehead Casey we were talking about.

But now I feel bad about Casey, too.

Here he and April are, taking time away from their merry lives to drive simple old me to the farmhouse all because of some fight they were not even part of. And my brothers and I didn’t even have the decency to help with the bags. We were just standing here.

“Sorry,” I mutter.

I never mutter. I don’t know how to describe what’s wrong with me. I wasn’t like this a few months ago, though the fight had really already begun by that point. I’m supposed to be happy and joyful, I get to see my older brother after all!

I think it’s the fact that Don and Raph and standing behind me and practically breathing down by back. It’s starting to give me cold chills. Seriously.

Don’s acting like if I take five steps out of his sight I’ll end up being all aloof and out of the family’s care like Leo is. I should probably tell him I’m going to be fine but I can’t do it. I don’t feel too fine at the moment to be honest and he wouldn’t believe me in any case.

“You ready to go, Mike?” April asks me as she stands close by.

I had honestly almost forgotten she was there with us already. She looks about as somber as Raphael and Donatello. I probably should do something to lighten the mood but I don’t think anything is appropriate. There’s a lot of friction, after all.

“Yeah…” I nod to her and tug at the hood of my sweatshirt again. “I’ll be right there.”

She hesitates before getting in the front passenger’s seat simultaneously with Casey getting in the driver’s seat. I stretch some to look like I’m getting ready for the long drive as they watch me in the rearview mirror, but I’m buying time.

I’ll take all the borrowed time I can get at this point.

Thinking about everything, though, I should probably be pretty excited. I get to ride in the actual car the entire way to Northampton. Usually my brothers and I ride all incognito like to the farm in the back of a hitched up trailer.

Think of the trailer as Coach One Way and the car seats as First-Class Round Trip.

Still, it doesn’t feel all that right. I almost wish Raph or Don would offer to go with me but they went with Master Splinter while I was recovering. Leo didn’t want to come back with them which could explain that pissy mood of Raph’s.

Speaking of which, Casey starts up the car and I figure it’s my last chance to turn around and tell my brothers their goodbyes. It’s funny that my mind is blocking this from me because as soon as I consider what I’m going to say to them I’m back to thinking about how stupid these sweats are.

So I turn around and I’m facing Raph and Don who are looking a little worse for wear. Don in particular doesn’t want me to go and is literally biting his lip to keep from saying something to me. I look at him for a moment but nothing comes from his mouth.

I wish he would just tell me to stay home. I would gladly do it if offered at this point.

I laugh some as if it can relieve this pressure in my chest that’s screaming “DO SOMETHING!” It doesn’t really help, like that’s a surprise, and it might have actually made things work because Mr. Happy himself is staring at me with absolute disgust. I must remind myself to never get on this side of Raphael ever again.

“Man, gotta hate all this clothing stuff,” I follow up after swallowing the lump in my throat. They continue to stare at me expectantly and I suddenly imagine myself on stage before a crowd of Dons and Raphs while being in nothing but my skivvies. That would be relieving considering my clothing situation. “Kind of makes me glad I’m a turtle.”

Raphael snorts and looks away. I can’t believe he’s still not talking to me. Like this is all my fault.

The voice in my head is screaming for me to just SPIT IT OUT already and I lower my head. This is hard. I feel like I’m breaking the family further than I did in the fight. “I guess I’ll see you guys soon…or I’ll call you or something. We’ll figure it out…” It’s still not completely out, though. “Bye…”

I suddenly feel an embrace and I don’t even have to look up to know it’s Donny. Poor guy. He’s had the shaft in this entire situation since my lights went out. He can’t take care of me as a patient anymore, though. I’m healed with the exception of a few bruised ribs. So he can’t use the Doctor Excuse anymore to keep me from going to Leo.

He thinks I’m not going to be able to talk Leo into coming back either. In fact, I’d dare to say he ‘knows’ I won’t be able to, as if this would devastate me any further than discovering that Raph held me accountable for it all.

Well, I was going to bring Leo back so I wasn’t too concerned about that at all.

“I can do it, Donny,” I assure him, though I don’t think he completely comprehends what I’m talking about.

You see, this plan of me bringing Leo back to the city is actually unspoken. As far as I’m concerned, only you and I know about this officially. Don suspects it and so does Raph which is probably why he’s so upset with me. He was so close to Leo for so long and he wasn’t able to do it. Why am I special?

I can do it for the same reasons that I got into the fight with Leo.

“I’m sure you can,” Don agrees with a sigh. “We went beforehand; I just wish you didn’t have to do it alone.”

Yeah, he didn’t know what I was actually talking about. But he reminds me of another valid point. Why the shell did I ever tell them I wanted to see Leo by myself anyway? I must have been delusional still at that point to not consider that just perhaps; just maybe my older brother was a bit ticked off at me himself.

I hope he’s not. I suspect he is.

“Hey,” Don snaps me out of my thoughts again as he backs up, releasing me from a hug only to put his hands on my shoulders. He’s still reluctant. I wish he’d encourage me to stay home. “Do me a favor and say a word to Leo for me, okay?”

I nod and don’t have to ask what the word could be. It’s the same word I want to say. So I guess I’ll have to say it to him twice. Joy. Why do I get the feeling he’ll be more forgiving to Don?

I look over to Raph as Don finally let’s go and I kind of wait on him to move. But he’s not looked back at me yet since the first time he turned his vision away. He’s being a big jerk about this but, at the same time; I don’t blame him for it. It’s his way of dealing with this.

“Bye, Raph,” I speak up in hopes of getting a response from him.

He doesn’t so much as huff. He completely tunes me out.

Luckily, I know my brother fairly well and I can tell you with confidence that he’s not as mad at me as he likes to put on. If he really blames me as much as he acts like does then I seriously doubt he’d follow us up here to make sure we got to the meeting spot safely let alone stick around to make sure the car voyage started smoothly.

I sigh and move on to the car while musing over how pathetic of a parting this was. We try, we really do. Thing is that sometimes things change and you can’t really help how they affect you. I like to think that in a little while, especially after I get Leo back home, that we will be able to act like normal all over again. I seriously doubt it, but it would be nice.

Maybe it will, though. I can only hope.

As I slide across the apulstry of the backseat I question myself over when April got the interior of her car worked on just as the car’s momentum begins to shift. I haven’t been out of the Lair since the fight so all the sudden motion makes my ribs hurt because I was unprepared.

It reminds me to look back, though. It’s my last chance to see Don and Raph before I set off to the farm.

Looking back behind me I can see them staring back at me with indescribable emotions of their own. Raph’s still stone faced but he’s looking after the car as it leaves and I wonder if he regrets not saying goodbye. Don on the other hand looks completely distraught and I know that he’s now regretting that he didn’t act on my vibes which clearly read “tell me to stay home and bake cookies with you or anything else!”

Casey drives out of the alley and my view of my brothers soon becomes obstructed by a building or two yet I get the sense that they’re still standing in front of the manhole just like the way I left them. They’re almost losing another brother to the farm it seems.

They’ll go home soon, though. Master Splinter didn’t leave the lair with us because of how sick he’s been lately, not to mention he would not be able to make it through another string of goodbyes from me. The last time just about broke his heart.

What wasn’t already broken, of course.

Our father was seriously hurting after Leo left. All after the fight again. Everything’s blamed on that fight, you know?

Well, it should be I guess. The fight started most if not all of this heartbreak. And whenever someone blames the fight for something I get dragged into it because, yes, I admit it, I started the fight out of stupidity. I never meant any harm but boy did it come anyway.

But you can’t just blame me! You have to blame Leo, too! After all, it was the both of us that was in the fight and no one so far has even attempted to dispute that one. You know why no one’s disputed it? Because it’s the truth.

I sigh and slide down further into a laying position across the back seat. It’s a long trip and somehow I’m already tired. It could be all these knives in my sides, figuratively speaking of course.

One thing that would be nice would be to not think about the fight for the rest of the way to Massachusetts. Just sleep the most wonderful sleep instead and call it a day. That would be nice. In fact, it would be nicer than nice. It’d be very well near perfect.

But Casey’s driving. I remember this problem with my plan as soon as he slams on his breaks for yet another stoplight that was yellow until he hit the brakes full force. He’s a worse driver than Raph is, and I won’t hardly go anywhere with Raph.

So now we’ve got a few minutes in the midst of a car jam because, as always, one too many cars felt the urge to cross the intersection when they knew there was not enough time and therefore are stuck blocking our way as we get a green light. Oh, how perfect.

Still, I’m rather surprised to have Casey turn almost completely around in his seat to get a face to face look at me. I quirk my eye ridge tiredly in expectation of a traffic joke when he shocks me with his true conversation starter.

“So just how bad of a fight was it?” he asks me almost immediately.

I blink at him and feel those nonexistent knives in my sides starting to churn. Nice and painful.

“Casey!” April snaps before letting loose and pounding his shoulder with her fist, loud enough to where I thought for a moment maybe my ears had popped rather than me actually hearing the power behind her punch. She is ticked.

“What?” Casey asks before finally being able to drive forward.

She just growls like a monster before turning toward me. Her eyes seem almost on the edge of tears she’s so angry with Casey. I guess she knows how touchy the subject is, though I’m not for sure. I was out for so long that there’s no telling how much Don and Raph caught her up to speed.

“I’m so sorry, Mikey,” she apologizes emphatically.

I shrug it off and say it’s cool, but my stomach still feels as though it has some sort of pit in it. That question stings to this day! And there’s no telling how many times I’ve gotten that question since I first woke up, though. I wish Leo had just told them everything so they could all leave me alone.

Still, as I look out the window toward the hazy Big Apple, I wonder if maybe this whole ‘talking about it’ deal is actually more helpful than I’m assuming. I mean, I guess one needs to get this stuff off their chest, especially if it’s effecting who they are.

It hurts, but perhaps as I talk about the fight I’ll get over it and be able to figure out what I need to say to Leo at the same time. It could work – it could work out real well.

I will have to start back before the fight and back to the initial altercation, though. It started all of this nonsense to begin with between Leo and I. The dutiful student and the goofball. That’s almost enough said on its own.

Let me tell you a story…

…

A/N: May seem a little OOC right now but that’s because we’re going backwards as far as the events are concerned. Just thought I’d clarify ;P

Tell me what you think!