Attentive readers will notice I changed the story summery. I don't know, I like this new one a lot better than the old one. It has action! It has angst! Just what I love!

Chapter 6

" We who have seen war, will never stop seeing it. In the silence of the night, we will always hear the screams. So this is our story, for we were soldiers once…" –Joe Galloway

We Were Soldiers

"No, no, no. You cannot just add one to another to get the final result. If it was that easy then I'd tell you to get yourself back to high school Calculus and call it a day." The slightly jumpy professor attempted to joke but kept his voice at the same level, the same monotone way that he always spoke in. Only the students who were paying attention to his words caught the joke and even then only a sparse handful laughed. Everyone else was too busy scribing down the notes the man was writing across his wall covered chalkboard. "The thing with this particular function is that you have to grab the number, after putting it in exponential form, and place it here over the -"

Don couldn't sit here anymore. It was strange, he loved Advanced Calculus 305. He loved the numbers and equations and the way everything had a way, nothing was left to chance. He loved how if you moved one thing everything else changed and morphed into something different. Whether it was right or wrong, didn't matter - well it did matter, but the new equations that he could come up with were almost as exciting as the old ones. But now, as he sat in his normal seat in the exact middle of the classroom he couldn't pay attention. He couldn't concentrate on the numbers the professor wrote on the board, he couldn't think about the different equations or theorems. Don stared blankly down at his open notebook. He looked at the white college-ruled page but he didn't see the paper. His mind started to wonder as it always did in every class he'd managed to attend these last three and a half weeks.

He thought about his older brother. He tried to stear his thoughts away from the obvious, the horrible. He tried desperately not to think about where he was, if he was alive, if he thought he hated him. Instead, Don forced his thoughts towards the simple things. Late nights at the lab on campus that always ended with Leonardo showing up and knocking on the window of the main lab three times - it was their own signal, a way for Don to know Leo was outside waiting to walk him home. He thought about the way his older brother used to have longer hair – before he joined the army – which he swooshed to the side. All the girls used to stare at him and whisper behind hands and into ears about him. About how his eyes were so blue and his hair so brown. Girls would fall over themselves trying to reach him, trying to get a word to him. And Don would just stand there in the hallway, smirking, waiting until the right moment to sweep in because he knew his brother hated attention, hated to be in the center of it. It was really a waste, the girls would say, that someone so handsome, so beautiful kept to himself so much.

In his pocket Don's phone buzzed but he ignored it. He always did during class even if he wasn't paying attention. It couldn't have been anything important. There hadn't been any news in the past three and a half weeks since Captain McVay had come to their door. Since then it had all been reassurances and empty promises. The Chaplin had come to their house a handful of times. Every time he came he would leave with a prayer for Leo's soul and the family.

Don had seen the news. He tried hard not to but he always did. The day CNN had gotten the report that Base 381 near Tabacon, Pueblo Nuevo and San Luis had been attacked Don was home alone. He'd sat right at the base of the television and leaned as close as he could trying to hear and see everything in the news report.

The reports had painted a massacre of sleeping soldiers being woken up with bullets in their chests. Day time talk shows screamed and yelled in outrage while the nighttime newsrooms had called for blood. The President had released an official statement, but Don hadn't listened to it. He'd walked in on Mikey listening to the television with tears clogging his clear blue eyes and switched it off then gathered his younger brother in his arms and held him while he cried.

When the names of the two men missing in action had been released news reporters had called Splinter asking at first then begging for interviews. Trucks and people had camped out in their front yard waiting to get a glimpse of the family whose son was maybe-alive-possibly-dead. April stopped going home after a few days. She took up residence in Leonardo's room. She slept in his cold bed and put her makeup on using his empty mirror. Splinter asked her why she didn't want to go home to her family after a week of living with them. April had looked up from the soup she was making the family for dinner and looked at the old man with swollen, exhausted eyes.

"You are my family."

Then she turned back to her cooking like nothing had been said. That was that. End of story. So she stayed.

Don hadn't gone back to school for the first two weeks. He couldn't, not when reporters were swarming their lawn and people kept calling asking for a quote and the house seemed to be in a constant way of shadows and whispers and a mourning silence. Mike didn't laugh anymore; he said it felt like a betrayal. How could he be happy when Leo was dead? Splinter stayed in his room, closed the dojo with a simple paper sign that read: all classes cancelled until further notice. April cooked and cleaned and cooked and cleaned until there was no room in either refrigerators or the ice chest in the basement. She scrubbed the floor in the basement and organized the boxes in the attic. She moved and dusted and sometimes, when she thought she was alone but Don was near she would cry. Sob into a picture or against a box. She would let out wet cries that made Don shiver. At first he'd tried to help her, hold her like he did Mikey but she didn't want that. She wanted to be left alone. She wanted to be busy. She wanted her Leo back.

But the time came when Donatello just couldn't take the silence anymore and he decided to start attending classes again, it was then that the stares started. The questions started from his friends, from his classmates. They wanted to know how he was doing, if there had been any news. They wanted to know if he thought his brother was still alive. He didn't answer any of the questions and most of the time he just pretended he never heard them. On one occasion he'd snapped at a girl who wouldn't stop pestering him. She kept asking the stupid questions, the ones he didn't want to think about, the ones that kept him up late at night. Finally he yelled at her, in front of God and everyone he screamed that, "If I haven't given Fox a damn interview what makes you think I'll answer your fucking questions!? Just. Leave. Me. Alone!" Then he'd stormed away, Calculus and Chemistry book in hand with a face so red, hands shaking so much and eyes so wet that he thought he was going to explode.

Walking home was the worst because people recognized him. New York City was huge with millions of people but word spread fast. Pictures of Leonardo and the other guy who was missing – Raphael, Don thought his name was – had been plastered on the mega screens in Times Square. Everyone knew what he looked like. Everyone knew the story of the hundreds that were killed. Central Park had been used as the meeting place for one of the biggest protests in the past fifty years. The reporters said it rivaled even that of the March on Washington where Martin Luther King Jr. made his great I Have a Dream speech. Thousands of people showed up with signs and POW flags and pained their bodies to look like dead soldiers. Some people held pictures of the fallen soldiers on big signs that they pumped up and down and screamed. The people loaded Central Park and held a vigil for two nights to honor those lost. Everyone brought flowers and candles and crosses and beads. It didn't matter what religion you were, it was all represented in the middle of the park where they all gathered.

The people in charge had asked – begged – Splinter and the family to come speak during the peaceful protest. Splinter declined with the shake of his head and his eyes down turned. Then he closed the door and locked it. The people were kind enough however and didn't bother the family again. But Don went. He wore Leonardo's favorite blue sweatshirt with the hood pulled up and sunglasses to hide his face and he went.

People cried. People called for the war to end. People sang the Star-Spangled Banner. People swung around American flags. People yelled. People drank. People prayed. It was all a sight to see.

After the first two days hundreds of empty busses came in to cart everyone from New York to Washington DC. It took days but finally everyone, all the way down to the last protester, stood in Washington. It was all over the news. Some family's who'd lost a son or father or brother talked at the assembly's. They cried into the microphone and pleaded for peace. They stood in front of the White House. They clogged the streets. They camped out inside the Lincoln memorial. They sat against the Vietnam wall. Washington was shut down.

Don didn't go to Washington, he didn't want to. He just watched the news feeds and stared out the window and went to class like he was supposed to. He did his homework and walked home and ignored the people who asked him questions. All the while he felt so empty, a shell of himself.

"-tello? Don?" The professor's voice broke through his thoughts. Don looked up to find that the professor wasn't alone. A man Don recognized as part of the university staff was standing next to him.

"You need to come with me."

Don nodded, collected his purple binder and threw his pencil into his bag before standing up and shuffling to the front. The man turned and walked out the door, Don followed feeling like he was being lead to his execution. He already knew why he was being called out of class. There was only one reason why. They'd found his brother and he was dead.

The man stopped when he reached the door to the outside. "You need to go home. I have a taxi that can take you – "

"Why?" Don interrupted staring at the man at eye level. "So I can go home and what? Finally be told what I've known all along? That my brother's dead?"

A sad smile formed across the man's face. He straightened up and pushed both hands into either pocket of his trousers. "I'm sorry," he started. "I was under the impression that you already knew. They found him, your brother. He's alive."

The breath caught in Don's throat. He choked on the air. His could feel his ramped heartbeat in his ears. He felt dizzy and lightheaded. His mouth moved but nothing sensible came out. "He... Leo... He-he..."

"I have a car that will take you home."

Don took off like a bullet, like a horse, like a soldier running into battle. He thinks he screamed that a car would take too long over his shoulder but he wasn't sure. He threw open the doors and sprinted for home. It was only a few blocks away anyways.

Leo. His brother. Found. Not dead. Alive. He's alive. Alive. Alive!

Donatello had never run so fast in his life.

"What do you mean... we can't see him h-he's our brother… I-I, Don, we-" Mike sputtered looking around with wide saucer-like eyes. They shined with a mixture of happiness and anger

Alive. His brother was alive.

The family had all congregated around their large dinner table with a burly looking Major who'd introduced himself with a long foreign last name sitting opposite them, Chaplin Anderson sat beside the Major.

"I'm sorry," Anderson looked down at the table with tired eyes. His voice was soft and comforting in every way a disciple of God's should be. "Your brother and the other soldier –"

"Mr. Jones." Splinter supplied running his fingers through his grey and white peppered beard. Splinter had remembered the name of the boy from Leonardo's letters and the times they had been able to use Skype. Splinter could remember being introduced to the red headed, freckle faced boy early in his son's deployment. When the old man had heard that his son and Raphael Jones had been found he had had to take a seat, legs turning to noodles under him. He'd felt weak in ways he hadn't since seeing Yoshi being killed in the war-torn sky over Vietnam.

"Yes, Raphael Jones. They were both injured having been involved in a friendly fire incident upon their rescue. Currently they are in rout to be sent back to the states from our base in Talla."

Mikey tapped his fingers on the table while his foot bounced up and down shaking the ground around his chair. "But-but when he gets here we'll be able to see him, right?"

"It all depends on where he's at and at what state his injuries are in. We don't know much at this point. All we know for certain is that he and Corporal Jones are alive and in the care of US Forces. We will contact you when we have more information."

"Do we know of the extent of his injuries?" Don spoke up for the first time since bursting through the door to two uniformed men standing just inside the doorway.

The Major shook his head, "We have told you all that we know. I am not at liberty to say very much as this is all very new and there are investigations underway as to how the Central American United Army managed to breach the perimeter of a guarded base in what we were lead to believe was neutral territory."

April scratched at the sides of her head, her hair was up in a half hazard ponytail with pieces missing. The red lacked its usual luster while black circles ringed her green eyes. "Do you think that after all of this we should still be there? Do you know if... I mean there's been talk about the president pulling our forces out of Southern Central America -"

"It's not my job to think about that kind of stuff, ma'am." The Major's voice was gruff. His shoulders were broad and posture straight as he spoke. "It's above my pay grade to question why politicians go to war and and young men die. My job is to push papers when necessary and make sure soldiers come home."

Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die, Donatello recited in his head.

The hospital parking lot was littered with people. People standing, people sitting, people milling about, people talking with purpose. It made Mikey's skin crawl as he gazed at the sea of people. Police lined both sides of their car as they were escorted to the front of the building. Reaching the entrance, a man in military dress came to the doors and opened them allowing the still-shocked family to disembark the car. April immediately latched onto Splinter's arm, Mikey stayed close to the old man's other side. Don stayed a few feet back taking it all in silently as he had been doing the past month and a half.

When they entered the hospital it was almost dizzying – the stark difference in both people and volume. After the automatic doors slid shut it took away the sounds of the hundreds of people outside. Now inside, the hospital seemed almost sparsely staffed with only a few other men and woman in both military uniforms and white coats around.

The family reached a common area deep inside the hospital and stopped. Don looked up from the tiles he had been studying on the floor to see a man who was older than Leo yet still young with what looked like long blue-black hair and sweatpants standing next to a fragile looking lady with a large canvas bag and white orthopedic shoes. Splinter and his sons were lead towards the two other people then brought to a stop to be introduced.

"Mr. Jones this is Mr. Hamato," the official man in dress uniform introduced. Splinter inclined his head at the same time as Casey gave a weak smile. "Your son and brother are in different rooms for the time being. Mr. Jones if you will follow Major Neelson and Mr. Hamato if you'll fallow me we'll take you to them."

The walk to Leonardo's room was the longest, quietest walk in Michelangelo's life. No one spoke. The only sound was of the echoes of footfalls reverberating off of the solid walls.

Suddenly they were brought to a halt. The door was opened and the man motioned for them to enter.

"Please stay here for a moment, I wish to speak with your brother alone." With that, Splinter took a defiant step into the room.

Leonardo looked up at his father entering his room. Today was a good day, he felt relaxed and the cast on his arm was set to come off later on tonight. There was a deep ache in the base of his back but other than that he felt whole. Alive and whole. Raph had actually managed to take a few slow steps across the room yesterday and that gave the boy hope that he would be able to move around soon as well.

Leo had decided that he would not – under any circumstances – cry when he saw his family. He'd already reasoned with himself that he was a man and he could handle whatever happened with a strong facade. But as soon as his father came around the corner Leo could feel his carefully constructed walls begin to deteriorate. His father took a few steps then stopped at the foot of his bed and looked at his son. They were silent. Monitors beeped in rhythm to Leo's pounding heart. His mouth was dry, everything he had wanted to say to his father being forgotten or getting stuck on his tongue.

Finally, after a few long minutes of silence Leo said, "Hey Dad."

Splinter abruptly did a heal toe and turned to come around the side of Leo's hospital bed. The old man got close to his son before dropping to one knee and grabbing a hard hold of his son's IV riddled hand. Leo jumped slightly and almost flinched away from the aggressive touch but stopped himself before he could pull away reasoning that this was his father and be would never hurt him.

Splinter latched onto Leo's hand then looked him right in the eye. Leonardo's eyes widened as he saw the look in his father's eyes. It was a look he'd never seen before. He stared into the eyes of a man who had been men die and had killed. Who had had to survive in a ditch with broken bones peeking through his skin and blood drying on his hands. He looked into the eyes of a survivor. Absently, Leonardo wondered if his eyes looked the same. If he had the same thousand yard stare.

"I will not bury any of my sons. My sons will bury me," his father's voice was raw, husky. Unshed tears glistened in the creases of the old man's knowing eyes. Immediately Leonardo's eyes began to prickle and sting. He bit his lip hard feeling blood rush to his face. He'd never seen his father so sad before, so vulnerable.

Leo could remember a time when his father was so spitting mad that he'd broken a drum stick over his knee when Mikey was ten and smacked Donnie in the head with it while they were arguing.

He could remember his father silent and stern the first time he'd come home from a party smelling of cheap beer and whiskey.

He could remember his father's proud gaze when he had begun working with swords and studying Bushido at their dojo.

He could remember seeing his father, eyes dull and face grey on the anniversary of their mother's death.

He could remember so many glances and stares and eyes full of laughter and anger. But he'd never really seen this. This look of pure fear mixed with relief and something so primal it made his stomach clench with familiar nausea.

Both Hamato's stared at each other in tense silence. Finally Leonardo could take it no longer. He licked his dry lips with his dry tongue then broke eye contact with his father.

"Dad they... they gave me a medal."

"Is that so?" A small smile broke across the old man's face. It was slender though, with only just a slight quark of his lips.

"Yeah, it's here - in the drawer. I can show you if -"

"It is alright, my son." He grabbed for Leonardo's hand as the boy went to dig at the papers and other objects in a drawer next to his bed. "You do not have to show me. It is only a ribbon."

"No, no," Leo took his hand back quickly. He didn't know why but suddenly he was filled with this awful need to show his father the thing he hadn't looked at since being presented with it. The thing he hid. "They gave it to me and I-I, I mean I want you to have it -" back turned, Leo didn't see the worry that filled Splinter's eyes as he saw his son rummage desperately around papers and books. His movements were jerky, spastic. Nothing like the way his calm, cool and collected son had ever been.

Suddenly a wooden box was presented to Splinter by a slender hand and a few hard, labored breaths. "You can have it – I mean, it's for you. They-the president gave it to me he-he said that I was brave and that – "

"My son," Splinter said to his eldest child. Slowly he took the box from Leonardo's shaking hands and laid it out of sight to the side. He grabbed both of his son's hands with his leathery fingers and brought them close to his heart. By this point Leonardo's eyes were wide, his pupils large.

A single tear fell down from Splinters eye, "I am so proud of you, Leonardo."

With strength that he hadn't felt in weeks Leo wrapped his arms around his father. "I wanted to make you proud." He cried wetly into Splinter's shirt.

"You make me proud every day. You are my son."

It feels like hours later until the others are finally let into the hospital room, though Mike realizes that it was probably only a few minutes. When they cross into the room there is a collective breath taken by both him and April. Don, as he'd been for the past month and a half, reminds silent. Mikey rushes to his big brother slinging his arms around him and grabbing at his gown being mindful of the assorted bandages and IV lines that pepper his body. After a few seconds Mikey let go of Leo and retreats back to Don's side almost as suddenly as he'd come.

"Hey Leo," he whispers.

"Hi Mikey," Leo can't help but stare at his brothers. "Hey Donnie."

He wasn't scared of what his brothers would say. Well, he was but as with everything else he'd learned, being frightened didn't help anything.

"Do... Do you hate us, Leo?" Mikey questioned, his hands clasped together harshly defining his white knuckles and nail beds. Leo looked at his little brother. Blonde hair, skin tanner than Don yet not as sun kissed as his own. His brother was taller than he remembered, his shoulders broader. His teeth were a shade whiter and he wonders if he doesn't have to wear that retainer anymore at night. The way his youngest brother stands with his shoulders slumped, head bowed, back slouched down in a miserable curve. Mikey looks so old yet so very small and young at the same time. Don looks just as awful. His face lined with worry and eyes dull with many sleepless nights. His hair was longer than he remembered, darker too. He looked skinny in all the wrong places. His brother looked as bad as Leonardo felt. Don was looking down at the floor refusing to meet his eyes.

Hate, what a strong word. Did he hate his family?

"No Mike, I don't hate you." Leo said finally after too long of his family holding their collective breaths. "I could never hate you."

A smile stretched across Mike's face. He laid his hand down gently on the foot of his brother's bed to make sure he wouldn't sit on anything important then he plopped down next to Leo's leg. "I missed you dude."

"I missed you too shell-for-brains," the smile on Leo's face was small but helped mask his relief at seeing no hate or fear in his littlest brother's eyes.

"It's a good thing they found you," Donatello said suddenly looking away from his family and scratching his arm. His voice was gruff making the smile vanish from Leonardo's face in a flash. He opened his mouth to say something - to say anything. To beg forgiveness, to apologize, anything that would make his smart brother come closer so he could wrap him in a hug and kiss his forehead. But Don cut him off as he spoke again bringing his eyes up to finally meet his older brother's gaze. "Because I really fucking hated being the oldest."

A quick chuckle cracked from Leo's mouth before he schooled his face and said, "You don't have to be the big brother. That's my job, Brainiac."

Don took a step forward, "I wanted you to go to college."

"I know," Leo said nodding in understanding.

Don took another step, "I told you I would write your entrance essay, I could get you into a good school."

"I know," Leo answered beginning to understand this game Don himself didn't realize he was playing.

"I told you I would help pay for a ring so you could marry April." Another step taken. He was halfway to Leo.

"Yes, you did," Leo nodded.

"I went to the vigil they had for you and the other soldiers in Central Park."

"How was it?" Leo didn't want to know.

"Horrible. Awful. They showed pictures. I saw people, your friends, people I recognized from the pictures you sent Dad. I saw pictures of their bodies."

Leo kept quiet. He wasn't ready to talk about this with his family. He didn't think he would ever be.

Don was almost to Leo, just two more steps. "When they came to the door and told us you were missing in action I told Dad you were dead."

"But I'm not."

"No," Don reached Leo's side. "No you're not." He bent down, eyes overflowing maching Leonardo's and whispered. "I'm so sorry Onii-Chan."

Leonardo somehow found his voice. "There's nothing to be sorry for, Otōto."

Don stepped back feeling like he could take a breath for the first time since Leonardo left for war.

Leo turned to look at the last person in his room. He pulled his best smirk at the red headed girl standing in the back. April put her hand over her mouth as her face crumbled into a sob. Her green eyes became red as she walked forward towards the hand Splinter wasn't holding.

"I thought I'd lost you," April's wail is muffled as she buries her face into Leonardo's shoulder. Softly Leo ran his hand over her side and try's to calm her. She comes back up and drops to her knees to grab at either side of his face. Tears seep down her cheeks, her nose runs, her eyes are red and puffy but Leonardo doesn't think he's ever seen anyone so beautiful in his entire life.

He clears his throat, "I will always come back for you." His bottom lip quivers in the way all men's do when they try so hard to hold back their tears. He mouth pulls into a deep frown before his own face crumbles and he lets out an exhausted sob. "I won't ever leave you." He looks to his family all around him all in different states of relieved tears running from their tired eyes. "I will never leave any of you. I love you."

Casey Jones in all of his six foot sweatpants wearing self comes charging into his younger brother's room. He doesn't stop when he sees his brother or when Miss Molly yells his name, he struts forwards with his hands clenched into fists and jaw stuck out.

"Listen here you little prick, you eva' and I mean eva' put me, I mean Molly through something like this again I will wring your neck." He grabs the front of Raphael's hospital down and bunches the fabric. "Do you even know how upset she was? Do you know what she went through!? You almost got yerself fuckin' killed! I-we-she thought you were dead. She didn't sleep fo' three freaking days because o'you. So don't... don't..." Casey had to stop to wipe at his eyes aggressively before continuing in a slower, not quiet but normal voice. "Don't ever fucking do that again."

With that he grabbed Raph's shoulders, fell to his knees and yanked him into a hug. Raph winced as freshly healed bones and tender skin were scraped and pulled but he didn't try to get away. Slowly he brought his hands up to hug his older brother back. It was then he noticed that his shoulder was wet, Casey was crying.

"Don't ever fucking scare me like that again Raph," Casey commanded with a shaking voice. Raph shook his head the best he could while still being held in his brother's arms.

"No. Neva'."

They stayed like that for just a few minutes longer before Raph couldn't take it anymore. "Come on Case," he sniffed blinking hard trying to dry the tears that had escaped. "Pick your manhood back up and get off'a me ya bonehead."

Casey laughed untangling himself. "You did good Raphie Boy." They looked at each other for a long moment before Raph cleared his throat and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.

"Call me that again and I'll tell everyone yer first name's really Arnold."

"Hey, Arnold Casey Jones is'a good name. Strong."

"Right," Raph chuckled.

"Masculine."

"Maybe not so much."

"It's got character."

"Yer a character, knucklehead." Raph smiled up at his brother. Behind him Miss Molly had a tissue to her eyes as she watched the boys.

"Who you callin' a knucklehead? Yer lookin' at the senior mechanic at Big Al's Automotive."

"That so? Shit. They must be scraping to bottom of the barrel over at Al's."

Molly thought she'd never heard so much love in the brothers voices before.

The day they were set to leave the hospital Leonardo wheeled himself up to Raphael and grabbed his hand. "You're my brother."

"Always," Raph answered without hesitation. "We're family."

"You still owe me a burger from PJ's," Leo smiled as a nurse took the bars to his wheelchair. He'd been working on walking during his physical therapy sessions but it was slow progress. He could stand on his own at lease and for now that was all he could ask for. The doctors said it would be a hard road to train his leg muscles to hold his weight again and move around but he knew he could do it. He knew he would walk again. Another nurse grabbed the bars of Raph's wheelchair. It was hospital policy so the redhead was forced to be wheeled out of the hospital even though he could walk with only a slight limp.

Raph smiled back at his friend, "Let's go there right now. PJ's is only like, five hours from Washington DC right? We could hop a plane and be there in two." Both boys laughed. The nurses looked down at them with amused eyes. Raph sat back in his chair then leaned to look up at the pretty nurse who was about to push him towards the entrance and towards his family.

"Alright Nurse Chapel, thrusters on full. Punch it," he pointed to the door to their room. The nurse - named Greenswick, Leo knew - rolled her eyes but smiled and pushed Raph out of the room. Raphael looked back at Leo with a smile and a thumb up before disappearing around the corner. Leo looked up at the older nurse who had helped him the most since he'd been carted into the hospital drugged out and confused.

"Well Sergeant Hamato, are you ready to go home?" Her voice was warm, soothing. It reminded Leo of Splinter.

"Yeah. I'm ready to go home."

End.

Thank you for reading this, you don't really see a lot of human!war!AU within the turtle fandom and so I thought this would be fun to write. Hope you enjoyed this. Feel free to drop me a review on what you thought as well as any prompts. Thanks.

-Hannah Lynn