A Brother's Intuition

Shadow of a Doubt

Donatello sat alone in the lab, holding his pencil in the customary writing position. He'd had the mind to get a bit of work done this evening, but unfortunately he couldn't get any further than pressing the pencil to the paper. Truth of the matter was, he was distracted. His eyes absently turned to the clock on the wall,  checking the time.

It had been almost an hour since Raph left.

After a long discussion, both he and Michelangelo decided not to inform Leonardo or Splinter of Raphael's departure. It would only create more panic and worry than was needed at the moment. After all, if his older brother wanted to go out chasing ghosts, why should Donnie make any effort to stop him? The hothead was being even more stubborn than usual.

The pencil slammed down on the table with a loud bang as Donatello shot to his feet.

Michelangelo was right, of course. He hadn't truly meant what he'd said to Raph, in fact, Donnie was only trying to get his badass brother to see sense. He really should have known better. Getting Raphael to see sense was more hopeless than trying to stop a train with your bare hands.

He sighed in frustration. He was a turtle of facts and figures. And Donatello knew for a fact that a human simply could not have survived a fall the height of Sacks' tower and just...walk away. In fact, they wouldn't be moving at all. It just wasn't possible.

Yet somewhere in the back of his mind, the voice of doubt began to hum. His large, green hand gripped the pencil once more and it met the paper. Images, equations and calculations began to flow furiously from the turtle's brilliant mind. All the factors had to be taken into consideration: the height of the fall, gravity, any debris or breakers, the force of the body meeting the ground, oh and the wound of course. There.

Donatello smiled to himself and the little hum of doubt faded away. Shredder couldn't have survived. He leaned back in his chair with a contented sigh.

Less than thirty seconds later he shot back up and reviewed the equation.

There was a missing factor. How could he have been so blind?! That was a stupid mistake! He forgot to account for the suit! Which only brought up more questions like: What material was it made out of? How much padding was there on the inside? Was it designed to help cushion against impacts? Well that had to be a yes, since their blows had barely affected him. But the others...

The pencil once again began to rush across the paper in a frenzy. Don's eyes darted over the equation, trying various possibilities. As he finished each, his heart dropped further into the pit of his stomach. No matter what combination he tried, as long as he took into account that the suit was braced for hard impacts, there was actually no way to be sure, with no margin of doubt, that Shredder was dead.

Which meant...

Oh no. Raphael wasn't chasing ghosts. Shredder could still be out there somewhere.

But he shouldn't jump to conclusions. Donatello forced himself to take deep breaths. For a moment he clenched the pencil lightly between his teeth. He needed to double-check these equations, just to make sure.

The brainiac went on, trying to shove the thought that he had wronged his older brother aside.

I'm doing this to help Raphael. To make up for not believing him before. He assured himself. But I'll still have to apologize. Donnie hummed and nodded. He would have to apologize to Raphael as soon as his older sibling returned.

But what if Raph didn't return?

The smart turtle rid his mind of all thoughts along that line as soon as they occurred to him.

Raphael could take care of himself. Besides, Raph had no idea where to go looking for Shredder. He probably wouldn't even find him tonight. And despite all of Raph's shortcomings when it came to intelligence, he was definitely had more brains than to go after Shredder alone.

The pencil screeched to a halt.

Didn't he? Don shook that thought away. Of course he did. Of course he did.

———————————

Michelangelo lay on his bed staring at the ceiling. He was thinking about Raphael.

Even though he didn't really show it, he was worried. Everything was rough right now. Mikey wasn't sure whether he believed Raph's theories or not. He wanted to, even if it was only to make Raph feel as though he wasn't alone, but how could Shredder have possibly survived? If it had just been the fall, yeah, then Mikey may have been more inclined to believe Raph's story, but since April had stabbed Shredder before he fell, there was no way.

The way Mikey saw it, Raphael shouldn't be looking a gift horse in the mouth, as they say. Shredder had been defeated. And assuming Saki was dead, as they all believed, with the exception of Raph, Shredder's death meant they could once again live in peace. Or as close to peace as they could get.

Besides, they had new friends. Human friends, namely April and that other guy. Their life had changed for the better and Raphael, for whatever reasons, was still dwelling in their past life, the life where they had to worry about the Foot and protecting their family. That was all over now. Well, they still had to protect their family, but it's just, Raphael was just...ugh. The hothead was just too complicated for words.

That was another thing about the humans. They were great friends. April especially. That guy, Vern or Vernon or whatever,  still hadn't really forgiven them for blowing up his car. For some reason, the more April came by, the more Raphael withdrew.

And no one really understood why. During the last two weeks Raph had been growing steadily more antsy, as though something were really perturbing him. But he'd changed in other ways too.

When Raph did interact with them, Mikey had noticed that he was a little more open, and even a little more straight to the point whenever something was bothering him. Mikey felt as though Leonardo and Donatello had seen it too, but he wasn't certain.

Even though Raph had changed, seemingly for the better, there had been very little interaction between the four of them lately. It was like Raph was avoiding them all to the best of his ability. Really the only time they were together was during training before Raph vanished into his room, which had become a locked chamber of mystery.

No rat, nor turtle, other than Raphael, had entered it in the past week, and their suspicions were certainly aroused.

Unfortunately, not much could be done about it. As long as Raph was there, there was no way for anyone to get in.

Then it hit Mikey like a smack to the face:

Raph's topside. So what's to stop me from going in there right now?