177It was snowing when he arrived, and Donatello was waiting outside Murakami's small restaurant, alone in the dark.
"Mr. Hamato," he said, eyes wide and red, surging a step forward as Yoshi rushed to meet him. "You—you came." He made an aborted gesture with his hands, as though he wanted to reach out to the man and stopped himself in the last second.
Yoshi didn't have similar reservations. He stooped so they were at eye level with each other, and cupped the child's cold face in one hand. "Are you alright?" he asked, heart in his throat. "Donatello, what happened? Where is Leonardo?"
Donatello wrapped his hands around Yoshi's wrist, clinging for all he was worth. Truly, visibly shaken, and pale with the footprint of lingering fear, but he didn't hesitate to tug Yoshi toward the door—pushing it open with one thin shoulder and dragging him inside.
Nothing could have prepared Yoshi for the sight of Leonardo, sitting on a stool and hunched under a woolen blanket, arm cradled carefully in his lap. He lifted stark blue eyes when the bell above the door jingled, and the moment he saw Yoshi, his carefully guarded expression changed, crumpling with tears as he lifted his good arm in a gesture Yoshi would have recognized anywhere.
Donatello let Yoshi's arm go, and long strides ate up the distance between the man and the injured boy in a matter of seconds. He folded Leonardo into his arms, and wondered how on earth he could be convinced to let him go this time.
"What is this, little one?" he asked, smoothing Leonardo's hair with one hand while the child shuddered from pain or relief or some complicated combination of the two, burrowing tighter into Yoshi's embrace. "You're hurt—why wouldn't you let Murakami-san take care of you?"
"No hospital," Leonardo said quietly. "We can't, Mr. Hamato. They'd ask where mamma is. If they knew she was gone, they would take my brothers away." He leaned back, and lifted a grave gaze to meet Yoshi's. "I knew you'd come help us, though."
And on one hand, it was absolutely ridiculous that a ten-year-old would refuse medical services. Even more so that the kindly restaurant owner had taken his opinion into account, and allowed Donatello to call Yoshi, instead of an ambulance or an emergency clinic. It didn't make sense that this was still standard operating procedure; that this little child could still be allowed to call the shots, even with a broken arm and a pale, pained face.
But on the other hand, Leonardo was a strong-willed and stubborn thing. Smart, too—practicing a caution that verged upon paranoia where his brothers were concerned, but sparing himself none of the same concern. Watching adults come and go from his life, and learning to expect nothing from them. Like the mythological Cosmic Turtle supporting the world on its back, Leonardo bore the weight of his family without flinching or faltering—and that he was here at all, that he hadn't disappeared with Donatello the moment he was able, that he was whole blocks away from Raphael and Michelangelo and waiting patiently for Yoshi, trusting in him to make this better, instead of running home to the rest of his family at once, said more than words ever could have.
"I knew you'd come," Leonardo said again, the beginnings of a smile forming on his face. It made him look his age, for a change, and Yoshi shook his head.
"Before anything else," he said, with a fondness he knew would be his downfall, "let's get that arm of yours taken care of."
Donatello sat waiting tensely in the quaint reception area, perched uneasily on a tufted bench; and his wide, red eyes flew to meet Yoshi's as the man stepped out of the small examination room, and he surged to his feet.
"Mr. Hamato," he said in a rush, "is Leo okay? How's his arm? Is he cooperating with the doctor?"
"He is going to be just fine," Yoshi soothed, allowing a small smile. "Dr. Pride reset his arm and is molding the cast now. I only stepped out to make sure you were alright."
Donatello blinked rapidly, hands balled into anxious fists. "He's really okay?" he asked in a small voice. "He was hurting so bad. He wouldn't let me see, and he wouldn't let Mr. Murakami call anyone—"
"He's okay, I promise you."
Yoshi offered his arms, and where Leonardo and Michelangelo would have flocked to them immediately, Donatello hesitated—and then his face folded, and his hands went out, and he was buried against Yoshi a moment later. If it weren't for his thin shoulders shaking, Yoshi might not have known he was crying; and wild horses could not have stopped Yoshi in that moment from holding him close.
"I was worried you wouldn't come," Donatello sobbed, muffled where he was hidden against Yoshi's coat, fingers folded tight in the fabric, "after we were so horrible to you. But there was no one else—Leo wouldn't let us call anyone else—and you came. And I was—and I was so happy to see you."
"Of course I did. I would not have given you four the phone had I not meant for you to use it," he said gently, smoothing a hand over Donatello's mop of hair. "Hush, little one. There's no reason to cry. Your brother is fine. You are safe and sound."
There were many things that Yoshi would always remember. He would remember the moment his brother left him, and denounced their family name; he would remember moving to New York City, opening his school, teaching his first class of bright-eyed, eager children; he would never forget the day he married a kind woman and adopted her small daughter as his own, and he would never forget the day they were lost to him in a tragic accident; the moment two days after the funeral when he decided that he would never teach again, that opening his heart again to anyone, even just to a student, would be too painful for him to bear; and he would remember the moment a little boy with brown eyes came into his life, and with him three brothers, one unremarkable winter afternoon.
And now, he thought, arms warm around Donatello's shoulders, I will always remember this.
The door opened behind them, and Leonardo and Dr. Pride stepped out of the examination room. Dr. Pride flipped off the stark fluorescents behind them, leaving just the warmly lit reception area. Leonardo hurried from the doctor's side to Yoshi's, and Donatello glanced up with only a second to spare, before Leonardo was hugging him tight in his good arm.
"I told you I was fine," he said, "you didn't need to be scared."
"But—" Donatello was blinking through more tears despite himself, looking as though he wanted to hide his face in Leonardo's shoulder at the same time he wanted to look his brother in the eye. "But Leo, you were right about him. All along. I shouldn't have—I should have listened to you. And now, you're hurt, and it—and it's all my—"
"You didn't do anything wrong," Leonardo told him firmly. "Don't be stupid. And don't cry, Donnie—I'm okay."
Yoshi overheard them as he thanked Dr. Pride for her time, and accepted a prescription from the woman for a pain reliever they could fill at the twenty-four hour pharmacy right down the street. He waited until he had ushered them out of the small private clinic and back to his car to ask, "You know the person that hurt you?"
Leonardo blinked at him, and then nodded, letting Donatello crawl into the backseat first. "Yeah. He's a friend of Raphie's," the boy said. "He doesn't like me, because I told Raph not to play with him anymore."
"I see," Yoshi said, and then reached over to smooth the messy fringe back out of Leonardo's face, allowing a smile. "Get inside before you catch a cold. We'll fill your prescription, and then pick up a pizza to take home to your brothers. How does that sound?"
The plan was met with bright grins of approval, and the injection Dr. Pride had given Leonardo had already dulled some of those harsh lines of pain around his eyes. He clambered into the car after his brother, and Yoshi waited until they were both buckled in before he shut the door and moved to the driver's side door.
Giving himself one, brief, despairing moment in the cold and dark before he opened it; closing his eyes and beseeching some higher power for guidance, because he was almost certain he loved these children, and they were not his to love.
