Chapter Text
Those few minutes before Donnie woke up were the most terrifying in his family's lives.
But he woke up.
Donnie couldn't move, so Raph helped him sit up and look at the others. They all looked so worried. About him.
He opened his mouth and tried to speak. No sound came out, just quiet coughs. His trachea had been crushed- it was excruciatingly painful, and he was lucky to be able to breathe like he could at all. But he couldn't speak right now.
He had just enough strength in his limbs to sign. One of his hands came up, weakly, in a fist. His brothers watched as he slowly moved his hand in a circle, over his plastron. It was a little messy, kinda like if someone had something in their mouth. But the meaning was clear. "I'm sorry."
The softshell's eyes welled up with tears. He had wanted out so bad, but it was fast. And impulsive. Stupid, even. He wished he could express all that, but his hands could barely even move without shaking, and maybe it would've been better if he had-
"Donnie," he heard Mikey's voice and felt his hands around him. Carefully, the box turtle took his brother into a hug, a gentle one. Nobody even knew the extent of Donnie's hurt. "I'm so glad you're my brother."
"Us too, Dee," Leo said, joining in on the hug. Raph said nothing, but his massive hands were felt around his family.
Donnie's tears turned into sobs, as loudly as he could in his current state. He couldn't talk, he could barely even cry, but he just let himself be. His family was there, he was alive.
"Gu-" he croaked, unable to talk even still. His brothers didn't mind, and he was glad. The hug felt good, and somehow... he was glad he survived. He had tried to do it himself, and he had failed.
For the first time, he was glad his attempt didn't work.
Donnie, Raph, Leo and Mikey all heard the small, ascending footsteps of someone, and the someone poked his head through the doorframe.
"Boys, what happened?" Splinter asked, panic in his voice. He saw his sons on the floor of the bathroom, keeping Donnie up and hugging him, he saw the red line around his neck and the chain in Leo's hand. They didn't need to tell him what happened in order for him to know.
He fell to his knees, crawling towards his children. His dear children, who he loved more than anything or anyone else in the world.
"Oh, Donatello..." Donnie felt his father's hand on his face, wiping away tears with his thumb. Splinter looked to the ones hugging him. "What happened?" He asked, worry still intense in his voice.
"I think... our arguing triggered him," Raph said, feeling ashamed that anything he was involved in at all made his brother feel like that. Leo and Mikey nodded in agreement, seeing that too.
“Yeah, I should’ve… I knew how much he hates arguing, I sh—“ Mikey started, feeling just as bad about himself as Raph feels about himself. “Fuck! I should’ve told you to stop, I could’ve prevented this-“
The box turtle felt a very shaky and very weak hand on his, and looked over to see Donnie urging him to stop talking like that with his eyes.
“Sorry, Don,” Mikey said, and the others looked at him. Splinter said something under his breath, probably reminding himself to find a therapist for everyone.
“Donatello…” Splinter said, crawling closer to his beautiful son’s face, “is this something you have thoughts about or want to do often?”
Donnie moved his head side to side as much as he could without making his neck hurt even further, and Splinter felt a sense of relief. Relief that this was just a one-off thing, relief that his boy didn’t think about this often. But he was still so scared, so nervous that this had been the first thing Donnie had thought to do.
The rat’s thoughts were interrupted by a sudden burst of sound outside the room. The noise coming from a pair of sneakers and their wearer, scrambling to get closer as fast as possible. And then the sound of April’s voice. “Guys! I came as fast as I could, EMS is on their way-“
And then she saw him. He looked at her right back. Tears welled up in her eyes as she ran into the bathroom, stopping just before she fully ran into him. She grabbed his hands and looked right in his eyes. “Donnie, you’re alive. You’re alive, you’re alive! Thank God!”
She looked back at the others and gave them her Death Glare™. “Why the fuck wouldn’t you update me that he had woken up? I thought he was fucking dead. Would it have killed you to just tell me what was going on?”
“Sorry,” all the members of the Hamato family who could speak said. But in the end, April was just glad that he was alive.
Donnie tried to clear his throat, and everyone looked at him. Was he trying to talk again? He tried to, but he still couldn’t. With his weak hands, he signed the letters “A”, “A”, “C”. AAC, he was asking for his Augmentative and Alternative Communication device, which was his phone. His brothers all looked around a little bit for it, before Raph found it on the floor a few feet out of the bathroom. He retrieved it and gave it to Donnie, who found it difficult- but not impossible- to use. He typed out what he wanted to say in his AAC app, and his family waited impatiently to hear what he was going to say.
He pressed the button for the TTS voice to read what he’d written. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” The robotic voice started, and his family knew this wouldn’t be good. “I shouldn’t have acted so impulsively, and so stupidly. I hope you all will forgive me.” The robotic voice stopped talking, as it was the end of what Donnie had written. Everyone sat in silence for a moment.
“Don…” Raph said, moving closer and putting his hands on his shell. “You don’t need to apologize. Really.”
“We should be apologizing, really,” Leo added, and Mikey nodded in agreement. “We really should've stopped arguing. The problem wasn't even important or anything, and we easily could've just made up later. If anything, we’re the ones who should’ve-
“Shut up!” April yelled, and Leo promptly did as she said. “Nobody has to apologize. Everything was driven by emotion, and nobody is at fault.” She said, looking around at her friends- no, brothers. “Can we all just shut up and give Donnie a hug?”
They all looked around at each other for a moment, and, saying nothing, got closer. April wedged herself between Mikey and Donnie, Splinter climbed on Raph’s shoulders. Leo stayed where he was, right by Donnie on his other side.
In the minutes before the EMS April had called arrived, the Hamato family was just able to stop and be with each other, right there on the bathroom floor. And Donnie was glad.