"Leo!"

They were gone-

"Leo!"

His brothers were gone-

"Leo!"

He failed them. He'd failed them and they were all-

"Leo!"

For turtle's sake, Mikey, can't a turtle mourn... In... Pea- MIKEY!

Leo bolted upright and his world responded by spinning out of control, the leader dimly aware of a pair of arms catching him and holding up his upper body, his head pounding hard enough that he wondered if he'd been tricked into trying one of the youngest's pizza shakes again. 

"It's alright, Leo. The dizzy spell will pass. That's it..." 

The leader groaned and something warm squeezed his hand, finally daring to open his eyes when the headache lessened, his unfocused gaze trailing over the trees that decorated his background and then landing on a familiar shape, a pair of baby-blue eyes lighting up when he met them. "Leo! Morning, dude!"

"Technically, it's still evening." Leo glanced up to see the turtle supporting his head was the genius, earning a small smile as he mentally scrambled to piece together what was going on around him. "Good to see you're awake." 

The leader didn't reply and simply rolled off his lap, shakily forcing himself upright and grasping the side of his head as he sat up, checking his own plastron for tooth marks but finding none.

He turned to Mikey but found a plastron void of wounds as well and then reached out to rub Donnie's healed shoulder, his brow furrowed as he tried to piece it together. The genius offered a shaky laugh and gently pushed his hand off. "I'm still feeling phantom pain, but it doesn't look like the tissue was ever damaged." 

"Raph?" Leo suddenly demanded as he realized one brother was still missing. 

The genius pointed behind him and he turned to see that they were at the very edge of the forest, the farmhouse standing like a comforting protector beside them and the barn door open, a stream of light exiting and revealing the hothead pacing back and form on the lawn, rubbing the arm that the leader saw ripped off as he apparently mumbled to himself. 

Leo glanced between his other brothers. "What happened? Was it a dream? A terrible, horrific nightmare?" 

"Yep." Mikey reassured, the leader not oblivious to the way Donnie winced at this. The youngest glanced towards the genius. "Right, Don?"

Donnie was quiet for a moment and then glanced at Mikey, an almost painfully forced smile on his expression. "Mikey, you don't mind heading inside and making sure Casey, April, and Ice Cream Kitty are alright, do you?" 

"Oh!" Mikey jumped to his feet, nodding rapidly. "Definitely! Be right back!" 

As the youngest sprinted towards the house, Donnie let out a long sigh and Leo gave him a questioning look. Lifting a strange, metallic crown-like object from the grass, the genius admitted. "It's not going to make much logical sense."

"Tell me anyway," Leo commanded as he steadied himself, studying his younger brother's expression. 

"I've been working on this psychic transmitter for April." He began softly, rubbing the side as he avoided meeting his gaze. "After you guys all went to bed, I- uh- came-out-here-to-work-on-it-real-quick-" Leo raised an eye ridge as the genius kept his gaze pointed anywhere but at him. "but while I was making sure the energy input could be calibrated, it switched on."

He shivered and Leo had a feeling it wasn't from the cool night air. "I remember being able to turn it off and then hearing this- this growl. Like something was outside the barn. Raph said- you guys woke up and went to check the barn for me. Maybe that's when you were dragged into the nightmare too."

He took a shaky breath. "I never... I didn't put it together until we woke up just now... I... I think whatever that- that beast was... It was real. A-and our experience was, in-in a sense, real." 

Realizing his brother was trembling, Leo instinctively moved forward to wrap an arm around his shoulder and the genius glanced at him, taking a shaky breath. "I told Mikey it was just a-a dream caused by a failed experiment. A-A bad one. No need to-to give him nightmares, right?" 

Autumn gaze was silently begging him to say that he'd done the right thing and Leo gave him a reassuring squeeze. "Yeah." His shoulders slumped in relief and the leader questioned. "So... Did you guys really... Die?"

"I think we almost did," Donnie whispered in a choked voice. "Whatever you did after it got us... I think that's what allowed us to wake up."

"I killed it." Leo muttered distantly. "I killed it cause it killed you."

Donnie glanced at him and then leaned his head on his shoulders, fingering the metallic object. "At least death wasn't permanent for us." 

Leo leaned his head on his brother's. "You think it's permanent for it?" 

"I hope so." 

Leo was silent for a long moment, watching the breeze blow over the grass, before another thought occurred to him. "Don? How come the device worked without April using it?"

"Well..." The genius hesitated. "Maybe it has something to do with the dream beaver voodoo. They were beings from a nightmare dimension, right? Maybe... I accidentally summoned another."

Silence stretched between them for an uncomfortably long time. "Mikey definitely doesn't need to know."

"Yeah." 

Tightening his grip on his younger brother as another breeze whooshed through the lawn, Leo carefully pulled him up to his feet as they both shivered, his gaze falling on the hothead. "Come on, let's head inside before we freeze to death."

Donnie nodded slowly, already drooping off as he stumbled after the leader towards the house, the hothead spotting the both of them and then following their lead without a word. 

Donnie collapsed into his armchair and passed out almost immediately and Mikey entered the room as Raph plopped on the couch, the youngest walking over to the genius and tucking the blanket from the floor around his shell. 

The youngest then hopped into the other armchair and curled up with his blanket, a half-asleep "sweet dreams" breaking through the silence before the youngest was lost into oblivion.

Raph grabbed Leo's arm and dragged him back into the position he'd woken up in, his other hand draping the blanket around his shell with a gruff command for him to sleep before leaning his head back and dozing off himself.

Leo didn't have the strength to argue that he didn't know if he'd ever want to risk sleeping again and simply allowed his gaze to flicker between his brothers to watch their slow breaths and study their peaceful expressions.

His simmering fear slowly faded as a content slumber began creeping up on him, the leader soon lost back in the world of dreams.