Chapter Text
They won.
The Kraang were gone. The key was safe. The people were saved.
Raph lost an eye. Donnie was in… rough shape. Casey had lost everything.
But they won.
They won.
…
Didn’t they?
The funeral was bleak. They tried to make it light, they tried to tell jokes and laugh and tease like they knew he would’ve wanted. But they just… they just couldn’t manage it.
They didn’t even have a body to bury.
Mikey had outright refused to come. Donnie was essentially catatonic, unable to acknowledge the existence of anyone or anything due to the shock. Raph had tried to do as he always does, and carry the entire family through the ordeal. But Casey Junior was here now, and he’d… been through enough of these that the grief was just a numb feeling to him now.
That didn’t stop him from wailing in the dead of night when he thought nobody could hear.
Splinter tried, he tried so hard to be there for his remaining sons rather than fall back into his old habits, but without the heart of the family the siren call of his television allowing him to disassociate became too strong to ignore.
And nobody could really blame him. Everyone pulled away.
Mikey wasn’t hurt too bad during the invasion, but in the months that followed he injured his arms almost beyond repair. Mikey tried, and tried, and tried to open a portal into the prison dimension so he could bring him back. This caused his arms to crack and burn and bleed, leaving him with constant tremors and chronic pain. He would’ve kept going. It wasn’t until CJ admitted that the Mikey from his future had died doing this that Draxum put his foot down, forbidding Mikey to ever try again.
That date marked month three since the invasion.
It took another month for Mikey to start talking to the family again. Casey was the only one he would actually see, because April and Donnie and Raph and CJ and Draxum and Splinter had all agreed to stop with the portal attempts. But Mikey’s anger couldn’t burn forever, and he finally admitted that it was a good idea to stop.
Nobody would ever trade one brother for another.
Raph did his best to keep it together, but his guilt was too much for him. Everyday the eldest drifted away, almost refusing to be in the same room as any of his brothers. He was too scared of hurting them, and nothing anyone said to him fixed that. Raph spent most of his time in the dojo, or fighting crime on the streets, and avoiding everyone in his family until… he moved out. He found a place in the Hidden City and stayed there. He’d answer calls and allow them to visit, but he never came back home.
That was month five.
April ended up meeting a girl in her college classes, and they really hit it off. At Mikey’s insistence, she stopped living in the lair and returned to the campus dorms and she was just. So happy. It was wonderful to see.
Exactly six months since the invasion, April announced that she had a girlfriend. It was the first time since then that the family actually celebrated something.
CJ moved into Raph’s room. They’d offered him Leo’s, but it didn’t feel right. He tried pizza. Started learning hockey from his “mom”. Got a job at Hueso’s. He was a bright kid, one who deserved so much more than what he’d been given. He seemed to be adjusting well… though it was probably just the fact that he’d grown up in a world where nothing was stable, and he had no choice but to adjust to anything and everything.
Month eight, he made a local hockey team.
Donnie finally managed to build braces so that he could move his arms and legs without tremors preventing it. It took longer than he would’ve liked with the new handicap delivered to him from having his nervous system forcibly ripped in half when he was forced out of the Kraang ship. Frankly, he was lucky he wasn’t paralyzed. He was beyond glad to be out of that wheelchair and be able to focus all of his energy towards… other projects.
That was month nine.
Draxum officially got a pardon from the Hidden City after helping protect it during the Invasion. Once he’d completed the required community service, he got his old house back, though not his title. He didn’t mind, grateful to have a lab again.
That was month ten.
The remaining two months were filled with a mundane sense of normalcy. Mikey started working with spray paint and graffiti art more than his old sketches, and went over to Draxum’s every afternoon for mystic training. Casey went to hockey practice and Run of the Mill for work, then came home and watched tv with Splinter, offering his presence and acting as support for the family. April stopped by on occasion to check in with everyone, offer groceries and drag Donnie out of his lab to get sunlight. Raph sent updates, Sunita promised that he was doing fine. They started preparing for the anniversary.
And then it happened.
.
.
.
.
.
Hueso may not have been a pleasant man, but that was only towards the people he did not like. Which, to be fair, was a lot of people.
He knew how to deal with people, how to see through their masks, because he had to in order to keep his business running. Not many yokai were banished from the Hidden City, and those that were had a reputation as push-overs. Because the government was stupid. That was something everyone knew. The Hidden City government was stupid. Criminals ran amok down there, pirates and thieves were everywhere. If you fled from the Hidden City, then that meant that you were a push-over because the police never managed to actually put anyone important behind bars.
But if you weren’t a push-over, then that meant you were a really, really bad person. Because when it came to those types of people, the Council did not mess around. They would even chase you to the surface.
Because of that, Hueso had to deal with a lot of stuff when he was first starting out. He’d had a lot of threats, a lot of gangs looking for money. He had no choice but to put up a gruff exterior and take nothing from nobody. He made sure that his restaurant was a safe, crime free zone. And he was eternally grateful that his wife had seen through that and had given him a chance, because she and Junior were the best things to ever happen to him.
And then he met the turtles.
Hueso’d had no interest in any of them at first. They just seemed to be a bunch of immature teens who he would probably have to kick out sooner or later— especially the blue one.
But he had been surprised.
He had been surprised because Leo was not what he seemed like. Leo had taken an interest in Hueso and refused to leave him alone. And a few misplaced comments, a few nights where he had just needed to breathe, and Hueso found that the boy had grown on him. (He says grown on him as though Hueso hadn’t basically adopted him and wouldn’t destroy anyone who would dare do him harm.)
Leo was so much more than just the “face man”. Leo was like a bright flame, capable of lighting up the darkest of souls, and burning anyone who dared harm those he loved. Leo had so much life.
That was why it devastated Hueso to learn that he was dead.
He had been forced to watch as Leo’s family fell apart in the wake of his early demise. He was more than happy to help in any way he could. If that meant giving them free pizza (he claimed that it was just going on their tab, they would pay him back in full once they were all recovered, if he would let them) then so be it. If that meant offering a job to a boy from the future who was apparently Leo’s son-but-not-son, then so be it. Plus, future boy got along great with Junior.
And if it meant agreeing to host their anniversary, then so be it.
The day of Leonardo’s death was fast approaching, and many people felt its effects. The world outside was already scared to face the memories of what happened on that horrible day. Regular patrons who remembered Leo were mourning his death as well. And Leo’s family…
It wasn’t any worse than what it had been a year ago, at least.
Hueso sighed as he wiped down the table. The same table that the Hamatos would eat in every time. The table that they agreed was necessary for their… party.
Mikey had decided that it would be a party, this year. Last year they hadn’t been able to function at all. This year, they would celebrate.
It’s what Leo would’ve wanted, after all.
“Oh, pepino,” Hueso sighed. He set the picture up on the wall, just beneath his sword that the Hamatos had gifted to him. They had one in their home. They had given the other to Hueso, since Leo had loved Run of the Mill so much. Hueso had mounted it above Their Table. “I wish you could have seen how much they love you.”
Because Leo had never seen it. Not really. Hueso had, but Leo had not. Hueso hated to think it, but it was entirely possible that Leo had died thinking that the immense love he held for his brothers… had never been reciprocated.
Hueso hoped that Leo knew that wasn’t true.
He let out another sigh as he finished wiping off the table and gathered everything up. He turned around and left without glancing back… and because of that, he failed to notice the sword begin to light up in those strange, familiar runes.