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icefirestorm · 8 months ago

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His Final Gift

The building heat of the Krang laser weapon overpowered Casey’s fading cry and took over Leo’s already strained senses. Despite the pain, fear, and overwhelming guilt; he was relieved. It was almost over. He was done fighting, he had nothing left to lose, so he could finally just stop and let things end. And as the laser began to burn his dried-out scales, the recoil of Mikey’s portal blasted him into blessed unconsciousness.

“Ok, I think that’s it. Torres to Bridge, we’re ready down here Captain.”

“Acknowledged Lieutenant, begin the test.”

B’elanna braced one hand on the top of the console while entering commands with her other. “Initiating warp field test. Engines are disengaged and powering up. Seven?”

Straight backed across the aisle, the former drone answered, “Artificial dilithium is holding. Matter/anti-matter flow is stable.”

“Alright, let’s kick it into warp.” The engineer carefully watched the screen as a warp field formed around their stationary vessel. “The field seems stable too. How’s the dilithium now?”

Seven checked her readings again. “Still holding. Flow remains unchanged. There does seem to be a 12.4% reduction in efficiency from natural dilithium.”

B’elanna shrugged a shoulder. “I mean, obviously we’d like it to be better, but if we run out of natural dilithium at least we’d still be able to keep moving at a decent clip until we can get more.” One more check of the field and, “Ok let’s see if the matrix can handle a greater flow. Simulate warp 2?”

“Agreed. Increasing flow rate by 5%.” The gentle light of the warp core stuttered, and along with it every heart in Engineering.

“What was that?!” B’elanna demanded while checking over her own readouts. “The warp field is still stable!”

“As is the dilithium matrix and matter flow. I see no cause for any irregularity.” Seven replied while double and triple checking all information at her disposal. “I recommend a shut down and full diagnostic.”

“Shutting down!” the hybrid cried above the alarms that started ringing out across the two-storey department, only for the core to flutter again. But this time it shook the ship.

“B’elanna?! What’s going on down there?!” Chakotay bellowed over comms.

“No time!” She yelled back. “Seven what are you seeing?”

“The flow is shut down but fluctuations are continuing to occur.” This time all lights in Engineering flickered along with the core.

“How? There’s nothing left in the chamber! … Maybe there’s a residual charge in the EPS conduits. Vorik! Mulcahey! Lock them down!” In the same moment that the two moved to comply a bright light flashed in front of the core ejecting a mass across the room and into the Engineering doors.

Finally, everything shut down. Disconcertingly, this included the lights. “Everyone ok?!” B’elanna hollered out to her team. A round of assurances came back to her as the lighting gradually righted itself. While she made sure her section was back up and running, Seven pulled a tricorder and cautiously strode to the steaming lump that had appeared seemingly out of nowhere.

She dodged a few personnel frantically running about doing system checks and knelt next to what she now knew to be a life form. Crouching next to it, Seven reached out with the tricorder and ran it down the supine form while keeping a careful eye in case it chose to attack. Past the tattered, deep blue wrap, she could see blistered, light green scales. Reptile, humanoid, male, at least post-industrial level of development, prosthetic arm. And holding a sword? The readings from her tricorder had her hitting her combadge. “Seven to Doctor, requesting emergency medical transport. An unknown lifeform has entered Engineering, it appears injured and its life signs are fading.”

“Acknowledged. Transporting two to Sickbay.” The Doctor’s response was her only warning before the world dissolved around her. Once new surroundings had resolved, Seven stood out of the way taking the visitor’s weapon, while the Doctor descended with his medical tricorder adding to information Seven had already collected for him in the main computer. “First and second degree burns over 30% of his body, no spinal trauma, he’s in neural shock; Seven help me lift him to the biobed.” The two quickly heaved their visitor.

They had just noticed a deep gash across his stomach when the doors opened to let Tom Paris sweep in and take Seven’s place assisting the Doctor. “What do we have Doc?”

The hologram grabbed a couple hyposprays as he answered. “Reptilian humanoid, appears to be male. Burns, neural shock, multiple contusions and lacerations, particularly one across the lower torso. Address that while I attempt to stabilize his neurological functions.” Tom nodded and grabbed an autosuture to begin closing the largest wound from inside out, cleaning the area with a handheld sterifield generator as he went.

“Seven.” The Doctor barked, “Grab 4 units of the iron-based blood replacer and get an infusion unit running.” The purple clad drone dashed off into sickbay supply for the requested equipment, depositing the metal weapon on sickbay’s central console as she went. Pulling off the patient’s mask, the Doctor attached neural stimulators to his temples then started pulling the thick wrap up over his patient’s head, sliding it out from under broad shoulders revealing an intricate shell. “Mr Paris revise from reptilian to terrapin-like?”

“Makes sense,” the blond replied, “I’m working with some sort of organic armour here. It’s got a consistency somewhere between cartilage and bone. Actually, I’m not sure the dermal regenerator will work on this Doc, should I use the osteo-regen?”

As Seven returned, and began hooking up the infuser, the hologram considered for a moment. “Put a sealant patch over it for now, I don’t want to stress his system any more than it already is.” Checking the readings of his own task, he side eyed the large mechanical bulk of his patient’s prosthetic. “Seven, could you address that now? Given the state of our friend here, I’d rather not find out that that thing about to short out or something while it’s still attached.”

She had just discovered a buckling attaching mechanism to person when the doors opened again, admitting the Captain and Lieutenant Tuvok. Bracing against the central console, Janeway did her best to get a look at their potential stowaway. “Report Doctor.”

“A little busy at the moment Captain. Our new friend here is in bad shape and I’m making a lot of guesses in his treatment. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can, but we really need to concentrate right now.”

There was a time and a place for a Captain to get out of the way and Katherine new this was one of those times. “Very well Doctor, report to me once you can. In the meantime,” she turned to her old friend, “Tuvok, post a guard just in case. I hope we’re about to make a new friend, but, “she ran a finger down the abused weapon laid out in front of her,” past experience demands caution. “

“Understood Captain.”

The rich smell of fresh coffee filled the air as most of Voyager’s senior staff settled into their customary positions around the briefing room table. Morning staff meetings might cut into normal work time, but they carried the added benefit of access to Captain Janeway’s favourite blend without having to use one’s own precious replicator rations.

Janeway took one last deep drink from her mug then called the meeting to order. “Alright, I know there’s one big elephant in the room but let’s get necessities out of the way first. Be’lanna, what’s the status of the warp core?”

The younger woman replied. “Fine. Absolutely fine. All diagnostics have come back perfectly normal.” Gesturing to the fan of pads on the table in front of her. “Whatever happened, I’m 99% sure it wasn’t caused by our test because everything on our end is, again, fine. Actually, I recommend we resume testing immediately. Our readings up until everything went sideways were fantastic. The artificial dilithium wasn’t as efficient as the real thing, but it was working.”

The Captain spun her mug a bit. “Good to hear. Permission granted.” She leaned back in her chair. “So, if the source of the fluctuations wasn’t inside the ship, was it outside? Harry?” Everyone turned to their operations officer, but he was already shaking his head. “Not that I could find Captain. There were no anomalies, wormholes or any other phenomena I could detect in our vicinity that would even remotely result in what happened.”

Chakotay spoke up with a thoughtful look. “If the cause wasn’t on Voyager or around us, it must have been wherever our guest came from. Speaking of … Doctor?” intelligent dark eyes shifted focus to the wall display and the hologram that had stayed with his patient. “How is our guest? Have you learned anything from him?”

“A few things, for one, wherever he came from, it’s not a very nice place. There’s evidence of multiple serious injuries that were sustained over an extended period of time, likely many years.” A display popped up next to the Doctor’s face, highlighting his statements. “The patient shows signs of malnutrition in the form of weakened bones, gums and teeth. It really gets interesting though at the genetic level.” The display switched to a DNA strand. “Our reptilian friend is half human.”

That made everyone but Seven and Harry jolt in their seats. Tom piped up, “Human? So he’s the child of a human and some unknown species?” The Doctor was already shaking his head. “No, his other parent species is known to the Federation. It is trachemys scripta elegans, or in layman’s terms, the red eared slider; a common species of terran turtle.” A picture of the little creature helpfully appeared next. The Doctor did love his slides.

Be’lanna looked disturbed. “Well, no matter how that happened, that’s just all kinds of illegal.”

“And creepy.” Her boyfriend chimed in.

Even Tuvok shifted uneasily. “Indeed.”

The Doctor plowed on, warming to his topic. “Obviously, some manner of genetic engineering was involved; but I haven’t been able to find a sign of any form known to Federation science. And whomever made him was an absolute genius. It’s difficult enough to successfully pair the DNA of two similar species; here we not only have a humanoid and non-humanoid species, but also one is reptilian and non-sentient. And in our friend the two seem to not only be in perfect balance but are far more robust than either parent species. It’s quite remarkable.”

“So,” Janeway interrupted, “This man is the product of two species native to Earth and an unidentified method of genetic engineering. Do we have anything else that might tell us about where he’s from? The prosthetic arm, his weapon?”

“His prosthetic was manufactured using pre-warp technology, though the design is efficient. I am currently repairing the overload damage.” Seven contributed. “His sword is unremarkable aside from traces of an unidentified alien DNA on the blade.”

“Unidentified?” Chakotay asked, angling his chair back to the blonde across from him. “Not even the Borg have a record of them?”

A terse “No.” was his response. Seven never had cultivated a liking for mysteries.

Harry took mercy on her. “Since he’s from Earth, but everything about him just isn’t consistent with OUR Earth, Seven and I dug a little deeper and checked his quantum signature. It doesn’t match us. He’s from another universe.”

Janeway blinked a few times. “Well, that would certainly explain some things, he may be entirely normal on his version of Earth.” She said, gesturing toward the display of their new passenger. The brunette then stared into her coffee for a moment, thinking. “Alright. Seven, continue repairs to his prosthetic, I’m sure he’d like it back when he wakes up. Harry, look into ways to send him home, if possible. Chakotay, Tuvok, Doctor, could you remain a moment please? Everyone else, dismissed.”

As most of the senior staff filed out, Katherine stood and walked to get a better look at what scant information they’d gathered on their mystery guest. For a moment, she pondered the way his animal markings had carried over. “Doctor, what is his current status and your plans for treatment?”

“Well, the neural trauma could have been from crossing the dimensional barrier, or from whatever caused his burns I’m not sure. That’s really all that’s keeping him under right now, but I believe he should wake up sometime today; full recovery from that may take a week or so yet. The burns we were able to address with the dermal regenerator. He also had lost a great deal of blood when he arrived, primarily from a large wound in his lower torso. Honestly, without his natural armour, I believe he would have been disembowelled.” All three organics winced at the idea.

The Doctor swivelled in his chair a bit. “The malnutrition should be easy enough to resolve with time and a good nutrition plan. I’ve already addressed the resulting dental issues and cleaned up his shell a bit. Some physiotherapy would also likely benefit his weakened bones. All in all, I don’t see any reason why he couldn’t make a complete physical recovery.”

“And he’s not some derivative of the eugenics augments?”

He shook his head again. “No Captain, there’s no signs of the old earth genetic augmentation techniques.”

“Thank you, Doctor. Let me know when he wakes up. Janeway out.” She turned back to her remaining officers, hands on hips. “Well gentlemen, thoughts?”

Chakotay spoke first, “Given that he should recover, obviously it would be easiest for us if Harry found a way to send him home and he chose to go back. But with the condition he was in when he arrived, he might not want to.”

“And that may not be an option in the end after all, in which case his only options become stay on Voyager or disembark at some point.” Tuvok added. “If he proves to be, unsuitable, to remain on board, we may need to make that decision for him. In any case, I would not recommend returning his weapon until we are sure he can be trusted.”

“I’m not sure that’d be a good idea.” The larger man replied, “I saw the hilt, there were a couple of eye masks, like his but of different colours, woven into the grip.” He turned to Janeway, “It’s likely a memorial of some kind. In the maquis, we’d take tokens from fallen friends to carry on us. Maybe we could put a locking sheath on the blade, and explain that we’ll remove the lock once we know he’s not a security threat?”

“So instead of a sword, he will be armed with a club?” Tuvok raised a sceptical eyebrow.

Janeway smirked with a little huff. “True. Still, Chakotay has a point, if the sword does have a memorial to lost loved ones built into it, keeping it from him is a sure way to generate animosity; and showing him some consideration, while taking reasonable measures, is a good way to build his trust in us.” She sat back down at the table. “We’ll implement the locking sheath, but we’ll also keep a guard on him for awhile. Chakotay, let’s give Icheb a project in astrometrics. Have him look for Class M worlds, preferably inhabited, where our guest can disembark if we need to part ways with him. Thank you.” She nodded in dismissal, but only Tuvok got up and left the room.

The woman quirked an eyebrow at Chakotay while drinking her coffee. “Yes?”

He smiled back at her. “Another stray?”

“We do have a habit of picking those up, don’t we?” She replied, swirling her remaining coffee around a little. “If he does decide to stay, the crew isn’t at full strength so we have resources, and the room, especially since people have started pairing off.” They shared a grin. “All we can do right now though, is wait and see.”

The subtle soothing vibration of Voyager’s engines was a gentle background thrum as Janeway did her best to plow through another status report on ship’s stores, consumption rates and estimated dates they would need to be replenished. A report on potential worlds ahead to stock up was waiting for her next. I wonder if I could get Be’lanna to install a massage function in my chair …. And how disappointed her look would be if I asked.

“Sickbay to Bridge.”

The two commanding officers exchanged a glance. “Go ahead Doctor.”

“Captain, our guest is waking up.”

She rose and headed for the turbolift. “Understood. Chakotay, you have the Bridge. Tuvok, with me.” Katherine turned and faced the closing doors. Show time.

It didn’t take long to make the all-too familiar journey to Sickbay. The doors swished open to the Doctor looking up from where he was leaning over their restless reptile. His red-striped eyes were screwed up while soft pants escaped from his slightly open mouth.

Janeway left Tuvok behind to consult with the young bajoran security guard and walked to where the stranger would be able to see her easily once he fully surfaced.

Minutes passed. He continued to fight against the lingering neural pain and eventually won. Deep blue eyes, like the edge of sunlight in the ocean, blinked rapidly, slowly adjusting to the Sickbay lights. The moment he locked onto her face, deep confusion spread across his features. She did her best to present a kind, welcoming smile.

“My name is Captain Katherine Janeway. You’re onboard the Federation Starship, Voyager. Do you understand me?”

Bewildered eyes widened but he gave her a tiny nod. Janeway placed a hand next to his shoulder on the bed. “You appeared in our Engine Room with a flash of light during an engine test. You were badly injured, so we brought you to our Sickbay for treatment. Your prosthetic is currently being repaired, and your sword,” she gestured to the weapon leaning against the wall in its new sheath, “is right here.” Catching his eye again, she asked, “Can you tell me your name?”

He licked his lips, and after a false start when his voice caught, replied, “Leonardo Hamato.”

Katherine gave Leonardo another encouraging smile. “Pleasure to meet you, Mr Hamato. As I said, you’re onboard our ship, Voyager. Our Doctor believes that, with time, you’ll fully recover from your injuries.” Once she saw that information had sunk in, the brunette continued, “In our investigation, we determined that the flash of light in Engineering was you crossing a dimensional barrier between your universe and ours. Do you know how that might have happened? It could help us get you back home.”

“Another universe?” he seemed to understand the possibility, if be a little incredulous at it actually happening. “Have you ever heard of the Krang?” Leonardo asked her hoarsely.

She shook her head. “No, I’m sorry, I haven’t.”

He huffed a disbelieving little laugh. “Definitely another universe.” The reptile took a minute to collect his thoughts. “The Krang came to our Earth about twenty years ago and started just …. consuming, everything. There were only three of them to begin with, and this big ship of theirs, but whatever they didn’t kill they would make like them.”

Janeway restrained herself from mentioning the Borg and listened carefully as he took a breath to continue.

“Yokai, mutant, human; it didn’t matter. They gradually whittled us all down to nothing. We fought back, but the resistance eventually fell. My brother, Mikey, made a time portal, ….. I guarded it while Casey went through to the past.” As her face erupted in alarm he hastened, “I know. Messing with time, major no-no, but…” His nearly black eyes begged her to understand, “There was nothing left Captain. Nothing but Krang. We had nothing left to lose. Casey went back to stop the invasion before it began.“ His hand locked onto her arm. “Almost nine billion lives Captain. Isn’t that worth the risk?”

“Well, considering I’ve risked it for less..” he laughed a little at her sardonic reply. This time she actually put her hand on his shoulder. “What happened next? While you were standing guard?”

A full body shudder ran through the man. “The Krang attacked. I was already wounded, Mikey was ….. gone and Casey was on his way. I fought off a couple hounds, then I felt a Krang weapon firing on me. They’re like some kinda super laser thing.” An energy weapon. That would explain the burns. “I heard the portal closing behind me then, nothing.”

“Maybe the combination of the portal and the weapon is what sent you through?”

“Maybe.” He let go of her and settled back into the biobed. “Maybe.”

She looked around to meet Tuvok’s grim expression, then returned to their passenger. “You said there was nothing left, is there any point in us continuing to look for a way to send you home?”

Leonardo shook his head regretfully, “There isn’t anything to go back to, except a planet full of Krang zombies.” He hitched himself up a bit. “I appreciate your help. I don’t want to be in the way so….“ Nerves raced across his face. “If you could just drop me off somewhere safe, I’m sure I can figure something out.”

Now her hand was on his chest to push him back down. “There’s no rush Mr Hamato. Nothing needs to be decided until you’re well again. If you wish to disembark, we can certainly do that. For now, just rest and recover. Then we can explain some things about this universe so that you can make an informed decision. In the meantime, I’d just like to apologize for the lock on your sword and the guard.” She gestured to the woman watching carefully from the doors. “Please understand, we don’t know anything about you and need to take ship’s security into account.”

After his eyes finished following her hand, he nodded in assent. “Makes sense. Hope I can earn your trust soon. And Leo will do Captain.”

She smiled again. “Well then. I’ll leave you to the Doctor. Welcome aboard Voyager, Leo.” Janeway stepped back, collected Tuvok and left. Once back in the hall she turned to her oldest friend. “Thoughts?”

Tuvok pondered for a moment. “He seems sincere, but such a brief conversation is hardly enough to make a proper evaluation.”

“You’re right, but if he is telling the truth,” she sighed and looked to the ceiling, “I can’t even imagine what he’s been through.”

Leo dragged his eyes from the doors where the Captain had just left to the bald man approaching on his right. “I’m guessing you’re the Doctor?” The man smiled.

“Indeed I am. Pleased to finally meet you Mr Hamato.”

The slider wrinkled his snout. “I never really went by Mister. Leo is fine, Doctor….?” He trailed off, fishing for the man’s name.

“Just Doctor for now. I haven’t picked a name yet.”

That drew Leo up short for a moment, blinking through his headache. “Picked a name? Is that a thing in this universe?”

The Doctor smirked while waving a small whirring piece of metal over Leonardo, staring at the thing in his hand. “In some cultures, yes. But in my case it’s a matter of being an artificial lifeform that only recently became sapient, so I can pick my own name. I’m just having trouble finding one that “fits”.”

And I thought my head hurt before. “Artificial lifeform?”

�� That garnered a little wink. “Yes. I started out as an emergency medical hologram. A highly advanced stand in Doctor if you will. But after being online for an unusual amount of time, my experiences and interaction with the crew had the unexpected effect of expanding my program to the point that I began to develop my own, thoughts and feelings on matters.” A final read of the thing in his hand and the Doctor folded it closed to focus more on their conversation. “I have now been officially recognized as an artificial lifeform. A full Federation citizen with all the rights thereof, and in my capacity as Chief Medical Officer of this Starfleet vessel, I am happy to inform you that your condition is improving even faster than expected.”

Leo twirled a finger in the air. “Yay. My head hurts …. and everything else too.”

“That would be the residual neural trauma. Would you like an analgesic?”

Three fingered hand picking at the bed underneath him, “Yes please. Will it make me sleep?”

The Doctor paused in selecting a drug from the table next to him. “I can give you a non-drowsy medication if you would prefer.”

“No,” Leo replied, “all I really want right now is to sleep.”

“I can certainly help you with that.”

This time when Leonardo slowly crawled his way back to consciousness, he felt much more present. The lights being turned way down didn’t hurt either. So, with no one else in sight, he decided to take stock for a moment. The ever-present full body ache that the Doctor attributed to neural trauma, still lingered, but was much better. Running his hand down to his lower plastron, he could feel some sort of bandaging over the gut wound that’d been slowly killing him in their mad dash up the hill.

Casey. Knowing that he’d never see his adoptive son again was digging a hole in his heart. He’s safe. He’s safe now. They’ll fix it and he’ll have the life he always deserved. This was the only thing that’d been keeping him fighting after the Krang found their last hiding place. For awhile now, the resistance leadership had known that they couldn’t win. They just didn’t have the resources to beat the Krang back, if they’d ever been able. Since then, Leo’d just been desperately trying to figure out a way to at least save his family. In the end, all he and his brother could do was make a last-ditch effort at giving Casey a future, and maybe just maybe, save everyone else too. Mikey…..

Grief was an old, unwelcome companion after decades of constant loss, but Mikey; Mike had always been there. From the beginning of their crazy lives, through losing Dad, Raph, Donnie and everyone else, one by one, Mikey’d been Leo’s oldest, dearest friend in the end. And now he was gone.

What did you do Mike? A yellow flash? He had no other evidence, but Leon was absolutely certain that Michelangelo had done something to save his stupid big brother’s life. I was ready Mike. I’m tired. Why can’t you let me lie? He’d struggled with the urge to just lay down and die a few times over the years, how could he not? But a few things had held him back; mostly he wouldn’t even consider abandoning the people he had left. There was also the burning need to try and make things right, to fix his catastrophic mistake.

Those weren’t really issues here and now, but one old concern still kept him firmly convinced he couldn’t end it himself. He didn’t know what would become of him if he did. Years ago, a close encounter with one of the original Krang had ended with Leo being stripped of his powers, and with them, his connection to the Hamato Clan. Mikey’d always tried to reassure him that he was still every inch a Hamato, that he had nothing to worry about, but Leo wasn’t so sure; and frankly he was too much of a coward to find out.

Now there was also the additional weight of Mikey clearly making a final effort to save him. He couldn’t just throw away Mikey’s last gift, Leonardo’s own life. Guess I’ll have to make the best of it and hopefully, when the time comes, I’ll be good enough to pass muster. As if he could ever make up for setting off the obliteration of an entire planet’s population.

Casting his eyes to the side, and finding neither was swollen anymore, he spotted his sword. A scuffed old blade that April’d found while hiding in a bombed-out museum. He could still see her beaming as she brought it out from behind her back, hair freshly shaved from getting stiches on the crown of her head. It’d been surprisingly sturdy, and a good replacement for his lost katanas. Staring at the hilt with red and purple masks woven together, he noted that he’d have to get himself some orange fabric to work into it as well. Silent tears ran down to his left temple as he felt a rush of gratitude to the Captain for letting him keep it near, even if they did put some funky locking sheath on it.

“Leonardo?” The Doctor’s voice had the weepy turtle hastily wiping away his tears, Ow, as the AI came around the corner.

“Yeah Doc?” he answered, satisfied that the words came out even, unwavering.

“Do you need anything?” Actually.

“Could I get some water?”

“Of course.” He ducked back out of the room, then after a minute, and some weird shimmery sound, came back in with a big glass of the cleanest water Leonardo had seen in years. The turtle couldn’t take his eyes off it as the Doctor set the clear vessel on a side table, raised the head of his bed and then finally handed the glass over. It took every ounce of Leo’s restraint to drink slowly, making sure his stomach was willing to keep the cold, fresh liquid.

Laying back, the slider revelled in feeling ice water flowing down his throat. Regretfully finishing the glass, he passed it back to his carer. “Thanks. Is it night time?”

“No, ship’s night ended about three hours ago,” the Doctor said, checking a panel on the side of Leo’s bed. “But you were sleeping so well that I didn’t want to risk waking you up.” Apparently satisfied with whatever he read, the artificial man looked up with a smile. “How is that water settling? Stomach fine?”

“Yeah, Doc. Honestly at this point, it would take a lot to upset my stomach.”

The Doctor’s smile widened. “Well in that case, would you feel up to a short walk and a shower? There’s a seat in the sickbay unit.”

A shower. An actual shower. Not some polluted tunnel stream. Not the edge of a frigid ocean. Not a damp rag. An actual flowing, clean water shower? “Doc, I would kill for a shower, I’ll crawl if I have to.” The Doctor laughed a little and started to help his patient up to his feet. “No theatrics required Leo. Let’s just take it easy though. You’ve been through serious trauma, and I would imagine you’ll be a little off balance without your prosthetic.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time Doc.”

Ever so carefully, the two maneuvered Leo’s legs over the edge of the biobed. Once his feet met blue carpet, the Doctor slid under a green arm and helped his patient upright. After a moment to acclimate to carrying most of his own weight again, they began slowly walking; the Doctor taking the lead. Two rooms later, they entered what Leo was actually surprised to recognize as a washroom. Though I suppose there’s really only so many ways you can lay one out.

Figuring they may as well be efficient, the Doctor first helped Leo over to the toilet. One startling introduction to its built-in sonic cleaning feature later, the hologram was helping Leonardo to fully disrobe and sit on the wide shower bench. “Oh. Just a second.” Leon was left a little bewildered as the Doctor abruptly left. He wasn’t alone long though before his carer bustled back in and applied a water-proof adhesive patch over the electronic coupling for his prosthetic.

Given his reaction to the sonic cleaning, they’d decided that his terrapin tremor sense wouldn’t tolerate a full sonic shower, so Leo was getting the warm water he craved. Picking at a few dry scales, he watched while the Doctor switched the shower unit from sonic to water mode, remarking that if his patient stayed on board, they would have to get him quarters with a bathtub.

“Ready?”

Leon grinned a little. “Let’er rip Doc.”

With a low chuckle, the bald pseudo man turned on the flow, instantly warm, and handed over a bottle of body wash that most humans on board preferred. They spent the next few minutes tag teaming the job of scrubbing off ages of grime. The Doctor scoured his shell with a brush while Leo attacked the rest of his battered form. Gradually the water at their feet went from nearly black to progressively lighter shades of grey.

Leonardo’s curiosity finally asserted itself. “So, what’s this Federation that you guys keep mentioning?” All he could see of the Doctor now was one of the man’s booted feet, water just running off his artificial form. “The United Federation of Planets.” A geeky thrill ran through the reptile as he listened while enjoying his shell scrub. “Founded in the Earth year 2161 by four worlds, of which Earth was one. It is now comprised of over one hundred fifty worlds spanning eight thousand light years of space in what we call the Alpha Quadrant of the Milky Way Galaxy.”

“Ok,” he processed for a moment, “what would be the current ‘Earth year’?”

“2377 AD.”

333 years. I wonder where we would’ve been by now if the Krang’d never showed up? “That’s about 300 years ahead of my time. … In my world, I mean.” The scrubbing sensation paused for a second, “In that case, welcome to the 24th century Leonardo.” The scrubbing resumed in wide, soothing circles. More questions bubbled in Leo’s mind. “So, when you say worlds…?”

“Inhabited planets, moons, the occasional space station. There’s even a couple nomadic species that live on board generational ships. Most worlds have one native sapient species; some more. Quite a few worlds are colonies that have grown to the point where they stand on their own. All of them have reached a certain point of technological and social development, then agreed to abide by the Federation Charter, in addition to their own local laws.” He moved on to Leo’s arm and left side where the turtle couldn’t reach himself. “Member worlds still govern themselves and their own surrounding space. They send representatives to the Federation Council and in turn the Federation governs matters that effect multiple member worlds. Starfleet is the Federation’s means of action; exploration, defence, disaster relief and the like.”

At last, clear water was running into the drain between Leo’s feet. “So, this is a Starfleet ship?”

Turning off the shower, the Doctor grabbed a couple towels, handing one over. “Yes. Voyager is an Intrepid class vessel, originally designed for long-range scientific exploration.”

“Originally?” Leon asked, doing his best to get the towel into where plastron met scales.

“Ah. Yes. Voyager’s situation is somewhat unique. How about we get you settled and then I’ll explain further.” They finished getting him dried off, then into a sickbay gown, “I’ll send your things to be cleaned,” and began shuffling out to the farthest recovery bed from the sickbay doors.

Blankets over Leo’s legs, the Doctor dashed off again, this time to grab a mug of light soup. Leo fought an urge to chuckle as he wrapped his hand around the steaming hot offering. “You were saying about Voyager’s situation?” he prompted before blowing across the surface of his breakfast.

The Doctor sighed a bit and perched on the edge of the next bed over. “Yes. Currently we are well outside Federation territory. About twenty-three thousand light years actually.”

“That doesn’t tell me much.” Leo replied between sips.

The Doctor smiled sadly, “At our top speed, non-stop, without help, it will take Voyager approximately twenty-four years to reach Earth.”

The slider stopped drinking. “Uhhhh….. you weren’t kidding when you said long-range exploration.”

“It’s a very long story,” the EMH hiked himself a little further back on the mattress, “in a nutshell Voyager and another vessel were pulled across the galaxy by an alien far more advanced than us. He was looking for something; grabbing starships and testing their crews for it. Unfortunately, he was operating out of the Delta Quadrant, approximately seventy thousand light years from Earth.” Leo’s dark eyes widened, calculating based on the ETA the Doctor had given him. “Going that far in a few minutes was devastating for both ships. A significant portion of each crew was killed. A few more were lost to the alien’s testing process. In the end he didn’t have the time, energy or really inclination to send us back. The other ship was destroyed in battle with some native hostiles, and their surviving crew joined Voyager. We’ve been making our way home ever since.”

“You’ve been travelling for fifty-one years?” he was having trouble processing that, but the Doctor was already shaking his head. “No, only about seven years. We’ve found shortcuts, hitched a ride with a more advanced species now and then, even been able to temporarily connect faster alien propulsion systems to our own. We’re always on the lookout for ways to shorten our travel time.”

Leon’s estimation of the Captain and crew went up several notches. “Well, if you keep going at this rate, you might get home in a year or two.” He took another sip of his broth. “That’s certainly always our hope. We’ve done fairly well for ourselves all told,” the Doctor replied.

No kidding. Shaking his head, Leonardo continued working his way through the mug of mildly herbed soup, savouring the flavours. When he reached the bottom, he handed it back to the waiting Doctor. “Thanks, that was delicious.”

“The Paris family chicken soup never fails.” The Doctor called back, as he carried it to…. somewhere. Between the soothing scrub, a full belly and his own lingering exhaustion, Leo slipped into sleep, before the Doctor could return.

It seemed like no time before he roused again to the sound of voices in the Doctor’s office area just next door. Opening his eyes, squinting against the lights at full brightness, Leo leaned up a bit to see the hologram talking to a blonde woman in a purple CATSUIT? Not what I was expecting with all the uniforms so far.

It didn’t take the two long to notice him trying to sit up though and when they turned, he could see metal attached to her face. The locals exchanged a look and as the Doctor walked over, his patient focused on the woman that was now heaving up his arm, carrying the huge metal construct with no trouble at all. Ok, she can’t be human. “Leo, glad to see you awake. Seven here has finished repairing your prosthetic.”

After the Doctor helped him finish sitting up, Leon held out the hand she wasn’t already holding to the blonde. “Seven?” She set his arm on the foot of his bed and reciprocated the handshake. “Seven of Nine.”

Leo cocked his head. “Seven of Nine what?”

The Doctor smirked from where he was inspecting the mounting mechanism in Leo’s arm and glanced up at her. “It is my Borg designation from when I was part of the collective,” she began ignoring the Doctor’s side eye. “In full I was Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix 01.” Leo blinked a few times. “Ok well … I have no idea what you just said. Sorry.”

One side of the woman’s mouth quirked ever so slightly. “I do not believe this is the most opportune time the explain the Borg collective in detail, suffice to say that I am a human cyborg.” She placed a hand back on the massive arm resting against his feet. “Your prosthetic is repaired. The internal wiring and some circuitry had been overloaded by an energy discharge. Are you ready to have it reattached?”

“Yes please.”

With Leo’s practiced hand joining in, it was a matter of minutes to essentially plug and play the complicated armature. “For the materials available, it is a remarkable piece of engineering.” Seven commented, watching as Leo ran through a series of motions to make sure it was functioning properly. “Yeah. My twin, Donnie, made it for me.” He said, running his living hand down the spiky metal. “Well,” the Doctor interjected over the building sorrow, “even better then that it was repairable. I was thinking Leo, you’ve been asleep most of the day, would you like something to eat now?”

Leonardo grabbed the offered lifeline with both, ha, hands. “I could eat. More of that chicken soup?”

“Actually I was wondering what was on offer in the mess hall today. Seven?”

She looked up as she pondered the question. “I believe Neelix said he would be serving vegetable stew.” Crossing her hands behind her back, she continued, “The artificial dilithium tests will be resuming in the morning, I must review the data from our previous test before regenerating.”

“Thank you Seven. Pleasant dreams.” The Doctor answered, and she swiftly exited Sickbay. The hologram turned back to Leo. “I know Seven’s a little abrupt but she’s really very kind.” Just like Donnie. “Well, if your arm feels good, would you like me to call down to the Mess Hall for a meal?”

“Uh sure. Could, .. could I get some more water?”

The Doctor smiled again. “Of course. In fact, if you feel up to it, I’ll show you how you can get it for yourself.” Thus followed the introductory course to replicators and making glasses of water appear out of thin air with technology. He could practically hear Donnie crowing and pointing his hands at Mikey yelling “In your face! Science for the win!” Cool glass steadied in TWO hands; he made his way back to bed much more smoothly than the last time.

Not long after he finished the glass of liquid nirvana, the Sickbay doors opened and a man that was definitely, 100% not human walked in. He looked about and as soon as his golden eyes settled on Leo, a giant, pointy toothed grin lit up the man’s face. “Ah hello! I assume you’re the gentleman this is for.” He said, while hefting up the covered tray he was carrying. “Uh, if it’s a meal the Doctor ordered from the Mess Hall, then probably, yeah.”

The short, spotted man walked over and handed Leo the tray. “Tonight’s special: vegetable stew, fresh bread and liola root tapioca pudding for dessert. Oh, and I’m Neelix.” He said bowing slightly while holding his hands out together.

The slider laughed a little and gestured with the tray. “Thanks. Sounds great and I’m Leo Hamato. Pleased to meet yah.” He set down the meal, lifted the lid and dug in. “Mm. This is really good, though, I have no idea what vegetables these are.”

Neelix chuckled to himself grabbed a nearby stool and got comfortable. “Not surprising. They’re native to this region of space, but they’ve been tested to ensure they’re safe for the crew. Though I suppose we don’t really know what’s safe or not for you yet, do we?” he finished, suddenly concerned.

“If it’s ok for humans it’s probably ok for me. If not, I’m in the right place to find out,” Leo waved his spoon to indicate Sickbay. “But it’d be kinda funny if I survived 20-some years of a literal apocalypse just to die to a vegetable.” Be a pretty fitting end to the whole crap show too.

A few more mouthfuls later, “If it isn’t rude to ask, uh, what are you?”

“Oh!” Neelix chuckled again, “No, no, not rude at all. I’m a Talaxian, from Rinax, one of Talaxia’s moons.”

“Ok, and is Talax part of this Federation everyone keeps talking about?” Leon asked, ripping off a chunk of bread.

Neelix shook his head, golden mohawk waving back and forth. “No, Talax is here in the Delta Quadrant. I ran into Voyager not long after they arrived. Originally I just wanted to trade favours with them, then we wound up working together on something else and eventually I just ended up staying on board.”

Leo blinked for a moment, chewing his stew-soaked bread. “But, aren’t you leaving your people behind? Like, are you planning on getting off at some point or….?”

The Talaxian smiled a little sadly. “I left my people behind a long time ago I’m afraid.” He looked down, shifting in his spot a bit. “We were conquered by one of our neighbouring species when I was a young man. In the process, they decimated Rinax, killing my family and most of my friends.” Leo’s eyes watered with echoed pain. “I wasn’t willing to live under Haakonian rule, so I left. Worked a few different jobs over the years. I was a merchant when I met Voyager. My connections and knowledge of local customs were part of what I offered when I joined the crew.” He grinned again and pointed to Leo’s meal. “My cooking skills have been more of a long term contribution though.”

Rapidly sinking into his own memories, the turtle grabbed onto the lifeline Neelix extended, “So you’re ship’s cook then?” He swallowed a few times, trying to force his throat to open back up. The hearty stew helped.

“Ship’s cook, moral officer, quartermaster, occasional babysitter, I’m a man of many talents.” Neelix replied, folding patterned hands across his middle.

“Humble too.” Leo poked, trying to get a feel for the Talaxian’s sense of humour. Happily, the extra-terrestrial chuckled in response. “That too. Well, I’m afraid I have to go. There are some things I need to prepare now for breakfast tomorrow. Welcome to Voyager Leo, take it from me, it’s a good place to end up.”

__________________________________________________________________________________

The next ship’s night was more typical for Leo; as in he slept a couple hours and then found himself staring at the ceiling. It was a new ceiling so that was novel. It was also clean and an entirely new texture. Additionally, there was the low background thrum of the SPACESHIP that he was slowly getting used to.

Eventually he gave up on sleep entirely and reached for the pad that the Doctor had taught him to use after supper. It really wasn’t too different from a tablet, so he’d adapted quickly. Leon wondered if blue light was still a thing. Time for a little research. First, the Federation. Then Earth came up and Leon decided he just wasn’t ready for that yet, unexpected pain and jealousy gripping his heart.

Next, he typed in Talaxians and got everything that Neelix had told the Federation about his people. Once he’d learned what he could, and shed a tear or two for Rinax, he moved on.

One of his guards had looked subtly different from the others he’d seen so far. Asking the Doctor about the woman with a series of distinctive ridges down her nose, he’d been informed that she was Bajoran. They came from the planet Bajor, which wasn’t part of the Federation, but was considered friendly and apparently quite a few of them lived in Federation space. Digging into the planet’s record, he quickly discovered why. Hostile species conquering their neighbours seems to be a theme. At least it looks like the Federation’s opposed to that sort of thing.

He poked around a bit longer, trying to find a list of the species on board in the hopes that he wouldn’t horribly offend someone saying something he shouldn’t. Eventually, it was enough to lull him to sleep and next he knew Leo was blinking as the lights brightened for ship’s morning.

May as well get up. Heaving himself onto legs steadier than they were yesterday, the massive turtle headed to the washroom, got himself sorted around and then went looking for breakfast. The Doctor’s instructions on replicator use and how the ship’s rationing system went reminded him that he had enough rations set aside for him to get two full replicated meals today. Deciding to use one now, still should get something light though, he went through the menus to Earth, Asian cuisine, Japan, miso soup, a basic omelette and a cup of jasmine tea, saving them to his favourites along the way. Hmph. Food Netflix. Mike’d flip out over this. His food arrived with the requisite side of supplements. “Cooking a nutritiously balanced diet for so many species is impossible.” The Doctor’s voice rang in his head. Taking the tray back to his assigned bed, revelling in the scents as he walked, Leo sat down to his first proper breakfast in too many years.

Slinging the pills down first, he took a slow, lingering sip of his tea. Then promptly put it down, speed walked to the washroom, locked the door and burst into tears. It tasted of home. His father’s cooking once they had access to better ingredients. The longing, self-loathing how do I get to the be lucky one? How do I get to have this again, out of everyone?!

He leaned back against the wall and tried to remember all the times he’d talked someone through survivor’s guilt. But it wasn’t ACTUALLY their fault! How many times had he told somebody, “They made a choice. They wanted you to live. Make it worth it.” The conflicting thoughts ricocheted back and forth across his mind.

Your brothers never blamed you.

They should have!

They would want you to be happy.

They shouldn’t! They should hate me!

They loved you. They’d be happy you made it. Live for them. Live for MIKEY! He did this. Live for them! You’re the last Hamato, don’t let it all be for nothing.

Leo thought of Neelix. How he spread the knowledge of his species to another civilization. How all those people could now learn about his family and friends that’d been killed. They would never be forgotten; even though they were gone, THEY MATTERED.

That was it then. That was his purpose now, he wasn’t needed as a leader anymore, but he could make sure they were never forgotten, that his WORLD was never forgotten. That would be his penance, paltry as it was.

Resolved, the old soldier heaved himself back onto his feet and out into sickbay, where the Doctor was worriedly examining his cooling meal. “Are you alright Leonardo? Did you have a reaction to the food?” Yeah, but not the one you’re thinking of. “Nah, I’m ok. Just needed a moment.” The Doctor’s raised eyebrow was dubious. “Not a medical issue, I swear. Just… memories.”

“Ah. I see.” The hologram gave his patient a knowing look. “Anything I can help with? Not to pry, but I am also programmed to act as a therapist.”

Leo struggled to keep the immediate visceral reaction off his face. “Not… not right now. But, I’ll keep it in mind.”

“Very well.” The Doctor made his way back to his office, patting this patient on the shoulder as he went by. Leo returned to his meal, not willing to waste good food. After about an hour, a blond man, Leon was reasonably certain he was human, came in.

“Hello.” He said, after sharing a nod with the Doctor through the office window as he extended a hand to the recumbent reptile. “I’m Tom Paris, nice to meet you.”

Leon met him part way. “Leo Hamato, likewise.”

Hands shook, Paris continued, “I’m chief helmsmen normally, but I’m also trained to assist the Doctor. There’s a couple of us on board, even a hologram needs a break.”

“So they have you doing double duty?” Leo asked, living hand soothingly running along the planes of his metal one.

“Yeah,” Tom answered, picking up a pad to look over what was on his schedule for today. “Sickbay didn’t fair well when we got hauled across the galaxy. The Doctor’s pretty much been our medical staff since. There’s a couple of us with some advanced first aid training, took extra biology course in the academy, stuff like that. But we all already have other duties on board so… we just fill in where we can.” He started entering commands on the central console, voice trailing off a bit with his divided attention.

“Yeah. We had stuff like that come up a lot in the resistance the last few years. There just weren’t enough people left to fill all the needed roles.” The turtle shifted a bit, trying to get more comfortable on a bed not made for his shell. “I’m actually a trained medic myself, though I don’t imagine that’d mean much here and now.”

Paris glanced at Leo, eyebrows going up. “You’d be surprised. Most of the crew is human, general first aid is mostly the same for humanoids overall, and if you stayed on board, you’d have plenty of time to learn.” The man turned back to his work. “You could even take the Starfleet Academy courses if you wanted.”

Real medical training? Treating ALIENS?! Possibilities started to whir around in Leonardo’s head. He reeled a bit at the idea of having options, rather than just scrambling to keep his people alive one more day. “Huh.”

The next few hours were spent in relative silence, except when Leo’s cleaned clothes and gear were returned to him. The Doctor and Paris attended to their duties and, occasionally, a crewman came in for treatment. Leo himself was occupied with his pad, now looking through the medical database after his curiosity was peaked. This had led him to learning about non-humanoid species and some of his wildest geeky dreams were right there in technicolour. They produce buds that fall off and become kids?

The human clearing his throat tore Leo’s attention away from his chosen rabbit hole. “Hey, I’m going to the mess hall to get some lunch. Want to come with?”

Brain stuttering from switching gears, “Um, sure?”

Tom chuckled, leaning against the centre console. “It’s ok if you don’t, just thought you might want to see some different grey walls. The ones in the mess hall have windows.” He said grinning and wiggling his eyebrows.

“No, no I do.” Leo scrambled to close the pad down and tuck it away safely. Getting to see something new would be another very welcome distraction.

Paris’ grin became toothy as he walked over to help his patient get free of the blankets and up on his feet. “Hey Doc! We’re going to lunch!” The hologram waved them off and the two headed out, Leonardo glad they’d apparently decided to call off his guard this morning.

True to the human’s promise, there were more grey walls, along curving corridors with the occasional computer panel. Leo walked slowly, focussing more on steadiness than speed. He found that there was much less soreness than yesterday, just a lingering feeling of exhaustion.

“So, who all have you met so far?” Tom broke the silence, as the pair meandered down the corridor.

Leo’s hand trailed along light walls. “Uh, the Captain, the Doctor, a couple guards, Neelix, Seven of Nine, and… what was his name…” the turtle wracked his brain as he walked along. “It was right when I woke up… the Captain was there… Too-something?”

“Tuvok?”

“Yeah, that.”

Tom huffed amusedly, “Lieutenant Tuvok. He’s our chief of security.”

Leo glanced to the side. “Umm, is he human or…?”

His companion was already shaking his blond head. “No. Tuvok is Vulcan. They’re another one of the four founding worlds. Practically Earth’s neighbour, and the first alien species we officially made contact with. There’s some major cultural differences, but we generally get along pretty well. On a more personal note, Tuvok and Captain Janeway are old friends.” The terrapin nodded along, filing away the information and resolving to look up Vulcans once he got back to sick bay.

They reached a door which whooshed open for them in a manner Leo hadn’t quite gotten used to yet. The way Tom got in the little room and turned around immediately made Leon think elevator. His hunch was basically confirmed when the man abruptly said, “Deck Two,” and the car started to move. Old muscle memory kicked in, allowing Leonardo to properly brace with the movement while triggering a sense of wrong and surreal at functioning technology. The resistance had been living off of crumbs for so long, since Donnie, that it was weird to be in a clean, working elevator again.

Before too long, they stopped, and got off on a new floor, deck Leo, it’s a ship. Turning into a short corridor, the turtle could hear voices and smell something, not familiar, but enticing. The doors at the end of the hall opened and two people in uniform came out, a dark skinned human woman, and what looked like a man with blue skin?

They all nodded, exchanging polite smiles as they passed, then Leo entered what must be the mess hall. “Ah! Hello! Welcome, welcome!” Called out Neelix, from behind a cluttered counter. Leon absolutely leaned against that counter nonchalantly, not because his legs were starting to shake. “Hi Neelix, what’s on offer today?” Tom asks, leaning next to the ninja.

“Ah gentlemen. A special treat today. I have discovered the joy that is Risan cuisine. I prepared a traditional, well style, palmiat, a sort of casserole served inside a hollowed out loaf of bread. I had to use local ingredients of course, but I think the end result is true to the original.” The talaxian rumbled along as he rapidly filled two trays. “And a glass of, hmmm, I can’t quite say it right, it’s a beverage AND a dessert. I’d recommend saving it for last; a lovely palate cleanser.”

Leo didn’t notice the talaxian’s voice fading out because his own attention was completely fixated on the windows he’d just noticed. Opposite the counter, a row of large, thick windows revealed a vast expanse of space, lines of light streaking by. He suddenly realized that his hand was against the cool … glass? he’d walked over to in a daze. What Leon was sure must be stars flew past, threatening to draw him in again. Eventually, he found the strength to tear his eyes away and noticed Tom Paris standing next to him.

“When you see it every day, you forget how amazing it is. Thanks for reminding me.” The human softly muttered.

Leo turned, trying to reorient himself. While he was distracted, it looked like Paris had taken both their trays over to a table and gathered their respective tiny containers of supplements. “Oh. Sorry, didn’t mean to treat you like a waiter.”

Tom smirked. “No problem. Everybody stares for awhile the first time they travel at warp.”

Newb move. Great. A quirk of a smile and Leo walked to the table then started eating. Definitely different, but not bad. They ate quietly for a couple minutes before the doors opened and Tom waved over a couple that walked in, one a human male and the other of a species he didn’t know yet. Ok Leo, new people mode. Best manners.

Trays and supplements collected, the pair came and joined them at their table, greeting smiles exchanged. “Leo I’d like to introduce you to two of my favourite people on board.” Tom started, sidling closer to the woman with ridges across her forehead. “This most beautiful of women,” she rolled her dark eyes fondly and elbowed the blond in his side, “hah!, is our Chief Engineer, and my better half; B’elanna Torres.” The brunette reached across the table to offer her hand. “Hi, nice to meet you.” Leo put down his bread quick and shook. “Leo, likewise.”

Tom then moved onto the Asian looking human next to Leo himself. “And this is our Operations Officer, and my best friend, Harry Kim.” The handshake was repeated with a nod on both sides. Harry spoke up first. “So how are you doing so far?”

“I mean, alright, I guess?” How would anybody be? Leo got back to enjoying actual food as opposed to the scavenged crap he’d gotten used to. “It’s certainly different. I feel like I’ve fallen into a Jupiter Jim movie.” B’elanna swallowed quickly. “Jupiter Jim?” Her dark eyes flicked back and forth between the humans, looking for their reactions. It sounds so stupid now. “This sci-fi series my brothers and I used to watch as kids.” He turned a little to look out the windows. “Seems a bit silly here on an actual spaceship.”

“Doesn’t sound THAT silly.” The borderline petulance in Tom’s voice had him whip back to his dining companions. Tom and Harry were both staring at their meals bashfully while B’elanna hid a wide grin behind her hand. “What did I say?” the turtle asked, afraid he’d already sabotaged his potential friendships onboard.

Apparently, this was too much for the engineer. She started chortling, “These two have a holodeck program, ‘Captain Proton’, based on a mid 20th century science fiction series. Sound familiar?”, B’elanna asked, eyes shining in mirth. The men quickly defended themselves. “It’s a view into how pre-warp Earth was looking at their future in space!” Harry said.

“Old starships, adventures, facing off against Dr Chaotica and his hordes of evil. It’s fun!” Tom added enthusiastically. Clearly, this wasn’t the first time they’d had to make this argument. Leon felt a little smile growing on his beak. “It does sound like fun. Is it like a movie that you watch or a game you play or something?”

Harry swallowed his current bite. “It’s a holo-novel. There’s a set script, and you take the role of a character, then play out the story with the other characters reacting to you according to their pre-programed parameters.”

Leo chewed the last of his bread bowl thoughtfully. “Holodeck, holo-novel. Does this have something to do with holograms like the Doctor?”

B’elanna jumped back in. “Yes. The holodeck is a room that produces everything from items to entire artificial environments using replicators, photons and forcefields.” She attacked her own bread bowl. “With things like holo-novels, you play out the story from the INSIDE. Voyager has two holodecks and, frankly, without them we all probably would’ve gone stark raving mad after the first couple years.”

“A hundred and forty some people stuck on board with no shore leave for months at a time? Tuvok would be a lot busier.” Paris quipped, not noticing the moustache his drink had left along the blond’s upper lip. Harry nodded along, sharing a smirk with B’elanna over Tom’s face.

“I can see that.” Leo answered, carefully running his tongue along his own upper beak. “So to me, this holo-novel thing kinda sounds like a virtual reality role-playing game?”

Nods all around. “That would be a decent description of it.” Harry answered. “Tom and I spend about one afternoon a week in there. Maybe you should join us sometime? Defeat the forces of evil and go for dinner after?”

The turtle huffed a soft laugh. “I think I’d like that.”

Conversation fell to more mundane topics after that for the short time it took the later arrivals to finish their desserts. Lunch over, they split off to their individual tasks with Tom helping Leo make their way back to Sickbay.

One elevator ride later, “It’s actually called a turbolift.”, they were back on the right deck. “So,” Leo slowed a little, stamina running out along with the sleepiness of a good meal, “at the risk of being really rude, what … species is B’elanna?”

Tom smiled. “No it’s fine. It’s just something you’ll learn over time. B’elanna is actually a hybrid. Her father was human, and her mother was Klingon.” He looked up, clearly trying to think of the best way to explain. “Klingons aren’t part of the federation. They’re a warrior culture that we used to be enemies with, but awhile ago we made peace and eventually became allies. Most of the time we get along ok but there’re hiccups once in a while.” Extending a hand, asking permission with his eyes, Tom took ahold of Leo’s left elbow to help him along. “She spent most of her childhood on a federation colony, but some on Qo’nos, the Klingon homeworld, too. Culturally she leans more human, but she definitely has the Klingon temper. Her bark is usually worse than her bite though.”

Leo made a mental note to learn more later as they finally shuffled back into Sickbay. The Doctor greeted them and came over to give his patient a look see how the turtle fared after his little expedition. Once the two Starfleet officers got back to their regular work, Leon dug out his pad.

Ok, Vulcans. The database was extensive and ate up a couple hours just covering an overview. At the end he was left with an impression of a people that overall were ridged, but for a reason. They simply weren’t capable of the same flexibility that humans were. The tradeoff was that they excelled in the things they WERE good at. In their natural enviroment, they were virtually unmatched for endurance, nearly as strong as Leo himself and mental powerhouses to boot. So pointed ears and brows, don’t touch, be more straightforward and factual. Got it. Hopefully he wouldn’t stick his foot in his beak the first time he really interacted with one.

Klingons next. Pretty much the polar opposite of Vulcans. Passionate, violent and largely ruled by emotions; the only things they had in common were physical strength, cold intolerance and an iron clad social structure that kept everything else from falling apart. There was only one Klingon he likely would be dealing with for now and according to Tom she was more human like than Klingon. Still, he resolved to observe and take Klingon traits into consideration when dealing with her. That gagh sounds interesting though.

After Paris left, Leo got up to replicate himself some dinner. Still feeling full from the substantial lunch, he opted for a simple tomato soup and grilled cheese; enjoying the comfort food to take his necessary meds with. A quick shower later he settled into bed warm, fed and tired with an overall peaceful day to hopefully fuel pleasant dreams. As the Doctor lowered the lights early for the exhausted man, Leonardo thought of his family. G’night guys. Wish you were here. Hope you’re good together, wherever you are.

A fitful night later, Leon was roused by the customary brightening of sick bay’s lights for morning and a pleasant smell. Opening cobalt eyes, he saw a kitchen tray on the opposite bed. “I thought you might like to have breakfast handy when you woke up.” The Doctor said from the central console where he was tapping away at muted screens.

“Thanks Doc.” Leo sat up and grabbed what turned out to be some type of cereal with fruit and a coffee with all the fixings on the side. Coffee wasn’t his favourite thing, but he recognized that he couldn’t waste replicator rations on his favourite beverage every day.

Breakfast finished, he carried his dishes to the replicator, took care of his morning constitutional and headed back out to face the expectant Doctor. “What?” The hologram chuckled a little. “I’d like to have a look at your wound to see if it stills needs the sealant patch.”

“Oh, ok.” Leo laid down and the Doctor got to work. At least it was on his plastron so he didn’t have to deal with the feeling of a giant bandaid being peeled off his skin; though his scales had thickened with age, so it probably wouldn’t be as bad as when he was a kid. “Remarkable.” The Doctor muttered, looking over the nearly sealed keratin. Ok, even for us that’s fast. “How? I figured you were just giving me really good painkillers. How’s it all closed up already? I mean… I know I was designed to heal quick but…”

“We used the autosuture to close the wound from inside out. I imagine this is the result of both your accelerated healing, and our treatment.” The Doctor pressed around the wound to judge any lingering tenderness. Apparently satisfied, he said, “Well, I don’t think we need to cover it up anymore. I’ve noticed other injuries to your shell; does it eventually grow out or..?”

Leo ran a practiced hand over the various nicks and crevices of his plastron. “Yeah, enough sheds and the shell mostly smooths out again.” Sitting up he asked, “So how’d you heal me from the inside?” This cascaded into hours spent going over various medical devices and learning how they worked. There was a bit of a hiccup when they discovered that his fingers were a skosh too big for the tricorder buttons. “We’ll have to get you a larger model.”

Shortly before lunch, a large human with the first tattoo Leo’d seen here, walked into Sickbay. “Hello Commander.” The Doctor took the lead, “Leonardo Hamato, this is Commander Chakotay, first officer.” The two shook hands as the hologram stepped to the side. “It’s nice to meet you Mr Hamato.”

The giant turtle shook his head. “Please, just Leo. It’s nice to meet you too Commander.”

“Chakotay is fine.” A gentle smile was on the man’s square jaw. “I’m actually here to extend an invitation. The Captain would like to know if you’d be up to joining us for lunch in her ready room.”

Anxiety raced through Leon’s body; this was probably going to be a SERIOUS conversation. “Uh, sure, ok. Lead the way.”

Chakotay gestured to the door. “Don’t worry, she doesn’t bite.”

Leo was glad at least that his legs were steadier today. He ran through some subtle breathing exercises as they walked to the turbolift. “Bridge.” Chakotay ordered and up they went. Moment later the doors wooshed open, giving the ninja his first look at Voyager’s command deck.

A bright wide room full of sweeping curves and beeping consoles was dominated by an expansive, forward-facing window on the lower level. The view was identical to the one from the Mess Hall, stars streaking by as they hurtled through space at speeds Leo couldn’t imagine. Speaking of… “Chakotay?”

The copper skinned man paused off to Leo’s right. “Yes?”

“How fast are we going?”

Chakotay chuckled a little. “Right now, we’re cruising at warp 8. That’s about 500 billion kilometres an hour.”

“That….. is not helpful at all.”

The first officer smirked. “You’ll get used to it. This way?” He gestured further off to their right and led the bewildered warrior through another door. On the other side was a large office, continuing the theme of sweeping lines. Janeway’s desk was covered with pads and what looked like a laptop. The Captain herself was setting a tray of food on a low table by more panoramic windows. “Gentlemen.” She stood and walked toward them; hands clasped over her middle.

Once at a polite distance, the auburn-haired woman extended her hand to their guest. “Leo. It’s good to see again. How are you doing?”

Leon’s giant metal grasp engulfed hers, not seeming to intimidate the woman at all. “Better thanks. Everyone’s been great.”

A soft smile grew on her face. “I’m glad to hear that.” She walked over to a replicator. “I took the liberty of getting Chakotay and I’s meals first. What can I get for you?” At his hesitation Janeway held up a hand, “My treat.” Relieved he could keep his, as of yet, scant rations, the turtle answered, “Uh, tonkotsu ramen please.”

Chakotay led him up to the couch while the Captain brought his tray over. “Thank you ma’am.” He said, taking the food and setting it over his lap. “You’re very welcome.”

They sat and all got a few bites in before starting to talk. “So now that you’ve had an opportunity to get your bearings,” Katherine began picking over her chicken salad, “what are your thoughts so far? Do you have any questions?”

Doing his best not to slurp, Leonardo pondered for a second. “Well, like I said, everyone’s been great. Really welcoming.” Both CO’s beamed with pride in their crew. “I don’t… I don’t know where else I’d go anyway…”

Setting down his sandwich, Chakotay reassured the ninja, “Don’t think that you’re obligating yourself to stay. We’ve always maintained the option for people to leave if they want.” The command pair shared a look, Janeway nodding encouragingly. He continued, “You can stay for awhile, get some training, see if it’s a good fit. If nothing else, you’ll gain some skills that could help if you do decide to leave.”

Leon nodded while they all focused on their meals for a moment, then Janeway swallowed and spoke again. “We’ll arrange some introductory courses to familiarize you with crucial technology, emergency systems, general information about this universe; then we can move on to more specialized training. What are your interests? Positions you’ve held before?” The Captain ducked her head, taking another bite of chicken.

Is this what a job interview feels like? The giant reptile settled back into comfy cushions a little, letting his shell sink in. “Well for the last twenty some years I led the resistance fighting the Krang. That was fun.” He suppressed a disgusted smirk. “Uh.. I’m a Master Ninja and a trained field medic. Most of that was getting people back to base to proper doctors. Lots of battlefield experience. I’m a decent shot but hand to hand and swordsmanship are my speciality.” He finished with a shrug, swirling his soup with the spoon.

Finishing off his own meal, Chakotay observed, “Well you could definitely be an asset with security, particularly on away missions; but if you’d like to pursue medicine; the Doctor is shorthanded in sick bay.” Heaving himself up, the Commander headed over to snag a small container off Janeway’s desk. Returning to set it on the table he opened the lid, revealing what smelled like a dessert.

The Captain leaned forward to select a portion for herself. “In any case, you have options. We can get you up to speed first and settled, then you can begin looking at what you’d like to do.”

Leon finished the last of his soup, nodding along. “Sounds like a plan.” He paused, “Thank you Captain. All of you have been so welcoming and I really appreciate your help.” Setting his empty bowl on the table, “I hope I can pay you back someday.”

She held up a hand. “Not at all. Offering any possible assistance is a core Federation value; we’re happy to help. It’s resulted in many excellent friendships over the years.” Janeway handed her dishes to Chakotay, who also grabbed the other two sets and returned them to the replicator. “But one step at a time. I believe there’s a refresher course this week on ship’s emergency systems; you can join in on that class to get started.” She rose as her second stepped back up, another, smaller, box in his hands.

Sensing the more formal air, Leonardo stood, stepping forward as the Captain reached into the little box to pick up a copy of the badge that he’d seen everyone wearing. “This is a combadge,” she began, “short for communication badge. It also allows the main computer to monitor your location and vital signs.” Reacting forward, the woman pinned it to Leo’s wrap. “Welcome to Voyager, Mr Hamato.”

Neelix had been called to the Captain’s ready room, and now the ship’s moral officer was escorting Leon to his newly assigned quarters. “Here we are, deck three!” the talaxian exclaimed as they stepped off the turbolift. “Quarters with a tub? You’ve lucked out my friend. Sonic showers are lovely, but needing to bathe in water? I envy you.”

“I’m looking forward to it myself, being a turtle and all.” Leo replied, ignoring the fatigue setting in after walking more than he had since getting yeeted across the multiverse.

The other man cocked his head. “I’m afraid I don’t know much about that side of you. Turtles like water then?”

Leon huffed a laugh. “Like? Yeah, you could say that. I’m a red eared slider, considered semi-aquatic, and I haven’t gotten to swim in over a decade. I’m gonna have to drag myself out of that tub.” Good thing I’ve been able to shower every day.

Neelix pulled up next to a door. “Well, we have to get you into the holodeck as soon as possible then. There’s some wonderful swimming programs, I’m sure you’ll enjoy them. Oh!” He pressed a few buttons on the control panel. “Push your fingers to it now so the door can key to you.” Two fingers connecting, the panel acknowledged with a little chime and the doors swooshed open.

Spotted face split by a wide grin, Neelix waved the slider into his new home. Like most of the ship it was smooth lines, grey walls and blue/purple carpeting. Three high windows dominated the opposite wall. Tearing his eyes away from the stars racing past, he took in a desk to his immediate right, a replicator in the adjacent wall and a low, grey couch under the windows. About two feet past that was a decently sized bed. The last wall held a door that looked like it led into another Starfleet style washroom. Leon’s inspection of the place was interrupted by Neelix scurrying over to the replicator where he began to enter commands. ��I’m just adding some more replicator rations so that you can get a few necessities. Toiletries, a few changes of clothes and such. You’ll also have holodeck time added on a weekly basis. You don’t have to use it all at once, but with how much demand there is, just remember that you’ll have to book a session in advance.”

The slightly manic chef then bustled over to the washroom, “Has anyone shown you how to use the clothes refresher yet?”

“Uh.. no?”

A quick lesson on the squat appliance led into a thorough tour of its attached closet and bathroom facilities. Neelix then went through a more comprehensive explanation of the various features of Leo’s new quarters as a whole and some more of the onboard creature comforts; as well as community events in the mess hall and holodeck. Eventually the exuberant man petered out. “Is there anything else you’d like to ask right now?”

Fighting off a headache, “No, I think I’m ok for now,” the giant reptile replied.

“All right then. I’ll be off. Ah!” Neelix paused halfway out the door, “Tom wanted me to let you know that he’ll be having dinner with B’elanna and Harry in the mess hall at 17:00 if you’d like to join them.” Message delivered with a smile, the talaxian headed out, leaving Leonardo completely alone for the first time since arriving on board.

Pulling April’s gifted sword from his hip, Leo set the sheathed blade on his desk. He then hauled a chair over to settle in for a “shopping spree” at the replicator. First, toiletries. Once he had those squirreled away, he turned to clothing. As Neelix had indicated, the Doctor had helpfully entered Leon’s measurements so he could order clothes that FIT. First things first, a shirt. The ship was just slightly cooler than a mutant reptile would like.

A couple hours later, Leo’d worked his way through the available selections, happily discovering options from a culture of humanoid reptiles very similar to himself in overall structure. Given things were being replicated, he was able to combine the designs with more familiar earth materials. The results were a couple more pairs of pants, combat boots, t-shirts, a hoodie and undergarments that were not only comfortable, but flattering, even with the hump of his shell.

Then he steeled himself for an incoming emotional storm. I’ll be eating nothing but mess chow for awhile but.. First, a proper stand for his sword, then a long band of orange silk, small jade figurines of a rat and goat along with a pair of candles. Items acquired, the striped turtle stood and looked about his new home. Those windowsills are pretty wide. Once kneeling on the couch, Leo set the stand in the middle window, placed the candles and figurines, then sat cross legged to gently undo the bands of his sword’s hilt, cleaned them as best he could and meticulously wove them back together with the additional stripe of orange.

Chin trembling as he reverently placed his sword on its new stand, Leo resigned himself to facing the scraps he had left of his family. The last Hamato settled himself sideways on the grey seat, gazing past his little set up to the ancient stars flying by. I’m so sorry. I miss you all so much. Reaching into his side pouch, Leon pulled out a small, pinkish rock he’d been carrying around for the last twelve years. He remembered little Casey running up. “Unca! Unca! Look!”

He’d knelt down to the boy’s level, trying not to get bonked by Casey’s outstretched fist. “What’cha got there Case?”

“Sah rock!”

Leo’d fought not to laugh. “Yeah, I can see that.”

Little Casey had held it up to his deep, brown eye like a prospector. “Sah pretty! Like goooold.”

Sure enough, there were yellow veins and sparkles running through the stone. No wonder the child had thought it bits of gold. “Wow Case! You struck it big. Good job buddy.”

Then the tiny grubby hand had been thrust back into Leonardo’s face. “For you!”

That kid. He found something he thought was pretty and valuable then immediately decided to give it to someone else. Leo had fussed over the child and his gift, thanking him profusely as he put the rock into his pouch for safe keeping. Even then, he’d had a hard time to keep from crying, now?… he didn’t try.

Weeping with heaving sobs tearing through his plastron, Leon placed the tiny rock in the centre of his family memorial; hoping desperately that his last living relative was enjoying a much happier world now. Bereft of everyone he’d every loved, Leo sank face down into the cushions and mourned.

An informal meeting was taking place elsewhere on the ship. Chakotay and Katherine were joined in her ready room by Tuvok and the Doctor. “Well gentlemen,” she began, “we have a new provisional crew member. Doctor, you’ve spent the most time with him, what’s your evaluation?” she asked from behind her desk.

The hologram settled into his seat. “Overall, I’d say he’s doing well for his circumstances. Physically, he’s recovering rapidly. Emotionally? That’s harder to track.” The Doctor paused a moment, gathering data and his thoughts. “Part of the problem is, I’m unsure how much his physiology affects his psychology. Going strictly by human parameters though, he could be worse?” He sighed. “Leo’s lost everyone he cares for along with his entire world, not to mention the damage that would result from two decades of war. Frankly he’s either remarkably well adjusted or ruthlessly suppressing his emotions, and not in the healthy for a Vulcan way.”

“Few people can.” Remarked their resident Vulcan his in superior/joking manner. Everyone took it for the good-natured banter that it was and refocused on the matter at hand. The Doctor started up again. “I did broach the topic of counselling, but he wasn’t ready for it yet, though he didn’t dismiss the notion outright. At this point, I think all we can do is wait and help him as issues arise. Likely now that he is safe, his mind will begin to process things that he simply couldn’t afford to before.”

Everyone digested this. “Well,” Chakotay ventured, leaning against the wall, “however that situation develops, so far he seems agreeable and willing to work with us.” He turned to their seated security chief, “He was in a leadership position during the conflict and is an accomplished soldier. I’ll write you a full report, but you might want to talk to him about evaluating his skill set to see if you can make use of him.”

A concerned looking Doctor piped up, raising his hand. “Ah.. Leo also mentioned that he is a trained field medic and has an interest in medicine.”

The two humans laughed softly to themselves. “Staking a claim Doctor?” Katherine asked sardonically.

“Oh.. well…”

Chakotay took pity on him. “He told us that too, Doctor; and we assured him that he can pursue whatever options he likes once we get him up to speed on more overall training. If Leo would prefer a more peaceful career path now, we’ll absolutely go that route. If not, he can still be added to your rotation of assistants.” The commander assured. Mollified, their Doctor settled down.

Janeway asserted herself, “We’re agreed then. Basic training first, then Tuvok and the Doctor can assess his skills and offer him further training in those fields. In the meantime, Doctor, monitor Leo closely, particularly his mental state. Hopefully, we’ll be able to head off any problems before they get out of hand.”

At her nod, they began to disperse, the Vulcan commander choosing to stay behind. “Tuvok?” Katherine asked, getting up to go around her desk and take the Doctor’s abandoned chair, “You have other concerns?”

He inhaled and shifted in his seat. “Yes. Two things. One, we still do not know exactly how this portal of his brother’s brought him here. Two, with that in mind, we do not know if these Krang would be able to follow him through. If they are as dangerous as he says, we need to determine if they present a threat to our universe, and if so, how to combat them.”

She sat back, bracing her forearm between desk and temple while gesturing with the other. “I agree, but I hesitate to push him to speak about something that MUST be traumatizing before he’s ready.”

“We may not have the luxury to wait.” Her security chief observed.

Pulling her legs up onto her chair, Katherine sighed. “I know. You’re right of course, but they might not end up being a factor at all; and if we hamper his recovery over nothing…” the human trailed off, staring helplessly at the ceiling.

“The needs of the many…” her old friend intoned.

“Yes, yes. No need to quote Spock at me.” She said, slumping a bit to consider her old mentor. … actually. “Well, we could kill two birds with one stone.”

Something must have shown on her face as the Vulcan suddenly looked… “alarmed.”

“Captain?”

She smirked. “Part of developing one’s skills as a command officer is learning to navigate difficult situations with subordinates that are dealing with heightened emotions.” Something a Vulcan avoids like the plague. “Perhaps you should look for an opportunity after the training session to speak with him, maybe see if it’s a good time to learn more about these Krang.”

The way his face completely locked down ALMOST made her start laughing. “Captain, given his….emotionally delicate condition, I would recommend someone more adept with such matters. You yourself are concerned that it would be too soon..”

Nope, you’re not getting out of this. It was your idea. “But as you said, it needs to be done anyway, and I have plenty of experience handling such matters.” The unspoken “you don’t” hung between them.

Tuvok allowed himself to vent his displeasure by working his jaw, once. “Very well Captain. I will endeavour to learn what I can while not traumatizing our newest crewmember.”

Atta boy. Start to see him as someone you’re in a bad situation WITH. “Carry on Commander.” She waited until he was nearly out the door. “Tuvok?” The disgruntled security officer glanced back at her, “Treat him the way you’d want one of your children treated in his position.” Understanding flashed in his eyes, then he nodded and continued out. You’re more emotionally intelligent than you think. Katherine smiled to herself, grabbed her mug and swigged the remnants of cold coffee. You may be wiser than me, old friend, but I’m wilier.

Leo raised his face from the basin of cold water, patted himself dry with a towel then checked his eyes in the mirror. Twenty minutes before he was supposed to head to the mess hall and his face was still all red and puffy from crying. The crew had to know he was in mourning, but he didn’t want to be obvious about it.

Pinching a few scales under one dark eye, he pulled, extending the baggy skin further than it should go. Yikes. Good thing I wear a mask. Plunging back into the basin, Leo thanked Draxum for the extended lung capacity.

Looking up again ten minutes later, the slider decided it was good enough, dried off once more and grabbed his new hoodie, attaching the combadge to it. Comfy, he checked his appearance in the mirror once more, then walked back into the main room and sat on the end of his bed. Stomping into combat boots, Leon spared a glance for his sword. It’d probably make people more comfortable if I left it here. Not like I have to worry about the Krang popping up from around a corner.

He walked out of his quarters, sword on hip, and tried to remember how to reach Voyager’s mess hall. The turbolift was easy enough; it was visible from his door. Once inside he cautiously called out, “Deck two?”, and the space elevator quickly moved up one deck then opened again. From here he followed his nose, then the sound of conversation to the rotating crowd of people having dinner/breakfast, depending on which shift they were.

Tom spotted him first, waving from what Leo was now guessing to be their customary table. Collecting a tray of what looked like steak and fries with a salad, Leo quickly dropped off his food, exchanging greetings, and grabbed his supplements from the replicator. Finally sorted, he plunked down next to Harry. “So, I’m guessing this is no animal I’ve ever heard of before.”

They all chuckled a little. “Honestly, none of us knows what it is.” Said B’Elanna, “We picked it up at a planet about a month ago. It’s alright. Tastes cheesy?”

Leo poked the piece of meat with his fork. “We talking mozzarella or blue?”

“Monteray Jack?” Harry chimed in.

As long as it isn’t rat. “I can work with that.” The slider dug into his steak which indeed had a faint flavour of jack cheese. “Not bad.”

They ate for awhile, B’Elanna going over their latest test results in engineering, which led into an attempt to explain warp drive and dilithium crystals. Results were mixed. Leon thought he got the bare basics; dilithium important, new fake dilithium important invention, but the three officers were still giving him “oh the poor primitive” looks. Well, just shows how much I’ve got to learn, I guess.

“So, how’d your meeting with the Captain go?” Kim asked, in between bites of salad. At Leo’s questioning look, he continued, “I was on the bridge when you came up. You must’ve not seen me. My duty station is at the opposite end of the bridge from the Captain’s ready room.”

Leonardo filed that little tidbit away. “Oh, yeah. It went ok. Laid out a general plan for getting me up to speed starting with a training session for ship’s emergency systems.”

“Oooh, hope you don’t get motion sick easy. The loss of artificial gravity portion can really mess with you.” Tom said, unpleasant memories scrolling across his face.

“YOU got sick?” B’Elanna asked, bewildered.

“No, of course not. Couldn’t be a good pilot without a strong stomach.” Paris replied. “Some of my classmates at the academy however…. I’m pretty sure the cleaning staff used those days as a punishment.”

Resolutely putting that thought out of mind while EATING, the slider continued his original telling. “I also got some matching jewellery,” he waved at the combadge on his hoodie; which immediately chirped. “Doctor to Hamato.”

“Uhhh ….”

B’Elanna rescued him. “No one explained? Ok, tap it and say ‘Hamato here.’”

He followed her instructions. “Ah, Hamato here Doctor.”

“Would you be available for an appointment tomorrow at 0900 hours in holodeck 2?”

Leo smirked to himself. “Lemme check my calendar Doc.” He threw a couple fries in his mouth while the others smiled and stifled their chuckles. “Yeah, I think I can squeeze you in.” There was a moment of silence with the ninja desperately hoping he hadn’t just sabotaged one potential relationship for three others. The hologram replied ruefully, “Very good Leo. I’ll see you there; if you can find it. Doctor out.”

Leon barked a laugh. “He’s sassy.”

Chewing on the last of his steak, Tom muttered around his food. “It’s part of his charm.”

The next morning found a befuddled turtle wandering deck six. I wish the labelling on the doors was bigger, or even existent sometimes. They probably have the whole ship memorized after living onboard for years. Turning a corner, he finally spotted the Doctor waiting, looking in the other direction. “Hey Doc!”

Surprised, the man turned at Leon’s call. “Ah! Leo. So, you did manage to find your way.” He replied with a cheeky grin.

“Yeah yeah. I’m not sure I need physio now after walking all over two decks. You guys need signs.” The slider griped playfully. He didn’t quite get the response he’d been aiming for though. “Are you alright? Did you overexert yourself?” the Doctor asked, concerned.

“Just playing with you Doc. Good food and rest has already done a lot.”

The hologram settled, reassured. “Oh, good. Let’s get started then, I already have the program running.” The door opened and Leo was hit with the scent of humid air and plants. Poking his head in, he was blown away by the sight of a pristine lake surrounded by forests with a long wooden dock leading out into the water. Fuzzy memories of a weekend in the woods with Todd came to mind, but not with the same pang that such a realistic facsimile of New York would’ve conjured. The faint buzz of the holograms against his tremor sense helped too.

He realized he was gawking when the Doctor tapped him on the shoulder. “Leo?”

“Sorry,” shaking his striped head, “it’s just really…..real?”

“No problem. We can change in the cabin.” And sure enough, off to the side was an old, rustic wood cabin. Quickly switching into form fitting shorts, just like when we were kids, Leo was easing into summer-warm water, the Doctor nearby just in case.

It wasn’t necessary though as, even injured, a turtle is at their best in water. After quickly warning the Doctor of how long he could stay under, Leonardo slid beneath the surface, submerging in clean, fresh water for what felt like the very first time. Pushing off one of the dock pylons, he surged forward, aiming for deeper water and a forest of weeds. Thank you for waterproofing the arm Dee.

The next hour was spent cruising about the small lake, occasionally startling the Doctor from below and just in general getting his swim on. Eventually, they had to relinquish the room for the next crewman eager to escape Voyager’s limited halls.

Drying off, clothes spread across a bench in the cabin’s washroom, Leon revelled in the loose, relaxed state he hadn’t properly experienced since childhood. Battling back guilt and grief that wanted to flood in, Mikey’s sage counsel rang through his mind; grieve as you need to, but don’t forget to take breaks from it too.

“How are you feeling?” the Doctor’s call shook him back to full awareness. “Good,” he answered, shrugging into a tee as he walked back out trying not to snag it on his metal arm, “refreshed, tired; but in the happy way, not the blech way.”

The other man smiled. “Good, that’s what we’re going for. I’m prescribing this for one hour every day for the next two weeks. Since it’s a prescription, it won’t come out of your holodeck allotment.” Carefully watching Leo’s stride as they left, he added, “I don’t think you’ll need further supervision, you seem to be moving easily enough. There’s also safety protocols in the holodeck, just so you know.”

“Thanks.”

The hologram then gave Leo a side eye; one the old conman easily saw as an attempt to be sly. “If you don’t have other plans, you’re welcome in sickbay. I’m not busy and happy to help you learn more about modern medicine.” Subtle. Leonardo was aware that the Doctor was looking to poach the slider for his medical staff, such as it was.

“You’d set aside your whole morning for little ole me? I’m flattered.” The balding man smirked in return as Leon continued, “Sounds like fun, lead the way.”

The Doctor smiled, wide and genuine and guided his new friend to sick bay.

Doctor Crusher then removed the reproductive parasite from Commander Leijten’s thymus resulting the Commander’s immune response reasserting itself and reverting all physical alterations.

Leo took a break from reading to sip at his water, suddenly very grateful that the Krang hadn’t been able to produce spores or something else OP like that. Their ability to infect… everything, had been bad enough as it was.

Stars rushing by the mess hall windows reassured him that he was safely far from any Krang; as best he knew anyway. Don’t borrow trouble Leo. Turning attention back to his pad, Leonardo continued reading the wild and wonderful Federation medical database. Currently the best distraction from Leon’s alternating cycle of nightmares and insomnia, the turtle was thoroughly enjoying his second favourite nerdy obsession, biology and medicine.

He nodded in acknowledgement as a handful of crewmembers came in to grab a meal, likely on their nightshift lunch break. Leo made a mental note to clear out in another couple hours before Neelix came in to start breakfast prep; he didn’t want the Talaxian tattling to the Doctor about Leo’s lack of sleep. Especially since his didn’t want anything changing today’s plans.

Today was going to be his first official training session, emergency procedures. He was supposed to meet the class in cargo bay one at 1000 hours, just late enough to get in his morning swim. But first, Barclay’s Disease? Do tell.

A few hours later, the ninja master was getting some extra PT trying to find cargo bay one. I’m starting to think they make everything look the same on purpose. Boarders would get lost trying to find the important stuff. At least he’d had the foresight to give himself lots of extra time to get from the holodeck to the cargo bay.

Finally, he overheard a couple of people mentioning Tuvok as they walked through a set of doors ahead and decided to take a chance. Poking his head into the room, he suddenly had the attention of about a dozen people in a large space lined with shelving full of crates and pallets of plastic barrels. “Uh.. hi. Is this the emergency procedures class?”

A little girl with red hair and .. horns? on her forehead bounced up. “Yep! You’re just in time! We’re waiting for Commander Tuvok, he should be here soon.”

Leo’s brain stuttered for a moment as he realised there were three children present as well, looking to range in age from 10 to 16. “Oh, good.” He looked around, making sure all adults were ok with him talking to their kids. “Thanks for letting me know, little lady. I’m Leo,” he said, ducking his head down closer to her level.

She bounced again, a tall teen boy coming up behind her, “I’m Naomi Wildman! I’m the Captain’s assistant.” The red head answered with the absolute confidence only a child could have.

The ninja snapped to attention. “Yes Ma’am. Good to know.”

“We need to be ready for Commander Tuvok Naomi.” The dark-haired boy said as he pulled her away by a gentle hand on her shoulder. Leo noticed the signature of Borg technology on the boy’s face as he gave the turtle a suspicious look. Good man, take care of her, Leo couldn’t help but think. Fearlessness could be an asset, but it could also get that kid in a lot of trouble without someone a little more sceptical at her side. Leo resolutely didn’t think about watching out for Mikey in the past.

He was thankfully distracted by the doors whooshing open to admit the oft mentioned Commander Tuvok. Stern, the Vulcan swept his eyes over them all, lingering over Leonardo for a barely detectable moment. “Greetings. Today we will be reviewing emergency procedures. Firstly,” the children pushed forward to the front of the group, “where are the emergency kits located?”

Naomi’s hand shot up. “Two panels up from the floor and three left of the door.”

Their instructor nodded, “Correct,” then walked to said panel. Tuvok gestured to a green uniformed woman on Leo’s right. She scooted forward and removed the panel by lifting it up and off the wall. Oh, that’s clever. I wonder if there’s something behind every panel. Making a mental note to check in his own quarters after, Leo craned his neck to watch Tuvok’s demonstration as everyone crowded in closer.

There were three large cases in the wall. Pulling out one labelled with the Starfleet Medical logo, Tuvok opened it for all to see laid out on the floor. “Here we have your emergency medical kit.” He went on to list its contents, medical tricorder, dermal regenerator and other schmancy things the Doctor had already helpfully demonstrated for the long-time medic.

Next, Tuvok moved onto the other cases, one being a breathing unit with gases for multiple species, (“You never know who we may have to help in an emergency,” one person helpfully supplied.), a flashlight stowed in the bottom, and finally, a fire extinguisher with different compartments for various forms of fire. That prompted several questions from Leonardo on how to choose which you needed.

“Why isn’t the emergency stuff panel labelled?” Leo asked once Tuvok nodded at his raised hand. The other little girl present jolted, stopping herself from blurting out her thoughts. The Commander noticed. “Would you like to answer Mezoti?”

The girl, Mezoti apparently, smiled ever so slightly and answered in a flat voice, “Not all Federation species can see the same wavelengths of light and, therefore, the same colours. In order to avoid any difficulties in an emergency, all federation facilities, vehicles and vessels have emergency supplies in the same location in every room and corridor.” The young borg, she too had the implants, then folded her hands in front of her waist so primly Leo could almost see his twin standing next to her smirking. I really need to stop comparing everyone to them.

Leon was helped to fight off memories by Tuvok announcing the next phase of their training; what to do if the artificial gravity fails. Within minutes, the turtle was happily bouncing around, enjoying a freedom of movement that he hadn’t had in years. It was almost like his portals. Oh I didn’t realize how much I missed this. It was even better than swimming. Effortless, no drag, there was nothing to slow him down.

Flipping around, the slider used the opportunity to inspect parts of the room he couldn’t see before. Crates had thoughtfully been strapped down to their many shelving units, labels only saying things like A-2, they must use some index to keep track of what’s in which box. Saves them having to change labels all the time I suppose. Crewmembers floated by, one clearly fighting to keep his stomach down. All the kids seemed fine. Honestly they were just playing at this point with some of the others that weren’t bothered by the loss of a fundamental force.

“You seem comfortable in a zero-gravity enviroment.” Leo glanced down to see the Vulcan Commander floating beneath him. “Oh, yeah. I used portals a lot when I was a kid. Enter in one point, exit in another, and the gravity would change almost every time. Frankly, this is easier on my stomach.”

“Used portals? How di-“

“Mr Tuvok!” Both turned as someone lost their battle.

…. Ewwwwwwww….

Gravity restored and mess cleaned up, Tuvok moved on to their next lesson; question seemingly forgotten. Now they were drilled on battle stations, currently Leo’s would be his quarters, emergency shelter locations, Leo was told to go to the mess hall if he wasn’t badly injured or just do what the most senior crew member he was with told him. They covered a variety of other topics, hull breach, life support failure, how to report injuries and damage to the ship, etc.

Finally, they made like a day care class and toddled out into the hallway. “In every corridor along the outer hull, the panels are entrances to escape pods.” The Vulcan pulled a panel open to demonstrate his words. “Please open a panel for yourselves.”

Watching his classmates, Leo worked up his nerve to grapple with the panel in front of him. Pulling it up and off, a jumbo shower-stall sized space with a bench and control panels was laid out in front of him, lights quickly activating. Carefully manoeuvring his bulk into the pod, Leon sat and tried to make sense of everything in front of him. Happily, his instructor took the ninja’s lack of experience into account. Crouching just outside the pod, Tuvok spoke loud enough for all to hear his directions, while giving Leo some show to go with his tell.

“If you are incapable of piloting the pod yourself, select auto pilot here and it will follow any other Starfleet pods in the vicinity.” He said, indicating the appropriate buttons. In a softer voice, Tuvok added, “Basic pilot training will be offered on another occasion.” Leo nodded his understanding and thanks. Resuming his instruction, the Vulcan explained their pod’s various functions, emergency supplies and S.O.P. when you find yourself having to abandon ship.

The training session wound down with a few extra questions from the kids, mostly Naomi, then everyone started to disperse. A quiet, “Mr Hamato?” held Leo back.

Given what he’d read about Vulcans, and how formal the man had been today, Leon decided to match his energy. “Yes Commander?” He realized that he’d unconsciously fallen into parade rest.

“Given your inexperience with our technology, you performed well today.” Tuvok commended, a calculating look in his eye.

Deciding to avoid the gaping wound of explaining Donnie, “The Doctor’s been showing me how to use stuff, especially med tech.” He huffed a bit, shifting his weight onto his left leg. “Pretty sure he’s trying to lure me into sickbay with shiny toys.”

The other man raised a pointed eyebrow. “Indeed. If you are feeling well enough, would you be willing to engage in an evaluation of your combat skills? As security chief, I am responsible for the crew’s ability to defend themselves in case of attack.”

Leo took a second to look within. He felt pretty much back up to snuff; would probably be healthier than he had been since childhood soon, what with proper nutrition and clean water finally available. Honestly, he’d gone into all out drag out fights with the Krang in much worse shape; a bit of sparring shouldn’t be a problem.

“Yeah, I’m up for it.”

Tuvok promptly led Leo back to the holodeck he’d been swimming in just this morning. Stopping at the door panel, the Vulcan intoned, “Computer, run Tuvok 3.” They walked into the holodeck, currently set up to look like what Leo guessed was a gymnasium or training centre. Starfleet grey walls loomed high overhead with lighting and handles hanging from the ceiling. Oooo, that’s some serious verticality. Benches lined the walls, a set of towels with water bottles on one nearby. Painted lines in various colours marked out shapes on the floor, likely different forms of training spaces/fighting rings. At least it didn’t SMELL like a gym. The dark-skinned man led them into a changeroom with handy workout clothes set aside from each of their replicated wardrobes.

Turning around to give the illusion of privacy, Leo changed into gym shorts and a tank top. “Ready?” Tuvok asked, which Leonardo took as a prompt to turn around and was greeted by the sight of his instructor in some form-fitting bicycle outfit thing. That does NOT look comfy. Wait, we’re gonna be grappling at some point….

So far, everyone had been good with Leo’s questions so, “Um, just to make sure I’m not thinking something I shouldn’t, I read up on the.. species I’ve met so far? And it said not to touch Vulcans?”

The other man’s face shifted ever so slightly; what that meant, Leo had no idea.

“Normally, you would be correct. It is polite to refrain from physical contact with Vulcans out of consideration for our touch telepathy.” Tuvok paused a moment, clearly watching to see how Leonardo would react to that tidbit. Oookay. Touches you, reads your mind. The slider did his best to keep his face politely neutral, not wanting to react badly to something that was just a natural ability.

Whatever the other man saw, he continued, “However, in combat situations, physical contact is generally unavoidable; it is therefore beneficial for Vulcans to practice shielding our minds under such circumstances.”

Leo nodded along, “Yeah, makes sense. I apologize in advance for anything that might squeak through.”

Tuvok dipped his head in acknowledgement. “I appreciate your sentiments, however they are unnecessary. I am experienced in blocking out the thoughts of others to the point that I can, in fact, use my telepathy in combat to read my opponents intentions when making contact. Please rest assured that I will not do this now with you.”

Oof, that’d suck to fight. “Thanks, shall we?” Gesturing out to the gym proper.

Tuvok first lead them through a warmup, stretching, then a series of slow movements reminiscent of katas though they weren’t any specific forms he was familiar with. The Commander kept an eagle eye on his companion throughout, watching for any hitches in movement or signs of overexertion. Leonardo heartily approved. In fact, during his entire stay so far, he’d seen many encouraging examples that the command officers cared genuinely for the welfare of their crew, making him feel more and more that staying on board was his best option.

Everyone had been kind, he hadn’t noticed any disfunction in the command structure yet, the federation crew with its many humans was the closest thing to a known entity to him in this universe…. Until I have a reason not to, it’s probably best that I commit to throwing my lot in with these guys. They’ll be more likely to trust me then too.

“Well done.” The older man said, drawing Leonardo back to the here and now. “Let us move on to sparring.” Wasting no time, Tuvok launched into an attack.

Reflexively, Leon fell into the comfortable routine of block, dodge, grapple and quickly realized he was going to win. The Vulcan was definitely stronger than any human Leo’d fought and certainly knew what he was doing but…. Leonardo was a genetically engineered super soldier, trained by a ninjitsu master and had over twenty years of nearly daily combat experience; it wasn’t even a contest.

Credit where credit is due though, Voyager’s security chief was determined. Over and over he’d get back up and reengage, then Leo would come up with another way to yeet him across the room. Twist his arms together, toss. Jump to grab the ceiling handles, wrap legs around his upper torso and let rip. Spin, sweep the legs then kick on the second time around.

For a moment, the ninja considered letting Tuvok pin him a couple times but dismissed it. This was an evaluation; Leo himself would’ve chewed out a recruit that didn’t give their all and skewed the results.

So, they continued, Tuvok trying every trick he knew, and Leonardo batting him around the gym like a playful kitten. At least the officer wasn’t getting angry or frustrated at his lack of success. This time he grabbed the other man’s arm, pivoted and slung the Vulcan over his shoulder to roll ten feet across the floor. I’m running out of ways to throw him. But this time, as Tuvok rose to his feet panting slightly, he didn’t come back for more. “Excellent Leonardo. Most impressive.” Eyes focussed on the clock over Leo’s shoulder, he added, “We have nearly expended the time allotted; I would suggest changing clothes and conversing further after.” The vulcan’s eyes flicked between Leo and the clock again, nervously? “Perhaps over lunch?”

Leon answered with a nod. “Alright.”

Nothing was really said as the two got changed and headed for the mess hall. HIs lifelong urge to break tension with babble bubbled in Leo’s chest, but he still wasn’t sure of what was appropriate with the other man yet, so he was choosing to match Tuvok’s energy. Happily, it wasn’t long before they were both seated in the mess hall, soup, HOT SOUP!, in front of them. The slider wasn’t thrilled with it’s flavor, but he was far from picky at this point in life.

Finally, the Vulcan set his spoon down for a moment. “I was greatly impressed with your combat skills, Leonardo. My security teams could benefit from such training. Would you be willing to teach them?”

The slider blinked rapidly a few times. It really shouldn’t have surprised him as much as it did. One of Leo’s many duties in the resistance had been training troops whenever he had time, Casey, but he hadn’t expected so much so soon.

He’s giving you a chance Leon, don’t screw this up.

“Sure. I used to do that back home anyway. And I really do want to carry my weight.”

The Vulcan nodded once. “Excellent. It is good that you have previous experience as a trainer. I can rotate my staff through training sessions. Perhaps we could open it to the crew in general at a later date?” They spent the next hour or so hashing out a schedule that would allow for moderate progress while not overloading Leo as he learned and trained himself for life onboard.

Neelix thoughtfully brought them over some coffee with a wink and a smile towards the end. Wrapping his hands around the warm mug, Leon sipped, careful not to slurp. Tuvok also savored the warm beverage a moment. Oh right, Vulcans are from a desert world. He’s probably a little cold all the time too.

“I am impressed you were able to manage so many different responsibilities on your home world. A leader, teacher, soldier and medic. All of these require a great deal of time.”

Leonardo snorted after the older man finished. “Yeah well, it was kinda do or die.” Or do and die anyway. Ugly memories curdled in his stomach. We tried so hard and got so far… yadda, yadda, yadda.

It must have been written across his face or, y’know, the other man could put two and two together because Tuvok suddenly became even more solemn. “I grieve with thee.” He intoned; it sounded like a ritual response, “I cannot realistically imagine what you have endured Leonardo, but I have witnessed planet wide tragedies, even genocides, during my service in Starfleet. There are no words sufficient.”

Blinking rapidly, Leo wrestled his emotions, jaw grinding. “Thank you.” A sniff then, “You’re right. There’s no words. I just… there’s nothing left. An entire world of plants, animals and peoples… gone. Nothing left but Krang.” Damn chewing gum freaks.

“How did they..” His dinner companion trailed off, visibly effected for the first time the slider could tell.

“They’re parasites.” Voice gruff, Leo decided to take the route of a Doctor Donnie info dump. “Giant, nearly unkillable parasites.” Mikey nailed that one psycho though. “They appeared one day, huge portal over the city, their ship came through it and we were on the back foot from jump.” They hadn’t learned until later about the key and Leo’s world ending fumble. “The militaries tried but, the Krang just steamrolled right over them. Eventually we wound up fractured communities hiding underground around the world and trying to fight back as best we could with guerilla tactics. They spent the next twenty years grinding us into the dust.”

Tuvok granted him a minute of respite, contemplating the information before continuing his gentle interrogation. Honestly, Leo’d been half expecting this. It’d be stupid of them to not gather intel on a world killing threat. He was just grateful it was being done so kindly. Another point in their favor.

“Is there any chance that the Krang could follow you here from your Earth?”

Leo thought for a moment. “I mean, I don’t see how. They didn’t know what we were doing, and Mike’d never’ve let them through his portal.” He focused back on his lunch companion, “Honestly Commander, unless they exist in this universe too, I don’t think you have to worry about it.”

The security chief absorbed this, then, “In sickbay, when you first woke up, you said they ‘consumed everything’?” Tuvok prompted as Leon took another fortifying sip. He nodded before replying huskily, “Yeah. Like I said, they’re parasites. They can infect virtually anything, biological or technological. I..” he winced, hoping this came across right, “I met Seven and looked up…. Yeah. The Borg sound disturbingly familiar. Just.. less tech more fleshy goop.”

Horrified comprehension was apparent in Tuvok’s dark eyes. “Ah.”

“Yeah. Maybe if we had something like your tech… Well, at least we could’ve run then I guess.” Leo mused, absently twisting his mug on the tabletop.

“Many species have been forced to flee the Borg.” The security chief replied, “Others have gone into hiding, some truly impressive peoples held out for a time. Their shear numbers however..” He trailed off. “Developing defences against them has been a priority for all species we’ve encountered that know of the Collective. The Federation is fortunately quite distant from their established space and Voyager has been able to transmit valuable information from our encounters. Given enough time, we may be able to successfully resist them.”

How many times did Donnie say something like that?

Deciding not to compare, Leo lifted his mug a little, “Here’s hoping.”

That afternoon was spent exploring the panels of his quarters and contents thereof. As expected, the emergency kits were in their proper place and Leo ran through a quick review to make doubly sure that he’d retained this morning’s lesson. He also found a not unexpected mass of technology that he oh so carefully covered back up.

Grabbing his pad, Leo discovered two messages waiting for him. One an invitation from the Doctor to return to sick bay for another of their impromptu modern medicine lessons. The other an offer sent by Commander Chakotay to join a daily classroom to learn more about, well, being a person is this day and age. It was described as largely independent study with prewritten lessons and someone on hand to answer any questions. He promptly sent back affirmative to both. Anything to get more info and distract from less than pleasant thoughts constantly chasing each other around the periphery of his brain.

In the meantime, he had managed to work up a bit of a sweat this morning and wanted to smell half decent for dinner with people; time for a bath. Half an hour later he was happily soaking in his almost big enough tub. Pad carefully cradled against upper plastron, Leo had dug into the ship’s entertainment database. Thankfully, not all of it was holonovels and he’d found a trove of comedies to enjoy. He knew he wasn’t getting a good chunk of the jokes, missing necessary cultural context, but it was still nice to have that connection. Some things were near universal. He was especially happy to see a couple species he recognized. Hopefullly, consuming their media would help him to understand them at least a little better.

Chuckling as Hwond’a tried to convince Ashton that yes, fermented birds were a gesture of appreciation on his homeworld, Leon sank a little lower into the steaming water, wishing the tub was big enough to have his legs stretched out. Don’t get greedy Leo. Even on Voyager, this is a luxury.

After about twenty more minutes of soaking, it was time to set aside his pad and take up a scrub brush. After a thorough scrubbing, water change and rinse, he got out and towelled off thoroughly. Leo didn’t think he could pick up algae or an infection from the ship’s water, but no point risking it.

Stopping in front of the mirror, he took stock of his appearance. With better nutrition and hygiene, his stripes had started to stand out more and the natural colour of his scales was clearer, though it would take a couple sheds to look normal again. His scars were also more noticeable without a layer of grime to conceal them. Twenty years of war and about eighteen years with fairly aggressive brothers before that, that’s not fair, some are from April too, had left the turtle with a road map of lines, burns and pockmarks all over. Bullet scars suck, and so did Smith’s aim, trigger happy idiota.

Leonardo’s sides were filling out more, with good food and proper hydration; he wasn’t just skin and muscle stretched over a skeleton anymore. At least the shell hid the worst of it. Leo pondered his musculature though. Years of hard work had allowed him to pack extra muscle onto his naturally lean frame, but he hadn’t been able to keep it up since the last frantic days of the resistance, scrambling to survive as their only remaining base got dug out from above. I don’t really need to be a powerhouse anymore, but the arm….

The arm would be a problem. Built to Raphael’s specs at the age of just twenty, though he’d grown into larger models very quickly, it really was too big for what would probably be Leonardo’s natural build. Fighting hand to hand with the Krang unfortunately often resulted in them infecting a person’s dominant arm first. Fortunately though, that also meant that if the limb could be removed fast enough, the person themselves could be saved. There’d been a lot of people running around with replacement arms after about ten years. At least Leo and Raph had both been right-handed, allowing for a family member to reuse the valuable device. At the end of the day, if Leo wanted to keep using the arm Donnie made for their big brother, he’d need to maintain some bulk to carry and balance it out.

Training Tuvok’s people should help, but I’m going to need to set up a proper exercise routine. I’ll ask if there’s a gym on board or if I should replicate some exercise equipment. Maybe some resistance bands. The slider snorted to himself. At least I won’t have to use random pieces of rubble anymore.

Quickly getting dressed in jeans, tee and a hoodie, Boots Leo. Can’t run around barefoot anymore, he headed up to meet his now customary dinner companions. This time, he had no trouble navigating the nondescript halls to his destination. Yay! Progress!

Supper passed as usual. Tom and Harry were easy to talk with, though Harry was a little more reserved. Little glimpses of the temper Tom had mentioned in B’elanna showed occasionally, but she was clearly fighting it and much preferred to lean on a wicked sense of humor.

Leon learned that there was in fact a dedicated gym set up in an empty corner of cargo bay two, used on a first come first serve basis, and that it was established that you could jog in the outer corridor of deck five as long as you kept hull side and followed the arrows someone had carved into the wall to avoid collisions.

A proper routine was starting to take shape in Leo’s mind. Starting tomorrow.

He had another episode of Polar Opposites to watch before bed.

Is this what the first day of school felt like for April?

Memories flashed by of their nervous sister getting ready the night before every year, packing her bag with supplies and having Leo and Donnie helping her pick out her first impression fit. It was so minor compared to going on a mission, knowing he’d likely be fighting for his life before sunset but…

Cleaned up after his way too early trip to the ship’s “gym”, thank you insomnia, Leo nervously straightened his hoodie, zipped it all the way up … all the way down….. halfway up showing off his bright blue shirt, he put his hands in his pockets and leaned on one leg. Yeah that looks good…. And promptly felt ridiculous. As long as I don’t look like a hot mess, no one’s gonna care Leo. Get over yourself. Grabbing his pad, the slider headed out.

Last night he’d learned that there was a meeting room on deck ten that the various section heads used to have meetings with their departments. With Voyager’s unique situation, it was reserved at certain times to be used as a classroom. He’d also gotten some handy dandy directions to get there.

Striding in a few minutes early, he found the same kids as yesterday along with a handful of other adults in their civvies. Must be off duty. Nodding a hello, Leo snagged himself a spot at the conference table that was a socially acceptable distance from everyone else. At least it wasn’t going to just be him and the ship’s children. That would get real awkward, real quick.

Harry had explained that once they regained contact with Starfleet, some of the crew had decided to start taking academy courses for a variety of reasons; to improve their skills, work towards promotions or even just get commissioned so they could stay in Starfleet if they got home before retirement age.

All conversations stopped the moment Commander Chakotay entered the room. “Hello everyone. I’m you’re assigned instructor this week. Start your lessons and let me know if you need any help.” Carrying his own pad and water bottle, the man pulled out a chair next to Leo himself. “Let’s get you setup and started.”

Chakotay got Leo going on a series of basic tests to see where he was in terms of Federation educational requirements. His math and literacy skills tested out fine while their teacher went around the room helping his other students. Returning, Voyager’s second in command then helped Leo begin lessons that seemed to be geared towards people immigrating into the Federation; it’s history, a general overview of member worlds, etc. Looking ahead with Chakotay, there were other lessons the Commander had picked from school programs to teach children about technology and what would be considered essential knowledge in the various sciences that would likely make up the bulk of Leonardo’s schooling.

Halfway through the morning, Chakotay called a washroom and refreshment break.

Sipping from his bottle, the copper skinned man asked, “So what are you up to this afternoon?”

“Doc asked me to come by Sickbay. He likes talking shop.” Leon replied, nibbling on a cookie that one of the other adults had thoughtfully brought to share. “He’s not subtle.”

Chakotay chuckled to himself, deep laugh lines apparent. “No, no he is not. Personally, I think he’s a little lonely. He works alone most of the time and there’s no one else on board that’s really THAT interested in his field. I know its still early, but if you stay, have you given any thought to what you’d like to do?” He took a bite of his own snack.

Pitching his voice to not be overheard, Leon answered. “I.. think I’m gonna stay.” Chakotay smiled encouragingly. “As for what I wanna do? I’ve been fighting for so long, I’d like a change of pace. Help make people feel better instead of just killing all the time, y’know?”

“Yeah. I know.” Leo could tell, in the other man’s eyes and voice, he really did. The ninja remembered a moment later that B’elanna and Chakotay had been part of the other crew (terrorists?ish) that had joined Voyager at the start of their crazy trek across space. Maybe they hadn’t been in a twenty-year war, but they had seen serious combat. The Native American knew how that weighed you down and wore you away.

“I’ve agreed to train people in ninjitsu with Commander Tuvok, and I’m happy to help defend the ship if needed, but I’d like to try my hand at assisting the Doctor.” The retired soldier said, nervously running a finger along the grey tabletop.

“Well, let’s work towards that then.” Chakotay replied, voice soft.

The rest of their class period passed without incident, followed by lunch and a productive afternoon in Sick Bay getting a thorough Starfleet first aid course with variations for the species on board. Leo had supper and then spent his evening in the ambiance of the mess hall reviewing his lessons for tomorrow. This looked to be his routine for the foreseeable future. Tame, relaxed, educational and relatively safe. Taking a break to watch stars streak by, Leo prayed that Casey was enjoying a life much the same. You deserve it kid. Sleep tight. Miss you.

Leo sipped his tea, thinking about how it’d been a little over a month since his arrival onboard Voyager. The realization had struck him while preparing for today’s lessons; he’d noticed that he was done with his immigrant courses and only had a few proficiency tests in modern technology left to become the Doctor’s full-time student; further education in Federation science would be combined with that. Sure, he only really had a very broad understanding without much in the way of details now, but at least he didn’t feel so much like a reverse isekai anymore.

Looking outside, past his makeshift memorial, Leonardo watched stars streak by. Excitement had been building among the crew for the last few days. Tom had explained that today would be “mail day”. It was their once-a-month data stream with home; Voyager sending back messages, logs, really anything they’d recorded since last stream; receiving in return letters and any potentially helpful data Starfleet’s deep space arrays had collected. After years of no contact, that communication with family, friends and the familiar was like a stream flowing back into drought-stricken land.

Eyes refocussing, now on his own paltry reminders of those left behind, he couldn’t blame them. If I could talk to them, even just in letters… Shaking the thought away, Leon gulped down the last of his tea, disposed of his dishes in the replicator and headed out to morning lessons. No point in dwelling.

He needed to be mentally present today anyway, he was gonna learn to fly.

Within an hour Leonardo was sitting in a shuttle, trying to memorize every control asTom explained. It wasn’t as though he was being expected to become a regular pilot, Leo was just required to learn enough that if he was the only person available, he could get where he needed to go. Even then, it seemed rather involved. I could fly with a game controller, why don’t they have something like that? Resolutely ignoring his attempts at flying one of Donnie’s hovercraft, there’s no gravity in space, that means I can’t crash it right?

“You got that Leo?” Tom asked, eager grin in full bloom.

Leon swallowed, slipping into Leader mode to control his nerves. “Nope. Not even close.”

That earned him a laugh. “Yeah, it’s a bit much all at once, but this is just an introduction. We’ll start small.” The blond paused, hitting a button, “Paris to bridge, Sacajawea ready to depart.”

“Acknowledged.” Chakotay’s voice replied. “We’ll drop out of warp and proceed at impulse. Return in an hour.”

“Understood.” Tom replied, hitting a couple buttons. “Return in one hour. Sacajawea out.”

Sitting, waiting while the experts did their thing, Leo felt the pitch of the ship’s engines change for the first time since he arrived. That must be the “dropping out of warp”. There was still a subtle vibration, but it was definitely a different pitch than what he’d been learning to tune out.

After a moment, alarms started to sound, and the giant metal door ahead of their shuttle smoothly raised; a blue light quickly snapping in front of it. “What was that?” Leo asked, squinting to see particles occasionally flickering, like a huge bug zapper.

“Oh.” This is gonna be one of those common things they didn’t think to explain isn’t it? Leo thought, watching Tom startled out of his thoughts. “That’s a forcefield. Guess you haven’t seen one yet. It’s a charged particle field.”

Leo deliberately blinked a couple times for effect. “You say that like it explains anything.”

The pilot thought for a moment, softly laughing to himself. “Uh…. See through, temporary, wall of electric stuff that stings if you touch it? And you can change the settings to let somethings through but not all.”

“That’s better.” Leon answered with an imperious sniff.

“Alright, alright. Hold on.” Tom chuckled, as the great door ahead of them finally opened completely. Pushing a few more buttons, Leo heard the shuttle’s engines kick in and they started to move.

It felt like the starfield burst around them. One moment they were in the shuttle bay, next Leo was surrounded by more stars than he’d ever seen in his life. A riot of different colours and sizes, flickering in their dark void. Clumps shone brighter to one side, a pink/purple nebula hung distantly above. Then Tom swung the shuttle around.

Voyager. Another first, seeing the ship as it really was, not just a diagram or schematic on a screen. Grey, sleek; glowing … nacelles, they were called nacelles, propelling her forward, Leo stared at his new home, imprinting her on his mind.

It was weird, he’d spent most of his life in contained environments; the two sewer lairs and then innumerable underground bunkers hiding from the Krang. But he’d always had the option of OUTSIDE. There was somewhere else to go. Home gets found by enemies? Run away and find another hiding place. Here and now, Voyager was it; a ship no bigger than some of the apartment buildings Leo had played on as a child. And if something happened to it, too far from a decent planet… He suddenly felt very small and fragile, like staring down a giant Krang mech all on his own.

“Leo?” The ninja turned to see Tom looking at him, concerned. “Are you ok?”

“Yeah… just…” Leon looked around some more, really taking in how far they were from… anything. “We’re really on our own out here, aren’t we?”

Paris sighed, years, stress, memories and losses on his face for a moment, then it settled into iron resolve. “We are, but we’ve made it this far. We’ve got experience, and now we’re in contact with home. I know it’s a lot, but take it from me Leo, this crew can go the distance. You’re in good hands.”

How many times did I say something like that to a soldier after years of fighting the Krang? The difference was, Voyager wasn’t trapped. Wasn’t scrambling for rapidly dwindling supplies with an equally rapidly dwindling workface, surrounded by an ever-increasing enemy. Leo had spent decades cradling a flickering flame of hope, carefully nurturing what little there was to help his people keep limping along; Voyager gained more hope with every message from home, every new tech acquired and every inch closer to Earth they got.

Taking a deep centring breath, the student pilot turned to his teacher, “Well, we’ve only got an hour, so let’s get on with making me a productive member of society.”

Tom smirked, “Let’s.”

The next hour showed that lack of gravity did not, in fact, improve Leo’s flying skills. Turns out his bouncing around through portals and parkour was more akin to his slider nature than any arial ability he might have. Turtles weren’t meant to fly (except Donnie and Mikey, but that was more like hovering, shut up). In the end, it was a good thing they were in an open void and Tom had his own set of controls. Once they’d gotten back on board, he was treated to his friend sheepishly asking B’Elanna to send someone to fix a few burnt-out inertial dampeners on the shuttle, whatever that meant.

Walking to the mess hall, Leo felt Voyager shudder ever so slightly as the engines picked up. We must’ve gone back into warp.

As they strode into the mess hall, he noticed an immediate difference. It was quiet. Just the tinking of cutlery bumping dishes along with Neelix’s many pots boiling and spitting oil. Everyone was sitting and eating, but no one was talking. They were all reading. Every single person had a pad in hand, absently bringing food and drink to their mouths. Even Neelix was leaning on the counter, going over whatever messages he’d received in today’s mail.

Sitting down to eat, they had a few moments of stilted small talk, Tom squirming the whole time. Finally, Leonardo took pity on him. “Go read your mail, man.”

Pale eyes flicked up, startled and embarrassed. “No, no. It’s ok. There’s nothing that can’t wait.”

“I can eat on my own Tom, it’s not like I’m getting stood up at a restaurant. Imma big boy, go.” Leo smiled, gesturing to the nearest door with his head.

Flashing a big grin and a thanks, Paris took off, likely to grab his own pad; wherever he left it.

Polishing off his meal quickly, Leo disposed of their dishes and headed for his quarters, leaving the unnervingly quiet mess hall behind. Still having some time before he was supposed to report to sick bay, he decided to check if there were any updates or messages razzing him about his morning’s performance. Harry had specifically mentioned he’d be watching from the bridge, and probably laughing.

Pulling off his sweaty shirt, he traded it for the pad left on his bed. Flopping onto the couch, Leo started checking for updates and messages. There was one from Harry, giving him a 2/10 and telling him not to fly drunk, followed by another from B’elanna, chewing him out for being so hard on the shuttle. Leon smirked and sent a message back that she shouldn’t schedule maintenance on both the holodecks at once. There was a third message too, from a sender he didn’t recognize. The heck is the Daystrom Institute?

He read through the letter:

Dear Mr Hamato (apologies if this does not conform to your naming conventions),

I am writing to you from the Daystrom Institute, Lifeform Database Division.

We would like to add any information, that you are willing to share, to our database. The purpose of our database is to make knowledge of all species known to the Federation, available to sapients; Federation citizens and otherwise. If you would like portions of the information you provide to remain confidential during your lifetime, that can certainly be arranged.

I eagerly await your response,

Sincerely,

Dr Alphonse Hira, Daystrom Institute, Lifeform Database Division

Well… he was planning on making a record of his world and all, it was just, kinda sudden? How do I even? Deep in thought, anxiety churning in his gut, Leo sat there for a time, trying to order his thoughts on how to tackle such a monumental task. Everything he knew about an entire world and its peoples… How do you do that justice?

He was determined to do his best though, to make sure they were remembered, that what they went through had an impact on someone, that they mattered. Leonardo could see it taking the rest of his life. So be it.

Leo was unusually quiet today.

While the turtle was perfectly capable of standing back and observing the Doctor treating patients, when it was just the two of them, they usually a pleasant flow of banter. There was none of that today.

Standing at the central console, the Doctor’s student was dutifully completing his tasks, scheduling routine patient testing and exams according to the individual crewmembers’ needs. There was no stream of questions though, only a heavy atmosphere and dull eyes flicking across the screens. Perhaps it was an anniversary of some sort? Glancing up from his latest holonovel publisher’s letter, the Doctor decided it was time to see if there was anything he could do for his friend.

Closing out the letter, the hologram got up from his desk and walked around into sickbay proper. “Is anyone giving you trouble about making appointments? Some of the crew practically have to be hunted down.” He very carefully didn’t name the Captain.

“Hmm? Oh. No, it’s fine. Jus’ thinkin’.” Leo answered absently, then promptly got a loud error sound when he tried to enter his command. Huffing, the ninja closed his eyes and just stood there a moment, jaw twitching with frustration.

“You need to do this first.” The Doctor quickly entered the correct command sequence, carefully watching his companion’s face.

Eyes opening to watch, he nodded, still silent.

“If something is bothering you,” the Doctor hesitantly began, “perhaps I could help you talk through it?”

A dark eye slid sideways, contemplating the human façade. Eventually, Leo seemed to resign himself to talking. “I… got a letter today.”

That was unexpected. “No offense, but who would be writing to you?”

Leonardo replied to his incredulous question with a sardonic little snort. “That’s what I said.” Giving up on getting any work done, he turned to face the Doctor, leaning against the console. “What do you know about the Daystrom Institute?”

“Ah. Them.”

A raised eyebrow, ridge? Was his reward. “Well, that’s ominous.”

The Doctor rolled his eyes, copying Leo’s relaxed lean. “They aren’t THAT bad. The Institute does an excellent job of researching, collecting information and making it available. The problem is that they can be… overzealous in their methods. Notably they’ve argued against artificial lifeforms being granted full rights of autonomy. I imagine they requested your life story, DNA and a record of everything you’ve ever learned?”

Leo actually smiled a tad. “Not in those words exactly, but basically anything I could have to share. Said they’d keep stuff confidential ‘til I died if I wanted.”

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to.” The Doctor tried to reassure, “They have no authority over you, they can’t order you to comply. At most they could put in a request with Starfleet, but even then you aren’t a Starfleet officer, they can’t really order you to comply either.”

“It’s not that.” Leo replied, looking to the ceiling. “I WANT there to be a record of my world, my family. I WANT them to be remembered, it’s just, a lot. How do you record everything you ever knew about… everything you knew?”

The Doctor hummed, turning to the console again, continuing scheduling while they talked. “Well, how did you learn about everything you knew? Maybe start at YOUR beginning? Start with you.”

“Huh. That’s an idea.”

The hologram smiled. “You’re not going to be able to focus until you get started. Why don’t you use my office, begin a draft. It doesn’t have to be everything in one go, you can do it in multiple letters over time; the Institute will likely have questions based on what you send. And our next transmission isn’t for a month anyway.”

Leon took a step towards the office, then looked back. “Yeah. Do you think.. would it bother Neelix to ask how he went about it?”

“Well,” The Doctor mused, “he’s always been happy to tell stories about his family. I don’t think it would hurt to ask.”

“Ok.” The ninja replied with a small voice. The Doctor watched as his friend sat down at the hologram’s desk and started working on his letter. I also have a message to send the Institute regarding my patient, about TIMING.

Chakotay froze as the Captain’s ready room door hissed shut behind him. The look in Kathryn’s eye as she glanced up froze his blood. He hadn’t seen her seething like this in a thankfully long time. “Bad news from home I take it?”

She actually GROWLED and spun her desktop computer around for him to read while she recited, “From Starfleet Security. Captain Janeway, we have become aware that you have taken on a genetically augmented being as a member of your crew. Due to the ban on such individuals joining Starfleet, we are concerned about your newest member having access to Starfleet technology and information. Have you determined the full nature of his augmentations and the purpose of them? Recommend you restrict his access and shipboard movements… so on and so forth.” Kathryn launched out of her chair and walked around the desk to her replicator. “Coffee. Hot. Black.”

“Ah.” Chakotay settled in to read it properly, going over the details his Captain had been too angry to convey. “There wouldn’t be much of anywhere for Leo to go if we follow these recommendations.”

“I know!” She swung an arm up. “He’d essentially be confined to his quarters, corridors on the residential decks and the holodecks. Even the mess hall would likely be restricted as so many of the crew take pads with technical data there to have working lunches. I suppose we could ban that but… I’d rather not restrict anyone on this ship. Not when they’re likely to be with us for the duration,” the brunette wound down sadly.

“Hmmm.” Chakotay hummed, finishing up the terse message. “Well….wouldn’t be the first time we’ve told Starfleet Security no,” he mused, thinking back on when they first made contact and the organization threw, an understandable, fit over Maquis terrorists crewing one of Starfleet’s newest vessels not to mention a former Borg drone running around.

“Yes. We did do that. It’s not like they can enforce their orders here, though I’m not sure I’ll maintain my rank once we get back, or even my commission for that matter.” Janeway answered, sitting in the chair next to him, cradling her drink. “Chances are I’ll be ready to retire by that point anyway though.”

He huffed a little laugh, pondering over their discussions on the future ramifications of some things they were doing out here in Delta Quadrant. Come to think of it… “Do you think… the civil rights lawyer that helped the Doctor get recognized as an artificial lifeform, do you think she might be able to help?”

The Captain paused. “She did mention helping genetically engineered immigrants deal with prejudices they’d encountered in the Federation.”

Mostly with humans. Chakotay remembered with shame. The wounds of the Eugenics War still run deep.

Janeway took back her computer and began making notes. “I’ll send her a message in the next databurst. In the meantime, we should talk with Leo; explain the history of genetic engineering here and ask about the circumstances of it in his world. Perhaps it was a measure to combat these Krang invaders.”

“Hopefully,” the first officer responded, “Starfleet Security would have a hard time arguing against that.”

His hopes were dashed the next morning.

Inviting Leo to the Captain’s ready room for breakfast, the command pair had explained the message they’d received and this Earth’s history with genetic engineering watching Leo become paler and paler the longer it went on. Eventually the turtle had set his breakfast aside entirely on the low table in front of him to lean forward, hands clasped in front of his chin.

Chakotay could see the leader in him now. Emotions buckled down, eyes flicking back and forth as he took in new information and decided how to work with it. Those eyes closed the moment a decision was reached. Straightening up, Leo began to speak.

“Starfleet Security is NOT going to like me.”

Sharing a glance with the Captain, the former Maquis steeled himself, moving empty plate out of his lap.

“My brothers and I were made for the express purpose of killing humans.”

That’s not going to help at all.

Leo huffed at the looks on their faces. “Obviously, we didn’t do that. Let me explain.” He settled back, natural hand fidgeting with the angular planes of his metal one. “On my Earth there were three types of people, yokai, human and mutant. The yokai came first, I’m not sure from where, there was this stuff called empyrean that they said was their source.” He waved a hand, not elaborating further. “Later, humans and yokai coexisted for awhile before humans became so numerous and aggressive that yokai went into hiding in underground cities. Eventually yokai faded into myth and it was mostly humans on the surface with the occasional yokai in disguise.”

“I can’t imagine that all the yokai were happy with that state of affairs.” Kathryn interjected, sipping on her ever-present cup of coffee. Might be time to whisper in the Doctor’s ear again.

“By our time, most were used to it.” Leonardo answered, eyes unfocussed, lost in his memories. “There were some that still remembered life before though, and were angry, and scared. They were afraid of what would happen when humans inevitably found them again.” His jaw worked a moment, “That’s where Baron Draxum came in.”

“He had a very unhealthy dose of both. He thought humans would eventually wipe out the yokai and decided to be… proactive.”

The two humans winced, all sorts of historical examples flashing through their minds.

“Skipping over a LOT of details, he used the DNA of our human father, a martial arts expert, to make my three brothers and I. We were supposed to be the beginning of a mutant army to wipe out humanity.”

Starfleet Security will never forgive us…. Oh, well. It was nice while it lasted.

“Our human father escaped though, getting mutated himself in the process, grabbed us and ran. He raised us in the New York city underground, we made human friends, grew up and eventually ran into our creator again.”

“How did that go?” Chakotay asked, getting up to retrieve some coffee for himself and Leo. They all needed something for this.

“Uh… he threw me off a roof? About thirty stories up?”

“Lovely.” Janeway commented with grim sarcasm, leaning back into her seat.

Their storyteller outright laughed at that. “Oh, don’t worry, I never let him forget it. But we stopped him, he’d started just trying to convert all humans into animal mutants like us; and then my baby brother, Mikey, worked his magic.” His eyes were glossy now. “Michelangelo, the most amazing … he found Draxum after the battle, helpless and homeless. Got him to safety and TALKED him around. By the time the Krang came, the old goat was firmly on our side and a major reason why we survived as long as we did.” A couple tears slipped free, ignored as they fell.

“Redeemed himself then?” Chakotay asked, handing over a cup of warm brew.

Leo nodded his thanks and agreement, taking the mug. “He did. Even I considered him family by the end.” He shook his head, dismissing the memories. “Look, I get why humans would be spooked about a literal genetically engineered super soldier, what with your history and all, but I’m a person, with my own ability to choose who I want to be. What I was made for doesn’t matter. Heck, I ended up doing the complete opposite!”

“I agree with you.” Captain Janeway firmly said, laying down her support as the ultimate Starfleet authority in the Delta Quadrant. “Individuals should be judged by their own choices, not the choices of others.”

She leaned forward, also placing her cup on the table. “There’s a precedent for genetically engineered individuals gaining Federation citizenship, though none have yet been permitted to enter Starfleet. The ban spawns entirely from Earth’s experience with the Augments and frankly, it’s not appropriate for one species to dictate such a thing to all others. It’s only happened because Earth was one of the four founding worlds and made it a condition of forming the Federation, every world since has agreed to the restrictions on genetic engineering since in order to join..”

She leaned forward to pick up a pad off the table between them and hand it over. “There was a Tellarite civil rights lawyer we worked with, Tezra Sha, who helped the Doctor gain his rights as an artificial lifeform, only one of a handful currently recognized in the Federation. I’d be happy to write a letter of introduction for you to speak with her; I’m sure she’d relish the challenge.”

He took the pad, starting to read over Sha’s bio, “I .. can’t afford a lawyer.”

Chakotay smiled, “If you can communicate a need, the Federation provides an advocate. Don’t worry about it. Like we went over in your lessons, all necessities are provided to anyone within Federation boundaries, free of charge, only luxuries have a cost.”

“Right. Right.” The turtle went back to reading, mulling over the new information. “I guess my answer to the Daystrom Institute is going on the back burner.”

“The Daystrom Institute?”

Floating in a hot bath, Leo did his best to let the stress go. Flow right out his stripes and into the bath….. that he was stewing in just like his brain was stewing in anxiety and pain and agh! Violently sitting up, some water splashed over the side. Why am I having a hard time with this? Stress has been my whole life since like, fourteen. The Captain promised that she won’t kick me out an airlock for being a weapon of mass destruction and I can take my time with the whole Daystrom thing. I could even have them keep it all secret until I die! No super soldier hunting mobs for me! But .. blurgh.

As best he could with a shell, Leo flopped to hang arms down over the edge of his tub. It’s cause I’m safe now, isn’t it? Don’t have to focus on the fight just to stay alive so my brain’s like, “Hey, guess what we can deal with now? Allllll your issues!”

The bath wasn’t cutting it. Getting out, drying off and throwing on a pair of shorts, the ninja contemplated an impromptu trip to the ship’s “gym”, since Commander Chakotay had given him the rest of the day off to deal with everything their mail drop had dumped on Voyager’s newest crewmember. He was just grabbing a t shirt when his door chimed.

Striding over, shirt in hand, it whoosh open to reveal Tom Paris, dressed like he walked out of a Sherlock Holmes movie? “Uh.. hey Tom? Going to shoe a horse?”

“Ha!” The human barked a laugh, “No, Harry and I have some time booked on the holodeck this afternoon and we wondered if you’d like to come.”

Well, I did want a distraction. “I don’t have any clothes like that. Will that mess up your program?”

The blond waved a hand. “Nah, we’ll start with a dressing room and you can pick something out. Don’t worry, this program is kinda.. unique anyway. C’mon, I’ll tell you on the way.”

Shrugging into his shirt and grabbing his shoes, Leon followed his friend down the corridor, deliberately focussing on the info dump.

“So this program is set in a nineteenth century Irish village called Fair Haven. It’s a relaxation program. Just walking around the village, interacting with its people, going to their businesses, stuff like that. We had a problem with the program a few years ago that meant the holograms became aware that we weren’t regular people, so now the characters think we’re visiting time travellers.”

Double reverse isekai…. “Okaaayyy… and how are these characters different from the Doctor?”

“He’s way more advanced, and if you try to have them move too much beyond their parameters, the character’s programs would glitch so much they’d break down. The Doc almost had that happen a couple times actually, but he managed to work through it. It’s like comparing a monkey and a human; they can reach a certain point but can’t measure up to what a human can do.” The dark tweed clad man explained, dodging some crewmembers to enter a turbolift.

“So… when they look at me they’ll see… me, and be like, ‘Oh, new alien boy is giant turtle, cool. Anyway?’” Leo asked, bracing against the motion of the lift.

“Pretty much,” Tom bounced a bit, clearly excited, “You might get some funny looks and grumbles, but no hostility. Just let me do the talking.”

Leon raised an eye, “I get the feeling you say that a lot.”

Slipping into a fake Irish accent, his mischievous companion replied, “I’ve got the gift of the gab boyo.”

This is gonna be interesting.

#TMNT #ROTTMNT #Star Trek #Star Trek Voyager #Crossover #Fanfic #Post-ROTTMNT Movie #Hurt/Comfort #Leonardo in Space!

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icefirestorm · 10 months ago

Text

Warp and Weft

Leo flinched as his brother pulled the needle not so gently from the crook of his striped arm. “So, what’s this for again?”

Donatello froze. “Do you ever listen when I’m explaining things, or do you just have a voice going ‘wah wah wah’ in the background while you contemplate whatever comic book has your full attention at the moment?”

The brother in blue thought for a moment. “Yes.” His chesire grin slowly growing across his face. Donnie’s teeth creaked under pressure. “What?! That was a multiple choice question not a yes/no question!” Choosing to ignore his sibling’s infuriating smile, the young genius continued, “Never mind. I’m doing a genetic analysis on us all to see how our human and turtle DNA combines.”

“And try out your new toy?”

“Sigh. It is NOT a toy. It is a MARVEL of engineering…”

And, Leonardo’s attention wandered again. Fiddling with the little cotton ball he was using to stop the bleeding with one hand, his other started picking at the fake plastic padding of the chair’s armrest. Before too long his toes were also engaged, examining the texture of the metal footrests. The transition from smooth to rough anti-slip was hypnotic.

Then there were fingers snapping in his face. Leo swung his gaze up to meet his angry brother’s eyes. “For real?” Red stripes screwing up, Leonardo winced. “Sorry.”

“Put upon sigh. Basically, when you were injured by the Krang,” Leo winced again, “the damage to your liver was severe enough that I was considering a liver transplant. You only need part of one and it can grow into a full liver again.” Donnie flicked a vial of the slider’s blood a few times before placing it in the machine. “Given our unique origins, the only beings who could possibly be compatible are the four of us.” He turned and leaned back against the counter as he crossed his arms. “Fortunately, it wasn’t necessary; however, I noticed some factors during testing that didn’t make sense to me at the time. So, I whipped this baby up to do a more thorough analysis.” Sighing without a verbal cue this time, the softshell waved a hand at his “patient”, “Now I have work to do, so please, by all means, be somewhere else.”

Leon knew better than to push his luck. “Okie dokey Dontron.” Pushing himself up off the chair, Leonardo headed out of his brother’s lab. Once back in the main room, a twinge in his side reminded him that he still wasn’t a hundred percent yet. He didn’t have anything pressing to do at the moment, and with no one around to see his old man moment, the slider decided a nap might be in order.

Peeling his wraps off, he absently pulled the door to his subway car shut behind him and slid between the sheets of his bed. As his shell settled into its customary divot, a relieved sigh gusted out of his lungs. He was happy to help Donnie with his experiments anytime, really, he was. More often than not, whatever his amazing twin was working on was important, or would end up being a huge benefit to the family; and Leo felt a debt to his brother for all the care and sleepless nights he got after the invasion.

Flashes of the infirmary ceiling and Donatello’s tired face played behind striped eyelids. Leon’s injuries had been extensive, leaving him not much more than a bag of meat packed with broken bones and a crunchy exterior. As uncomfortable as Donnie was with the “soft sciences”, he’d really stepped up to help his ailing brother, and Leo knew, he owed Don his life. He owed all his brothers really, so those debts along with lessons hard learned during the invasion motivated him to do all he could since to put his family and their needs ahead of his own.

Shifting to his side a little, he ran a finger over the scars running along his opposite arm. As soon as he’d been let out of bed rest, his days had been filled with repairs to their home, getting Casey settled in and trying to help his family along with their own healing. The benefits hadn’t been one sided though. Spending time with them, working together, it’d been more enjoyable than he’d expected. Leo’d always loved his family, but his inclination towards selfishness had often led him to spend time on his own or try to manoeuvre family activities into things that he preferred or was better at. Drawing with Mikey, training with Raph, even meditating with his Dad, had come be some of his new favourite things. Helping Donnie in the lab was fun in its own way, and he’d started to be able to follow along with the purple turtle’s technical spiels a bit.

Anything medical though, especially in the lab, stirred up feelings. Like echoes in the tunnels, phantom pain and fear ratcheted through him. So far, the blue clad turtle had managed to power through, but it left him tired and shaken. He didn’t think that his family had noticed, at least he hoped, since they had enough of their own issues to work through. Even though it was just a blood draw, this latest assistance in the lab had brought up memories of needles, and pain, and weakness and…. With a shuddering breath, he throttled it back down again, trying to settle into what he hoped would be a refreshing afternoon nap.

The dark eyed slider slowly rose back to wakefulness from a gentle hand rocking his shoulder. “Leo?” a soft voice asked, “Wake up little brother.” Leonardo’s snout was filled with the scent of Raphael as he sucked in a deep breath. “Mmm.” He mumbled and carefully rolled over in the bedding. “Raph? Sup?” The snapper snorted. “Dinner’s ready. April treated us to Chinese tonight.”

Leon perked up a bit. “Chicken lo mein?”

“With a couple egg rolls.”

He smiled. “Sweet. I’ll be right there.”

A snaggle-toothed grin and a pat on the shoulder later, Leo was alone in his room again. Without an audience he was free to stretch out the ever-present stitch in his side, then slowly get up and work out his limbs so he could walk to the kitchen without a hitch in his step.

Delicious smells of soy, veggies and grease grabbed his snout halfway up the stationary escalator, bringing a smile to his face. Ah April, you’re too good to us. Signature saunter now in place, Leon swung into the kitchen/former worker breakroom with a jaunty “Good evening fam!”

A chorus of greetings from his clan accompanied a smattering of hugs on the way to the feast laid out on their counter. Once he had a full plate in hand, he gave April a little one-armed hug and a “Thanks for the eats,” then plunked himself at the table to gorge himself on semi-cheap takeout.

Leo shifted a bit, trying to get comfortable on the old wooden chair Mikey’d painted pastel blue just for him. It was all so normal, everyone enjoying their supper, that it took Leonardo a second to spot what was off. His humans were good, rat Dad seemed fine, one, two, ah there it was. Twin brother was off. Now, it was normal for Donnie to sit quietly sometimes, off in his own little world; but this was different. Even with his normal order of egg drop soup and a side of dried wontons, Donatello wasn’t eating; just dropping wontons into his soup and watching them soak up broth.

Leo mimed an elbow nudge near a purple spotted arm. “If you leave those too long they’ll get all soggy and you won’t like them anymore.”

A huff. “I know ‘Nardo.”

“Ok, ok. Don’t whine to me when you can’t get your crunch on.”

“I won’t.”

Usually, with a new experiment on the go, Don would be chattering away about it until he started repeating himself, then someone would “tactfully” try to steer the conversation in another direction. Tonight though, he was flat. Flatter than he was normally even, and it was starting to worry his immediate younger brother.

“ ‘Sup ‘Tello? You ok?”

“Yes, Nardo. I’m fine.” He answered, this time with a hint of an annoyed growl.

Leon glanced up and met April’s concerned gaze on his brother’s other side.

“Alrighty. Sorry for bugging you. Just tryin’ to look out for my twin y’know?”

His good intentions promptly exploded in his face. “For the last time Leonardo! We are NOT twins! We’re not even the same species! So drop it!” Donnie yelled shoving back from the table and stomping out of the room.

Silenced reigned until April decided to overthrow it. “Ok, even for Donnie that was volatile.” When Leo tried to get up to follow, she put a hand on his arm. “No, you’re the one that set him off, let me. I’ll give him twenty minutes then go in there and see if I can’t ferret it out of him.”

The slider was conflicted. He really wanted to go after his brother, but … she was right. Donnie’d be more likely to respond to her after that and letting him cool off a bit would probably help. “Yeah, yeah. You’re right.” He gingerly settled back into his seat and picked his chopsticks up again. Tapping the utensils on his dish, he added, “He started some gene analysis thing earlier today. Maybe it has something to do with that?”

April nodded in acknowledgement around a mouthful of pork. “Kay.”

The rest of the family began to settle back to their meals, trusting April would sort it out in time. Raph paused with a thoughtful look. “If it is the gene thing, I wonder what he found that’d make him like that?”

April cautiously edged her way into her bestie’s lab bearing a plate with whole wheat crackers, peanut butter and apple slices. A mild healthy snack for her friend after he’d skipped dinner. He was obviously upset about something, and she didn’t want to deal with a hangry Donnie on top of it.

Their mad genius was fixated on at least three different displays, rapidly shifting between them. As best the young woman could tell, he was comparing their information, and he didn’t seem happy about the results. “Donnie?”

“Mmm?”

Well, at least he was answering. “I brought you a snack.”

“You’re a snack.”

She stopped for a moment. Ok, auto-snark mode it is. “Well, yes, yes I am, but I meant the apples and crackers kind.” He just waved a hand dismissively and kept scrolling with the other. Oh no you don’t.

April dumped the plate next to him on the desk. “Nope. What’s up with you? You’re being all mopey and weird, like someone just killed your robo dog. Again.”

The twitchy ninja rolled his eyes. “I’m fine. Just busy. Busy, busy, busy. THANK you, April, very much for the snack. Now if you’ll just….” He trailed off, clearly hoping she’d take the blatant hint. She didn’t.

Chocolate complexion starting to redden with anger, she grabbed the opposite side of his chair, and spun him around only to slam him to a stop with the other hand, trapping him and getting right into his face. “Ah … no. What’s going on Donnie? Leo said you were working on some gene analysis thing. Did you find something? Is something wrong with you guys?”

He gritted his teeth, making a rare attempt to reign in his anger. “Of course I found something. We’re genetically engineered super soldiers. There are many fascinating things to find. For example, did you know that we have an accelerated metabolism? That’s why the painkillers didn’t do ‘Nardo much good. I wonder if I could….”

She cut him off. “Donnie. Is. Something. Wrong. With. You?”

Her concern finally trickled through. “Oh. OH! No, nothing’s wrong with us. We’re all fine. Honest.” Don’s dark eyes wide at understanding her distress.

April took a moment to bask in her feeling of relief and stood up, hands on hips. “Ok. Good. If y’all are fine, what’s got you so wound up?”

And he started to fall back into himself again. “It’s nothing to worry about, I promise. Just some little cawinkity dinks about how Draxum made us. No biggie.”

“Doooonnnnniiieee?” She drew out his name in a low warning tone. April wouldn’t tolerate his evasion any longer.

After giving her a dark side eye and weighing the probability of getting her to drop things, he finally relented. With a resigned roll of his head Donatello finally began to explain. “While studying our DNA, I expected our turtle genetics to be different, obviously. But given that we all had the same human donor, Dad, I was very surprised to see that two of us had a different but somehow related human DNA profile.”

April blinked a few times. “So, two of you were made with Splinter’s DNA, and the others with DNA from some relative of his?”

“It would seem that way, but I can’t see how.” The softshell crossed his arms. “Dad’s only living relative was his grandfather back in Japan. So I ….. started to dig into Draxum’s records.” They both hesitated at the mention of the deceased scientist.

After the invasion, the wider effects of the battle in New York’s skies gradually became apparent. Between the failed military defence, krang creatures running amok and a giant SPACESHIP exploding above in the sky; massive damage had been done to the city, causing widespread casualties. One of those was later discovered to be Draxum, crushed when debris from the krang vessel landed on April’s old high school. Mikey of course had been devastated. Leo had suddenly felt a lot less guilty about all the collateral damage.

The boys had cleaned out his apartment, to make sure nothing compromising was ever discovered, and found reference to material and record caches the man had squirreled away around New York and its vast underground. So far Donny had gone after only a couple of them, finding difficulty in connecting the yokai information storage mediums to his computer systems.

Donnie shook himself out of his reverie, “So I’m still having trouble getting Draxum’s storage units to cooperate, but I was able to find a couple record fragments referring to how he made us. Two of us were, as we already knew, made by fusing Dad’s DNA with a turtle.” He squirmed a bit. “The other two also had the DNA of another human; a female donor, from what I can tell. I haven’t been able to get the records to cough up more than that as of yet.”

“So, two of you have a mother?” April asked, hand on chin.

He rolled his eyes. “Essentially yes.”

“Wow.” She took a moment. “That’s huge. Which two?”

Don settled further back into his chair, working his square jaw a bit. “Nardo and I.”

______________________________________________________________________________

Donatello squirmed as Leonardo sat with hands folded under his beak, eyes flicking back and forth with his racing thoughts. April stood nearby, arms crossed, waiting for him to finish processing the new information. Donnie really wished she hadn’t made him spill. “He has a right to know Don.” He was still fighting with how much this had stirred up his own feelings, and Leon was much more emotionally driven.

“So, Donnie and I were made with the DNA of two humans?” the striped turtle finally said from behind his hands, eyes now closed.

Their closest friend gave the softshell a little kick. “Uh yes,” he stuttered to life, “we had two DNA donors. Dad and a woman. Who she was and how Draxum, obtained her DNA, I don’t know. His tech refuses to talk to mine except for the odd fragment of data I can glean from all the gibberish.”

Leo dropped one hand while massaging his forehead with the other. Has he always had wrinkles there? “Draxum had access to the internet, right?”

The non sequitur stopped Donatello’s thoughts in their tracks. “I’m sorry?”

“Internet access,” his brother continued, “I know he didn’t think much of human knowledge, but even he needed to look up things about the human world sometimes. Like where stuff was or materials available, etc.” He looked up. “We know Draxum didn’t have any human tech so, he must have used some sort of adaptor or interface, right?”

Donatello was absolutely poleaxed. Weeks of work. “I hate you.”

His brother smirked, though the look in his eyes hinted at a budding migraine. “Where’s Barry’s crap?”

The elder led his brother in blue and best friend over to a pile of boxes, stomping all the way. They spent the next hour or so sifting through the collection of yokai artifacts, tech and nick knacks that their maker had managed to carry through his long life, despite its many upheavals. Don squinted at another item then added it to the “maybe” pile. Turning the next over in his hand he was startled to see a USB port, then an ethernet port and a …. Is that for a telephone jack? “Got it!” he yelled from behind the box pyramid, prize held high in his hand.

Scrambling around the mess they’d created, trampling ….. stepping around his brother in the process, Don flung himself back into his chair, already hooking the adaptor up. Once connected, his tech began flashing through the ancient archive at high speed, rapidly translating from old, formal Japanese to the romanji that Dontello was more comfortable with. Slapping Leo’s hand away from the cracker stacks April had brought in earlier, Don grabbed one for himself; munching away while he dug through the records in search of his previously unknown DNA donor. Though I suppose donor is probably a generous word for it.

“There.” Leo pointed out, getting a smudged fingerprint on the otherwise pristine screen. Once or twice, Draxum had accidentally referred to the brothers by the project designations he’d originally given them all. In front of them now, was a file index labelled with those very terms.

Selecting the files, Donatello began speed reading faster than Leo could keep up with; April leaving unnoticed. After a few minutes, Leonardo gave up and sat in the nest of beanbags that Don kept for “pondering”.

His first run through complete, Donnie went back up to the top and started reading it all again more slowly. The young genius admired the thoroughness of his predecessor’s notes and meticulous methods but his horror at the real world implications was making his churning stomach slowly crawl up his throat. Shouldn’t have had the crackers.

Absently, he noted the rest of his family entering his lab, a low chatter with Leon starting up. This set Donatello’s anxiety ratcheting up as he realized he was going to have to explain this horror show to his entire clan. A desire to just let them read it themselves was ruthlessly throttled down because even he knew that he couldn’t expose Mikey and Raph to the full unsanitized account of events. Angelo in particular would never fully recover.

After taking a moment to collect himself, and to cross his arms with hands stuck under his elbows to hide their shaking, Don turned to rip their world apart.

“What’d you find Donnie?” Oh Raph. You really don’t want to know. He breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth. Alright, once more unto the breach. “Well. We already knew that Draxum essentially made us to be super soldiers in his bid to wipe out humanity,” he began.

Mikey just had to pipe up. “Yeah, but that was just ‘cause humans wiped out his clan back in Japan.” He sniffled a bit, “But we showed him how humans can be good, and he changed.” The little box turtle turned to April. “He really liked you, y’know?” Their adoptive sister smiled down at him.

Please stop defending him Mikey. Please, please, please. Don fought against the tic trying to break free in his jaw. “Yes, well, back then he still very much hated them. So, he concocted this plan. Again, we already knew that he saw Papa fighting in the Nexus Arena and decided he would be the ideal specimen to give his turtle soldiers the necessary physicality to serve their purpose.”

“At least he had a good eye.” Splinter smirked at his sons.

Leo definitely gets that from Dad. Annoyance at being interrupted doing something difficult was starting to build in the purple softshell. “Right. Anyway, the yokai have a method for combining otherwise incompatible DNA that they’ve already been using for centuries.” He leaned back, trying to relax a little. “When yokai that are of too different kinds wish to have a child one of them would produce an embryo with a donor of their own kind, then DNA from the other parent would be grafted in. The resulting child, genetically, has three parents. The original two and the one that was grafted in. This is the method that Draxum used to make Raph and Mikey.”

The two mentioned looked at each other for a moment. “So, we’re the kids of Dad and our turtle parents?” Raphael asked.

Ok, they’re following along so far. That helps. “Basically.” He glanced at the records just to refresh his memory and instantly regretted it. “That’s not what he did with Nardo and I though. Remember we were basically prototypes. He wanted to make a whole army of super soldiers, which would require mass production.” April shuddered a little. Clever girl. “But the traditional yokai method would be inefficient. The genes need a few generations to …. settle, before they can be altered again, and a normal embryo was required to produce a viable lifeform. This means either he’d have to keep a breeding stock of every kind of animal he wished to use around for a steady source of embryos, or use yokai, which he considered immoral.” Leo’s disgusted huff clearly indicated what he thought of that.

Keeping a careful eye on his slider brother, Donatello continued. “Therefore, with Leo and I, he decided to try something experimental. This new method would result in a genetically stable lifeform, so he planned to just continue breeding or even cloning them depending on their individual performance.” Everyone present looked disturbed now, realizing that Draxum had essentially planned to create a race of tailor made war slaves. Mikey especially appeared deeply conflicted about what they’d just learned about their maker.

Now for the hard part. “With this technique he would take two normal lifeforms, split them at the subatomic level and then graft them together. The resulting creature would be the child of four parents. For us it was our slider and softshell parents, then Dad and a woman that he had picked earlier. This means also came with the advantage of being able to select for parentage with more desired traits.” He held out one hand. “The attributes of our turtle parents,” and the other, “the physical acumen of Dad and the intelligence of a woman that he had selected at an earlier date.”

Leo and April wore twin expressions of dawning horror, telling Donnie that they’d already figured it out. “Donnie,” Leonardo slowly drew out, “when you say two normal lifeforms…..”

Donatello quickly ground out the revolting answer. “He combined a sperm sample from Dad with eggs he harvested from our mother to make a human embryo. Accelerated its growth until he had a human baby then split the baby and his selected turtles to recombine them into us.” He met Leo’s eyes, flashing with echoed hatred. “We began life as literally the same person.”

Leonardo rumbled with a hiss, “And he murdered us.”

Leo chucked another piece of rubble across the ruined cavern to shatter against a wall. A damaged machine of some kind followed quickly after. The slider shrieked as he heaved another charred lump across the vast space. Burning, furious rage had driven him from their home and to the only place he could still vent against the source.

Draxum’s long abandoned lab was the last place Leon could go to properly destroy the man’s property without damaging something that might actually be useful. He’d bolted from the Lair after the full implications of what Draxum had done hit him like a truck. If he hadn’t left when he did…. This isn’t enough. Switching gears, the swordsman moved to a different kind of exertion.

Drawing his twin katanas, Leo slashed a portal into existence under a larger piece of debris. Another swing to produce a portal above and he let gravity accelerate the object. Once he was satisfied with its speed, he sent the mass hurtling into a wall, embedding it deeply into the surrounding structure. Leonardo did it again, and again, and again, and again, until he had multiple portals flashing in and out of existence, flinging rubble about the cavernous space in a woven symphony of light and speed. Eventually he tired and allowed it all to finally collide with a thunderous impact at the center, pelting him with shrapnel as he slumped to his knees.

“Impressive.” Splinter’s deep, resonate voice just about knocked the exhausted turtle onto his tail. Whipping around, Leo spotted his father carefully picking a path around the destruction his son had wrought. All he could do was stare as the diminutive rat bounced over one last obstacle and landed in front of him.

“Oh.” Splinter said while taking one of Leo’s hands into his own; knuckles bleeding sluggishly from where he’d punched a console earlier. “Do you have some bandages in your butt bag?” the rat asked.

“Fanny pack.”

“Whatever.”

Leonardo rolled his eyes a little. “Yeah.” Splinter stopped him reaching for it though and dove into the supplies himself. While he was busy with that, the adrenaline was wearing off and Yep, I can feel that now. Both his aching hands and the twinge in his side were now voicing their opinions of his vent session. They weren’t happy. He winced a little as his father carefully wrapped green fingers, turning the white gauze red for the first couple layers.

Injuries addressed, Splinter picked up and handed over Leo’s discarded blades. Once his weapons were safely stowed away, they just sort of, sat there for a while, quietly waiting for each other to start the conversation.

“Your shadow is about 20 yards up that tunnel over there.” Splinter pointed to one of the former conduits that had supplied Draxum’s lab complex. Leo thought he’d spotted Casey at some point during his flight from the Lair; the boy’s continued loyalty tugged at the slightly older turtle’s heart. “He’s a good kid.” Leon replied, then sat there, legs crossed, playing with his fingers for a bit longer. “Sorry for taking off like that.”

Yoshi huffed. “You just had a bomb dropped on you; I don’t blame you for wanting to run.” He perched on a rock next to his much larger son. “When I left, April was seeing to Purple, and Red was taking care of Orange. He was quite upset as well.” This tore at Leo again, forcing him to close his eyes and turn away to try and contain his reaction. The grey rat placed a clawed hand on his scaly shoulder. “Blue.” Leo braced his forearm between his beak and a knee. “Leonardo.” The use of his real name shocked him into facing his father.

Splinter’s yellow eyes were full of aching sympathy. “It will be all right my son.” It was too much. The slider sprung up, “How can you say that?!” and begun pacing back and forth. “Mikey loved Draxum. He called him Dad for crying out loud! I left because I knew the second he said something about the old goat being a changed man I was gonna turn around and punch him!”

His REAL Dad grabbed Leo’s hands, stopping his pacing. “And I am proud of you for that. I wish I’d learned to walk away before losing my temper by your age.” A wry grin twisted his muzzle. “It would’ve saved me a lot of fights with your Oji-San.” Leon wasn’t in the mood for jokes though.

“C’mon Dad, this is serious.” He stepped back, hugging himself tightly. “Look I get why Mikey forgave him, I really do. And I do think that he was changing, Mike’s just that amazing how could he not?” He started pacing again to conceal the shaking in his legs. “But this? I don’t think I can forgive this, Dad. I don’t think I can listen while Mikey talks about that guy like he was family.” Leo hissed a little, “The worst part is, I was actually starting to...” trust him. And didn’t that hit like a brick to the skull.

Splinter took advantage of the blue-clad turtle’s shock. “And you don’t have to. Son,” he grabbed his boy’s hands again, “however you were starting to feel, it was based on what you knew at the time. Now you’ve learned something that changes how you feel. That is fine. It makes sense.” The rat shook the hands in his grip to make sure he had Leo’s attention. “And your brother will understand that. He is more concerned with how you see him, than how you see Draxum.”

“I just,” Leo looked down at their joined hands, “I don’t want to hurt him.”

“Ahhhh, I think you are underestimating your brother. He understands these ‘feelings’ things. Talk to him, you’ll be ok.” The second youngest searched his father’s face. “You’re getting better at these ‘feelings’ things yourself, Pops.”

Splinter blushed a bit and waved a negligent hand. “Yeah well, turns out therapy isn’t just a bunch of hot air after all.”

That was new. “You. Are in therapy.” His clear scepticism made Splinter defensively cross his arms. “Whaaaat? It’s been good for me. What with the family drama, being kidnapped by my girlfriend then turned into a lab rat? I needed all the therapy. I started going after that whole Shredder mess.”

The brothers had noticed their father’s gradual improvement over the last few years, but Leo’d never considered that he’d actually gotten professional help. But he’s right though, isn’t he? He’s been through so much. Leonardo slowly knelt to get on the other’s level. “Dad… I’m proud of you.” The blatant surprise on Splinter’s chubby face broke his son’s heart. Ah Pops, after everything that happened to you….. Leo couldn’t hold back the tears any longer. “Why don’t you hate us?”

It was something Leo’d wondered about more than once ever since they’d learned the truth of their origins. They were made by a monster, to be monsters, through monstrous means. One more violation heaped on top of everything that’d been done to Hamato Yoshi. Parents dead. Raised by his own grandfather to die in a blaze of glory. Finally builds the life he wanted only to be betrayed by the woman he loved and enslaved as a modern-day gladiator. Then taken and used to make living weapons by a genocidal maniac. And as a final indignity, rendered homeless on the streets after being turned into a rodent. Honestly, they were lucky he’d just been neglectful and lazy due to depression; he could’ve been warped by his experiences in far worse ways.

Splinter outright pounced on his kid after that question. “I could NEVER hate you. I love you all.” The ferocious hug he’d caught Leo in proved the old man was still pretty strong himself. “I can be unhappy about how I got you and still be happy to HAVE you.” One clawed hand cupped the back of Leon’s head. “My boys were the silver lining in a very dark cloud. Honestly, if it weren’t for you four …“ he shuddered a bit, “I don’t know that I would’ve cared enough to carry on.” Echoed feelings wracked through the young leader’s body. We’re so alike, aren’t we? But Splinter was still talking. “I know I never told you boys I love you enough, and I haven’t been the best parent..” Leo had to cut in, “You’ve been a great dad, especially with everything.” He got that now, he really did. They were starting to talk over each other at this point. “I messed up, and didn’t give you boys enough attention, but I NEED you to know that I love you so much my son. When we thought we’d lost you … it was worse than everything that had come before.” The elder ninja pulled back to cradle his son’s face with both hands now, wiping away silent trails of tears. “But none of you can be held responsible for something that someone else did before you even existed.”

“I get that in here,” a green-scaled finger pointed at Leo’s head, “it’s convincing this that’s the problem.” He finished with a hand over his aching heart. “I don’t understand how you can look at us and not see all the bad things that were done to you.”

“Sometimes I do.” Ok, ouch. Splinter quickly added to his statement, “Don’t Red’s eye and Purple’s mechanical arm things sometimes remind you of the Krang?” Leo winced. “Does that make you love them any less?”

Leonardo stopped for a moment to digest that. Sometimes they trigger flashbacks, but that’s just a reflex, then I get control of myself and it’s just them. “Okay, I see what you’re saying.” He sighed and started to pull back inside his walls. “I guess I just have to keep reminding myself.” A claw under his chin drew his eyes back up. “And I am always happy to provide more reminders.” Then Yoshi smacked his son upside the head. “Maybe we’ll finally get through that thick skull, hmmm? ‘This is the only way Casey,’ my furry butt.”

Leo barked a laugh. “Please no. I’ve seen more of your butt than any kid should. Ugh, slippery whippery woo. So wrong.” He stood and smiled. “Thanks Dad.”

The squinty grin he got in return sent warmth surging through him. “Anytime Baby Blue. Now, let’s collect that kid of yours and go home.”

“Oof,” Leo started walking, striped arms folded behind his head, “teenage dad to a teenager, and I didn’t even get to do the fun part first.” That earned him a snort.

Halfway across the expansive floor Leo piped up, “Y’know he killed her right?” Splinter sighed a little. “I’m sure he wasn’t planning to send me on my way with a juice box and thanks for my contribution. One step at a time Blue. We’ll deal with it one step at a time. Purple will definitely find whatever there is to know about her before too long. In the meantime….” There was Casey, patiently waiting for his sensei, while he fiddled with the phone Donnie had recently gifted him.

The boy looked up and smiled softly as the two approached. “Better?” He asked.

“Yeah.” Leo said while Splinter gave him a wink and wandered off ahead. “Hey Case, you got a second?”

“Of course, Sensei.” He then froze as Leon grabbed him in a hug. “I’m pretty sure things are gonna get uglier before they get better, so I wanted to tell you something before I forget.” Then right into Casey’s ear he whispered, “Thank you Casey Jones. Thank you for saving my family, thank you for giving us back our futures, and thank you for giving me back my life.” The sixteen-year-old shuddered, then broke. He wept into the turtle’s shoulder until Leo could feel the tears slipping under the top of his carapace. Eventually he cried himself out, and managed a soft little “You’re welcome.” After a couple little back pats, the two separated, collected Splinter and portalled back to the Lair.

They were promptly greeted by Michelangelo wailing at full volume. Casey was alarmed at, what was to him, uncharacteristic behaviour. The two more senior members of the Hamato clan weren’t surprised at all.

I’m gonna be all hugged out by the end of this. Leon waltzed over to where Raph was holding their little brother and trying to hush him like a giant baby. Over the youngest’s shoulder Raphael mouthed, you ok? Leo nodded and held out his arms to take the tornado siren from his big brother. Hand off complete, the eldest moved off to have a whispered conversation with their father.

The moment Mikey realized who was now holding him, he wrapped himself around his brother in blue. “Leo! Leo I’m so sorry! I didn’t know! I love you! I’m sorry!” Rinse, lather, repeat. The slider squeezed back as much as he was getting, and took up a corresponding murmur of, “It’s ok. I know. I love you too. It’s ok.” Eventually, the smallest turtle wound down to wet sniffles in Leo’s neck and he knew it was time to try and actually tackle this.

“Sshhhh, Mikey just listen for a minute, ok?” After his only little brother nodded a bit, Leo continued. “It’s ok. I know you loved … him, and you’re allowed. The fact that you found the good in him, you amaze me, Miguel. I just …. I’m not as kind as you Mikey. Ssh it’s fine, most people aren’t.” He gave the box turtle another little squeeze and then pulled back to look into his caramel eyes. “Could I ask ….” He huffed in frustration, “I don’t know if I can handle hearing people say nice things about him for awhile. Or maybe even ever. Your relationship with him and memories are yours and you have every right to them, but could you not mention him when I’m around please? I just can’t.”

Michelangelo’s face crumbled. “Of course, Leo! That’s fine! I’m so sorry about all this. I was afraid you would hate me because I was close to him and he hurt you guys so much!”

Hurt, murdered, potato, tomato. Leon sighed pushing their foreheads together. “Never Mikey. I could never hate you.” They just stood there awhile, swaying back and forth, dancing to an inaudible song. “So,” the orange-clad turtle hesitantly began, “are we good?”

Leo felt a broken smile crawl across his face. “We’re awesome, little brother. Never doubt that.”

The younger suddenly pulled back. “Do you think Donnie will be ok with me?”

“Yeah, Mikey. I think he’ll be fine, but he’ll probably be extra crusty for a bit, so be nice.

Angelo nodded chewing on his lower beak. “Don said he was gonna look for more info about your Mom in … his records. Maybe we can find her?”

Leon winced. “Mikey, back then, Draxum’s whole thing was killing humans. I’m pretty sure he didn’t keep her alive.” But the optimism of Michelangelo Hamato knows no bounds. “Dad got away from him, maybe she did too!”

“She didn’t.” Everyone turned as Donatello’s flat voice rang out across the Lair’s central space. Leo’s heart sank. He knew what was coming, but it needed to be done. Turning around, he saw his twin descending from the lab, April a grim shadow behind him. While Don’s expression didn’t give anything away, their dearest friend was emoting plenty for both of them. Whatever they’d found, it wasn’t good.

Leo walked to meet his brother. Normally they’d hold a more open circle for getting a Donnie info dump, but this was more personal; he felt a need to be front and center. “You found her file.”

The softshell nodded. “I found her file.” He began typing on his wrist comp, pulling up a holoscreen for all to see; and for the first time in his life, Leonardo laid eyes on his mother. She wasn’t a super model, but Leo thought she was reasonably pretty. A young white woman, chestnut brown hair liberally shot through with chunky blonde highlights; a bright and cheerful wide grin across her face lighting up a pair of blue/green eyes crinkled over her freckled cheeks. A pang gripped his heart. She looks like she was around our age.

Donatello started reading off the record Draxum had made of their mother. “Claudia Sullivan. Born July 6, 1981. She was pursuing her Master’s in biomechanical engineering at Columbia. Obviously, she was something of a prodigy, which is why Draxum selected her.” He looked down to his wrist controls again. “I researched her further online. Her missing persons file is still active. She was survived by her parents and younger siblings, two brothers and one sister.” April put a comforting hand on his shoulder as Don worked his jaw a bit then continued. “Draxum abducted her March 3rd, 2000. He then … harvested … what he needed from her and,” their purple clad brother paused, taking a moment to collect himself again, “and terminated her on the 6th. Fortunately, he saw no reason to interact with her at all, so she was kept sedated the entire time. She never knew what was happening to her. According to the file, her remains are currently in a preservation unit in one of his storage caches under North Brother Island.” Donatello finished, took a moment then met Leonardo’s equally glistening eyes.

Peripherally, Leon noted the family closing ranks. Mikey was still clinging to one of Leo’s hands with Casey coming up to take hold of the other. Dad and Raph exchanged horrified, but also unsurprised looks off to his right. Everything slowly became white noise and static except for one repetitive thought ringing through his mind.

“Donnie, are you telling me that our mother’s body is stuffed in a specimen jar on a shelf somewhere?”

Don blinked once and apparently decided against his usual insistence on accuracy. “Essentially, yes.”

Amid the hushed whispers and stricken faces, Leo just resignedly closed his eyes. “Dammit Barry.”

They’d all been awake far too long at this point, but no one would be able to sleep with the knowledge that an unwilling member of their family was still squirreled away in a collection somewhere like a common possession. This led the entire clan to be standing around while Donnie’s drill (utility version) worked its way down to Draxum’s storage unit in the miniature forest of North Brother Island. Once he’d been inside and seen the space, it would be safe for Leo to portal them back and forth.

The middle children were more in the middle than ever with their loved ones clustered tightly around making sure their support was felt, though they made sure not to overwhelm Donatello. He appreciated it dearly, but there was no way he could express it right now as touching his emotions at all would open the floodgates with no closing them for hours at least. The softshell focused on his controls and the drill’s proximity to a void he’d detected at the recorded coordinates below them, unwilling to risk any of the cache’s contents being damaged.

One thing he was acutely aware of though, was Leonardo. His brother, twin admit it already, felt like standing next to a seething pit of anger and hatred. One thing they’d all learned over the years was that a quiet Leo was a dangerous thing. Normally he’d be chattering, laughing or something. Even when he’d been so badly injured after the invasion, their brother had still been cracking jokes, trying to lighten the atmosphere, or muttering self-deprecations and pleas while fighting his exhaustion and pain at his lowest. Now he just stood there, radiating such darkness, that Don could not comprehend how the others could stand being so close to him in this state.

Finally, the drill reached a depth level with the floor of the room below and Don deactivated it for Leo to portal back to their garage later. Without needing to ask, Raph scooped up their mammals and jumped into the hole, his brothers following. Once on the bottom, the two eldest activated their powers and began carefully scraping away the dirt and plant material that made up the chamber’s walls. As they cleared a path, shelving on the other side became apparent, and their younger brothers moved in to gently push it to the side allowing everyone to walk into the room.

Like the other caches, its walls were lined with shelving; storing boxes of data units, materials and artefacts. Fortunately, there was only one thing in the room large enough to contain what they were looking for. To their right, in a corner, was a long metallic looking box with a segmented lid, about the size and shape of a coffin. The twins shared a look and walked over.

Donatello stowed away his gear and laid a hand on the end segment closest to himself. It was warm and subtly vibrating. Just get it over with. He breathed in through his nose, out through his mouth and slid back the section of lid to see ……… feet? Oh, for the love of. … Looking up from the pair of feminine human feet floating in front of him, Don was startled to hear his brother in blue’s aborted snort. Yes, Nardo thank you. Then he saw the moment Leo realised he was at the “right” end and decided to take pity on the slider.

Together they pulled aside the cover to reveal their mother’s face. It was so cliché, but she really did look like she was just sleeping … while floating in glowing honey but still, it was undoubtedly the woman who’s picture he’d found earlier. “She looks exactly the same.” Leo whispered next to him, face dimly lit from below by the glow of the tank. Don sidled a little closer. “The fluid removes any microbes, enzymes, etc that would cause degradation and the filters purify the fluid. In here, she could theoretically last for a century or two without any noticeable decay.” Her hair waving in the flow from the filtration unit was slightly hypnotic. He noted a small birthmark on her shoulder. Huh, it kinda looks like a mouse.

“We can’t leave her like this.” Leon said definitively, and Don couldn’t find it in himself to disagree. “But what should we do, Leo? We have no idea what she would have preferred be done with her remains.”

Raph’s massive hands settled on each of the twin’s shoulders, drawing their attention up to him. “You guys are her sons, whatever you choose to do, we’ll help.”

“Yes, we will.” Splinter added, “But not today. We’re all tired. We will take her home, and then you two can figure out what to do tomorrow.”

It’d taken them another couple of hours to relocate the twins’ mother and cover up the hole they’d dug, wanting to make sure no one stumbled onto the cache before they had a chance to clear out its contents. By the time they finished, everyone was dirty and tired. The turtles settled for dunking themselves in a large pool they’d built in part of the old tracks while their warm-blooded fam cycled quickly through the showers before they crashed in their living room.

They didn’t all rest easy though. The resident insomniacs were soon both up and parked cross-legged on a table next to their mother’s current … container. “What’er we gonna do Donnie?” Leon mumbled, chin propped against a fist. “She deserves the best we can manage after everything.”

Don tapped his fingers against his folded arms. “Agreed. However, I’m not sure what we can realistically do. According to my research, her family is Catholic, but we are not able to perform a full Catholic funeral or bury her in their family plot.”

“Her family,” Leo sighed, “I wonder if they ever got over losing her.”

“I checked their social media; they still post requests for tips or information on the anniversary of her disappearance. There’s even a reward for information that leads to finding her.” Donatello replied. He leaned back on his hands, discontent at the thought of what those poor people were still going through. Don might not be the most empathetic, but even he was bothered by the thought of a family wondering where a lost loved one was. He unfortunately had first hand, albeit brief, knowledge of what that was like.

“I wonder..” the younger trailed off.

“Sigh. Spit it out.”

“Well, I wonder, if her family is the answer.” Leo muttered; red stripes screwed up in a thoughtful frown.

“What are you talking about? Are you going to call them? ‘Hello people still distraught over the loss of their child, could you tell us what she would have liked as an alternative to your preferred funerary customs? Just asking for a friend.’” Don finished off with jazz hands for emphasis.

Leo rolled his eyes. “No, I’m wondering if we could set things up so that THEY could bury her; the right way. Maybe we leave her somewhere the cops will find her?”

“That’s … not a horrible idea,” the genius mused, “Even without the preservation unit itself, the fluid has permeated her tissues and would keep her intact on its own for a month at least.” He started rubbing his chin. “If we left her in a stolen van near a police station, she would be found quickly. Then her relatives could claim her body and have a proper funeral.” Don braced his hands on his knees, frowning slightly. “I don’t like the idea of simply dumping her for others to find though. It feels … inadequate.”

“Ditto. We should leave her in a proper casket, and y’know, clothed.”

That would certainly afford her greater dignity. “It still doesn’t seem like enough. She never knew we existed and may not have been happy about it if she had; but she’s still our mother. I … I want to DO something for her.”

“I feel you bro.” Leon sat, rubbing his hands together while he thought, then looked over at Donnie, head hanging low. “What if WE made the casket?”

The purple clad brother paused. “We could order materials. My equipment is more geared toward metalworking, but it would do. It would likely simply end up as evidence in the inevitable criminal investigation though.”

Leonardo picked at his ankle wraps for a moment. “Yeah but... at least we’ll have done what we could to send her off respectfully and give her family some peace.”

Hours later, when the rest of the clan woke, the twins were in Donnie’s lab, pouring over design plans and debating material choices. Raph wandered in, trying to make sense of the controlled chaos his younger brothers were immersed in.

“Uh.. whatcha doin’ guys?”

Neither of them looked up as they continued going over a list on the scrolling screen. “We think we’ve figured out what to do with our mother.” Leo absently answered. “That one Donnie,” he pointed at an entry.

“I can machine the same thing out of a higher quality alloy for half the cost.” Don scoffed.

“Then let’s do that.”

Raph tried to get a closer look at what they were working on. “That’s great guys! What’s the plan?” Disaster twin plans could get scary sometimes. They shared a look and Leo piped up. “Well first we’re gonna make her a decent coffin and get her some clothes,” Don took up the telling, “Then we are going to steal a van and leave her in it near a police station so that she will be found quickly.” Leo cut in again, “We figure the cops’ll contact her family so they can claim her body and give her a proper funeral. What about the lining Don?”

“How do you feel about lavender satin?”

“Donnie……”

“What?! It is literally the colour of grace, refinement and royalty.”

“That explains some things.”

“Hey!”

“Guys!” Raph bellowed, snapping his brothers out of their reflexive bickering.

“Sorry.” They said in tandem, looking down, embarrassed at arguing over this particular subject. The oldest rubbed his eyes, chasm, and sighed. “Nah it’s ok. Honestly that sounds like a great plan. Is there anything we can do to help?”

The two smaller turtles exchanged a look. “Um, we were kinda thinking we’d do this ourselves big guy.” Leon replied hesitantly.

Unexpectedly, Raph was a bit hurt by that. “Oh. Right. I guess she is YOUR Mom after all.” Strangely, he felt… excluded. The snapper looked down, trying to stifle the feeling of a separation building between him and his middle brothers.

Leonardo stepped closer and took one of Raph’s giant hands in his own. “Raph, it’s just… This is the ONLY thing we can do for her, and we want to give her our best effort. We wanna be able to say that WE did this for her. Does that make sense?”

“Yeah. Yeah, it does. Sorry.” The gentle giant dropped his other hand on Leo’s shoulder. “All the same, if there’s anything you guys need, let us know. Even if its just tea and coffee, ok?”

They both gave him little smiles, Leo’s a bit brighter. “Absolutely big guy. And thanks, for understanding.”

“No problem, just remember, Raph’s here for yah.” Giving a last shoulder squeeze, and a quick smile to Donnie, the eldest turtle headed back out to the kitchen where their family was getting ready for breakfast. He shook his head as they looked up. “They’re busy. They’ve figured out what they wanna do for their Mom and they’re in full manic make mode.”

“What do they want us to do?” Mikey asked, placing a plate stacked high with pancakes in the table centre for everyone to serve themselves from. Raph sat down and started to fork some onto his plate. “Nothing. They wanna take care of it themselves, since they figure it’s the only thing they’ll ever be able to do for her.”

Splinter grunted around a mouthful. “Understandable. What are they going to do?”

Raph outlined the twin’s plan, trying not to think too hard about a dead body being in their house. “Huh. That’s a really good idea.” Mikey said, while serving up his own portion. “I wish we could help though.” He chewed for a minute then brightened up. “Oh! We could make it easier for them! Like not bugging Donnie to fix stuff for awhile, an’ I could bring them their meals!”

“We could take care of their chores and stuff too.” Casey chimed in, shoveling more pancakes into his mouth.

Raph sat back a bit and smiled proudly at his family. “Yeah. Yeah! That’s a great idea guys. We take care of everything else so they can take care of her. Alright Operation Support is in effect!”

For two weeks the entire family worked feverishly, some more aware of what was going on than others. The twins, well and truly fixated on their self-appointed task, made great progress. Supplies ordered and purchased through the Hidden City to avoid future police inquiries, they gradually constructed a truly beautiful casket for their mother. An amalgam of golden polished white oak, cast iron style fittings and the most lustrous mother of pearl silk lining that Senor Hueso could track down, took shape under their careful hands.

At the moment, they were painstakingly using gothic stencils with black paint on either side of the lid. Donnie on the outside, laying down her name and dates while Leo reclined on a protective tarp to leave a message from the boys inside the lid. Silence had fallen as they focused on their individual tasks, but eventually the younger of the two crumpled.

“How’s it goin’ Donnie?”

“Fine.”

“Gotta say, this thing’s more comfortable than I thought. It’s like being in a cocoon.”

“Mmhmmm.” We almost ended up making one for you too. Donnie shook his head to dismiss the thought, then refocused on leaving an even layer of black before peeling back the stencil.

“You’re being awfully broody over there Dontron. What’s crawled up your shell?”

How?! “Excuse me for being solemn whilst working on a coffin for our murdered mother ‘Nardo.” Don snarked, hoping to distract his intrusive twin. He got his wish, for about two seconds. “Nope, there’s something more Don.”

The young genius rolled his eyes while carefully cleaning up some edges. “Oh, you think so?”

“I know so.”

That’s it. “How? How Leo? How can you possibly know that there’s ‘something more’?”

The tarp rustled on the other side of the oaken lid. “I just know.”

Fed up, Donatello put his paintbrush down on his little rolling table. “That doesn’t make any sense! You can’t even see me right now, how can you know something is bothering me? You do this all the time. I say one thing, but you insist that I’m thinking or feeling another when you can’t by any measurable means know it.”

There was more tarp rustling sounds before Leo came around the end of the casket. There was an odd mix of frustration and concern on his face. “Don. Feelings aren’t measurable. I just... get a feeling and run with it.”

“But how are you RIGHT?!” That was what really got him. Leo seemed to always peg exactly how Donnie felt on intuition alone and on top of that he somehow knew that they weren’t just regular brothers with no empirical information whatsoever. It was statistically impossible; it drove Donnie absolutely nuts. “How do you KNOW what I’m feeling? How did you KNOW that we were ‘twins’?” He asked waving his hands about, finishing with furious air quotes.

Leo softly walked over and oh so gently took his brother’s frantic hands. “BECAUSE we’re twins. Don, we were literally the same person once. We have two halves of the SAME BRAIN. If regular twins can pick up on each other’s thoughts and feelings, is it really that hard to believe that we can?”

“Then why don’t I feel it too?!” And there was the rub. He was already unfeeling (low empathy, it’s not the same thing), and he couldn’t even get a sense for what his literal other half was feeling. Tears were starting to burn in the corners of his eyes.

Leonardo moved a little closer. “Aw Donnie. I think you probably do.” What? “But like you always said, we’re not even the same species. For us to be twins didn’t make any sense. You probably just dismissed anything you picked up from me as, I dunno, a stray thought or something. You had no reason to think we had an actual twin thing going on, and you’re all about reason.”

The softshell let that percolate a bit. “I wasn’t wrong, I was misinformed.”

Leo rolled his eyes. “Yes Donatello, that’s the takeaway here.”

His beak twitched a bit. “According to your theory then, if I allow myself to be more… open to thoughts and feelings, I’ll be able to get a sense of you?”

The firm hands of his brother settled on Donnie’s shoulders. “I’m sure of it. With some practice, you’ll be snitching on me in no time.” One last squeeze, then Leo released his hold and stepped back. “Let’s get this done. She’s been waiting long enough.”

Forty-eight hours later, the middle Hamato sons were dressing against a chilly New York November night. The casket was sat on a rolling table, ready to be loaded into their newly pilfered van. It’d been more than a little awkward getting their mother cleaned up, dressed and moved into her custom-made coffin; both the boys having blushed until their faces hurt, but it was done. All that remained was a short drive to park by a busy precinct and come home.

It all seemed so anti-climactic. Clad in their respective hoodies, pants and running shoes, the two looked at each other, nodded and made for the coffin. “Ahem.” They turned to find their entire family plus Todd and Hueso cautiously entering the garage, Splinter in the lead. “If it is alright with you, we’d like to pay our respects before you leave.”

Leo and Don were struck speechless. Both fighting tears, they silently moved to the ends of the coffin, quickly lifting the lid, before they stood straight, hands clasped, as an honour guard. Claudia Sullivan lay between her only children, hair loose, in a simple white dress, set out as a modern-day Snow White.

Todd gathered up the nerve to step forward first. “I’m sorry, pretty lady, that we never got to meet. Your boys are so nice, and my puppies love them so I’m sure I would’ve loved you too. I’ll name a puppy just for you. I hope you’re happy now.” Then he bounced off. Leo shook his head a little, blinking with a bemused smile on his face.

Senor Hueso straightened his tie as he approached next. After a quick nod to each of the boys he addressed the body. “Madam. My deepest regrets for what befell you and having to consider these two miscreants your sons.” Fortunately, they took the jab with the good humour intended. “However, you should know that they helped saved the world, so without them, we all would have been lost, and while nothing can make what was done to you right, I hope you will at least consider the end results to be somewhat worth it.” He bowed and walked back to the others, whispering to Splinter along the way that he would be sending an order of the boys’ favourite pizzas over for them later.

Casey walked up, wringing his hands. Looking up, he met his mentor’s eyes and after Leo’s encouraging nod, he spoke. “Ma’am. What Senior Hueso said was true. Without them we’d be lost; I know that for a fact. Personally, I couldn’t have asked for better uncles growing up, than your sons and their brothers, so thank you, and good-bye.” The human boy shared another watery smile with his Sensei, then back away.

April came forward, silently giving each of the twins a white rose and a tender hug before stepping back to bow deeply to their mother. “Thank you for two of my best friends in the world. I hope you’ll be able to rest in peace with your family.” She returned to the others, giving Raphael a pat on one massive arm as he took his turn, Mikey perched on his shoulders.

The bookend brothers paused a moment, while Donnie sniffed a bit to regain his composure, then bowed formally. Switching back and forth between snapper and box they said,

“We’re so sorry for what our maker did to you.”

“We wish there was more we could do.”

“We promise that we’ll never let anyone use his methods to hurt anyone else,”

“and, that we’ll be the best brothers we can to your sons.”

They backed up five paces and were replaced by their patriarch. Hamato Yoshi bowed right to the floor in front of the mother of his twin sons. “My Lady. I wish you had been able to know our sons. Though what was done to us was horrible, they are wonderful boys.” Said sons were both sniffling now, fighting to maintain what composure they could. “I know that I am very proud and love them both dearly. I’m sure that you would have too, given the chance.” He then stood, and nodded to them.

As one, Leonardo and Donatello turned, lowered the lid, walked to either side of the casket and hefted it up by the dark handles. With dignity, they gently bore her into the back of the stolen van where they secured the coffin with sturdy straps. Leo crab walked up to the driver’s seat while Don stayed behind to give their family a small smile and a quiet “Thank you,” before pulling the double doors shut.

Thirty minutes later, Leo pulled over as close to the precinct as he dared. Getting up, he crouch-walked back to where Donnie was making sure everything had managed the trip intact. “I guess this is it huh?” The slider asked.

“I suppose so.”

Slowly, they stood as best they could, backs to the doors. They slowly bowed, then the elder twin spoke. “Rest in peace, Mother. We wish we could have done more for you.”

The younger chimed in. “We wish we could give you justice; we hope this is enough.”

They exited the van, making sure it was locked up tight, and casually walked off. Once around the corner, Leo pulled the keys out of his pocket and hit the emergency button on the attached fob. A fading horn blared behind them as the twins meandered their way to a distant manhole, arms slung around each other’s shoulders.

On a cold January morning, the BAU met with lots of hot coffee and a box of hefty doughnuts. Their chipper chatter cut off as Penelope and JJ strode in fast. “Ok,” Garcia started, “we’ve got one out of New York.”

“Really? Is an unsub trying to use the disaster as a cover?” David Rossi asked, while reaching for one of the files JJ had just deposited in the centre of the table.

JJ shook her head. “No; this body was left in a coffin, in a locked van outside the 20th precinct. They set off the alarm as they left.” She sat as Garcia turned on the main screens.

“Claudia Sullivan. Reported Missing March 4th, 2000.” A picture of the young woman came up, bright smile for all to see. “Police found nothing. Nada. Absolutely squat. After 7 years she was declared dead. Her case is still open but there have been no leads, until now.”

A picture of a white van with a wooden coffin in the back was next on the screen. Emily took up the telling, reading from her file. “November 18th her body was discovered in a custom-built coffin, her name on it with her date of birth and a date of death listed as March 6th?” Penelope advanced the presentation again, revealing the coffin lid as described.

“So according to the unsub, she was killed after a couple of days? What’s he been doing with her body since then?” Morgan asked, taking a sip from his mug.

“Whatever it was, he should patent his skin care program and make a fortune.” Garcia answered, bringing up a picture of Claudia in repose, looking exactly the same as the day she disappeared.

Reid leaned forward, entranced. “She hasn’t decomposed at all.”

“Nope.” Penelope answered, blonde hair waving as she shook her head. “Not a single hair out of place. The only thing they could find wrong, other than her being, y’know, dead, was that umm… her ovaries had been removed.” A picture of a female torso with two small horizontal incisions was next. “Cause of death is undetermined,” JJ supplied, “an unidentified substance was found in her body, but best they can tell it was introduced post-mortem. And the coffin was homemade with no progress thus far on tracing the materials.”

“Ok,” Morgan spoke up, reading further in the file, his dark brow furrowed deeply, “well the careful preservation says she meant something to him. The coffin and everything could be a sign of remorse. Maybe after 20 years, something’s happened to make him regret what he did? Staring an alien invasion in the face could make a person take a hard look at themselves.”

David shook his head. “Maybe, but I’m not seeing how this falls into our wheelhouse. NYPD is swamped with id’ing victims of the attack, but this girl’s been missing so long, waiting until they clear their backlog won’t make a huge difference.”

“Ah,” Penelope exclaimed, “But see, with that huge backlog the NYPD have been running DNA through their crime labs and others that have volunteered their resources from around the world 24/7 ever since, and when their CSI’s found blood under one of the coffin’s hinges they threw that sample in too. ‘Why not?’ they figured.” She turned back to the screen. “The results came in two days ago. The blood from the coffin maker came back as being related to Ms Sullivan as a parent-child match.”

Aaron looked up from his file. “The coffin maker was her child?”

“Yep,” the blonde chirped, “a son to be specific.”

“But she didn’t have any children.” Emily said, finger on a page before her.

“Not when she disappeared.” Garcia answered, clicking the remote again. “And that’s not all. The DNA matched to another missing person’s file. Yoshi Hamato, immigrated to America from Japan in the early 90’s disappeared in 99. No trace of him since either.”

__________________________________________________________________________________

“So obvious question, is Hamato our unsub?” Derek threw out, digging in the box for a honey crueller.

Reid shook his head, rapidly devouring the assembled files. “Unlikely, he doesn’t have the medical background necessary to produce a child from harvested ovaries. He was probably also a victim.”

“Yoshi Hamato, why is that name familiar?” Rossi mused, leaning back to brace his hands on the nape of his neck.

“You’d probably be more familiar with his screen name,” JJ took the remote from a now seated Garcia to bring up an image of an Asian man in a ludicrous outfit. “Lou Jitsu. He was a minor celebrity in the 90’s.”

“Lou Jitsu? Wasn’t that the guy in those cheesy food-themed action flicks?” Prentiss chuckled, snatching a chocolate doughnut that Reid had been reaching for.

“Oh yeah,” Morgan smiled, “I remember those. Not much plot, but you gotta admit, man had some moves.”

“So, what we have,” Hotcher interjected, reigning the discussion back in, “is a young man and young woman who both vanished within a year of each other.”

“Twenty years later, her body reappears with DNA from their child on her bespoke coffin.” Emily continued.

Reid flipped back and forth between the two people’s records. “He was an accomplished martial artist, and she was a rising star in academia. Custom baby?”

Rossi steepled his fingers. “Unsub and his partner are unable to have a child, so he figures ‘May as well make the child of our dreams.’? Or he’s just playing mad scientist and went the eugenics route.”

“Race doesn’t seem to be an issue.” JJ added. “He was Asian, she was White.”

“Unless race IS the issue.” Derek countered. “If it was about infertility, the unsub and his spouse might be a White/Asian interracial couple. In which case they’d want their custom baby to resemble them.”

Emily chimed in again, “Is there anything else we have on the actual unsub?”

Penelope took the remote back again. “The unidentified substance he used? The crime lab has seen it before. About twenty-five years ago, there was a streak of homeless people who vanished, and their bodies were later found scattered around the city. All of them had been .. immersed in the same substance at some point. A few had been, ah, harvested for their, shall we say, genetic material.” Pictures of several people flashed across the street, naked and discarded in various positions.

“Test subjects.” Hotch frowned. “He was practicing.”

“And there hasn’t been any other bodies with this ‘unknown substance’ since? Other than Ms Sullivan.” Rossi asked. Garcia shook her head, and looked around, wondering where the analysts were going to go next.

Emily sat back in her chair. “So, this guy makes a few test runs, abducts the people he’s selected and does, whatever he was planning to do. No more connected disappearances, that we know of. If it’s an infertility thing, possibly his spouse carries the baby, knowingly or not, OR they hire/abduct a surrogate.”

Derek leaned in next. “The resulting kid grows up. We don’t know if he knew truth, or just found out. Something changed. Given the timing, it was probably the invasion. A lot of people were killed or so badly injured that they need to be in care now. Maybe the kid felt safe enough to act or was digging into personal affairs and discovered the truth. Either way, he made a coffin for his mother and did his best to deliver her to the police, probably in the hopes that she’d be returned to her family.”

“Besides the DNA evidence, what else do we have on the son? He couldn’t be any older than twenty-one now.” Reid followed.

JJ pulled another file out of her pile. “The van was stolen earlier that day. No progress on tracing any of the materials used to make the coffin, or even the dress, which is weird. The detective’s prevailing theory is that he sourced them from off the grid, home business types.”

“There’s video,” Penelope cut in, narrating as playback began. “3 am, the van pulls up in front of the 20th precinct. Five minutes later two men exit the rear of the vehicle and walk off.” Two lean figures saunter away, clearly comfortable with each other. “After they get about a block, they trigger the van’s alarm.” Lights start flashing on the vehicle. “Thirty minutes later, police discover the van and Claudia Sullivan’s body.”

Emily’s dark eyes roamed over the selected stills. “Two men. The son and a friend? Sibling? Cousin? Where did they go?”

Aaron dug through the files. “According to this, the surveillance cameras lost them somewhere in Central Park.”

“Whatever their connection, working together to dump a body? They must be awfully close.” Dave tacked on. “There’s no more physical evidence?”

“Ah but there is.” Penelope wielded her remote once again, with a flourish. “The blood trace was contaminated with DNA from a red-earned slider, a very common species of pet turtle, and handprints. Three to be specific. Two right prints and one left.”

“Any matches?” Morgan asked.

“Nope, they’re too smudged, but….” Three triple digit handprints flash up. “They’re still very distinctive.”

“Tridactylism.” Reid began, utterly fascinated with what he was seeing. “It’s a type of symbrachydactyly, when the digits don’t form correctly during gestation. It can manifest as small fingers, missing bones or, as in this case, merged fingers.”

“Ok. There can’t be that many Asian/Caucasian men born with three fingers in New York City.” Derek tapped his pen on the table.

“Alright, Penelope? Start looking into fertility Doctors in the Tri-State Area with surgical training who are also Caucasian or Asian, possibly,” Hotch’s attention wavered to Reid’s face, “with a spouse of the other race and a mixed-race son. Start with people killed, missing or severely injured in the alien attack. Spencer, what is it?” The section chief asked, seeing something in his protégé’s eyes.

“Well,” the young doctor, paused. “It’s just … there’s something about the handprints…” He got up and walked over to the screen. “Can you make them bigger?” Garcia blinked and complied as Emily went to join their friend. “What are you seeing Spence?”

“The right handprints,” he gestured, “they’re very similar.”

“Yeah….” Morgan drawled.

“But they’re not identical. There are small differences in the clear friction ridges, and they have different calluses. The chances of two people having the exact same form of this defect are infinitesimal, even in full siblings it would be near impossible. It’s not genetic, it’s caused by conditions in the womb…”

Emily got it. “Twins.” Her mouth dropped open as she locked back on to the video, down in the corner. “It’s not Claudia’s son and a friend, they’re both her sons. Twin boys.”

“Okay,” Aaron cut back in, “Penelope, start another search for twin boys, of mixed race with this particular form of birth defect. The rest of us will go to New York.”

Garcia cut in. “Just don’t expect help from the NYPD, they’re swamped and don’t have any people to spare.”

“Understood.” Everyone started packing up. “JJ, I assume the family has been notified by now.”

“Yes, but her parents were in the middle of the South Pacific on their sailboat. It took a while just to make contact, and even longer for them to reach port and arrange travel back to the States. They should be arriving sometime tomorrow.” The slim blonde said, while gathering up her own collection of files.

“Prepare everything you can on the twins. This family has endured decades of loss and pain, let’s give them some hope.”

Five hours later the BAU field agents were setting up at the 20th NYPD Precinct. There were no white boards to spare, so they were making do taping papers to the conference room walls. Derek finish getting their laptop connected to the precinct wifi. “Hey Baby Girl.”

“Hey Chocolate Thunder.” Garcia’s voice rang out from the speakers.

“Have you dug anything up on our unsub or the twins?” Sympathy swept over his face as she shook her head. “Nada again on both. It’s driving me nuts. This doctor? I found 2 male and 3 female fertility doctors who were in White/Asian interracial relationships, one had twin sons, but they’re only twelve years old. I did find one set of twins in the tri-state area with symbra… whatever, but they’re a set of thirty-year-old women, and they have four fingers, not three. Whoever these people are, they aren’t in any database I have access too. How is it 2023 and there’s NO record of them?”

Derek’s heart ached for his best friend. “Aw Mama. You know how some people are, hiding from the government, and an unsub has even more reason to. There’s something online, we just don’t know what it is yet. Let us do our thing, we’ll find some more strings for you to yank on.”

“Thanks sugar.” She signed off.

He sat back in the uncomfortable chair, thinking about the two young men (boys?) they were searching for. Were they raised like beloved sons, or were they mistreated; just the results of an experiment. Were they happy? Were they mourning their mother’s killer?

Rossi walking in with bags of takeout knocked the younger man out of his thoughts. “Hey, talked to Penelope, her searches didn’t turn up anything. Where’d you go?”

“Ah, first I went to look at the physical evidence with Hotch. Then while he went to join Spencer looking through the evidence from the practice murders and Yoshi Hamato’s case, I made a little detour to Carmine’s. Some of the best Italian food in this part of New York.” The senior agent started setting out containers. “Emily called, she and JJ talked to Claudia’s parents. They managed to swing an earlier flight and are on their way in now.”

“Good.” Derek turned away, not bothering to grab any food.

“What’s up?” Rossi asked, sitting down with his meal.

Morgan rubbed one of his eyes. “I’m just thinking about those boys. What kinda life they might’ve had. Wondering if they’re safe now.”

Dave chewed a bit. “Well what kinda life? We won’t know until we find them. Are they safe now? Depends. If the unsub’s dead or crippled, probably yeah.”

“Well, let’s hope for that then.”

Prentiss organized the contents of her file folder, mentally running over details again. She also checked that there was plenty of water and Kleenex, ready for their victim’s family to arrive with JJ. Speak of the devil. JJ walked around the bullpen corner; an older couple close behind her. Emily took a deep breath and did her best to school her face into a welcoming yet sympathetic smile.

The door opened. “And this is Special Agent Emily Prentiss. She’s part of our Behavioural Analysis Unit. Emily? This is Bruce Sullivan and Doctor Maria D’Orso-Sullivan, Claudia Sullivan’s parents.”

The profiler took them in as quickly as she could, pairing it with what she’d read. Mr Sullivan was relatively fit for a man in his 60’s, barely a gut starting to form. Slightly shorter than his wife, his full, greying beard and head of hair paired with a warm flannel lined jacket, he was every inch the former navy man. Doctor Sullivan’s wavy copper hair, was tied back into a simple ponytail, liberally shot through with her own greys. Prentiss could see where Claudia got her eyes.

“Hello. Please have a seat.” The senior agent shook hands with both, then pulled out a chair with the others and sat. “I wish we could’ve given you better news about your daughter.”

Maria put a hand up. “It’s alright Agent Prentiss,” traces of Brooklyn accent in her strong voice, “Honestly, we pretty much resigned ourselves to Claudia being dead years ago. All we care about now, is finding out what happened and getting justice for her if we can.”

“It feels horrible to say, but knowing that she died only a few days after, that she hasn’t been scared and suffering all this time, it helps.” Bruce added, a conflicted look in his pale blue eyes. “Ticks me off the bastard had the nerve to build her a coffin though.”

The agents shared a glance. “Actually, the crime lab has been able to process more of the evidence since you were notified, and the results have been… startling. The coffin wasn’t made by the man that killed your daughter.”

They both looked confused. “Then who?” Bruce asked.

“We found some blood under one of the hinges. It was a match to Claudia and a man that disappeared a year before.” JJ told them, trying to be gentle.

“A match?” Maria asked. “You mean like, a child? We have a grandchild?”

Emily took back over. “Two actually, there’s matching distinct handprints, but with different calluses and scars. We think they’re a set of twin boys. They’re the ones that made the coffin for Claudia.”

“They made it? We have grandsons? This is… it’s …. I need a minute.” Bruce bowed his head, cupping shaking hands over his face, while Maria rubbed her husband’s back. She met Emily’s eyes. “Tell us everything.”

“The only things we’re sure of now, is that someone abducted and killed several homeless people, we think they were practice runs. Then he abducted a man, Yoshi Hamato, and a year later your daughter. At some point, they were used to make these boys. Our guess is that they’re somewhere between the ages of 16 and 21.” She shifted a bit. “Our best guess is that the abductor was badly injured or killed during the invasion. Then the boys either learned the truth or finally felt free enough to act.” Prentiss tried to meet both their eyes. “In any case, they took great care and effort to return your daughter to you with dignity.”

“Then why haven’t they tried to contact us? Come forward?” Bruce asked, sliding his hands down to cover his mouth.

Emily sighed, and JJ took over. “It could be a few things. Remember, they’re young, and they’ve either had their whole world turned upside down, learning a horrible truth; or they’ve known all along but been raised and conditioned to accept it and love their adoptive parent anyway. Both circumstances would take a lot to work through, even with therapy. But they’ve already taken the first step, like Emily said, they cared enough to do something. They cared enough to bring her back to you.”

“What about the other person he took? Have you found his body?” Maria’s eyes flicked back and forth between the other women.

Emily stepped back in. “No. Yoshi Hamato’s only living relative, his grandfather, died a couple years after he disappeared. So, we think the boys will see to him themselves if they do have his body.”

“Then… we’re their only family?” Maria said.

“Biologically, yes.” Emily said, “But we don’t know how they were brought up. They might have an entire adoptive family. Thing is, we haven’t been able to find a record of anyone matching their description. They may have been raised under the radar.”

“Wait, description? Somebody saw them?” Bruce asked, twining his hands with Maria’s again.

“Not exactly,” JJ cut in again, opening the file in front of her. “Knowing who their parents are, we know that they’re half white and half Japanese. The DNA shows that they’re male and from their handprints we know that they are twins and have a rare birth defect.” She pulled out the handprints in question.

“Tridactylism?” Maria ran a finger over the picture.

JJ blinked. “You’ve heard of it?”

“I’m a marine biologist, I’ve seen it in some of my specimens that were affected by pollution. Alligators, marine iguanas and such.” The doctor replied.

“Right. The only other thing we have is CCTV video from the night they dropped off Claudia’s body.” JJ handed over some stills. “We never got a shot of their faces, but…”

The two bereaved parents got their first looks at their wayward grandsons. “Why do you think they’re between 21 and 16? Claudia died so soon after she was taken?” Maria took a breath and answered her own question, twisting her simple wedding ring around on her finger. “You think they’re test-tube babies.”

“It’s the only thing that makes sense, and while its most likely that he would’ve ‘made’ them sooner rather than later, he might’ve waited awhile. We’re giving ourselves as wide a range as we can for the search.” Emily took a steadying breath. “Given this information, we started looking into fertility doctors and now people who work with them and in connected industries.”

JJ took the opportunity to pour everyone a big glass of water and pass them out. “I’m sure you answered a lot of questions when Claudia first went missing, but did your daughter ever talk about medical appointments or participate in studies?”

“No nothing,” Bruce answered, his Boston accent getting thicker, “there was nothing suspicious before she vanished. Everything was fine, and then she was gone.”

Emily glanced up through the door’s window and caught Hotch’s eye. “Ok. Thank you. If you’ll excuse me?” She left the Sullivans to JJ and headed out into the busy bullpen. “Hotch?”

He ground his jaw and led her to a quiet corner. “We have nothing.”

“Nothing, what do you mean?”

“I mean we have nothing, aside from what was gleaned from the van we have nothing more than what was in the original missing persons and murder cases. There are no new leads, Penelope’s searches have yielded no results.” The stoic man huffed a bit. “We need to shake things up. Elicit a reaction. We need a press conference.”

__________________________________________________________________________________

Loud technobeats thumped through Donatello’s lab, though not at full volume out of consideration for the slider slumped in a bean bag on the floor. As Leo worked through his newest medical textbook, taking copious notes as he went, Donnie delicately laboured over the long process of building Shelldon’s new body.

The young genius was so grateful that he was also incredibly paranoid; daily uploading a backup of Shelldon to his remote servers just in case. But while Donnie could be prideful, he made a point of learning from any mistakes he DID make and had spent what little spare time he had the last two years meticulously designing a new, far more robust, body for his little AI. Finally in the manufacturing phase, an intricate drone was taking shape under his careful hands.

Any observer could be forgiven for thinking that the twins were simply sharing space while working on their separate tasks. They’d be wrong though. The boys were practicing.

With Don finally accepting their true nature, barriers had fallen and the twins were growing towards each other, like trees planted close. Right now they were bouncing emotions back and forth, an invisible game bringing soft smiles to both their faces as warmth and joy reflected between them.

Leo marvelled a little, pausing in his reading; he knew Donnie felt more than he was able to accurately display, but the depth of emotion that his brother had roiling under the surface was startling. I should’ve known better. He FEELS just fine, it’s processing emotions that he has trouble with, Leo mused; skipping the chapter on diseases of the reproductive system for now, not in the mood to be grossed out. It’s only fun if I’m sitting next to Raph anyway. Tilting the book just so and freaking out his older brother with pictures of diseased body parts was endlessly entertaining.

That thought must have leaked through because Don snorted into his circuit board while the mental equivalent of an uproarious belly-laugh rolled over Leo’s mindscape. The medic huffed a bit in amusement then continued reading, enjoying easy camaraderie with his twin. “Was it just that I thought something was funny or did you actually hear what I was thinking?”

The engineer paused a moment, just realizing what he’d done. “I … heard you. I think?” Donatello turned wide eyes to his brother.

Leo’s grin grew across his face. “So cool! What about this?” Donatello’s a drama queen.

The softshell frowned for a moment, then, “I think you’ve got that backwards Nardo.”

“Yes!” Both of Leonardo’s fists shot triumphantly into the air. “Twin telepathy for the win!”

Don rolled his eyesand went back to work.

We already had the mind meld. The slider froze. That, that was a thought but it had a distinctly Donnie … taste, feel? Whatever, it was Donnie. For the first time, Leo had picked up a full thought from his twin. It’s not the same though, he replied, we can only do that with Raph; and he basically has to yell it at us. This is just… like overhearing someone talking to themselves next to you.

A sense of agreement wafted over from his brother, followed by nervousness as Don bounced one of his legs. Donnie?

Are we going to overhear everything each other thinks now?

A chill washed over Leon. Oh boy I hope not. People don’t share every stray thought for a reason. Next time, we practice blocking each other out.

Agreed.

…. In the meantime, do you know who took my Scarlet Wonder #6? I’m sure I had it in my “Do Not Touch I’m Not Done With This” drawer.

Uhhh…..

Their brewing squabble was interrupted by Don’s com ringing. “You are conversing with Donatello,” the softshell answered while studiously avoiding his twin’s evil eye and was promptly blasted by April’s voice bellowing out of his headphones. “Donnie! You gotta watch the link I sent you! Right! Now!”

A few minutes later April had been routed through the main speakers, Don was pulling up the link she’d sent him and the rest of their family were barrelling through into his lab.

“In class today the teacher decided to have us watch an FBI press conference that was held here in New York,” she was explaining, “Prof wanted us to get used to taking notes, making up questions on the fly, that sorta stuff.” There was a clang in the background along with a male “Hey!” as she sprinted through campus. “After a bit I realized what they were talking about …” the young woman trailed off as she recognized the playback starting on Donatello’s end.

Turtles and rat gathered around the primary monitor where a blonde woman stood behind a podium. “Good afternoon. I’m FBI Agent Jennifer Jareau and we’ve called this press conference today in the hopes that the public will be able to help us solve a series of murders, and find some potentially vulnerable victims.”

The agent gestured to the screen next to her where a timeline appeared, filling in as she spoke. “In the late 90’s, eight homeless people were found dead in New York city. They had all been murdered, parts of their bodies ‘sampled’, for lack of a better term, and then they were dumped. They were all linked by the presence of a yet to be identified liquid. This past November, the body of a young woman was left outside the 20th precinct, also with traces of the same liquid. Her name was Claudia Sullivan. She was abducted March of 2000.” Their mother’s smiling picture flashed up on the screen.

Leon settled a trembling hand on Don’s shoulder, a wave of acceptance and anxiety flowing back.

“From evidence gathered at the scene, we’ve been able to determine that she was used to produce two children. Twin sons, who’s DNA is also linked to another missing person’s case, that of Yoshi Hamato, better known by his screen name of Lou Jitsu, who went missing in 1999. His body has not been found and until it is, he is still considered a missing person.”

That very man gasped as his former face was displayed. Michelangelo grabbed their Dad in a side hug, briskly rubbing up and down his furry arm.

“We believe that these people were victims of the same serial killer. Mission oriented, the creation of these two boys were his ultimate goal; homeless people being used as practice for his real targets, Miss Sullivan and Mr Hamato, so that he could use their genetic material.”

Raphael’s great bulk hovered over his family, trying to reassure them that he was there for them; that they had his protection.

“We believe we are looking for a male, 40 – 60 years old, of Caucasian or East Asian descent, likely in an interracial relationship with someone of the other race. He probably works in the medical field, specializing in treating infertility. We believe he and his spouse have raised these boys as their own. Given the timing of the boys delivering their biological mother to the police, we think that our suspect was killed or seriously wounded in the alien attack.”

Don’s right hand snaked up, to twine with that of his brother.

“The twins are of mixed race, Caucasian and East Asian, between the ages of 16 and 21. They also have a very distinct birth defect of their hands.” Agent Jareau fixed her gaze on the camera. “Someone out there knows these people. Someone knows this couple, knows these boys. You can help give the victims back their voices and connect these young men with their biological families.” A phone number and web address began scrolling across the bottom of the screen. “Please, contact the FBI by the means listed below to share any information you may have. Now,” she glanced off to the side, “the parents of Claudia Sullivan are here and would like to say a few words.”

Nonononononononononono. Leo’s mind devolved into rushing blur as his shaking legs finally gave out. He sunk to his knees next to Donatello’s chair, incredibly grateful the young genius maintained an iron grip.

An older couple took the agent’s position, blinking rapidly as the many cameras present flashed in front of them. Our grandparents.. Don’s reverent thought wafted over.

“Hello,” the man began, “I’m Bruce Sullivan, and this is my wife, Maria,” he said, while rubbing the stately woman’s back. “We’d like to thank all the members of law enforcement and people in the community that have tried to help us find Claudia. It meant the world to our family.” He took a deep breath, “But most of all we want to say… to our grandsons,” the grey headed man lost his composure, looking down to rub his eyes. Maria took over. “We want to say thank you. Thank you so much for giving her back to us, we weren’t sure that we would ever know what happened to her. And.. please know, we’d love to meet you. No matter how you came into this world,” she blinked back tears, “you ARE our grandsons, and if you ever decide you want it, there’s a place for you with us. But if you could,” her jaw trembled as she fought with her emotions, “if there’s a way, could you let us know that you’re safe?”

The press conference then descended into semi-orderly chaos with journalists jockeying for their questions to be answered. But the answers they wanted weren’t there.

The twins were discovering the downside of their newly open link. Mutual panic and confusion reverberated between them, building in intensity with each passing moment. Don honestly couldn’t even tell what was coming from whom anymore. He latched onto Nardo with all he had while falling into the maelstrom.

Longing/fear/disgust/hope/anger/why?/It was over/fear/pain/want/maybe?

Guys!

Raph?!

Guys! We’re here! You need to calm down.

Their big brother’s mental call cut through the confusion. Slowly Donatello became aware of massive arms tightly wrapped around him. A thunderous heartbeat next to his head. Leon’s hands woven with his own in a death grip. Oh. Raphael had gathered the panicking twins up into his expansive grasp. Tucked together, legs entwined, their heaving plastrons gradually slowed, calming down from the tandem panic attack.

Donatello closed his eyes and focused on riding out the lingering symptoms. We definitely need to practice blocking each other out.

“Sorry.” The soft whisper forced Don to look outward again. Leon’s dark gaze was full of naked pain and remorse. “S’okay.” Donnie murmured back, worried about the deep pit of fear and despair he saw behind his twin.

Raph rumbled deep in his chest. “You’re both ok. Just rest, Raph’s gotcha. We’ll take care of everything else later.” Between panic induced exhaustion, and the comfort they’d fallen asleep to so often growing up, both drifted away.

Eventually, Don blinked back awake, Leo still right in front of him. At first, he only registered the slider’s slack, tired face then shifted back a bit when he noticed the bright cheery visage of a teddy bear popping right over Leonardo’s striped shoulder. Raph’s room. Glancing around, it looked like the snapper had tucked them both into his own bed, then constructed a fluffy, squishy nest of plush critters all around them. Actually, he could feel glass orb eyes pressing uncomfortably into his shell. Reaching around, Don found the offending koala, glared into its cold, dead marbles and chucked the effigy of adorable evil across the room.

Carefully extracting himself from his sleeping twin’s grasp, Donatello slowly sat up and shifted away to sit cross-legged against the wall. Alright, break it down. One, their original plan had achieved its goal. Two, they had apparently left enough evidence behind that the police had discovered their existence and connection to both of their human parents. Three, their maternal grandparents were now aware of them and were seeking contact. Four, the FBI was involved and would be watching any contact with said grandparents like a proverbial hawk. Five, the thought of making contact with their grandparents absolutely terrified Leonardo.

That’s the one he got stuck on. Some trepidation would be understandable, but what he’d felt from his brother was a soul deep dread that even now caused a pit to open in Don’s own stomach. Why was the prospect of contact with these people so frightening? Donatello himself was nervous about it. Afterall, they didn’t know their grandsons were mutants, and while mutants were now publicly known, and had found some acceptance; there was no way to know how they would react to finding out their murdered daughter’s forcefully produced children were a couple giant reptiles. Leonardo’s fear though was much more profound than Don thought it should be for the given circumstances.

The softshell found himself at a loss, watching his sleeping younger twin. As they’d gotten older, the rest of the clan had eventually figured out that much of Leo’s behaviour was in fact motivated by insecurity. After the Krang it had morphed into outright self-loathing. Holding himself responsible not only for that which had nearly been, but the many deaths that had occurred, it’d taken everything the family had to convince him that he was merely the butterfly that flapped its wings and eventually started a windstorm. Even if they had gotten the key that night, they would’ve just returned it to the museum, the Foot would’ve stolen it again and everything would’ve gone down the same way. They knew though, that Leo’s self-destructive brain refused to completely let go of the juicy bone it’d found to gnaw on.

Perhaps it had dug up another in their origins, and the what ifs surrounding their maternal relatives? That was all Donnie could come up with to explain this. He leaned forward, steepling his hands. Both of us have malfunctioning brains, not surprising as they were the same brain once. Mine refuses to process sensory input and emotional output correctly. His seeks potential threats to his family so as to strategize around them but identifies ITSELF as a potential threat and therefore seeks to eliminate itself. Perhaps it is time to ask Papa to find a therapist for Nardo as well. Was this the trade-off for their own respective forms of genius? Rewiring to allow them to think beyond the means of most people resulted in poor performance in other areas?

Perhaps we can balance each other out? The entire family helped Donatello accommodate and work around his limitations, Leo and April often taking the lead with Michelangelo occasionally beating him over the head with heavier lessons when called for. Cold logic had given Leon’s strategic mind ammunition to fight it’s own irrational conclusions before, maybe Donnie could help provide that again? In the dark, watching over his brother, Donatello began to scheme.

With a deep breath, Leo opened his eyes. Directly across from him was his twin sitting like a glowering king among Raphael’s many, many plushies. “Y’know, I could totally see you winning the game of thrones, but I don’t think you’d accept anything less than a titanium one.”

“Huh? Wha?” Donnie was knocked out of his train of thought. “Oh, you’re awake.”

“Excellent observation Dontron.” Leon huffed as he heaved himself upright then sighed. “Sorry for … y’know, earlier. Didn’t mean to drag you down with me.”

“Nardo…”

They were interrupted by the subway car door being slid open. “I thought I heard you guys.” Raph’s soft grin greeted them as the eldest walked in. “Good to see you up. Feeling better?” he asked, running his eyes over Don while cupping the back of Leo’s head to check the slider’s temperature with a giant thumb. “Yeah big bro, I think we’re good.” Leonardo answered, not wanting to cause any further worry. “You sure? That was a pretty strong reaction out there.” Well so much for that.

With Donatello’s disapproval weighing heavily behind him, Leo tried one more time. “You’re right, I shouldn’t speak for Donnie, but I’m good hermano. Really!”

“Uh huh…” Raphael’s flat response clearly showed he wasn’t buying it.

The slider shrunk down into his shell a bit, not wanting to face the reality of his earlier emotional implosion. “Look, I just thought this whole thing was done and over with, then BAM! FBI press conference! It was a bit of a kick in the teeth.” He squirmed under the combined weight of his older brothers’ stares. “It’s not like we can contact them anyway, what with this whole situation.” Leo waved a hand up and down himself.

“Well…..” Donatello interjected, “they don’t HAVE to see us.”

He knew he didn’t have reason, but Leo suddenly felt so betrayed. “Um. What?”

“Yeah, whaddayah mean Donnie?” Raph asked, eyes narrowed in confusion.

“We could call them. I can run our connection through encrypted servers all over the planet so the FBI can’t trace it and they won’t be able to see us.” The softshell answered, already on his wristcomp. “We can give them the reassurance they want and keep our true nature secret.”

Don was pointedly avoiding his twin’s eyes, focusing now on Raphael. What are you up to ‘Tello? His brother flicked a glance Leo’s way then back to their elder, a sense of nervousness, want and determination wafting over. You WANT to meet them?

“That’s not a bad idea Donnie.” Leon’s attention was drawn back to the giant snapper. “They seemed really worried about you guys. Seems like they think you’re in the hands of a serial killer or something so if we can let them know you’re ok….”

Everything faded out a bit after that. We’re really gonna do this? We’re going to risk contacting them… even with the FBI hovering over them. Their daughter was MURDERED to make us …

But they already know that and said they want us.

But they don’t know we’re mutants.

Some people are ok with mutants.

They probably arent’.

But the FBI won’t just walk away.

“Nardo.”

It’s not worth the risk.

“Leon.”

What if they find out YOU caused the invasion?

“Leonardo!”

Donatello grabbing Leo by his shoulders and shaking finally knocked the slider out of his spiralling thoughts. “Huh? Wha?”

“Nardo, are you ok?” The naked concern on Donnie’s face and in his mind was another splash of cold water. Suddenly Leo was aware of EVERYTHING. Raph was gone. His legs were tangled in blankets and plushies. His muscles were trembling. Why am I shaking? “Uh, yeah. I’m ok.”

The softshell’s face instantly dropped. “Riiiiight. Because people are ok when they’re having a panic attack.”

Nope nope nope. “I wasn’t having a panic attack.” Leo rebutted, trying to get his legs free. Stupid plushie snakes.

“Sigh. Rapid breathing, sweating, clearly trapped in your own thoughts. You didn’t even notice Raph leaving. Am I missing something?” Dammit, why are you so observant when I don’t want you to be. “Look, is it really that weird that I’m nervous about contact with the Sullivaaaans?!” Leo was free of the blankets; he was also now face first on the floor.

“It’s weird that you’re THIS nervous. Why are you so afraid of them?” He cocked his head to the side like a confused dog.

“Really Donnie?” Frustrated, the young leader sprung up from the floor, rubbing his side a little as he finally got to his feet. “You really can’t see why I don’t want to get any more tangled up in this than we already are?” Arms flung into the air, Leon began to pace, giving his twin both barrels. “Ok MAYBE they’ll be ok with how we got here, they’ve had time to think about that. But if we get wrapped up with them? We won’t be able to hide being mutants forever. We won’t be able to avoid the freaking FBI forever! They’ll find out that Pops is alive, about Draxum, that we were getting CLOSE TO THEIR DAUGHTER’S KILLER!”

“What’s goin’ on in here?” Both middle brothers stopped dead as Mikey poked his head in the train car. “Are you guys fighting?”

“Yes.”

“Yes!”

The twins glared at each other. Well, at least we agree on something.

“Ohhhhhkkaaay.” The youngest swiftly took control of the situation. Plunking down on the bed where he was essentially between his brothers, he crossed his legs and folded his hands over a knee. “What’s the issue gentlemen?”

Hoo boy. “Mikey we can sort this out ourselves.”

Their miniature juggernaut fixed Leo with a glare. “I SAID, what’s the issue gentlemen?”

Right. “Don wants to contact our Mother’s parents. I don’t.” Leo leaned against the car wall, crossing his arms defiantly.

“Hmmm. Right, right, and why are you so opposed to that?” Their baby brother was still prim with his annoyance.

For real?! “Uh… why wouldn’t I be?” He couldn’t believe that any of them were seriously considering this. “Do I need to list the many and sundry reasons why this is a TERRIBLE idea? Again?!”

Annoyingly, his brother’s shared a knowing look. What the actual? In what universe would Donnie be on the same wavelength as Mikey in an emotional conversation?

“Really guys?”

“Leo,” Donnie started lowly, “we can do this safely. Initiate contact with an untraceable audio call and progress according to results.” A soft, tentative longing tickled along the edge of Leon’s mind. Damn your craving for parental approval.

Mikey’s eyes were getting bigger and wetter every second, putting Todd’s puppies to shame. “You won’t know how they feel unless you talk to them Leo.”

Never let it be said that Leonardo Hamato didn’t know when he was beat. Heaving a breath behind gritted teeth, the slider closed his eyes, reasserted his self-control and said, “Fine. But we take every precaution to make sure they can’t find us.”

“Alright!” Mikey clapped, jumped up and glomped onto the striped turtle. “I’ll go tell the others!” Then he bolted out of the room.

Leo rubbed his side absently, carefully ignoring Donnie’s stare.

“It’s not just my desire for adult approval and affection at play.” Well, so much for that.

“They’ve spent decades wondering what happened to their daughter, should they spend the rest of their lives wondering what happened to us?” Shocked, Leonardo snapped around to lock eyes with the softshell. Donnie raised an eyebrow. “What? Even I can see what that would do to someone.”

Doing his best to bring this back around to a logical argument, Boy have we flipped the switch, “And that’s worth risking discovery by the FBI?”

“Psshhh,” Don waved a negligent hand, “FBI, FBsmhI. I can run rings around them. Besides,” he gave the slider a bit of a side-eye, “we’ve risked more for less haven’t we?”

“Hmph.” Leo ran a finger along one of the scars on his arm. “Yeah, and how’d that work out for us?”

The engineer got up and murmured as he walked by, “Two attempts to end the world, and we’re all still here? Works for me.”

“Agent Jareau?” JJ turned from her phone, where she’d been checking up with Will in a quiet corner. “Yes?”

“I think we’ve got something here.” An older female officer handed over a hastily scribbled transcript. “They’re typing it up for the file, but I thought you’d want this right away.”

“Thank you.” The blonde nodded in dismissal and started reading.

Officer: Hello, Sullivan Case tipline.

Caller: Yes, you’re looking for her sons?

Officer: Yes Sir. Do you have any information about them?

Caller: Yeah. I’m one of them.

Officer: I see. If I may Sir, we’ve had more than a few people call in making the same claim; would you mind answering a question in order to confirm your identity?

Caller: Sure?

Officer: On the inside of the coffin lid, there was an inscription. What did it say?

Caller: “You deserved better. Rest in peace.”

JJ kept skimming, looking over where an officer had arranged a call back time when Claudia’s parents would be available. Speed walking while she read the officer’s observations, JJ burst into the boardroom. All the BAU looked up at her entrance and she announced, “They made contact.”

Three hours later, the Sullivans were sitting at the end of a dinged boardroom table, making small talk, trying to avoid fixating on landline phone laying between them. JJ handed each a cup of coffee, getting soft thank you’s in return when a shrill ring forced everyone to try not to spill their drinks. Glancing over at the on-screen Penelope, JJ gestured to pick up once the tech nodded her permission.

On speaker, with everyone else remaining as silent as possible, Bruce shakily connected the call. “Hello?”

There was a brief pause, then a cautious young voice, “Is this Mr Sullivan?”

“Yes. And my wife Maria is right here with me. Are… are you one of our grandsons?”

There was an audible breath on the other end. “Yes. I am. We’re both here actually.”

Silence as everyone tried to think of something to say, then another young male voice. “Well… this is awkward.”

“Leo!” A smack followed by a nervous giggle broke the ice a little.

FBI agents shared glances and smirks, reassured by the normal sibling behaviour on display.

Bruce and Maria huffed softly; she piped up. “So, one of you is named Leo then?”

An exaggerated throat clearing signalled the boys getting themselves back under control. “Yes ma’am,” the first voice came back in. “I am Donatello, my brother here is Leonardo, though we usually go by the diminutives ‘Donnie’ or ‘Don’ and ‘Leo’ or ‘Leon’.”

“Donnie and Leo.” The couple grabbed each other’s hands while Bruce continued. “It’s very good to hear from you. Before we go any further, are you two safe?”

Leo quickly answered. “Yes. We’re safe, you don’t have to worry.”

That dramatically cut the overall tension in the room. No longer having to be concerned about the boys’ wellbeing, at least for now. Their focus shifted.

“Glad to hear it; we were worried. Now that we have you on the phone, we’d like to thank you personally. Thank you for sending Claudia home to us… you have no idea what a difference you’ve made already.” Their grandfather said, running a shaky hand through his greyed hair.

Donnie cut in this time. “You’re welcome. We… wanted to do what we could, what little it was.” JJ felt her eyes prick a bit at the young man’s quietly solemn voice. She glanced over to see Penelope still frantically working, and clearly getting increasingly frustrated.

The Sullivans were talking again. “You should know, we buried her in the coffin you made.”

That had been interesting. Hotch’d hesitated to grant the request, but once they found out their grandsons made it, the couple were determined to bury their daughter in her bespoke coffin. After making sure all possible evidence was collected, the section chief had gone to bat for them, handing Claudia’s body over in the wooden chest.

“You did?” Leo’s voice was small and tinged with wonder.

“Yes dear,” Maria answered this time, “knowing that you two made it for her, we had to. Thank you for that by the way, it was beautiful.” She squeezed her honey eyes shut, likely remembering the funeral just a few days past. “You did an excellent job making it.”

“You’re welcome.” Leo’s reply was husky. “We just, wanted to give her back with dignity, y’know?”

Bruce smirked. “Misson accomplished son. You two work with your hands? ‘Cause I don’t think just anyone could do what you did there.”

“I built it,” Donnie interjected, pride evident, “Leo decorated it.”

“We did both together, Dontron.”

Don kept speaking over Leo. “I usually engage in metal working, but it wasn’t too difficult to adapt my equipment for wood.”

The eager grandparents pounced. “Metal working? You work in a metal shop?”

The young man was clearly warming to their curiosity. “Work, as in employment? No. I have my own personal workshop where I manufacture my many wonderfully designed devices; and repair everything the family breaks, repeatedly. Yes, I’m looking at you Nardo, I know what happened to the DVD player.”

People were starting to stifle chuckles around the room.

“Sounds like you have an interest in engineering.” Maria observed, relaxing enough to finally take a sip from her coffee. “Oh ho ho ho ho, interest is not the word Madam.” Donatello’s youthful boasting continued. “I have designed and built vehicles, machines, drones and I am currently constructing a new body for my custom coded AI.”

Penelope suddenly lunged forward on her screen, a sort of “aha!” look on her face. Waving off questioning glances, the bubbly blonde kept working.

“That’s very impressive,” Bruce commented, “how old are you two?” Obviously wondering when his grandson’d had time to accomplish so much.

“We’re eighteen.” Leo informed them. Spencer leaned forward, eyes flicking back and forth as he processed the conversation, filing information away for later.

“Just getting started out then. Are you two thinking of going to college?” Maria asked, “If you’re considering Columbia I could pull some strings.”

There was some whispering on the line then, “Our current plans to do not include college, but thank you Ma’am. Did you go to Columbia University?” Donatello’s slightly deeper voice came back.

Their grandmother frowned a little at the failed connection. “I did. All of our children did too. What about you Leo? What are your interests?”

“Uh.” Leo started, clearly caught off, “Oh you know, comic books, tv, the usual teenage stuff.”

“Medicine.” His twin interjected. The sounds of a slight scuffle could be heard.

“Medicine?” Bruce perked up. “You looking for a job in the medical field son?”

But the young man prevaricated. “I mean, I just sorta take care of the family. Going to the doctor isn’t always an option y’know?” A few people were exchanging looks and frowning. Weren’t they raised by someone in medicine?

The Sullivans were looking concerned again. “Do you boys not have health insurance? If you need help we’re more than willing.”

There were some low murmurs, then, “Just a second,” and the twins muted their end.

The BAU took the pause to quietly confer. “Garcia, have you traced their connection?” Hotch began.

Speakers turned down because she was clearly NOT HAPPY, Penelope ranted. “No! I have bounced all over the planet about five times tracing them. It keeps somehow rerouting while still maintaining the previous connection, then dropping when ready. I don’t think I can trace them Sir. But,” she cocks her head, sharing her view with the team, “I did find something. You remember how hackers always have a sort of signature on their work? They prefer to use certain code? I recognize this. He’s a pretty well-known guy in certain circles.” The bubbly blonde shook her head. “I’ll do up a full report for you later.” She muted again, turning back to her own efforts.

“Even if,” Derek began, “the unsub lost their job, they would still be able to treat their family members to an extent themselves, right? So why is Leo picking up the slack?”

“They’re afraid of something.” Rossi theorized. “They could just be stubbornly self-sufficient, but to outright refuse a normal offer from family to help with education and medical care? They’re keeping themselves in a bubble.”

Emily waved them silent again from where she was watching the Sullivans with an eagle eye. The boys were back.

Leo hesitantly spoke. “We… need to explain some things.” He paused, trying to figure out what to say. “We weren’t raised by the guy that made us.” The concerned grandparents shared looks and Bruce sat a little straighter at the mention of their daughter’s killer. “Before you ask, he’s dead. Killed in the invasion. The only name we had for him was Barry Draxum, but I don’t think you’ll find that in any records. We only met him a few years ago and didn’t know about the murders until after he was dead.”

JJ quickly typed the info to send to Garcia for later investigation. Leo kept speaking.

“We knew he was… sketchy, but we didn’t know how far he’d actually gone until we found out about our mother. We know you probably think we were raised by him, but we weren’t.” When the young man paused again, his brother jumped in. “We were raised by Yoshi Hamato.”

Emily stared into the middle distance, sipping at her whiskey. JJ was already asleep in their shared hotel room, so Prentiss had retreated to the hotel bar for a quiet nightcap to think over the incredibly awkward call with Claudia Sullivan’s errant sons. Everything had sort of fallen apart after they dropped the bombshell about their father.

Yoshi Hamato was alive and had been raising his sons off grid to protect them from the people that abducted him; AND there were two more boys, mother(s) unknown. She shook her head a bit and picked at her order of fries. To raise four boys, by himself, all but on the streets in New York City while being hunted? There was more to the old B-list celebrity than she’d thought.

There was also the matter that there was still a threat to their lives. A threat serious enough that they didn’t think the FBI could protect them. “Please, they’re not even on your radar,” had been Leo’s response to the offer of government intervention; “If you don’t even know they exist, how’re you gonna help?”

It’d taken some outright begging from the Sullivans to even keep the boys talking once the agents had started speaking. “We knew you’d be listening, but we’re here for our grandparents. Not you.” Donatello had been even more dismissive than his brother.

To keep them from hanging up, all law enforcement had left the room, though the twins had to know they were being recorded. Reviewing the call later, the BAU had been frustrated at a lack of any real answers and rapidly multiplying questions. Garcia at least had SOME information.

“Othello Von Ryan. That’s his hacker handle. Man is LEGENDARY in the dark web. Young; only popped up a few years ago, but he runs circles around everyone, and I mean EVERYONE.” She paused for breath, bringing up an FBI dossier. “His digital fingerprints are all over the place, he’s taken credit for several major database hacks, mostly large banks and stockbrokers, though he’s done a little hacktivist work too.”

“So not the sort of person they could hire to do this for them.” Aaron had speculated, reading over the file Penelope sent him.

She’d shaken her head, blonde curls bouncing. “Nope, normies wouldn’t even know he exists.”

Emily took another sip, savouring the burn. Hotch had then speculated that Von Ryan must be personally connected to the Hamatos, “Maybe even one of them.” She wiped the grease from her fries off on a napkin. Could be Donatello. He was absolutely certain that we couldn’t do anything.

She smirked as she remembered the beleaguered detective that’d interrupted them, hauling in a banker’s box containing the evidence and physical record of Yoshi Hamato’s missing person case. The woman must have been newly promoted or transferred if they were making her schlep for the feebs. Delicate features had crinkled when Spencer dived face first into the files and evidence bags contained. Morgan had taken pity on her and waved the blonde off from Reid’s intellectual feeding frenzy.

Their resident info gremlin quickly narrowed down one possibility for the Hamato’s mysterious threat. “Agatha Kumo. British/Japanese national. She was Yoshi Hamato’s girlfriend at the time of his disappearance.” Emily had marvelled again at the speed he could tear through hard copy records. “There was some suspicion of her, a lot of people said that she was two-faced. Really sweet with Yoshi, but nasty and entitled when he wasn’t around. Ultimately there was no evidence, so the police moved on. She’s a major real estate developer and hotelier now. Owns a large hotel in downtown New York.”

“Lots of dangerous folks connected to New York real estate.” Morgan had mused.

“Lots more connected to dangerous families too.” Rossi’d drawled while typing on his phone, probably requesting any information the FBI had on Ms Kumo.

Emily and Rossi had decided to go pay Yoshi’s former flame a visit the next day; see if they could get a bead on her possible involvement.

Swallowing the last of her drink, the brunette left enough money under her empty glass and started heading back to the room. It’s already been in the news that Yoshi Hamato is connected to the Sullivan abduction, so she has to know eyes are on his case again. We can keep her from learning that he’s still alive though; need to really if she was involved.

Carefully opening the door to her and JJ’s room, Prentiss slowly got ready for bed, doing her best to not wake her sleeping roommate. Hopefully the Sullivan’s can build more trust the next time they talk to the boys. If it’s as bad as they say, Yoshi’s abductor/s have been deeply entrenched for a long time and the sooner we get a handle on this, the better.

Mikey lost the fight to focus. He’d been trying to watch a video about a new painting technique he wanted to try, but family issues kept pushing to the forefront. A couple hours earlier Leo had burst from Donnie’s lab, clearly agitated and stormed into his med bay. Prying … talking to Donnie had revealed that they’d disclosed more information than Leo’d been comfortable with. Not that he’d been comfortable with any of this anyway.

Any attempt to try and help Leo had been quickly blocked by the slider calling his … apprentice? Son? Whatever, in for Casey’s weekly checkup. Leon had been aghast at the teen’s general condition once the slider had been back on his feet and made it his mission in life to get Junior into tip top modern-day condition.

Leo’s turmoil over contacting the Sullivans confused Michelangelo. Sure, he got not wanting to draw the FBI’s attention, but Donnie was all over that.

Honestly, post invasion New York was as close to ideal for mutants to step into the public eye. The turtles hadn’t been the only ones fighting to protect people from the Krang zombies. Videos of mutants defending humans had run wild across the internet and now there were rumblings of a mutant rights movement taking shape. There were some people opposed to it, because of course there were, but public sentiment had never been better. So, while it would be understandable for Leo to be nervous of the Sullivans learning the truth about their grandsons, Mikey didn’t think it would upset him this much. Donnie certainly wasn’t that bothered about it, and arguably, he was more invested in gaining adult family members.

Could that be it? Leo’d always resisted considering Draxum family or extending an olive branch to Big Mama. Though, they’d threatened Leo’s family at one point so… But so did Casey Senior, and he likes her ok. He’s always after April to introduce us to her parents too. The boxshell groaned, falling back into his hammock, hands over his eyes. The other two are so straightforward, why does Leo have to be one of those Russian doll things? Michelangelo sighed, rolling to dangle above his painted floor. And nailing him down for a convo is like grabbing a fish.

This whole situation with Draxum had probably reinforced Leo’s trust issues all over again. Tracing a finger along a green line on the bricks, Angelo couldn’t help but think, how could you Barry? How could you do that to someone? He knew really, he got it. Draxum had hated humans, whether that hatred was justified or not could be debated. Afterall, the Krang were gonna kill everyone, and I hate them. But all krang wanted to do it, not all humans want to kill non-humans. April being the prime shining example that made a blanket hatred of her species impossible for the turtles, even before they found out their father had been one too.

Planting his hand more firmly on the floor, Mikey set up a rocking motion, back and forth, letting it soothe him. The spotted turtle knew he’d have to have his own personal reckoning with their maker’s actions, having put it off far too long, but he was more concerned with his brothers right now.

It all keeps coming back to fear with Leo, doesn’t it? Fear of rejection. Fear of not being good enough. Fear of getting hurt. So … how can we help him be less afraid? The obvious was pointing out reasons why he shouldn’t be afraid, but rational arguments don’t work on irrational fears. Doesn’t help that his fears aren’t entirely irrational either. Fact of the matter was, it could all go fine, or it could blow up in their faces. Probably gonna be somewhere in the middle.

“Turtles! I have returned! Where is my son?!”

Startled, Mikey flinched all the way back into his shell, upsetting the hammock and plummeting to his floor. Casey Sr was back.

Across town, another family was in turmoil.

“How can you even be sure its them?”

Bruce sighed then answered his youngest son. “They knew what was written inside the coffin lid. That was deliberately held back just for something like this.”

Jake huffed, clearly unhappy with his father’s reply. The young, brown haired man stopped pacing, running both hands down his face. “They’re really her kids?” He asked, eyes locked onto his solemn parents sitting on their couch.

Maria smiled softly. “They’re really her kids.”

“They’re my nephews?” She reached up to pull him down to sit next to them. “They are.”

A snort from the other blue couch interrupted her. Their remaining two children, Sofia and Mark, were having even more trouble with this. Blinking back tears, Sofia rebutted, “Claudia had NO say in making those kids. We have no idea how she’d feel about it; if she’d claim them…” the dark blonde took a deep breath, then leaned forward. “Look, it’s not their fault, I don’t blame them. But the fact is we don’t know them, what sort of people they are, and we can finally put all of this behind us. I’m not comfortable with drawing this out for ALL of us over strangers when we can all just go live our lives like they were before. No harm, no foul.” Sofia finished hands spread beseechingly.

Maria started to talk, then closed her trembling mouth before trying and failing again. Bruce stepped in, taking his wife’s hand. “Sweetie, however they got here, they ARE our grandchildren, that’s just a fact of biology. We have no reason to reject them.”

Fighting her own tears, his daughter stared into her father’s eyes. “Blood doesn’t entitle them to a place in our family.”

Maria finally found her voice, “No. But it does entitle them to a chance. Is it really so bad to give them one?”

“Is it really so bad that I don’t want living reminders around of my sister being murdered?!” Sofia shouted, getting to her feet, “That psycho practically ra….” She trailed off, shook her head and stormed out the front door into the night.

Maria shuddered a bit at being confronted with something she’d been resolutely ignoring, not wanting to add to the mental horror of her daughter being murdered. Bruce scooted a little closer and wrapped and arm around her. “Give her time. It’s still fresh.”

The red head nodded, leaning in for comfort. Looking up, she focused on her eldest living child. “Mark?”

“I… I don’t know Mom.” He was hugging himself, staring at his feet. “I… get what you’re saying, but I see what’s Sof is saying too. I just… don’t know. I think I need some time too.”

She couldn’t leave him feeling like this. “Of course, Honey. It’s a lot to take in. Your Dad and I’ve got this. We’ll handle the boys, the rest of you take your time working through it, there’s no rush.” He nodded, got up, hugged his parents and brother then headed out.

Jake leaned back into the couch cushions. “He’ll probably come around after he talks to Brooke and his therapist.” He chuckled to himself a little, “Mine’s gonna be getting an earful later.”

“It’s a good investment.” Bruce murmured, recalling all the money they’d spent on therapists for their family over the years.

Maria echoed their daughter’s snort. “We’ve probably put a whole class of their kids through school at this point.”

Bruce huffed a bit and rubbed her back. “All we can do is take it one step at a time, for everyone. Deal with stuff as it comes up and do our best. Hopefully, we can all get through it together.”

Eleven A.M. sharp the following morning, Prentiss and Rossi strode into the Grand Nexus Hotel’s front lobby, glad to get out of the snow. It was the earliest appointment they could get with Ms Kumo; she’d likely been working late the night before on something or other, but the hotelier had made room for them the very next day once Lou Jitsu was mentioned.

They must’ve been pegged by staff as soon as they walked in, being intercepted by a wirey, red headed gentleman in an old-fashioned uniform half-way to the reception desk. “The FBI agents I presume?” Rough voice at odds with his formal tone.

“That’s us.” David answered, going for a handshake. A look of distaste rippled across the man’s face and was rapidly smothered. Swiftly shaking hands with each, he quickly ushered them into an elevator and escorted the pair to his employer’s office on the top floor. “Ms Kumo will see you immediately.” He said before walking off, wiping his hand against his uniform.

“Germaphobe?” Emily asked her companion through an uncomfortable smile.

“Something.” He replied, knocking lightly on the door before pushing it open. Spotting a woman at the other end of the room large, gaudily appointed room he called, “Ms Kumo? We’re Agents Prentiss and Rossi. You were expecting us?”

The woman in question sat up taller smiling slightly and waving the agents in. “Ah yes, come in, come in. Please have a seat.” She stood and bowed ever so slightly, hands together.

Agatha Kumo painted an odd picture; a bizarre mixture of businesswoman and rich heiress with a touch of spooky. Silver hair stood out against her purple power suit lined with thick, white fur, and her perfume was just as dominating.

Once in comfortable chairs, their host sat back down behind her desk and got to business. “I’m not surprised you called. I saw that news conference. I’ve often wondered what happened to my dearest Lou. It is most distressing to hear that he was abducted and used in such …. a discombottly fashion.”

Her sing song voice and use of … inappropriately childish talk threw Dave off for a second. Thankfully, Emily was a little more desensitized to nonsense from a fellow woman. “Ah, yes. After we discovered his involvement in the Sullivan case, we reviewed what we had on Mr… Jitsu. Your name came up quite a bit.” She left hanging, leaving Kumo to show them how Yoshi Hamato’s former flame would choose to fill in the blanks.

“I imagine it did. The police were rather suspicious of me, given they couldn’t find anyone that’d seen my huggy wumpus after I did.” Lips pursed, Agatha leaned back, hugging herself. “I understand of course, but it was rather distressing at the time. I had no idea if my dearest was dead or alive or running out of time.” The elder woman sighed, blinking rapidly. “I guess we know now. Poor dear Louie. I wish I’d ignored the copperly coppers and paid for investigators myself; maybe he would’ve been found in time.”

Shaking her head before rubbing a delicate finger under one eye, she asked, “At the risk of being morbily orbid, have you found his body? With his family gone, I thought I would commission a worthy memorial for my love.”

Dave fought a shudder as her flat, dead stare landed on him. Holy crap, she’s a psychopath. It shouldn’t have been overly surprising; her described manipulative behaviour, seeming lack of any real relationships since Hamato, massive business with very little known about it; all these were things that would make sense with a psychopath. Didn’t change the fact that every time Rossi encountered a true psychopath in his life, his brain started screaming predator! Run! Kumo’s mask was one of the oddest he’d ever seen though; worn through, cracked and filled in with a bizarre cutesiness that she probably thought came across as endearing. All it really did was add a level of disgust to Dave’s more primal response.

Setting all that aside, “No, we haven’t yet. Until we do, though, we’re operating as if he’s still alive; just so you aren’t upset by anything that you might hear, Ma’am.” Ain’t no way we’re letting her know he’s still alive and kicking. We may have just found what the Hamatos are hiding from.

“Oh please, call me Agatha.” Her attempt at a winsome smile was JUST this side of wrong. “I hope you catch the absolute monster,” That’s some actual venom there. “that did this. Lou was such a wonderful man. There’s nothing he could’ve dimbly done to deserve this.”

“Agatha,” Emily diverted her attention from Rossi, “in the years since, has anything new come up? Anyone told you something, you maybe remembered a thing you forgot before or that didn’t seem off at the time?”

Ms Kumo leaned back, looking up, clearly trying to appear reflective. “I have asked myself that same question many times over the years. I’m afraid not. I’ve become something of a … recluse, since losing my honey badger; and none of the few friends I have left have the will to upset me by bringing him up. I wish I could help you, I really do. None of us are safe while his killer is still loose.”

“Not to mention his sons.” Kumo’s attention snapped back to him like a laser sight. “I’m sorry Mr Rossi?”

Not agent huh? “The boys he was used to father with Claudia Sullivan. The killer would be a threat to them too.”

She blinked, once, twice, “Yes of course. I do hope they’re safe. Have you had any progress finding them?”

The baby talk disappeared. Those kids MEAN something to her. “Nothing we can share. You know how it is, gotta keep things close to the vest.”

“Yes,” her eyes twinkled, something stirring behind the mask, “discretion is so very key.” A smile abruptly spread her purple lips. “Well, I wish I could be of more help, but I simply don’t have anything to add so long after the fact. If there’s any further informational assistance I can offer, please do call. My re sorry orces are at your dispense.” Kumo stood, reaching to shake hands across her massive desk. The agents reciprocated, made their goodbyes, and left.

Out on the sidewalk, entering a cab, Emily finally caught David’s eyes. “What was that?”

“Dangerous.” He murmured back.

Morgan looked up as Prentiss and Rossi’s return was announced by Emily’s “That woman is cold.”

“Oh,” Aaron asked, putting his tablet down, “how’d it go?”

Rossi pulled out a chair, shaking his head, “Kumo didn’t have anything new to add but I’m sure she’s a psychopath. Except for a couple moments, there was no genuine emotion. She also kept up this odd, cutesy speech pattern in an attempt at making herself seem sweet and harmless. It was more than a little jarring.”

“Not to mention annoying.” Emily piped up, “If we hadn’t left when we did, I was going to scream. And did you notice how possessive she was?” Talking to the group at large, “Every time she referred to Yoshi Hamato she called him her something or other, usually with the weirdest pet names.” The brunette made a face at that, sticking her tongue out. “The only times there was any real feeling was when someone else’s power over, or connection to Yoshi was mentioned. She always called him Lou too!” Emily exclaimed, snapping her fingers and looking to Rossi for confirmation.

The senior agent nodded along. “His Lou Jitsu persona is all he was to her. It could be that he just stopped going by his real name after coming to America; wouldn’t be the first immigrant to do that. But his kids always referred to him by his Japanese name, not his pseudonym. So that’s probably how he identified himself to them.”

“And she’s British/Japanese herself, isn’t she?” Morgan mused, “So wouldn’t it be more natural for her to use his Japanese name than that weird whitewashing name the studios gave him?”

Emily rocked her head back and forth a bit. “I mean, her accent was definitely British, so who knows how much exposure she’s actually had to Japanese culture, and she’s been in America for at least thirty-five years.”

“Fair point.” Derek conceded.

“Do you think she was involved in the abduction?” Reid asked, leaning forward eager for new information.

David’s face screwed up with scepticism. “I’m not sure. Do I think she could do it? Possessive as she is, sure. But I don’t see that same possessiveness letting her give access to Dr Eugenics.”

“Unless she’s the infertile ‘partner’.” JJ offered, “If she couldn’t have a child with Yoshi, she’s mixed white/asian heritage herself; could she have hired Draxum to make a custom baby for her? Using Yoshi and suitable women?”

“Then Yoshi escapes and takes the kids with him? It’s plausible.” Morgan said, looking to see what the others thought. Wish he’d talk to us though. It’d frustrated the former cop to no end that the twins had resolutely refused to put their father on the phone. “He’s been traumatized enough. Dad’s finally getting better and this mess is already threatening his recovery. Sorry, but no.” It was the most emphatic Leo’d been the entire call, with Donnie deferring to his brother. So long as the family felt staying hidden was in their best interests, this investigation was dead in its tracks.

A faint building buzz at the back of his mind finally pulled Donatello from the finicky soldering he’d been engrossed in all day. Glancing in the reflection of his golden bust, the softshell identified his twin lingering by the lab’s primary entrance. “I appreciate that basking in my greatness would be highly beneficial, but I ‘get the feeling’, air quotes, that you are seeking more.”

His younger brother huffed and sauntered in, rubbing at his side. “How’re you doing?”

“I am well. I’m sure you have notice that I am … anxious for this evening’s phone call, but otherwise unbothered….. yourself?” Reciprocal concern. Well remembered Donatello. Out of the corner of his eye, Donnie observed Leo slowly lowering into his designated bean bag. “I mean…. Probably can’t go worse than yesterday.”

Leo had fled from the call, cutting off his participation after refusing to get their father involved. Once Donnie had finally been able to get his blue brother alone in the wee hours of the morning, he informed Leon that another call had been arranged for the next day. The engineer’s fears of an explosive reaction had proven unfounded when Leonardo simply sighed and said “Ok” while preparing a cup of sleepy time tea. Now Don wasn’t sure if his brother’s subdued reaction was due to resignation, sadness or some maddening combination of the two. I hate emotions.

“The FBI will likely still be recording, but our Grandparents will be speaking to us from their home and the proverbial ice has already been broken; so, theoretically, the call should be more relaxed.” Finally at a good leaving off point, Don dabbed clean the end of his soldering iron, turned it off and placed it in the stand. “Perhaps preparing a list of questions we wish answered in advance would help?”

The recumbent leader smiled slightly. “Yeah, that’s probably a good idea. Nice thinking Don.”

“All my thinking is nice.”

Leon rolled his eyes. “Uh huh.”

Silence reigned for longer than Leonardo usually let it when he didn’t have a distraction. Donnie decided to break it. “You are far quieter than is normal for you. Even your… emoting is quiet. I am asking this with all seriousness, are you alright Nardo?”

Deep blue eyes got shimmery as they locked with dark brown. “I… thank you.”

Startled, Donnie blinked rapidly, trying to process the wholly unexpected response. Leo continued; “I know you hate talking about feelings, so thank you for pushing yourself. I appreciate it. And thank you for being thoughtful about the questions, you’re really helping me with all this and I…” He sucked down a deep, fortifying breath and closed his eyes. “I owe you the same effort. The way you feel about feelings in general is how I feel about talking about serious emotions, my real thoughts and feelings.” A cautious touch tingled along the edge of Donnie’s mind. “I’m … scared. I’m scared of the FBI, I’m scared of the Sullivans, I’m scared of what it’ll do to all of us. I’m tired and I’m stressed and I don’t see that changing any time soon.”

Don’s face started to get hot and tight, sympathetic sorrow rising up, but Leo wasn’t done.

“But I get what you and Mikey and everybody is saying. This could go wrong, but it could also go really right and there’s only one way to find out. I know you want this, and … if it goes right, it’s what I want to… I mean it. I just, if it doesn’t?....” He started to cry now, curling up on the bag.

Donnie launched across and wrapped himself around his twin. “If it doesn’t, we still have everything we started out with and nothing of value will have been lost.” He whispered fiercely into his little brother’s ear. “And you will always have this family, no matter what, no matter where we are. Anatawa hitorijanai. Hermano.” Leo shook with a little laugh through his tears… and BELIEVED him.

Later that evening, they were settled into Don’s lab again, getting ready to call. While Donnie set up his routing programs then double and treble checked their readiness, Leo set out cups and a steaming pot of soothing tea that Splinter had dropped off. Reaching into his pouch, he brought out the list of questions they’d ironed out earlier and set that between them on the desk. Spinning slightly back and forth on his rolly chair, he watched Don’s fingers fly as he finished up.

Before long, the genius turned, question in his eyes, and at Leo’s answering nod, initiated the call. One ring, two and the call connected. “Hello?” Their grandfather’s questioning voice answered.

Leo shuddered a little at Don’s side and leaned over seeking comfort. Donatello absently noted that Leo’s touch didn’t seem to bother him as much anymore as that from others and turned his attention back to more immediate matters.

“It’s us.” Leo shoved him slightly. Dude. Rude.

He didn’t have a chance to retaliate appropriately before the conversation truly began.

“Oh good.” The relief in Bruce Sullivan’s voice was obvious. “We’re glad you were still able to call. I hope you boys are doing ok.”

“We’re alright.” Leo answered, only a slight croak in his voice. “Actually, we were hoping that we could ask you guys some questions this time.”

“Sure.” Maria answered, “And just so you know, our younger son, Jake is here too.”

Another male voice chimed in this time. “Hey.. uh… I’m Jake?”

There were some awkward chuckles all around and the questions began.

Slowly the twins learned more about their maternal family, mostly things that Donnie could’ve just looked up himself, but Mikey had convinced him it would be a better bonding experience to ask them personally.

The Sullivans were an upper middle-class family, her being a marine biologist and he being a former navy chef. This had led to them meeting on a scientific expedition where Maria was a researcher and Bruce had gotten a job in the galley after he’d finished his service. Eventually the couple had settled in New York where Maria took a position with Columbia University as a teacher/researcher who also was leant out to local aquariums.

Bruce had found a job as head chef at an old age home nearby with residents that turned out to be pickier than any captain or admiral he’d cooked for in the past. Their grandfather started to tell many entertaining stories about antics of the elderly that brought a smile to Leo’s anxious face, finally getting the slider to uncurl in his chair a bit.

Jake, it turned out, was a single father of two who worked in software development. Soon uncle and nephew were embroiled in a drawn-out conversation that left everyone else just observing on the sidelines. The tech nerds eventually petered out, allowing their relatives to join back in. The rabid geek session, though, had dissipated more tension.

Now it moved on to other family members not present. Jake’s children were two girls, three and five years of age that were currently visiting their mother in New Jersey. Leo thankfully managed to keep his beak shut at the mention of their neighbour state.

The Sullivan’s other living children were Sofia and Mark, both older than Jake, who sadly were not available at the moment. Mark was in a long-term relationship with a woman named Brooke with whom he owned a moderately successful fusion grill, and Sofia was not currently interested in any sort of romance or kids while she pursued her career in paediatrics.

Finally, they all seemed a bit talked out for the late hour and began to plan another call, this time on the weekend. “So, three o’clock, Sunday afternoon. We’ll call you then Mr an’ Missus Sullivan.” Leo said, setting up multiple alarms on his phone.

“Oh Leo,” Maria answered, “you don’t have to be so formal. You can call us by name or…” her voice cautiously hopeful, “you could call us Nonna and Poppa…. Or something like that… that’s what the girls call us anyway….” She tapered off softly, seemingly afraid she’d overstepped.

Leo sat stunned, frozen silent by the offer leaving their answer to Donatello. “That would…. That would be… nice. … Nonna.” A little sob on the other end. A little more distance bridged. A little stitch in a wounded heart.

Morgan opened the laptop again, may as well video conference when I can. “Hey Momma, how you doing?” He hoped she was having a better day, not being able to track down the Hamato boys or this Barry Draxum character was really wearing on their Mistress of the Net.

“Well, better. I think. Maybe…” She huffed, blowing a loose curl out of her face, “I THINK, I’ve found something, heavy emphasis on think, but, I dunno.”

“Talk it out with me Baby Girl, what’re you looking at?” Derek asked, settling down to sip at his steaming coffee.

The bubbly blonde inhaled deeply, then let it all out in a puff, gesturing with a bright pink quill. “Okay. So, when you’re online, as long as you don’t do anything, stupid, you can pretty much stay anonymous to like ninety-nine percent of the people on there. Y’know don’t give out your real name, don’t talk in detail about your life, stuff like that.”

“Yeah, common sense internet safety.” Huh. That place at the corner does good brew. Gotta thank Detective Moros for the rec.

“Right, now people like moi,” she blinked fetchingly making Derek smirk, “can dig in a little deeper, trace connections, follow the fingerprint of your activity back to the source…”

“Again, so glad you’re on our side now,” he mumbled into his drink.

“Hah!” Garcia barked in response, “Oh Honey Mustard and Chili I would love to do a deep dive into your internet activity. But, not what we’re here for.” Penelope shook her head, getting back to business. “People like me though, we can ALMOST disappear online, almost but not completely. So, since our unsub, his victims, et all were kinda, a dead end, no offense to the departed, I decided to take a stab at tracking down the illustrious Othello Von Ryan.”

Taking another sip of rich coffee, “You said you had his signature.”

Her grit teeth glare let him know how that was going. “Yeah… I can tell where he’s been, stuff he’s done, but, Othello hasn’t actually been hiding that. He likes bragging about his hacks, obnoxiously so really but, that’s not unusual. Most hackers like to toot their own horn in the community; admiration of your peers kinda thing.” She said, shrugging.

“Hence the pretentious screen names?” Morgan needled.

His best friend pantomimed a mocking laugh in response to the jab. “Aaaanywho, Othello’s covered his actual connection pretty good and I haven’t been able to find him revealing anything I could use to identify him, but….”

Derek’s eyebrows climbed up his forehead. “But?” he prompted.

“Well, if you tick off enough people, someone’s gonna talk.”

He leaned forward, “Somebody’s outing him?”

Garcia heaved a sigh. “Sorta?” She kept reading as she spoke, “There’s this other hacker, Special K, they’ve got some kinda axe to grind with Ryan O’ the ello. Lot’s o’ shade thrown in his direction, flame wars with his fans; mostly he just sits back and laughs at them. Buuuuuut, I’ve been digging through it all to … see …. i….” she trailed off, dark eyes widening, “ohhhhh.”

“Penelope?”

Reading from her screen, “’It’s your fault. It’s your fault I went to jail. You...’” she tilted her head, “blankety, blankety, blank, blank … ohhhhh sweetie, even on 4chan you couldn’t get away with saying that. Long and short of it, Othello screwed up some project Special K had going on, apparently resulting in K getting busted by the cops.”

“Does K say what they did? Maybe we can backtrack the connection to K and get more info through them directly.” Morgan asked, grabbing a sticky note and pen to make a reminder for himself.

Furious tapping of Penelope’s nails against her keyboard rang out. “Uhhhh…. Not her, but Othello says ‘You were an idiot going after Nakamura. Way beyond your paygrade.’”

Derek perked up, meeting Garcia’s eyes, “Nakamura? Is that another hacker?”

She paused, leaning back to take a sip of her own drink, chewing on the straw a bit. “Could be. I can think of like, three Nakamuras off the top of my head, nine if you want to go Nakamura-adjacent. Might not be another hacker at all though, he could be referencing something else, a place, an event, a company… I don’t know.”

“It’s a lead though Penelope. You found us a lead.”

Leo jolted on the couch as another crash sounded out from their dojo/garage. Dropping the edge of his comic, waiting for any further noise, he was relived to hear a cry of “Victory!” from Casey Sr. Post training session training sessions between Raph and the Caseys™ could range from rowdy to “hey Leo, is this supposed to bend like that?”

Snuggling under the heavy quilt Splinter had painstakingly sewed together, Leon

delved back into his comic; bad guys were in the middle of getting a well-deserved beat down. He was again interrupted by a very smelly woman heavily plopping down on his blanket covered feet. Beak wrinkling, the slider turned another page. “I don’t hear anyone calling my name, so I assume you’re all still in one piece.”

“Hah!” Casey barked. “Not for lack of trying my friend! But your brother did not think we should burden you with unnecessary labour.” Pulling his comic down enough to look at her over the edge, “Thanks for that.” the ninja mumbled, glad he didn’t have to deal with any dislocated limbs today at least.

“I see my progeny was correct in saying you’re being a real bummer.”

Why can’t she talk normal? Jr isn’t like this. “Am I now? So sorry for bringing down the vibe.” Be nice Leo, she’s family. Kinda. Sorta. Adjacent.

A heavy silence weighed between the two, staring at each other sceptically. Leo broke first. “What?”

“I was told that connecting with your grandparents was going well. Why does this upset you?” It was really hard to be mad at her bulldozing into sensitive matters when she was so sincere about it. Eyes wide and guileless, Casey Sr leaned forward, hands clasped in her lap.

Dangit Junior. He meant well, but Leo’s pseudo-son really didn’t know when to keep his mouth shut. Probably got that from me. Leon sighed, You’re trying to grow, remember? “It’s going fine. We’ve got another call with them in a few days. They want to introduce us to their other son.”

“Isn’t that good?”

“Yeah, I guess.” Fiddling with a page between his fingers, he tried to ignore the tension squirming under lime green scales. “Still nervous though.”

Sr scrunched her brow. “Why?”

Giving up on his comic entirely, the slider resigned himself to his fate with a huff. “There’s a lot up in the air Casey.” Meeting those dark almond eyes, he continued, “Sure they’re ok with having grandsons of dubious origin, but they don’t know about the mutant thing, or the weapon thing or that we were getting tight with their daughter’s killer….” trailing off, Leon shrugged helplessly. “It could all still go wrong, so I’m nervous.”

Pulling her feet up to sit cross legged and armed on the ratty cushion, Casey Sr looked down, deep in thought. Honestly, it was touching, in a weird Hannibal-Lector-cares-about-you-apparently kind of way. While Leo and Sr had been civil after the whole summoning Shredder, kidnapping Dad incident, they hadn’t been close. First, she’d been basically adopted by Pops, after bonding during his capture (cough, Stockholm, cough), then Raph had discovered a sparring partner that would take everything he had to give and come back running.

Mikey had been welcoming of course, but his drive to “fix” her had their new lunatic dodging him with a side eye more often than not. April’d been happy to have another girl in the sea of Hamato testosterone, and Donnie? Was, well Donnie. As long as Casey stayed out of his space, he didn’t really care, though she’d promptly been given her own Genius Built™ phone, (“She’s not connecting that piece of crap Motorola to my network.”)

Post-Krang though, a weird “co-parenting” bond had started to form over their mutual care for Jr. The poor kid was like a lost puppy; Kujo as a puppy, but still a puppy. Tripping over himself, so sad and jumpy, the entire clan had melted en-mass at his feet and glomped onto their newest child. Being the younger versions of Casey’s parents pushed Sr and Leon to start working together for Jr’s sake. In the end, they’d settled on him attending school and working on integrating with humanity under Sr’s supervision (who in turn was under April’s semi-sane supervision) while living in the Lair where he could completely relax; being his own apocalypse brand of “normal” and process his loses with people who could understand that part of his life best in the current timeline.

“Bull.” he looked back up to Casey sitting straight, fists braced on knees.

“Exsqueeze me?” Ok, she’s not so endearing anymore.

“You are not hesitant because of being a mutant, you know humans can accept you. And it is not because of your connection to Draxum, there is no necessity to reveal that.” She leaned forward, head directly over Leo’s covered knees, “so, what is it Leonardo? What is holding you back?”

Her words asked, but her eyes were filled with a disturbing certainty. “Ever heard of personal space?”

“Ever heard of honesty?” Casey shot back, tone heavy with challenge.

Leonardo was absolutely a liar, he was also absolutely a coward. These were both things he needed to change, though the urge to spin a fancy tale and twist her up in word play burned in the young leader’s throat. You’re trying to be better. For THEM. ……. But not all at once.

“Look. I’m ok. It’s not that deep. Just leave it alone Casey.” And he hid behind his comic again. Bravely.

The antique clock Pops insisted on keeping around ticked loudly on the wall. Suddenly, his feet were seized and yanked off to the side, flinging the striped ninja down to the floor. Rolling to a stop, shell clanking on the concrete, he found himself blinking dazedly at the nutcase standing over him. Astonishment rapidly bled into anger. “What was that for?!”

She cocked a hip, arms crossed and supremely unimpressed. “Lying to me. I hate that.”

Leo snorted and started to lever himself up, only to stop dead sitting as she spoke next. “You still blame yourself for the Krang.” Heart stuttering, he struggled to keep his breathing steady as his deepest secret was just casually tossed into his lap. Valiantly fighting against the numbness creeping over his mind, Leon looked up to meet her dark eyes, something inscrutable swimming in their depths. “What do YOU know?” he challenged, grasping desperately to maintain some level of control over the situation.

“Like recognizes like.” Casey murmured, the quietest he’d ever heard her.

Blinking rapidly, flatfooted by the completely unexpected reply, Leonardo finally surrendered. Wherever Cassandra Jones was taking this, Leo was just along for the ride.

Crouching in front of the floundering turtle, Casey continued, “You’re not the only one that still blames themself for nearly ending the world.”

Oh….. that.

After reading his silence for a moment, she continued. “Thing is, I was a willing accomplice… so if I’m forgivable, why aren’t you?”

Her cold brutal logic ripped across his mind. Where the others had argued that the Foot would’ve just restole the Key later, that he couldn’t have known what would happen, that he was really just a kid too young for what dropped onto his shoulders; Leo’s mind had always whispered, you still could’ve prevented it all by just not being an idiot.

This argument was different. She didn’t say that he didn’t do anything wrong, just that what she’d done was WORSE.

Casey was right. She’d CHOSEN to help the Foot, knowing they were criminals, knowing that they intended to rain destruction down on the earth. She’d chosen to hurt people, but Leo didn’t hold that against her. The moment she’d turned on the Shredder and stood to fight alongside the Hamatos, risking her own life, he’d forgiven her. Draxum had only changed after being thwarted and then dragged into the light by Michelangelo, kicking and screaming all the way (sometimes literally). Casey made a choice, to abandon all her goals and chance the ultimate sacrifice to do the right thing. There was no question in his mind that she’d redeemed herself, so why hadn’t he?

I set it all off.

You didn’t choose it.

Everyone could’ve died. People DID die.

You almost died too. You saved everyone else. Everyone that KNOWS has forgiven you. Are they stupid?

No.

Then forgive yourself.

Awareness trickled back in, still sitting on the floor, Leo’s hands had come up to cover leaking eyes while his breaths shuddered through soft sobs, stitch pinching in his side. A strong, calloused hand firmly gripped his shoulder. Looking up past his hands, there she was, face soft like he’d never seen before, her own tears lingering behind lashes. “Thank you.” He managed to whisper. Expression twisting, she leaned forward to bonk foreheads like the rest of the clan for the first time, “Just returning the favour Blue.”

Jr smiled softly to himself, easing back into the shadows as he’d been taught to all his life. Mom’d always been on the short list of people that could get through Sensei’s thick skull when he was being particularly bull-headed…. Whatever a bull was.

Learning how the Foot had gotten ahold of the Key in the first place had certainly explained a few things. There’d always been an extra layer of something on Sensei when he was mourning, Casey now knew that it was guilt. To be able to nudge things along to help Leo forgive himself eased Casey’s own pain. Sensei had given Casey a future, Casey would do his best to help his father have the happiness he deserved.

In the days that followed, he basked in the new happy atmosphere that followed Leonardo everywhere the slider went. Chirpy, bouncy and eager to spread the joy, a new lighter Leon flitted about leaving a trail of laughter behind. Is this what Sensei was really like? Before everything? Jr asked himself, dragged along by his mischievous mentor as they prepared a prank for Splinter. “Look, itching powder in the undies is cruel, but it is also absolutely deserved and long overdue.”

Within a couple hours they were running for the tunnels, laughing as they scrambled to evade an enraged ninja master who was spewing things in Japanese that Casey was pretty sure he wasn’t allowed to repeat. Leo’s cackles cut off as a slipper nailed him in the back of the head, making him stumble. Deciding that his father would want him to save himself, the human pelted onward into the safety of the sewers, leaving a pleading turtle behind in his wake.

Eventually sneaking back in for supper later, Jr was relieved to learn that Splinter wasn’t holding anything against him, believing his son to be the main instigator. Casey smirked at Leo’s indignant squawk, revelling in having grandson privileges. Slurping up his serving of noodles coated in a sauce of new flavours that the future refugee was enthralled to experience, he watched his new/old family shove, laugh and discuss their days. Notably, Leo and Raph were talking about what to do for training the next day. From his discussions with April, it sounded like Leon was finally settling into a balance between the happy go lucky goofball he used to be and the reliable leader he was working to become.

Laughing under his breath as Splinter squirmed a little on his stool,Jr turned his attention to the right when Donatello was crunching his way through his own serving of noodles, no spice, added octopus and crackers. “So, your next phone call is tomorrow, right?”

Pausing to swallow a tremendous mouthful, Donnie nodded and answered. “Yes, tomorrow at 2 hours post meridiem to be exact. Their elder son, Mark, is supposed to be in attendance this time.”

“How do you think it’s gonna go?” Casey asked, bringing another bite up from his bowl.

Don’s eyes cut across the table to Leo laughing wide and loud with Mikey. “Quite well I believe.”

After a delicious lunch, four members of the Sullivan family sat down around a brand-new Bluetooth phone interface so they could all hear and be heard better. Bruce brought in coffee and some soft cookies. Mark especially was fidgeting, nervous about speaking to his nephews for the first time.

They all jumped a little when the phone finally rang. Ruefully shaking his head, Bruce reached out to answer the call. “Hello?”

“Hi… uh …. Poppa.” Leonardo answered first this time, hesitating on the new family title.

Smiling at already having made some progress this call, Bruce answered his more reluctant grandson. “Hello Leo. It’s good to hear you. Your Nonna, Jake and Mark are all here too.” The others called out their own greetings.

“Yeah, Donnie’s here too,” said brother’s voice piped up, “Salutations.” This kid. He’s hilarious. Bruce chuckled to himself. “How have you been?” he chose to ask.

“Ok.” Leo replied.

“Leon pranked Dad.”

Said prankster screeched and a loud scuffle broke out on the other end of the line, shouts of “Traitor!” and “Court Jester!” ringing out.

The Sullivans exchanged grins at their antics, remembering when this very house rang out with similar hijinks from four mischievous children. After a couple minutes it sounded like some real property damage was starting to happen, time to step in.

“Boys? That’s enough now.” Bruce called, hoping he struck a tone that got their attention, but wasn’t too stern, leary of potentially scaring the twins off. Sounds of scuffling stopped almost immediately and they sounded off with contrite, “Yes Sir”’s. Hoping to encourage them, their grandfather got closer to the speaker and murmured, “So what did yah do?”

A nervous giggle tittered over the line. “Uh, put itching powder in his tighty whities?”

Don’t over react, don’t over react. “Oof.” He started, sharing winces with everyone else. “That’s harsh kiddo.”

“It was deserved.” Was their stereo reply. Oh wow. Note to self, don’t tick off the twins.

“Oooohhhkay.” Jake drawled, giant grin across his face. “Pranks a common occurrence in the Hamato household then?”

“Four boys and a father who is more than willing to turn a blind eye.” Donatello countered.

A startled laugh barked out of Mark. “Sounds like fun.” He commented, studiously avoiding his mother’s unimpressed gaze.

Leo, surprisingly, took the lead again. He launched into a recollection of various exploits all four of the brothers had engaged in over the years. Bruce took Maria’s hand, sharing a meaningful look. Leonardo’s been so quiet and defensive until now. Are we turning a corner with him? Are they starting to trust us?

Not wanting to get ahead of himself, the family patriarch focused on the here and now, especially focussing on slowly introducing his elder son to the twins. Mark had been more reluctant than Jake, though not outright opposed as Sofia had been.

Right now, Jake and Don were going over a new website that Jake was setting up for Mark’s restaurant. The conversation flowed along mentioning links to Mark’s blog that, as it turns out, the twin’s baby brother, Michelangelo, followed. Small world, Bruce mused, listening as Leo once again launched into a glowing description of his little brother. It seemed that once Leon warmed up, there was nothing he enjoyed talking about more than his family.

Mark was relaxing too, offering to trade tips with little Angelo if they’d tell him what the kid’s screen name was. “Who knows, maybe one day he could come join me in the kitchen for a bit. Sounds like it’d be a hoot.” And it’s awkward again.

“Yeah. Sure.” All enthusiasm had been sucked out of his younger grandson’s voice, hurting something deep in Bruce’s heart. They’re so afraid of meeting us.

“Leo,” Jake started, when did my kid get a dad voice? “I know you’re scared, but we can meet safely. Not even involving the FBI, we can keep things quiet and private. Heck, we rent a cottage up north every year, we could all go up there. There’s nobody around for miles.” Pitched low and soothing, Bruce admired his son’s attempt to calm the boys and cajole them into moving beyond just phone calls. I’m not sure that they’ve opened up enough for that just yet though.

There were a couple beats of silence, Leo and Donnie likely trading looks on the other end, then Donatello took the lead again. “It’s not just a matter of safety,” he sighed. “You’re aware of the deformation of our hands?”

“Yes.” Maria stepped in, no longer needing to stand back and let her boys bond.

“It’s not just our hands.” Bruce watched his wife’s face close down, suppressing her rage at her family being hurt… again. “How… extensive?” He squeezed her hand. She’s going all scientist to avoid saying something she doesn’t want to.

Don responded in kind. “We’re healthy, more robust than average frankly; but our appearance is entirely abnormal.”

“Maybe.. maybe it’d help if we kinda, forewarn them?” Leo murmured softly, probably to his brother.

“Donetello?” Maria prompted.

“In addition to having three digits on each hand, we have two digits on each foot, with a slightly elongated heel.” He huffed, clearly not happy about giving this description, “Scaley skin, low body temp, variable skin pigmentation and completely hairless.”

“Except for the eyebrows Donnie draws on everyday.” Annnnd another scuffle sounded off from the phone speakers.

“Boys!” Maria cut in, “You’re sure you’re healthy though, everything else aside?”

They settled down quickly, rushing to reassure their grandmother. “Yes Nonna, we’re healthy, just, y’know, sometimes get mistaken for monsters or people doing cosplay.” Leo answered, trailing off as he tried to downplay how they’d get treated in public. No wonder they’re avoiding us seeing them. I’d do the same if people called me a monster for my face. His own protective anger started to boil at what his grandsons had already been through in their short lives. Made by a serial killer, raised in the shadows, mistreated for their appearance, how much are they going to have to deal with?

“Leo, Don, we don’t care how you look, as long as you’re happy and healthy.” Bruce tried to reassure.

“I … it’s.” Leon sighed, “We know that people can get over it, we’ve got a few friends, but…”

But you never know, went unspoken. Not to mention, there’s always that initial reaction that you might not be able to control, no matter how you really feel about things. “But you’re nervous. Perfectly reasonable. Why don’t we keep doing phone calls and work our way up to it. Whatever you’re comfortable with.”

“Ok Poppa, sounds like a deal.” Donnie replied, muffled as if he were turned aside. From there the rest of the conversation went much smoother, new bonds slowly forming.

It was a good day. The twins had come away from their call yesterday in good spirits, Leo was more like himself again, their humans all had the day off and the entire clan was in the Lair for an epic dance party extravaganza. Good food, friends and décor surrounded them as they all took turns picking a song and jamming their heart out on the living room floor.

Casey Jr was showing his skills, well learned from his future family of theatre kids. Leo and Sr had both choked as their adoptive kid crooned a mocking love song in their direction leaving the rest of the family literally rolling on the floor laughing. Raph and April had pulled off a beautiful R&B number, like bosses, and Splinter had made the sewers ring with an unfortunately dour opera solo.

Leo was currently swaggering up, dragging Donnie along as his backup dancer, the opening tones of Despacito ringing out from the speakers. Soon, Leon was in the groove, rapid Spanish spilling from his lips with only the occasional slip up, he and Don twisting around each other with a coordination that none of the others could quite match.

Raphel stopped for a moment to consider his second youngest brother. Glad Casey was finally able to pull him outta his own head. Missed him like this. For someone so smart, their leader could be real dumb sometimes. And he WAS smart, not Donnie smart, no one was Donnie smart, but Leo really wasn’t that far behind. The slider could read people like a book, plan around almost anything, was the boss of anything medicine and was working on learning Japanese on top of English and Spanish; he just slipped up sometimes having so many words in his head. That’s the next thing, he might be a dum dum but he doesn’t give himself enough credit for the smarts he’s got. Now that the Krang-inspired guilt was gone, maybe they could work on building some genuine self confidence in Leo, instead of the bravado mask he’d worn so long.

Their song was ramping up, and so were the twins, markings starting to glow, they’d lost themselves in the song and then, Don started to sing too, in the same near perfect Spanish as Leonardo. Only…. Donnie didn’t speak Spanish, at all. Looking to the side, Raph caught April’s equally confused eyes as they tried to puzzle out what was going on. Scientific terminology was one thing, but other than the occasional word to correct Leo with, Donnie’d never taken an interest in languages. Now they were in a full-on duet, specks of power flickering between the two turtles consumed by their performance. Hitting the finale, marking fading with the music they both blinked rapidly, locking eyes. Jumping back to point at each other, they screeched in tandem, “What was that?!”

A whirl of activity later saw the clan, minus Leo and Mikey, piled into Donnie’s lab watching their resident genius run scans and pour over security logs. Raph did his best to stay out of the way, stress eating pasta salad in the corner. A delicate hand on his elbow drew his attention down to April. “You ok big guy?” she asked, eyes full of concern.

“Yeah, yeah,” he rushed to reassure, “I just… why is it always them?”

His sister snorted, “Must be the universe’s favourite punching bags.”

“Don!” They were interrupted by the flurry of Mikey and Leo running into the lab, Leon waving a tablet back and forth. Their two experts literally banging heads to look at the results. Meanwhile Mike scrambled up onto Raph’s shoulders, welcome weight comforting him with the knowledge that all his little brothers were close to protect. “What’d Leo say?” Raphie asked his newly acquired limpet.

“The medical info for Donnie’s tracker thingies synched up on both of ‘em.” Angelo answered, swiping Raph’s fork to get some pasta for himself.

“Huh.” I mean, they reflect off each other all the time.. but this?

“Eureka!” Donnie hollered, “Fam, and my former tumour,” “Hey!” “I believe we have an answer!”

They all crowded around to stare at multiple windows open next to each other on the massive screen over Donnie’s desk. Each window showed two sets of data starting off different that gradually became identical before breaking off on their own again. “By studying all our biometric data, recorded power levels and ..”

“We twinned! Total syncope!” Leo yelled, pushing his hand into Don’s face and getting bit for his trouble. “That’s not what that means!” The softshell bellowed down at his now floored twin. “All our vital rhythms, including our brain waves, became completely synchronized just as when we were the same person. We were completely aware of each other’s intended movements and individual knowledge, as if we shared a brain again. Thank particle physics that is no longer the case!”

Non-bitten hand raised in a triumphant fist, Leon cried into the concrete, “Twins!”

“I hate you so much.”

#tmnt fanfic #rottmnt #rottmnt movie #posting my stuff here now too #leo and donnie are twins #hurt/comfort #family feels

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