#How To Needle Felt A Turtle | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

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.”