WARNINGS: None.

*

After days away from home, an emotional roller-coaster ride and a 'high speed' chase with a mantis mutant, you can imagin that all Don and Mikey wanted to do was sleep in their own beds.

Unfortunately, what they got upon exiting the Moon Buggy 3000 was a furious Raph demanding an explanation of where they were, why didn't they call, and what the heck were they doing with the buggy from the Jupiter Jim movies?

It wasn't anything unexpected, but when they saw Splinter in the living room with the TV turned off firmly fixing them with the patented Father is Not Happy glare, they realized how deep in it they were.

Four weeks of misery.

Once Don was allowed to approach his lab again, he all but locked himself in.

Leo would remark on the irony of celebrating your freedom by locking yourself in a room.

Donnie wanted to put the whole thing behind himself. They got the Buggy, they helped Todd, the man who was way too nice by any standard. He was content to leave it at that.

Mikey however...

He tried to follow his brother's lead, they got what they wanted, and they did it without kicking Todd and the puppies out into the cold. That should've been enough for him, he knew that.

But still, he couldn't help but wonder how they were doing. They did live on the bad side of town. Well, ok, they lived in a forest by the bad side of town. But if movies taught him anything it was never underestimate the trouble puppies could get into.

It wouldn't hurt to check on them would it?

Todd said his Lemonade was internet famous, so that meant he used social media. Maybe he even had a page for his puppy ranch, people knew how to bring them there somehow.

He grabbed his phone and ran a search.

He'd look it up, see how things were, and that'd be that. He thought it was good plan, it shouldn't be too hard to find, how many guys named Todd ran homes for puppies?

His eyes widened at the results.

A lot, apparently.

Eventually, he was able to find it. There may be a lot of guys named Todd, but fortunately only one of them was a Guinea Pig mutant.

It turned out he had an Instagram for his ranch, a Facebook and YouTube too.

He looked at the Instagram, and was bombarded with photos of the Puppies, along with a couple of Todd himself.

There were photos from yesterday, and everything looked fine. Good. That was all he wanted to know.

Awww, look at that little guy.

He scrolled.

Mike, you got you're peace of mind, they're doing ok. Don't click that follow button. Don't do it, don't you do it!

He clicked the follow button.

He didn't really keep very close tabs on it, he'd check every once in a while. He felt oddly responsible, not like he thought the guy couldn't take care of himself. But he was alone out there. The fact he was a mutant must have only made the isolation even deeper.

But, Todd's page had thousands of followers, and it didn't look like they were all mutants. His photos had very few negative comments, even the ones with Todd in them.

Maybe that's why he followd the page, it was encouraging.

Well, that and -

"Awww, look how big Lulu's getting."

"Who's Lulu?"

"Nobody. "

One day the post was not happy, not at all.

A storm had come through, no one was hurt, but it damaged one of the buildings.

Todd put up a post requesting donations.

Mikey showed Don, who at first asked him why he was following the guys page. Then he read the post. He almost said it wasn't there responsibility, but one look at his brother was all it took to settle that.

Plus, even he had to admit. Puppies.

Todd was thrilled to see them.

"Boy, you guys sure do know when to pop in! "

It turned out it didn't take as much time to repair the building as you would think, only about a day. A full 24 hours, but only because Todd insisted they sleep over.

As they were leaving the next morning, Todd thanked them profusely, gave them a jug of Lemonade to take home, and Told them to come back anytime. He invited them to a birthday bash he'd be throwing for the puppies the next month.

Donnie thanked him but told him they'd have to take a rain check.

And he stuck to it; however...

"Mikey! So glad you could make it buddy!"

Todd understood when Mike told him he couldn't post any photos with him in them, and he didn't.

At Least not intentionally.

"Oh Michael , why does the shadow on the edge of this photo fit your profile perfectly?"

"So you followed his page too!"

"That's hardly the point here. "

Mike would continue to visit once in a while, it didn't have any schedule or pattern to it. Sometimes he was invited, other times he would just go over.

He became friends with Todd.

He'd help around the ranch a little, play with Puppies, even helped rescue a couple. At one point Todd asked him to paint a portrait of the puppies, which at the time he was happy to do. But quickly regretted.

He thought it was hard to get Mayhem to hold still.

*About a year later...*

"Mikey you've been such a super big help around here! Your brother too, such a shame he doesn't visit more... Anyway, you've become such a good friend, almost like the son I never had. And you're so good with all the puppies, they love you! I've come to a big decision. "

Mikey looked up from the frying pan. "What's that?"

Todd smiled broadly. "I'm putting you in my will!"

"Oh wow, that's really-- What ?!" The Spatula fell from his hand as he gapped at the older man, hitting the skillet with a sharp clatter.

"That's right! When I go on to the big ol' puppy ranch in the sky, everything here will be put under your name!"

The orange ninja stared dumbly at his friend, the eggs sizzled in the pan completely forgotten. He just, he couldn't, this was... What?

*

AUTHOR'S NOTE

First, I hope you all had a great Christmas season! And Happy New Year to everyone as well!

"Repo Mantis"has to be one of my fave episodes. It's almost too cute.

This started as a kind of a head canon, and turned into this. I'm not sure if this counts as a one shot or a drabble. But it was fun to write.

I'm sure I got some things wrong, like the name of the Moon Buggy, but I like calling it that. *nervous laugh* Also, I'm not sure if Todd's name was actually 'Todd' or not. But that's what it sounded like to me.

Originally, this story had time marks and such, but the site doesn't seem to want to save them. Let me know if the flow is strange, and I'll try to put them back.

Hope you enjoyed reading!