Death.
It hits us hard. We know it happens everyday. Sometimes to the good guys, sometimes to the bad. Sometimes to complete strangers, sometimes to people we've known our entire lives. Yet we are never prepared for it when it strikes.
He was old. None of us knew how old, exactly, but we knew that he had seen enough of the world to qualify for old. But no matter how often he talked about us being without him one day, no matter how he always warned us to prepare for the unexpected, no matter how prepared we actually were for the unexpected… we never thought that it would happen. Not like this.
We had returned to the lair from a movie night with April and Casey. It wasn't very late at all, and we came back to ask him if he wanted to join us in getting some ice cream. We knew we had settled into a rather monotonous routine at that point, and knew that he had a surprising weak spot for ice cream. I mean, who doesn't?
He's not in the living room. Leo knocks on his door. No answer. Sleeping? So early? Maybe he's sick? Always the first to worry, Leo sneaks inside. I'm already going to my computer to check my e-mail. Mikey's in the kitchen, making himself a pre-dessert snack. I forget what Raph was up to.
Being the closest to the partially-open door, I'm the only one to hear it. Sobbing, low but fierce. Leo? Leo never sobs. At least, it always seemed he made an effort not to do it in front of us. I stand from my computer, glancing at the rest of the guys. No one else seems to notice. Quietly, I walk up and slip into the room.
The room is dark, the candles almost burned out. I can make out Leo kneeling over by where Splinter usually mediates. Instead of our meditating sensei, however, I see a black shadow lying motionless before my crying brother. I quietly approach.
From the looks of it, it had been a heart attack.
I fall to my knees next to Leo, stunned. My sensei. Gone. All of the lessons taught, techniques trained, battles fought… and he leaves by way of natural causes. Funny, for an unnatural creature to die of "natural causes." As the first wave of tears cascades down my cheek, the last of the weak candles finally goes out. I try not to think of this symbolically, but I fail miserably.
In the midst of my weeping, I feel a hand touch my shoulder. I realize that it's Leo, and he's feeling around to see where I was. Maybe he had just become aware that I was there. Or maybe he was finally dried up. Whatever it was, he put an arm around me, and I let myself get pulled into a mournful embrace.
I say nothing for a long time. I can't; the tears won't let me. Then: "We're alone." The two words come out in a choked sob. Our father was gone. We never knew a mother. We were orphans. Desolate and on our own.
"No," Leo says. I can hear his voice crack, the grief still so painstakingly fresh. "We're never alone. Remember what Sensei always told us. He'll always be here for us, and we'll always be here for one another." I can't stand to listen to this. The optimism seems almost disrespectful. How can he say something disrespectful? He was Leo. No….
My head aching with emotion and confusion, I pull away from him and jump to my feet. "Donnie," he whispers, hoping I wasn't going to overreact. Overreact, Leo? If you want to see overreacting, wait until the other two find out. "Donnie, please, don't-" I don't even stay to listen to the plea from the leader. From the new Sensei, no doubt.
I turn and bolt for the door. Stumbling back towards my computer, I head for my swivel chair. Mikey notices me and asks me something, sounding concerned. Forgetting about the wheels on the chair, I stumble, only to be caught by Raphael. I can hear the worry in Raph's voice, something I rarely ever heard before. Getting no answer from me—or nothing coherent, at any rate—he sets me down on the chair and marches into the room that belonged to our Sensei.
He yells, loud and passionate. Mikey speeds into the room. For a long, eerie stretch of time, all that can be heard was Raph's exclamations to Splinter and/or to some omnipotent entity. Exclaiming that this had to be a joke, that this was wrong, that this was crazy, that this couldn't be happening, that this was… everything I was thinking. I can do nothing else but silently curse the alleged karmic circle. There can't be justice if individuals like Sensei weren't granted immortality. After a while, I can hear Leo's voice again, and it seems as though he tells Raph and Mikey the same thing he told me.
"We're never alone."
I didn't understand it then.
Standing here in the cold autumn wind, I look down at the grave. The next one will be mine. Shivering, I realize that Raph never liked the cold. He's probably smirking at me somewhere, being the last one left and having to deal with the city chill while he and the others can't feel a thing. Can't feel… can't feel…. But is that really true?
Leo was the only one to go down in battle. Protecting Mikey. He probably wouldn't have wanted to pass on any other way. Mikey died only a year after. Complications with his liver. It was another shock. Raphael and I couldn't stand the lair, so we moved in with the Jones family. They didn't mind a pair of babysitters.
In his final years, Raphael's personality changed drastically. He smiled more. I found myself able to get along with him. Or maybe it was because I had no choice? I've wondered about that ever since his stroke.
I'm old. No one knows how old, exactly, but I've seen enough of the world to qualify for old. My daily training has become less rigorous, my excursions to the outside world are less adventurous, and my inventions are less creative. I realize that I forget things now, and that Casey and April's baby is about to have a grandbaby. He's a bioengineer, as is his wife and two of his daughters. I taught them everything I knew, back when I knew it. Uncle Donnie. That's me.
Cold, I huddle up in my coat. My bo is mostly used as a walking stick now, not too dissimilarly from the way my master's had been both a cane and a weapon. Tied to it are three bandannas; one blue, one orange, one red. The bo, along with the bandannas, follow me wherever I go. "You were right, Leo," I say in a strained voice, my eyes going over to another marker a bit away from Raphael's. I think back to my life, my rich life filled with friends and several evolutions and generations of family.
"I was never alone."