Another one-shot consisting of characters in the Archie universe.

TMNT, Raphael © Viacom

Ninjara, Future Raph © Archie

story © Turtlefreak121

Timeless

It was in those quite moments as night approached dawn, when the skyline seemed to boil with the rising rays of light, that he enjoyed the most. He liked sitting there alone on the forgotten rooftops, watch as the sky painted itself his favorite hue. He didn't even have to lift a finger to see the masterpiece make itself.

Sometimes it made him feel guilty. He was undeserving to see the sights as beautifully as they were when so many better men and mutants alike had died.

There was another pang of guilt, though. It was one that was harder to describe but he knew his brothers shared it with him.

What Donatello liked to call it was the "Time Traveler's Remorse" and it came from seeing things the way the once were, feeling the winds they once blew, and seeing the ones you loved when they were still there to be loved and knowing that once you returned to where you belonged they would not be there again.

All of his brothers were experiencing one form or another of this remorse and, likewise, he knew that his 'present-time' counterpart was no doubt feeling some strange, unfamiliar emotions as well.

He could only imagine how hideous and frightful it must be: a teenager meeting and conversing with a future version of himself who was war torn, battle scarred, and, worse of all, on his own.

Leaning back, he felt his shell rest on something, perhaps a rock or the trunk of a tree. He wasn't really sure and he didn't care enough to look. They were other things that seemed to only add to his longings.

In the future there was no earth to lay across, no rocks to step upon, no trees to lean on as the skies rocked you into a time consuming sleep. There were no luxuries in the future: only survival and war. He knew that more than anyone.

He lost his eye in such struggles.

Above all of these longings, though, he missed one more than anything else. He missed the touch of someone he loved when they brought their arms around him and said, "I lo-"

The slightest of noises brought him to look up over his shoulder. She just stood there, watching him just like he was watching the sun rise. Some distant observer without a hope of changing the inevitable action to come.

"Hello, Raphael," she said in that particular speech of her's.

Oh, God, how he missed that voice. It was the sweetest noise he could have ever hoped to hear and now, with it existing only as a memory, it seemed almost unfair that she would tease him with the real thing. Didn't she understand that it physically pained him to see those tilted hips and red fur bristling in the wind?

Of course she didn't. It was something that she could never possibly understand: something he hoped she never would.

"Greetin's, Ninjara. Wanna sit?" he asked before looking forward. "It's hard to find a lookout as nice as this."

"I don't think that's right," she responded almost stiffly. He missed that, too. Attitude was hard to come by without it becoming obnoxious. It was a type of crudeness they shared, some forgivable fault they could overlook for one another.

"Why not?" he asked with a laugh. "You're not thinking 'I'll' get jealous of myself, do you?"

Once more he looked to her. He missed that mouth that seemed to tilt and waver in a pattern, speaking to the most secreted of her emotions. That time it was suppressing a frown, opting for a straight mouth.

"What would your wife say?" she asked before pointing to his wedding band.

Snorting, he waved his hand and turned around on his rear, facing her almost completely. He moved his side to the side and raised his eye ridges. "I think she'd understand. 'Sides, she's not here n' I ain't really thinking of telling her."

Ninjara lowered her head and gently shook it. She seemed at a loss. "I wish you hadn't come to the past. None of you."

The turtle scowled and folded his arms. "Why not? Harder to love on someone now that y'know he'll grow up old 'n ugly?"

"No," she said truthfully, "just knowing that he will grow up and wed someone else."

He dropped the act and rubbed his face. He had felt that this was common knowledge to their past selves, an additional guilt he and his brothers would then feel for their unnatural voyage in time and space. The past was faced now with an inevitable future, one that Raphael would have never wanted in the prime of his youth: when he was filled with romance and adoration.

"How'd y'know?"

"The way you all looked at me, the same way you looked at Master Splinter," Ninjara explained as she crossed her arms and sighed. "I felt like I was on display, like I was some old pocket watch that was found in the trunk."

He smiled and looked to his lap where his fingers rubbed against one another. "That obvious, huh?"

"It makes me feel as though everything Raphael and I now feel is useless," she continued. "It won't last."

Rapidly, he turned around and shook his head, his eyes flaring at the thought. "No! Don't ever say that. What I felt back then, what I feel now, what you're feeling. That's timeless, it's the stuff that makes this," he rubbed his wedding band, "possible. And... and just know it's not the way you think it'll be."

She swallowed and sighed, looking over him.

Somewhat ashamed of his outburst, Raphael turned around again and leaned back, hoping he didn't miss too much.

Quietly, he felt her sit down beside him, laying her head against his shoulder where he could ever so gently brush the wet fur of her cheek across her face. It was just like old times.

...