Missing: Splinter confronts Cody about being missing from the "welcome home" picture in the journal. One shot Splinter centric.
He really hadn't meant to pick up the journal, but when he had cleaned up after sending his boys away the journal had fallen out of his hands and onto the floor. He knew that he shouldn't be looking, that knowledge of the future could be a dangerous thing, but he couldn't resist looking at the page that the journal had opened to. It was a photo, but not just any photo, it was one of his sons at a welcome home party with Casey and April. The sight made his heart glad, until he looked at the photo a second time. If it was a welcome home party, then where was he? As much as he hated such things he knew his sons well enough to know that they would have dragged him into the picture whether he wanted to be in it or not. Confused he simply stared at the picture for a while.
"I know why you're not in the picture"
Splinter jumped, he hadn't heard Cody coming in the door, 'Must be getting old' he thought as he turned around "I'm sorry Cody, after my sons left, I was cleaning and it fell open."
Cody sighed, and closed the journal as he placed it back on the shelf "You're probably wondering why you aren't in the photo. It's because there's no record of you ever reaching your destination. History records that your sons made it back to the past."
"And me?"
"There's no mention, I really don't know what happened, it's as if you simply disappeared."
"Am I dead in the past Cody? Is that why you didn't want my sons seeing this?"
"There's no record of that either. Just a blank space where you should be."
Splinter nodded sagely, "I see why you kept this from my sons. For now this will be a secret between us. But what to do about my sons? I know them well enough to know that whatever i tell them not to do they usually find a way to end up doing."
"I have an idea..."
Splinter smiled as Cody explained his idea, even putting a few suggestions in for himself, and even as they caught his sons later on with the fake journal he wondered about the revelations he had seen. What could have happened?
End
If you haven't seen this episode of TMNT fast foreward, it goes like this, the boys are playing in the room where Cody keeps all of their old stuff when Mikey bumps into a bookcase, it falls over, and in with the other books is the journal that inspired Cody to build the time window. The boys are caught trying to read the journal by Splinter who tells them that knowledge of the future is too dangerous and forbids them from reading it. Later that night the boys sneak back into the room to read the journal and find out that horiible things have happened in their absencse. Leo was denied a position with the ninja council for distrusting Karai too much, Mikey turns his heroes into babies, Don is turned into a robot after an accident in space, and Raph is abducted by a Foot Mystic and the world goes to pot. At this point Splinter shows up and the boys learn that Splinter wrote a fake journal. They all have a good laugh and Leo asks Cody how he can stand keeping the secret of the real journal. Cody replies later in bed away from the turtles that it's because he knows how the story ends. The episode ends with Cody looking at a picture of a welcome home party with the boys and Casey and April, but no Splinter.