A/N: Warning for character death. I do not own TMNT or any characters.

Mortality

There was, perhaps, a time in my life when I believed Leonardo would be the last of my sons to perish. No…not believed. I had hoped he would be. I did not harbor these hopes out of any sense of favoritism. And, in fact, the thoughts sickened me.

I do not believe any other parent feels the need to think of the order of their children's passing, but such thoughts caught my attention all too easily. Again, not from favoritism. Not because I wished to have longer with any of them, for I had believed I would be the first of our family to die. The reason the thought came often to my mind was because of what we were to humanity. Because of what we all were to one another. I knew my sons would, in the end, only have each other. I had hoped Leonardo would be the last of them to leave the land of the living for many reasons, but one always stuck out as the most simple, and perhaps the most obvious. It was his position in our family. What he was to his brothers.

The leader.

I had not chosen Leonardo as the leader myself, but had instead picked him based on his own ambitions, and he had easily risen to the expectations I had set for him. Though Raphael had often shown interest in taking Leonardo's position, he did not have the drive Leonardo displayed. He eventually learned to fall back in line, like Donatello and Michelangelo, and grew to depend on Leonardo in much the same way.

It was this dependence that I clung to. For I knew my sons needed me; relied on me. But, I thought, with Leonardo as their leader, they might be able to grow together; to overcome their loss when I eventually rejoined my Master Yoshi.

But, as fate often works, things did not go as I had hoped.

Leonardo was my first son to die.

I still mourn his passing. His death is as fresh to me now as when it first occurred, years ago. In all of my musings, I had never once accounted for the fact that I might not be the first of my small family to die, though I believe I knew, deep down, that such was a possibility. I had raised my sons as ninja, after all, and ninja they were. I knew, somewhere, that they might die before their time. They were not only ninja, but mutants; creatures, though beautiful in my eyes, that would repulse the human populace. One wrong move from any of them; from any of us, might have marked the end.

Leonardo had made just one wrong move, but it was one too many.

He was returned to me as a bloody carcass, weight shouldered by Donatello and Michelangelo. Raphael had come in behind them, like a protective shadow, and the look on his face had told me all I needed to know before I reached my fallen son.

Leonardo was already dead when I tended to him, from a bullet wound in his neck.

His death had been dishonorable; the product of gang violence, though I did not learn all of the details until days later, when Michelangelo had finally found his voice again.

I had worried for Donatello the most during these few days of mourning. His hurts were the ones least visible. Raphael had become angry; prone to snapping, to spending hours in the dojo or in front of his punching bag, to leaving the lair for hours at a time. But he was true to his feelings. When I went to him, he did not push me away; he cried upon my shoulder in much the same way he had as a toddler, and we had helped each other to heal.

Michelangelo had closed in on himself; never smiling, never laughing. He would sometimes sit in front of the television without any intention of watching it. In these times, I would join him, and we would watch the black screen together. It was during these times that he spoke to me.

But Donatello closed himself off from us all. He did not seek the help of his friends as I knew Raphael did of Mr. Jones. He did not speak with me as Michelangelo did. I had never seen him shed tears, or words of grief. When I went to him, he pushed me out with the closing of his door. For those first few days, I had thought it was merely in his introverted nature.

But then Michelangelo spoke to me of what truly occurred that horrible night.

Leonardo had taken a bullet intended for another; for Donatello.

I had known, then, that to leave him alone could destroy him. And so I had planned to pry him from his room by force if need be; to heal him if he had become too absorbed in guilt to heal himself.

But he had surprised me. The next day, when I had planned to speak to him, he left the silent darkness of his room willingly, and the Donatello that greeted me in the morning had not been the Donatello I had prepared myself to face. He had smiled as he used to. He had spoken to Michelangelo, to Raphael, and to me.

He had healed the family, perhaps single-handedly. Over the next few days, weeks, months, he became the one Michelangelo went to. The one Raphael spoke with.

I had, at first, feared he had been attempting to replace Leonardo, but I realized that was not so. Instead, he had taken some of Leonardo's responsibilities while remaining Donatello. He had spent the first few days healing himself, and had then resolved not to throw away the life Leonardo had granted him. Rather than waste Leonardo's sacrifice, he had grown from it. He had taken it upon himself to become the person his brothers relied on. I learned much from my quiet son in these months of rejuvenation. My pride in him and in his brothers had never been so strong.

He had healed his brothers, and they, in turn, had healed him. They had overcome the death of their leader; of their brother because of Donatello's gentle nurturing.

Perhaps it is for this reason that my Donatello's death was particularly painful.

It did not occur at suddenly as Leonardo's, though he was brought to me battered and bloody in much the same way.

Just a few weeks after I had allowed them to leave the lair to patrol the city as they once had, Donatello displayed clearly the area of Leonardo's duties he could not shoulder. During an infiltration mission he had given himself the most dangerous task; one that involved the close combat his bo staff did not allow, and he fell all too easily to a tanto.

He was brought home to me on Raphael's back, and we did all we could for him. Ms. O'Neil and Leatherhead took his place as doctor, but despite their vigorous efforts, it was not enough. He was never stabilized, and died slowly from blood loss.

His suffering had become my suffering, and his passing was nearly a relief to me. His pain-filled eyes had been heart wrenching. The weak way he had grasped my hand had broken me. But I was glad to have been given precious time with him before he joined my Master Yoshi and Leonardo.

I believe it was this time for goodbyes and acceptance that kept Raphael from succumbing to his anger. He had requested time alone with Donatello during the wait for the end, and whatever was said in that time had alighted a calm in Raphael I had never before seen in my normally impassioned son. I believe he accepted Donatello's death before it happened, and it was because of this that he did not become obsessed with revenge.

Instead, he had passed this off to Michelangelo.

With the death of Donatello, Michelangelo lost more than a brother. I knew well Donatello had been Michelangelo's confident; his best friend. I knew Donatello comforted him through the nightmares of both the unconscious and waking worlds, but I suppose I did not fully understand his grief, for his change in demeanor was as much a surprise to me as Raphael's.

The cheer he had regained under Donatello's gentle guidance vanished completely, and was replaced by a consuming anger. I believe it might have had something to do with the loss of anger in Raphael. Or perhaps his grief was merely too much for him to handle. Though I tried countless times to help calm him, I could do little. Raphael, too, was pushed away. Michelangelo spoke to no-one; not even Ms. O'Neil and Mr. Jones, who had begun to come to visit often when my sons neglected to see them. Leatherhead, too, visited Michelangelo as often as he could, for he could understand and relate to my son's growing anger.

But they were all grieving for my lost sons, as well. We were all, I should say, for I know I had lost myself in grief. I know I did not help Michelangelo as I should have. I was so focused on the loss of Leonardo and Donatello that I had neglected Raphael and Michelangelo.

Unfortunately, it was this neglect that led to the demise of my third son.

The guilt on my soul has never been erased completely, nor will it ever be. Though I have often been told by our friends that it was not my fault, I know I failed as a father. Too lost in my own grief and mourning, I had not healed my remaining sons as well as I should have. Though I realized Michelangelo's needs--though I tried to sate them; to heal him, I did not. And it is because of this; because of the anger in Michelangelo no-one could heal, that the third death in our family occurred.

He had gone off alone, to find the Foot and seek revenge for the death of Donatello. But the Shredder knew well our numbers had been cut. And, rather than decrease the amount of Foot ninja on the streets, he increased his troops. I suppose he had learned from his foolish mistakes of the past, because he left nothing to chance. Michelangelo's death had not been a murder, but an execution. His body had been left at the doorstep of Ms. O'Neil's shop, and I would not have recognized him if not for the shell on his back.

If Raphael was not broken before, Michelangelo's death dealt the final blow.

Though I had anticipated his anger to return, it did not. He remained nearly listless, despite the attempts of many to pull him out of it. I had almost been convinced Mr. Jones had lived in our lair for those first few days, for I saw him so often. He attempted to pry Raphael from his shell. To get him to open up. To accept what had happened.

He had not shed a single tear since Michelangelo's death. I knew it was unhealthy. I knew something had to be done. But I allowed Mr. Jones to attempt to heal my son before I did. I sent him to live on the surface with our human friends, and chose to remain alone in our lair.

We spent two weeks apart. I believed the time would be good for the both of us to heal, and to find clarity in ourselves. I had become a bitter old man, and I knew I could not be the one to heal my remaining son with my own spirit so burdened and destroyed.

I spent much of our time apart in meditation. I often was visited by my sons in this time, in much the same way I had been visited by my Master Yoshi. Their presence helped to soothe my spirit, and I found strength in their familiar faces.

When the two weeks I had allocated to Raphael to spend submerged in the supportive comfort of our most loyal friends passed, he returned to me, and we began the healing process anew.

It was a hard time for the both of us. I often meditated alone to regain lost patience and to calm myself. Raphael's soul was burdened; he had been broken by the deaths of his brothers, and I knew healing him would be no easy task. He felt he had been abandoned, so I tried to teach him to feel the lingering presence of his brothers through meditation, but his mind could never clear. His shoulders sagged too low under the burden of loss.

Raphael spent more and more time away from the lair. I believe it held too many painful memories for him. I thought he was just so often reminded of Leonardo when he passed by the room no-one had ever dared to change. Too often reminded of Donatello when he glanced at the area his genius brother had once taken as his workstation, or when he used any of the luxuries Donatello had concocted, or when he was forced to repair the things we all had assumed Donatello would take care of. Reminded of Michelangelo whenever he spotted the video game systems that had not been used in months.

I saw him break more and more each day because of these painful reminders. But I could not bring myself to leave the place we had called home once, as a family of five.

It was perhaps because of this that he left me one day, and I knew he had no intention of returning.

I spent many sleepless nights awaiting his return, but to no avail.

I never found his body, and I remained unsure if he was dead or alive for a long time. Ms. O'Neil and Mr. Jones heard not a word from him, and I likewise, for weeks. But still, I hoped, perhaps in vain, for his return. Until finally, one day, as I sat in meditation, I felt Raphael.

I knew this was a sign of his death.

I know not how he died. The thought plagues me still, but my grief has been softened by the intense happiness I feel from my sons during meditation. Perhaps it is merely the delusions of an old, tired man who has lost it all. Or maybe they really are together, somewhere, with my Master Yoshi and dear Tang Shen. Perhaps they are happy. Perhaps they are merely awaiting my return to them, together.

Whatever the case, I no longer live in our old lair. I was driven out, not by painful memories, but by our enemies, though I suppose I should be grateful. I had fallen into despair so thick, I had hardly noticed the presence of my friends when they came to keep me company. I had submerged myself so deeply in pain that I could never have hoped to heal if left to myself.

But, eventually, our home became unsafe. The Shredder grew more and more bold with each passing day, and I knew it was only a matter of time before he found me. I wanted to stay despite the danger, for I was reluctant to leave my past, but I knew I could not sit still and allow myself to be killed by the dishonorable man who had taken from me my family twice over.

I live nowhere now, but that is of no consequence. As many a wise man has said; 'home is where the heart is'. My home, therefore, is not yet accessible to me. Perhaps soon, my sons, I shall find my way home.

But not yet.

Tomorrow I go to finish what was started many years ago. Tomorrow I shall go to Oroku Saki's stronghold. I will bring with me a katana, a bo, a nunchaku, and a sai. I know with your strength, my sons, and the strength of my Master Yoshi, I can do anything.

But I wonder… will your souls be put to rest?

Will your presences disappear, my sons, or will you come to bring me home?