"Mommy wishes me goodnight when I'm tired."
"Are you tired?"
"Yes.."
"It's okay. So am I. Now's a good time to sleep."
Michelangelo doesn't tell her goodnight because she's already gone. He breathes the cold air and carefully carries her away from the collapsed building and broken and bloody bodies. Because she's not one of them, not really, she's a beautiful little memory dancing away from this ugly world and taking her bright light with her, leaving the world a little darker. Not that there was much light left anyways.
Sometimes Mikey misses dancing.
He misses the ones he would surprise by grabbing their hands and dragging them in the middle of the room to try and make them dance with him. If there was alcohol included it was a piece of cake – not falling over became a bigger challenge – other times, not so much. But it was worth every smack and swear he receiver from Raph, every polite refuse to dance from Leo and every excuse to not to from Don. Because in the end they would all laugh at the clumsy dancing or Raph and Mikey wrestling in the floor, kicking over the small table in their living-room.
Her body is light, and that's a good thing; after all Mikey only has one arm. He's strong and he carries guns and he'll kill you before you see the loneliness in his eyes, but the little girl is heavy in his arms.
"I don't ask for names anymore, but I would've loved to hear yours", he gently tells her. It takes him time to bury her in the hard ground and his fingers bleed. Mike doesn't want to leave the girl in a place like this, but the soul is what matters, that's what he's been taught.
And it kinda feels like he has left everyone else this way, with bleeding fingers, not wanting to let go. All while digging graves for them.
His breath is white against the dark starless sky. It's going to get colder from now on, Mikey can almost smell the winter coming but the stench of blood and gunpowder is too strong. How long has it been this cold? He doesn't know, his calendar ran out of days ages ago.
He can't remember when it was the last time somebody told him goodnight. Was it Leo? No, his voice hasn't been gentle in years. Raph? No, his voice has been gone for too long. Don?
He's not supposed to think about Don. This always happens. His vision goes blurry and he's vulnerable, something Leo always told him to avoid, and he's being a baby, something Raph told him not to be while playfully hitting his shoulder. And Don, Donnie had told him to never use all of his bullets, because you never know when you need just one. He disappeared not long after that.
Fat tears drop on his bruised hand and he chuckles to himself, wondering when he used all of his bullets. Maybe when he shot the man with the bomb in the head. It would've been a good time to sleep now - it would've been a good time to use just that one bullet. He misses dancing.