Here's the final part! There is something I want to say first. All of you who have read, favorited, and followed this story, I appreciate you guys so much. To those who reviewed, you guys have inspired and made me feel great about this story. I wrote this because I felt my other story Enough is Enough was lacking. I wasn't entirely sure about it at some points. But your reviews assured me that I was doing a good job. I can't thank you enough, and I hope you guys enjoy this!

I don't own tmnt.

It took over an hour for Leo to calm down enough to let go and start regaining his composure. By then, the sun had set completely. Don raced ahead to start up the Battle Shell and Raph and Mikey walked back slowly with Leo.

"Guys—" Leo began, but Raph cut him off.

"Don't mention it." He said with a small smile.

Leo smiled back and nodded.

As they leapt out the hole, Mikey brought something else up. "You know, there's one more thing you need to do Leo."

"What's that?"

"Talk to Sensei."

Leo paled. "I—"

"Leo, Sensei's worried about you," said Raph. "The only reason he agreed to let us keep you tied down was because we were running out of options. Every time you and Sensei argued, after he or you left the room, he looked worried and upset. He's not mad at you, he's worried about you. You two need to talk. We all know these issues you have aren't gonna go away after one talk, and Splinter's the best one to help you work through them, along with us." At Leo's worried expression, Raph assured him. "I know you're nervous about talking to him Leo. But I also know you ain't a coward."

Leo took a deep breath. "Yeah, I guess."

"Good," said Don, who had rejoined them. "Because I just called Master Splinter to let him know we were on our way back and to expect you in his room."

"Now?" Leo gasped. "It's kind of late Don. Shouldn't it wait till morning?"

"You're not getting out of it Leo. You know Master Splinter can stay up as late as we can, and this talk is long overdue."

Leo sighed, but he knew his brother was right. All the same, he was dreading arriving home. Despite his brother's assurances, Leo still didn't believe his father couldn't be angry with his behavior.

The ride home was silent. No one felt like talking; Leo least of all.

At home, it took all the courage he possessed to walk up to his father's door and knock.

"Enter," Master Splinter's voice sounded wide awake, despite the lateness of the hour.

Sliding open the door, Leo slowly walked and knelt in front of his sensei. He couldn't bring his eyes to meet Splinter's yet.

"Ah, Leonardo. Donatello informed me that you needed to speak with me." Splinter's outward appearance was calm, but on the inside, he was hopeful and nervous at the same time. His third youngest son had said little on the phone, but when he'd said that Leonardo needed to talk to him, hope filled his heart. Perhaps his brothers had finally been able to break through his walls.

Leo nodded.

For a while, the two sat in silence together. Splinter felt worry begin to well inside. "Leonardo?"

"I—I'm sorry, Sensei. I just—I just don't know where to begin."

"I see." He relaxed and paused, thinking. "Perhaps you could begin with your feelings and emotions when you awoke to find that your brothers had tied you to the bed in the infirmary."

Leo took a deep breath. "Well, my first feeling was disbelief. I knew Don had threatened me with it before, but I never thought he would actually follow through. I was pretty much helpless and I hated it. Then when they told me they weren't letting me up unless I talked, I was furious. If they wanted to know what was bothering me, why didn't they ask sooner? Why didn't they help sooner? That was about as far as I got before I started focusing on my anger at them alone. I didn't want to admit I had a problem, and I took it out on everyone who tried to talk to me after that. Including you, Sensei."

Leo went on to describe how useless and angry at himself he felt when Mikey's words penetrated his skull as he realized all this training was not necessarily going to help him save his brothers if they found themselves in another situation similar to the one on Shredder's ship. His feelings of inadequacy and failure were all confessed.

He described the past six days of not being the leader, of watching his brothers take responsibilities that used to be his, which he felt he was no longer capable or worthy of performing, of thoughts drifting back to the beginning of his pain, which made him 'realize' he'd failed his brothers constantly. He felt he should've known that after these last few months, since the fight with Shredder, that he was no longer worthy of leading his brothers.

Now that he'd started, Leo couldn't stop talking. Every incident after the battle with the Shredder, all his feelings, all the training, was explained. The increased training and intensity stemmed from a fear of not being able to protect his family. Anything that could possibly hurt them had to be stopped, questions asked later or never. His frustration with them had come from a belief that they didn't take the danger they could get into seriously. Splinter's not teaching him new techniques had infuriated him because he felt he needed to know as much as possible to protect his family and Splinter was stopping him.

By the end, everything, every emotion, feeling, and thought from the beginning on the way to the farmhouse to the talk Leo had with his brothers at that beach had been explained. When he finally finished, it was three in the morning. Leo was breathing rather hard; it had taken him five hours to talk everything out, and he was still reeling from reliving all those emotions and events.

Splinter was quiet for a time before he spoke. "Leonardo," His son didn't answer. Splinter leaned forward and wrapped his arms around his son in a strong embrace. "Thank you,"

"What?" Of all the responses Leo had been anticipating, a thank you and a hug had been the furthest things from his mind.

"I have been hoping that you would confide your troubles in either myself or your brothers for a long while. I am glad that you finally have. I have been worried about you for some time."

Leo sucked in a breath of air.

Splinter loosened his hold enough to lean back and finally meet his eldest son's eyes, but didn't let go. He smiled at Leo's disbelieving expression. "My son, your brothers spoke the truth when they told you of my worries. The only anger I hold is that you kept these burdens to yourself for so long. Now, I cannot tell you how relieved I am that you have finally begun to take the correct path to heal. Now your brothers and I can help you."

"Sensei, I—" Leo paused. "I didn't tell my brothers much before I broke down."

"That is perfectly alright. You began your path with them, and…" smiling, Splinter turned to look at the door. "You all may enter." The door opened, and three sheepish looking turtles entered.

"If I am not mistaken, your brothers have been outside the door since you entered, listening to every word."

Leo stared at them. Don smiled, looking embarrassed. "Yeah, we heard everything." Turning to Leo, he faced his brother with a stubborn expression. "Don't tell me that if one of us was in your place, you wouldn't have done the same thing."

Leo couldn't argue with that.

Mikey stepped closer. "Now everything makes a lot more sense." He frowned. "And it makes me wonder why we didn't talk to you for so long."

"Regardless, the first step has finally been taken. Now, we must rest." ordered Splinter, releasing his son from his strong hold.

"What time is it anyway?" Leo asked when he noticed the clock. "Oh, shell—"

"Leonardo, do not worry about the lateness of the hour. I and your brothers would stay awake the entire night if meant being able to help you, as you would for us. Besides, I am cancelling tomorrow morning's practice so we all can rest."

"But Sensei, we already missed the evening practice when we took that drive—"

"Leonardo, you have finally begun to heal and confide in us. That is well worth two missed practice sessions." As Leo opened his mouth to protest again, Splinter cut him off. "My son, you will not change my mind. And I believe you know I am right. Do you not?"

After a few seconds, Leo nodded.

"Then rest my sons. I do not want to see any of you out of bed before eight o' clock." Splinter ordered, looking sternly at Leo in particular. Leo nodded.

As the brothers headed off to bed, Don and Raph accompanied Leo into his room. "Guys, what…"

"When Mikey has a bad night, you, Raph, and I always stay in his room. When it's me, you Raph, and Mikey stay in mine. Shell, you, Mikey and I did that for Raph several times when we were little. Now you're the one who's had a tough night. Like it or not, Raph, and Mikey, and I are sleeping in here." Donnie tone left no room for argument.

With that, Mikey arrived with the spare blankets and pillows.

"Guys—"

"You're not going to change our minds Leo," said Mikey.

"Yeah, so if you want us to sleep, you get your own shell to bed." added Raph.

Mikey began spreading the blankets and pillows on the floor. Raph gently but firmly shoved Leo onto his bed and made him lay down while Donnie pulled the sheets and blankets up to the blue-clad turtle's chin. Mikey turned the lights off and they all lay down. Leo couldn't believe it.

He smiled to himself. Even though he'd never admit it to his brothers, he was kind of enjoying this. There had been times when he wanted an older brother he could go to for help. But maybe he didn't need an older brother. Maybe the younger ones were just as good.

With those thoughts, it didn't take long for Leo to drift off into slumber land.

The next morning,

Leo yawned. This had been the first real deep sleep he'd had in a long while.

"Morning, sleeping beauty." Mikey's voice broke through the haze over his eyes as he remembered the previous night. All three of his brothers were still on the floor, though wide awake.

"When did you guys get up?"

"Only about a minute before you," answered Don.

"What time is it?"

"About eight-thirty,"

Leo's eyes widened. "Shell!" Before he could move, Raph put a hand on his shell.

"Leo, relax! Master Splinter called off morning practice, remember?"

"Right,"

"Who wants breakfast?" asked Mikey.

During breakfast, Leo's eyes wandered to the candles and other supplies used for training. His brothers noticed.

"You do know we're not going to let you anywhere near that stuff today, right?" Mikey asked.

"Huh?"

"We told you, Leo, you're the youngest brother this week," Don elaborated, "and your week's not over till this evening. Until then, you're going to continue taking it easy with us."

"Then who's taking care of everything today?"

Mikey grinned. "When I came up with the plan, I asked Master Splinter if he'd mind taking the last day. He agreed."

"Wait Mikey, you came up with this plan?" When Donnie and Raph confirmed it, Leo's eyes fell on Mikey. "I'm impressed."

"As you should be. Now come on, bro. Let's play some videogames." He raced to the TV and set up the console.

Leo only smiled. Mikey noticed. "Hey, Leo, what were you grinning about the other day? It was like you were hiding something. What's up?" Leo said nothing, only grinned more.

"Aw, come on! You can tell us. Please!"

Leo considered. Turning to his other two brothers, he saw curiosity. Glancing at Splinter, he saw a grin.

Aw, why not. They'll find out eventually. And this has the potential to be really funny.

"Turn on that videogame and I'll show you." He grinned, sitting next to Mikey, and grabbing the other controller.

Half an hour later,

Raph, Don, and Mikey's faces showed absolute disbelief. Master Splinter was chuckling quietly to himself. It was all Leo could do not to burst out laughing at his brothers' expressions.

Leo had beaten Mikey to the top level of the game, left him completely in the dust, and ended with a high score that tripled Mikey's best on that particular game. Eventually, Leo lost the battle and broke out in laughter.

"How the shell did you do that, Leo?" Mikey asked, his voice hoarse.

Leo had to struggle to regain his composure. "Well, before that last fight with Shredder, when I woke up, since I was always up earlier than you guys, I'd train and sneak in videogames. I'd mute the volume and never save my high scores. I was pretty good at making sure you guys never found out."

"You?" replied Raph.

"Contrary to what you guys think, I can have fun without ninja training."

"And you didn't say anything," said Don.

Leo raised his arms in mock offense. "I had an image of 'serious leader' to keep, Donnie. Master Splinter was the only one who knew. It was kind of a secret joke between us."

"Secret joke?" Mikey's expression showed nothing but confusion.

Leo's chuckled. "When Mikey goes around cheering about his new high score, he has no idea that his 'boring' older brother can and has kicked his shell secretly at night, and imagining the look on his face if he knew…" Leo smirked at the expression on Mikey's face.

Raph and Don, after getting over their initial shock, chuckled and Raph trapped Leo in a headlock and gave him a noogie. "I never knew Fearless here knew how to have fun."

"Neither did I," replied Don, joining in.

"Uh, Leo, how long did it usually take you to win games and score high?" asked Mikey.

Leo's grin widened. "Three or four days."

"What! How do you do it?"

Leo just continued smiling.

"Please, please, please! What's your secret? I'll put in extra practice sessions for a week if you tell me."

Leo raised an eye ridge. "Oh, really?"

"Yes, please!"

"Okay, you really wanna know my secret?" Mikey leaned forward. "I read the game manual."

Mikey blinked. "That's it?"

"You'd be surprised at what you can learn from those things. Anyway, we'll start the extra sessions tomorrow at two in the afternoon." Leo grinned as he rose and left, with Raph and Donnie still chuckling as they followed.

Mikey was left alone on the couch with a dumbfounded expression. His eyes fell on the manual. He was going to have to read that soon and get in some more practice on this game. Leo wasn't going to catch him by surprise again.

That evening,

The four brothers gathered for the evening practice with smiles on their faces. Leo was finally heading down the right path. He'd relaxed and laughed more than he had in a long time. The day had been as enjoyable a one as they'd ever spent together.

"Raphael," Splinter jerked his head toward the red clad turtle's room, breaking the turtles out of their thoughts. Don and Mikey's eyes widened, but they nodded in understanding as Raph raced to his room.

"What's going on?" asked Leo.

"You'll see," said Mikey.

"I seem to be hearing that phrase a lot lately."

Donnie chuckled.

Raph returned holding something behind his back.

"Remember Raph told you that you weren't getting your katana back until we thought you were ready?" asked Donnie.

Leo's eyes widened and he turned toward Raph just in time catch the swords on their usual strap.

"You are ready to carry them again, my son." Splinter smiled.

Leo smiled back as he slung them on. "Thanks." It felt good to feel his swords' weight on his back again. He'd missed it.

"Hey Leo," said Raph

"Yeah?"

"We all know that you tend to blame yourself when things go wrong and you'll probably think the same kind of thoughts you were thinking earlier. Like thinking we're better off without ya, right?"

Leo sighed, "I'm not proud of it, but yeah, I'll probably feel like that again sometime."

"I'm setting a limit on how long you're allowed to feel that way."

Leo looked curious. "How long?"

"However long it takes you to find one of us and talk about it so we can tell ya it ain't true." At his brother's raised eye ridges, he added, "I'm serious Leo. If I find out you've been keeping all those thoughts to yourself like ya did earlier, I'm gonna do a lot worse than hit ya upside the head!"

"And we'll gladly help him," added Don

"And that rule will apply to all of you, my sons." Splinter met each set of eyes with his steely gaze.

After evening practice, Splinter motioned for Leo to follow him. He had several ideas for exercises that would help Leo come to terms with some of his emotions. There was much work that needed to be done. But they would succeed; Splinter was sure of it.

Two months later,

Leo had finally healed from the wounds that had afflicted him for so many months. The wound on his shell would always remain, but his emotional pain had finally gone, and the anger that used to blaze in his eyes had changed to peace. The origins of his pain had been his problem with failure, Karai's betrayal , his tendency to blame himself when things went wrong, his protectiveness of his family, the fear of such a situation repeating itself, and the paralyzing fear of losing his family. These had been augmented by his tendency to hide his pain and allow it to fester within him.

It had taken his family several weeks to convince him that no one could expect to succeed every time. Karai had made her choice, not Leo. Leo was not to blame, not when he and the others had come up with the best plan they could before setting out, and given it their all. His family may yet again face such a situation, but anger, dangerous training, and unhealthy habits wouldn't help. He slowly learned to stop hiding his pain from his family and allow them to help him heal.

One day after practice,

"Hey guys."

"Yeah?"

Leo smiled. "Thanks."

"For what?" asked Don.

"For not giving up on me. For putting up with the attitude I had. And for strapping me to the bed in the infirmary. Everything. Even what you said just before you released me."

"Leo, why the shell would you thank us for that?" asked Mikey, looking at Leo like he was crazy. "That was one of the worst things we ever had to do. We hurt you and us."

"Maybe. But it made me listen to you. It made me realize wrong things, yeah, but if you hadn't said any of that, I might have never listened to you guys. And it was only by listening that I was able to heal. What you did was harsh, but necessary." He smiled ruefully. "Because like it or not, I was being an idiot."

"Yeah, you were," Raph agreed. Then he grinned a bit. "But you were still our idiot, and we wanted to help ya. So don't mention it."

Leo smiled. "I know. But still, thanks."

His brothers smiled back. Splinter grinned, watching his sons from a distance, filled with a contentment and peace that had escaped him for a long time. Things had finally returned to normal, though perhaps they were all a little wiser than before.

And so ends my story. This is by far the longest fic I've ever written and it was a lot of work. I hope it was good and that I didn't disappoint all you guys! Please review!

A lot of inspiration for this fic came from reading other stories that tried to describe how Leo was feeling after Exodus. I already had the initial ideas, but reading those fics really helped me fine tune it. The video game idea was also inspired by a fic I found a couple years back.

I had a request to do a chapter where Karai attacks the lair, with Leo there. If I do, I would make it chapter five on this fic and it probably wouldn't be posted for a couple days. It would also be an experiment, since I've never written a battle scene before. Let me know what you guys think.