"Lucky again," Dr. Nakazawa says, as he puts fresh wrappings on Michelangelo's expects to be seeing him often, with how slowly his brother's wounds are healing. "A lot more people are suddenly getting sick and dying, but I guess you all had it mild. I expect your hair will grow back soon."
"Sounds good! We can get some fancy American conditioner for our flowing locks," Mikey says, grinning wide. He's cheerful again, much closer to his joking old self. Leo needs to remind him to pay attention to the doctor's orders.
Donnie is finally almost better, nearly a week after Leo's first shrine visit, and they are all relieved. He'd been so sick and so exhausted since the first day and had just lingered, and when the vomiting had been at its worst Leo had sometimes been sure they would really lose him. Right now he's looking at the progress of Mikey's burns intently, watching the careful way the doctor bandages him up again.
Dante is thriving so well that Leo has not even bothered to pull him from his play. When Jotaro is at school he's in the garden, or by the river down the street, where he watches the American occupiers crossing the bridge into town.
It's the end of August, and Leo is sitting in the yard enjoying the sun. Donnie is reading one of Usagi's books nearby and Mikey is snoozing, while Dante and Jotaro kick a cloth ball back and forth. Mariko is folding laundry on the porch. It would be a sweet family scene if not for the circumstances, if not for how much Leo and his brothers don't belong.
He's thinking guiltily about how they are sucking dear resources from this family in their long recovery, sitting in this sunny yard while other people are starving in the rubble back home …
He sees Jotaro pause, pointing to something down the street. Leo closes his eyes. He'll nap this afternoon and enjoy the time outside with his brothers. When the work week starts again tomorrow, he'll go out and start looking for a job in earnest—maybe Usagi can direct him to a factory, or a building site now that the reconstruction efforts are beginning.
Leo looks again when he hears Dante gasp, and Mikey cry out a little in surprise. Worried, he sits up again to get a better look.
There is Raphael, in the courtyard.
He's thinner than when he left in June, an ill-fitting uniform starting to pull apart at the seams. But he's whole, without any burns or deep cuts filled with glass.
Raph's eyes dart around at them, and Leo can see how wild they are now. He stands up slowly, because Raph like this, after weeks alone and searching, will be volatile, and—
"Raphie!" Leo's thoughts are cut off by Mikey jumping up, and running towards their brother to embrace him. Thank every higher power for Michelangelo and his endless well of forgiveness, his eagerness just to see Raph's face again.
Raph looks stunned. His arms are shaky as he wraps his arms around his brother, and doesn't even respond to the childhood nickname.
Suddenly Leo can't hear the neighbourhood sounds, or even his own breathing. His senses have been tunneled, so there's only Raph, a presence he's silently begged for and raged at all at once.
Mikey lets go gingerly, clearly wincing at the pain from such a tight hug. Leo sees Raphael's eyes widen when he sees the bandages peeking out from Mikey's shirt collar.
"Raph–" Leo says, straightening up.
"Where's sensei?" Raph says. His voice is hoarse, different from how Leo remembers. But maybe there's too many memories now, a buffer between when he last heard Raph speak and the remains of Hiroshima.
Mikey looks away, biting his lip, and Leo sees Dante stiffen up. The entire yard is waiting for the result of this, holding their breath.
"Raph," Leo says again. He takes a few tentative steps forward. "I'm sorry. He didn't make it."
Raph shakes his head, almost imperceptibly. For a moment Leo is surprised—Raph's emotions are not usually so contained, but they are roiling, under the surface of his brother's skin.
"I know that," he says. "He wasn't—you wouldn't forget, you'd have put him on the sign. Where's his body?"
Mikey makes a soft, sad noise, which Leo tries to ignore. He points inside instead. "The shrine."
"Okay," Raph says, still in that husky voice that isn't his. "Okay, I just … I needed to make sure." He looks around, counting to make sure that, yes, there are four living bodies here. Then his shoulders slump. His voice cracks. "God. I thought you'd all burned to death and I'd be alone."
Leo only shakes his head, and finally walks up to Raph and embraces him. His brother's grip is desperate around his shoulders. He can imagine what Raph must have felt, seeing the explosion from outside the city and then coming back, to endless corpses and unrecognizable people.
"I shouldn't have left," Raph says, muffled in Leo's shoulder. "If I'd have known–"
"How could you have known?" Leo says, voice soft. He's done so much comforting now that he should sick of it, but it's the big brother instinct in him, to keep everyone comfortable and knowing they are loved. "Don't think about it right now. I'm glad you're back."
If Raph had been with them, maybe he would have died downtown on a mobilization like Leo's coworkers and Mikey's classmates. Maybe he would have been home, and Leo would not have been able to dig him out. They had worried about him so long, and the army had seemed so dangerous a place to be. But it had kept him safe and whole.
Leo finally pulls away, and Raph wipes furiously at his eyes with his sleeve and thumps Leo hard on the back. Then Donnie and Dante are there too, and Raphael pulls them in, and Mariko stands up to invite them inside.
"Welcome home, Raphael," she says, and Raph nods in thanks, though they all know this place isn't home and will never be. It is still a kind thing to say, something not even Raph can balk at.
Dante tugs at Raph's sleeve and for the first time he smiles, draping an arm around their youngest brother's shoulders and pulling him tight against his side—captively tight, like Raph's teasing before, so Dante squeals and sticks his arms out straight trying to get away. Mikey laughs out loud, and it almost feels normal.
