Hi everyone, thank you for all the support you gave to Strings. Considering it was my first, I didn't expect it to be this successful. This is the last chapter, but I might make a second fanfic continuing it, depending on how much time I'll have and how many people want a second. ;)

It had been two days since his brother died.

Raphael looked at the picture on his ceiling. He remembered the last time he had been looking at that picture, when he and the others were preparing to go to war against their brother. He remembered hoping that by the end of that day, Leo would be coming home with them, laughing and joking around as usual.

He never expected this. He never expected that as soon as he had gotten his brother back, that they would lose him again. Why? Why did this have to happen? As he lay back and stared at his brother's face, he thought,

Leo, I would do anything to hear your voice one last time.

Michelangelo looked at his comic, then threw it down. Nothing was fun anymore. Everyone was so gloomy, and with good reason. Donnie shut himself up in the lab for hours along with Raphael, who did what he had done after the Kraang invasion. He constantly looked over Leo, never leaving his side.

They were currently still hooking him up, as although his heart had stopped, according to Donatello, his brain was still alive. Even though he started arguing with himself about how this wasn't possible, they had decided to continue riding on that miniscule hope. But as the first day moved on, everybody gave up. If he didn't wake up by the end of today, they were going to clink him off.

The little turtle looked at the clock, which now read 11:45.

Splinter was similarly staring at the clock. For the past few days, Raphael, Donatello, and Michelangelo had been constantly blaming themselves. They didn't show it, but he knew. But they shouldn't be. He had been the one to kill their leader. If he had told Leonardo about his instability sooner, this all wouldn't have happened.

Before he had died, everything was running smoothly. Everyone was sure that he would survive, and the operation was going well. He himself had been planning to apologize after he had sufficiently healed. But of course, the chance never came. He knew that everyone made mistakes, and especially if it was a friend or family member, it was easy to forgive. Usually when someone was hurt, it was because the mistake-maker didn't tell him what happened, not for the mistake itself.

But this was different. What was bothering him was that he had caused his son's death and had never been able to apologize for it. Why? Because he hadn't even been there when he died! He hadn't been able to stand with the other three, hadn't been there to hold his hand, and hadn't been there to hear his last words.

Leonardo, I'm so sorry. What kind of father am I?

That was when he heard Donatello yell, "RAPH! MIKEY! MASTER SPLINTER! COME HERE, YOU HAVE TO SEE SOMETHING!" Splinter immediately got up and ran into the lab.

The time was 11:59.

When Raph raced into the lab, he nearly fainted. His older brother was sitting up, looking around. When he finally placed his eyes on the red banded turtle, he was already enveloping him in a hug, along with the other three members of the Hamato Clan. "I thought you were gone, I thought you died…I thought that we would have to go on without seeing your face ever again…" he whispered.

"To be honest, I thought so too," was the reply.

After all the excitement and emotion had passed, Donnie's genius side turned itself on again. "But you died! How is this possible… I'll have to study on this." As the rest of the Hamato Clan rushed around the leader, the genius gave him one last smile before retreating into his lab.

And after a solid day, none of them were surprised to hear Donnie screaming, "EUREKA! I FOUND IT! EVERYONE COME OVER HERE I NEED TO TELL YOU SOMETHING!" And naturally, everyone came rushing in.

"Guys, I finally discovered what made Leo come back to life! So I looked deeper into spiritual science, and I found out there were two lives: Spiritual and physical. Our physical lives are the lives that we try to protect every day. Our spiritual lives, however, end when our strings are cut. Since a person is born with one spiritual and one physical life, the number of lives we have of each type is equivalent, right?"

Everyone nodded, although no one except Master Splinter had fully understood what he had said. Even though Donatello highly suspected this, he continued.

"Anyway, so what I noticed was that when Leo had his strings snapped, his spiritual life ended. But when Raph brought him back to normal, (here's the important part), he grew back another spiritual life. So in other words, Leo had one physical life, but two spiritual lives, since he used one up and grew back another. That's when he got stabbed, and he used up the single physical life he had. However, remember what I said before, that the number of lives we have of both types have to be equivalent? That's where the logic comes in. He started out with one of each life, then lost the spiritual one. Then he got another spiritual one, but lost his physical. However, if he had been using 2 spiritual lives and only one physical life, he should get another physical life, because this way the number of lives he had of each type is the same, right? Two and two."

With this, the genius looked at them expectantly. Fortunately, three of them seemed to understand. Meanwhile, Mikey looked at him blankly. "What?" Groaning, Raph bonked him on the head. "Ow! What!?" Leo decided to end the confict before it progressed into a miniature war. "It's nothing, Mikey."

"How come you guys always say that?"

3 weeks later

Raphael burst into the room. "Sensei's given us permission to let him train a bit!" Donatello immediately countered this. "No way, he's going to start studying, if anything." Michelangelo quickly jumped in. "Nuh-uh, we're getting started on the video games!" Leonardo, not wanting for them to argue about his activities for the day, interrupted. "Guys, maybe you should calm down…"

Their father was in the dojo. Somewhere during the second week, he had called Leo over and apologized to him. The leader had accepted the apology, and then they had moved on to discuss about his recovery. Those few minutes, although brief, had been more important to him that he suspected his son would ever know.

Master Splinter sighed as he listened to his sons argue.

But this time, he was smiling.