Hey guys, I know I said I was going to re write this, but I decided to just go with some edits instead. I think it's better off this way.

Also after this chapter I have a question to ask of you guys.

XXX

Chapter 11

Leo and Mikey made their way through the crowded sidewalks. It was a bit of a trek, but they would probably get there faster by walking rather than trying to fight through early morning rush hour traffic. Leo's heart was racing at the thought of what they were going to see when they made it to their destination. He looked over to his younger brother who had a look of uncertainty written on his face. "Anything you want to discuss before we get there, Mikey?"

Mikey shook his head, keeping his gaze forward.

"It would be best if you got everything off your chest before this meeting." Leo suggested.

"I've said everything I needed to say last night." Mikey said curtly.

"Mikey..." Leo sighed.

"Fine. Listen, I still don't know about this, but after talking to Leilani and sleeping on it, I think that it could be possible. The possibility is just warring with what I've already seen." he explained. "But I trust your instinct, I always have and that's not going to change now."

"You're putting a lot of faith in my instincts."

Mikey shrugged halfheartedly. "Being the youngest, you kinda have to do it all the time, and well..." he playfully nudged his older brother. "I'm not dead, so I guess you're doing a fairly good job."

Leo snickered. "Only a fairly good job."

Mikey shrugged again. "There's been some close calls."

Leo shook his head before thinking of another question. "Who's taking care of the restaurant?"

"My two sous chefs will be taking care of the kitchen while my other managers handle the floor. I told them there was a family emergency and I'd be away for a while. So we should be fine."

Leo nodded before they both came to a stop in front of Raph's old home. The brothers took a deep breath before heading up the three stairs to the door. Leo opened it and stepped into the wrecked living room. Sunlight streamed through the windows, giving them plenty of light to see the mess that was left behind.

"Jeez, did we really leave the place looking like this?" Mikey asked running a hand through his blonde locks.

"Well, we were in a bit of a hurry." Leo answered, before moving to at least straighten things up before their guest arrived. First, the brothers flipped the couch so it was sitting the right way. Leo pushed the shattered table out of the way so Mikey could sweep up the glass that was left behind on the floor. Along with the glass and dust, Mikey also swept up some pill capsules. Seeing those again made his stomach turn. Ignoring the sudden knot in his stomach he continued to sweep up the mess and dispose of it. "That should do for now." Leo said as he sat down on the couch.

Mikey took a seat next to him. "Do you think he'll show up?"

"I hope so."

"What about his brother?"

Leo sighed. "I'm not sure. I just want this to go well."

As if on cue, Jonah was seen climbing in through the window to the living room. He was out of his Foot uniform and instead wore a simple t- shirt and jeans. Now that his hair was dry, they could see that his hair was shaved down to a fade all around the sides while the rest of his chestnut brown hair on top was slicked back with gel. Leo immediately noticed the scars marring his arms and silently wondered where they came from. He looked to his two uncles sitting on the couch. "Hey guys, I see you cleaned up a bit."

Neither one of the adults said anything or moved. The silence left Jonah feeling really awkward. He nervously scratched at the at the back of his head. "Well, are either of you going to say anything?"

Leo and Mikey stood up, still unsure. "What do you think Mikey?" Leo asked his younger brother.

Mikey locked his blue eyes with the teenager's bright amber ones, not saying a word. This only made Jonah more nervous and he asked. "What are you doing, Uncle Mikey?" Mikey still didn't say anything. After a few more awkward seconds he spoke again. "You're still really weird." Jonah chuckled trying to cut through the tension.

Mikey gasped quietly and flinched away as if he had been burned. He wasn't really expecting him to say that. There was no denying the fact that this teen did look a lot like Jonah, but that, what he said almost almost confirmed it for him. He wasn't going to let his guard down completely though. Mikey turned away to face a wall as his thoughts continued to race.

"Okay, well I guess you want some answers now, right?" he was back to feeling super awkward so he decided to cut right to the chase.

"Right. We do." Leo answered. "Have a seat."

The teen sat down on the couch and Leo took a seat next to him. "First, I need to know. How can we be sure that you are who you say you are?" Leo, as much as he wanted to believe, was still slightly skeptical.

"I mean, I guess that would be up to you. Wouldn't it?" he shrugged. "I can say anything, but fact of the matter is you have to believe that I am Jonah and not some fake here to mess with you." that's probably not the answer they wanted to hear, but with them being understandably uneasy about this meet up, it may not be the best idea to say anything that would make them more suspicious.

"Okay so, where's your brother?" It was kind of hard not to notice that today and the night before Jonah was without his twin brother.

"He..." Jonah paused. "He won't be joining us." he answered solemnly.

"Why is that?" Leo asked already assuming the worse.

"He's not the same kid that you guys once knew." he looked up into the questioning gaze of his uncle and decided to answer before he asked any more questions. "He's Karai's puppet. Whatever she says, he does. No questions asked. I never wanted this to happen. I wanted to protect him and I did..." Jonah looked down at his scarred arms. "...from most of the physical abuse. I couldn't protect him from the verbal and emotional torment."

"What did she tell you?" Leo asked.

"She kept going on and on about how you didn't care about us, and that if you guys cared, you would have found us by now." Jonah explained. "Anything to make us submit to her. After a while of her telling us the same thing we eventually believed her. I didn't really want to, but it just seemed more likely as the years went by. Aiden is more than convinced that you guys forgot about us. Please tell me that what she was saying wasn't true."

Mikey finally turned and looked back at them. "Of course it's not true!" he snapped, eyes ablaze with a mixture of sadness and fury.

"Mikey." Leo warned when he noticed the teen flinch at the sudden outburst. Mikey turned away from them again with a frustrated and pretty uncharacteristic growl. Leo turned his attention back to Jonah. "What Karai told you wasn't true. We searched everywhere for you, but due to certain circumstances we had to give up on that."

"What happened?"

Jonah sat silently as Leo began retelling the events that happened over the past ten years. From their frantic search to find them, to Olivia's death, leading to a desperate Raph and all of it ending with them finding the burnt bodies of children. Jonah listened and hung on to his every sentence, every word. By the time the story ended he wasn't sure what to feel. He kept his eyes glued to the floor. "Wow... so yesterday when you said that we were dead. That's what you meant?"

Leo's only response was a quiet "Yeah."

"And once that happened, Raph gave up," Mikey spoke up, but this time his voice was quieter and much less aggressive. "on everything, and everyone. He stopped taking care of himself, he won't eat, he can't sleep. It's just been a downward spiral for him since we found those bodies."

Jonah stood up and made his way to the window. Looking out, he watched as the morning commuters walked along the sidewalk. He ran a hand through his brown hair and sighed. I had a feeling that what Karai said wasn't right, but I had no idea things were this bad. I didn't really think that the Foot would be the main cause as to why our family never showed up. I should've been more suspicious. he thought. "There's still one thing I need to know, though." he sighed again. "What happened to Mom? How did she die?"

Both adults in the room exchanged looks before Leo spoke up. "She followed your father on one of his searches and a Foot soldier killed her."

Jonah balled his hands into fists, the people he has been working with, killed his mother, sent his father into a spiraling depression and thought that they'd never find out about it. Those bastards.

"Hey," Leo said, snapping the teen out of his thoughts. "Why is it that your brother is so sure that we abandoned you, but you're more willing to see what happened?"

Jonah unclenched his fists. "Well, a couple of years ago I had overheard a conversation between Karai and her then right hand man." he started. "She said something like 'all the pieces were in place and that those boys will have no choice, but to heed my every word.' That's all I heard and I didn't know what it meant. I just had a gut feeling that something was up. After everything you said to me, I think I'm starting to get a better picture of what actually happened." Jonah reached into his pocket and pulled out the white bottle that he had found yesterday night. "So I'm guessing that Dad was taking this anti- depressant." he tossed the bottle to Leo who caught it easily with one hand.

Leo sighed. "Yeah."

"And do those pills have anything to do with the mess and destruction in here?"

Leo simply nodded.

Jonah had a feeling about what may have happened. "Did he... you know... try to overdose?" At that, both of them remained silent, but Jonah wasn't going to let them stay that way. "Well?"

"Yeah, he did try. Fortunately, we were here to stop it." Mikey said.

"But he fought you the whole time, pretty much explaining why the living room looked like a complete wreck before."

"Yes. I can still feel the glass from the coffee table when he pushed me into it." Mikey gave a small smile. "We got him out of there and just never came back. So it was left like this."

There was a long pause before Jonah spoke up again. "Well, this talk has been quite informative. I think I need some time to fully grasp everything that I learned here today."

Leo stood up off the couch and approached him. "What are you going to do now?"

"Well, first things first, I have to try and explain all of this to Aiden. I don't know if he'll actually sit and listen, but I have to let him know what happened." he turned to his uncles. "I'm sorry. I really, truly am. If I could go back and change everything, I would."

"Well, you're here now. Maybe this will be enough." Mikey said. "Maybe he can see you and you can talk to him."

Jonah smirked. "Does this mean you trust me now, Uncle Mikey?"

"It means that I'm less skeptical." Mikey stubbornly countered, arms crossed over his chest.

Jonah smirked. "I'll take it." Jonah headed for the window that led to the alleyway. "And I'd love to see Dad, but last time I tried to speak to him he didn't really want anything to do with me, it's like he didn't even recognize me."

"He's just going through a lot right now. He's struggling and has been losing touch with reality. He thinks that we don't know and tries to hide it, but it's pretty obvious." Leo said. "Either way, maybe if we slowly re-introduce you to him it could help."

Jonah inhaled deeply. "I'd like that. I'd like to try anyway. Let's make this the meeting place for now. If I can get out. Same time tomorrow." he said and went to open the window.

Leo stopped him before he could make it out. "You know you don't have to take the window. Why don't you take the front door?"

He turned to both of them and smiled sheepishly. "Right, force of habit." he followed his uncles to the front door when he remembered something. "Oh yeah, you guys may want to get the window fixed upstairs in my parents room."

"What happened?"

"Well, last night, Aiden may have gotten a little over zealous and shattered the window when it wouldn't open."

Mikey sighed. "Real subtle, Aiden."

"Yeah, sorry about that. Well, see you guys later?" before they could say anything else, he scurried off out the door, disappearing into the crowd of people on the sidewalk.

Leo and Mikey made their out and headed in the opposite direction. "So?" Leo asked. "What do you think now?"

"I think that he is definitely who he says he is." Mikey answered.

Leo felt like he wanted to say more "But...?" he encouraged.

"But I don't know if I totally believe that everything he said is true. There's still a chance that he could be playing us."

"Come on, Mikey..."

Mikey interrupted before he could continue. "That's just what I think, but I can tell that you think differently, so I trust you."

XXX

Okay, now that you read it, here's the question.

Should I add in flashbacks to certain parts in this chapter?

Like when Jonah is talking about overhearing a conversation that Karai was having or showing Raph trying to overdose. This is most likely why this chapter took so long because I couldn't decide which one I wanted to do. I'll leave it for you guys to decide and I'll add in the flashbacks if you want, and I'll leave it if you think it's fine the way it is.