I own nothing here.

Leo sighed heavily, his shoulders dropping between the back and front of his shell. He'd heard Mikey and sometimes Donnie, and even Raph (very rarely) say that. It was more honest than a bright or even tear-filled promise to "never, ever do it again." He often found them doing exactly the same thing the next week or even the next hour after such promises. Usagi was wiser than that, he could tell, too wise to make a promise he couldn't keep.

Remembering the rabbit didn't have to give him even that much, Leo sadly lifted his chin in response. "Thank you, Usagi san." Then he turned and began to walk away. His father fell into step at his side and a little behind him.

. . .

Usagi lay back on the cushioned bench. He stared at the ceiling above him long after the steps of the turtles, Traximus, and the near-silent ones of the rat had been replaced by silence. The healer began to bathe his brow again.

The rhino in the corner spoke from it. "You are going to get spoiled by such treatment, Yojimbo. You'll have me waiting on you paw and foot on the road."

Usagi gave a chuckle. A hint of the tension of what had just happened in the room broke through it. Then the rhino laid his ears back slightly. He spoke with more seriousness and confusion himself. "I thought you said a family wanted to kindly separate themselves from you. Was that them?"

"Yes."

The rhino huffed. That didn't seem to be what was going on to me."

Usagi replied softly. "Nor I."

. . .

When they came to a lonely hallway, having fallen far behind the footsteps of his brothers, Leo felt his hand taken by a clawed one. The voice from beside him was both as soft as the fur covering the hand and as firm as its grip. "Come with me, my son."

Leonardo sighed and let himself be led. His father took him to a rock garden. Just over a low wall surrounding it was courtyard with a fountain. Some trees grew beyond that and tufts of dry grass having sprouted out here and there rattled in the slight breeze. Strange stars shone above the roofs surrounding them. Leonardo automatically sat down on the top step of a short flight of stairs and leaned his shell back against a pillar. He drew his knees up and stared over them and down at his feet.

The rat stood in front of him looking down with gentle eyes. He placed both hands upon the top of his staff before he addressed him. "Leonardo, my son, I could not be prouder of your choice in friends. But may I ask, why has this friendship sprung up so fast and gripped you so hard, there is so much fear in you over Usagi's lapse of mindfulness?"

Leo muttered a reply from behind his knees. "It's not fair."

Splinter raised his ears at these words. Then he gazed at the still-moist eyes above the knees covering much of the rest of his son's face. A peace settled over the old rat's heart. Splinter knew now, he'd made the right decision to bring his son out here.

However often his eldest might "feel" or "think" these words, he almost never spoke them out loud if his brothers were present. If he did speak them before his brothers, things had already gotten ugly and only grew more so. Tonight, however, Splinter felt they'd come out only because of everyone else's absence.

The rat sat down in front of his son, crossed his legs, and laid his staff over his knees. Then he looked straight into his son's mostly hidden face as if they had all the time in the multiverse together. He let another moment of silence hang between them and then commanded. "Explain."

Leo gave a long sigh. "I love April, Master Splinter. She's like a sister to us. Well, maybe a daughter to you. She's done so much for 'all' of us like let us into her home, kept our secret, and defended me when the Shredder came after us all …"

Splinter raised an eyebrow. "Do I sense a 'but' coming, my son?"

Leo sighed and nodded. Splinter leaned forward while looking at him. He lowered his own voice. "Leonardo … 'April' is not here, nor are your brothers."

Leo took in a deep breath and raised his head, his eyes closed. He looked like someone preparing to jump out of a flying plane. "She's 'Donnie's' special friend."

Splinter raised his head and eyebrows. "Ah."

Leo bowed his head, hiding his face again. "She' … They both admired Baxter Stockman before the mouser thing. The rest of us didn't know who he was then. When they talk together over computers, no one else can understand what they're saying. It's the way I feel when I talk about strategy and training and honor to my brothers, but Donnie has someone else who understands. Only Professor Honeycut or Leatherhead can keep up with them when he and April talk like that. Hacking, programming, theories on time and space. None of us even think about the things those four can talk about together for hours."

Splinter nodded. Leo went on. "Casey's saved our shells several times. I'd call him in a heartbeat if we were in trouble and I thought he could help, but he and Raph … just hang together, all the time, because, they're the same …"

Splinter nodded again. "And Michelangelo?"

Leo let out another breath and bent his head. "I … I try to listen to him talk about his cartoons and comics, sometimes. He doesn't really have another fan like him to talk about that stuff with either … But, just recently, he made a real, true superhero his friend. He had an adventure none of the rest of us did, because none of the rest of us would have dressed up and gone out alone to do the stuff he did in the open like that." A true smile filled Leonardo's face.

"So ..?"

Leo turned a soft glare upon his father, but Splinter did not react. His son's words confirmed his suspicions about the expression not being for him. "Why am 'I' the only one who's new, best friend is from another dimension?"

Splinter's ears fell back a little bit. "I cannot answer that for you, my son."

Leo looked down. His own legs lowered and crossed themselves mimicking his father's pose. His arms, though, crossed. "He's not coming with us, is he, especially now?"

Splinter gave another smile. "Maybe, maybe not. We will see. But, my son." Splinter reached out and took his eldest's chin in his hand raising it until he met his gaze easily. "You are not alone at home, even in your intense and passionate interests. When I first began to teach all of you, 'I' had some of the same feelings you do. Donatello was far beyond me from about the time he could talk and read in some ways. I could barely comprehend the thoughts he rambled out loud to me. Raphael loved training, but he loved breaking things and defeating others more than tranquility."

Leonardo gave a wide knowing smile. Splinter gave him a soft, like smile back. "And Michelangelo, I fear I have not tried as hard as you to take an interest in his cartoons and comics. I was glad he was made happy by traveling out of the humble, hard world we lived in by way of his imagination and those things, but I always feared it would take him out into the 'real' one with its real dangers unprepared as indeed it did …"

"Would have," Leo interrupted, "but you prepared him for it well, so … it went better than it could have." Leo smiled again.

Splinter's eyes then grew sad and Leonardo frowned at this. He listened to his father's voice with even greater intensity. The rat spoke on. "I wondered, in the early days, if any of the children I'd adopted and I would see eye-to-eye."

Leonardo frowned and opened his mouth, but Splinter cut him off, "However," he pointed the end of his staff at Leonardo's nose. "There was always 'you.' 'You' took an interest in your studies beyond simply trying to please me, or learn to break things, or be a superhero. 'You,' joined me for tea and listened to my stories of Japan. 'You' I could count on to teach your brothers what I taught you, both because you had learned them so well, and because you also thought it so important for yourself …" Splinter stopped for a moment. His own eyes grew moist. "I knew when we had tea together, and discussed what Yoshi had taught me, and found something of Japan in our searches on the surface, you would share my joy."

Splinter stared harder at Leonardo. "I would freeze in fear to realize I'd not heard Donatello's tapping on his computer, Raphael's fists colliding with his weight bag, or Michelangelo's flipping his comic book pages for too long …"

Leo nodded grimly. How often had he looked out of his own room or the dojo upon realizing that himself to see one of his brother's snoozing, or absent, because they'd left without telling him? The former made him smile. The latter made him glare.

Splinter's voice grew almost strained making him look up to meet his father's gaze. "But Leonardo, our time together doing the activities we both enjoy, and your brothers cannot fully understand, are very precious to me just as their time with the friends they've made beyond our family are precious to them. I am beyond grateful, after all my fears, the world above our sewer home has produced allies and friends for all my sons. I am very grateful the multiverse has even produced another for you, but I shall always consider you my special friend, almost as old a one as the Daimyo is."

Leo looked down a chagrinned smile on his face. Splinter smiled back and then tried to put some comfort into his next words. "You may not see him often, but I think you and Usagi shall remain brothers' in your hearts even with all that distance and time away from each other if he does decide to return to his world."

Leo then bent his head as more tears left his eyes. "What if … he 'does' die? What if I'm not there in his world with him, like I'm not with my brothers sometimes, but it will be 'all' the time with him … I thought he was 'better' than me, wiser. I thought I could worry less about him than Raph, Mikey, and Casey … even Don and April."

Splinter's heart ached. The eldest did not even say all he could, how Splinter gave him the unenviable position of keeping three turtles his size and strength in line whenever he stepped out to provide for them or even attend the Battle Nexus Tournament. Michelangelo, Raphael, and even Donatello had fallen in love with the world they'd grown up below: pop culture, television, machines. Leo had grown to love a world he'd never seen a continent and ocean away probably because he'd told him of it with love. He, gently, applied steady pressure on his eldest to be the best he could be, because he depended so much on him being the best to make the others their best, to keep the rest of the family safe and happy and motivated when he was not there. He'd had to. He'd had to scavenge for them all above ground before they grew up. He had to now let them explore the surface world without him because they "had" grown up, and he could not last forever. He was so much older than all of them, the baby turtles he'd found when he was already a rat full-grown for some time. He'd chosen well. He'd chosen permanently. And the choice rested heavy upon Leonardo's shoulders. And with April, and Casey, and even Karai and the whole city gaining Leonardo's notice and protection, he'd noticed his son's sense of responsibility expanding well beyond what he'd meant it to. He could not control that sense of expanding responsibility after planting it in his son. It was beyond him now. Dared he try to "fix" something for him by doing the same to another placing on them a responsibility not really theirs? No … Being unfair to two instead of just one would only expand the problem.

He instead drew his son into his arms and embraced him. "I am sorry, Leonardo san, but unless Usagi chooses to be part of our family I cannot make him do anything, even be careful. But I will extend to him our offer as I agreed."

Leonardo smiled in relief. Sensing this, the old rat raised an eyebrow. "But remember my son, if he 'does' accept, he is older than you, and thus will then be in a position of authority over 'you.'"

Leonardo's eyes shot wide open even behind his father's back.

What do you think?

God Bless

ScribeofHeroes