The Truth

Leo has never experienced a more unconfortable silence in his life.

Another one of Future Raph's sighs interrupted it though.

They have been sitting like this in silence for the past seven minutes.

Future Mikey took a deep breath.

"Look, Raph, I-I'm sorry for lashing out like that." He hung his head down in shame.

Future Raph gave his younger brother a tired smile.

"It's fine, Mikey. I kinda get where you're coming from." His smile fell.

"You do?" Future Mikey's eyes widened.

"Yeah, I do. I mean, I'm glad, that we finally found Donnie, and that he is alive. But he's already keeping secrets from us!" Future Raph huffed in frustration.

"Then why did you side with him?!" Future Mikey snapped at his older brother in confusion.

"Because I didn't want him to leave!" Future Raph defended himself.

As Leo listened to his brothers' bickering, he let his thoughts drift to his unofficial twin from the future.

He was worried for this Donnie, but at the same time, he wanted to know, what is he hiding.

While he was thinking, his eyes drifted to the ominous door behind him.

He wondered, what secrets lay behind it.

And…does he really want to know?

How would they open it, anyway?

It's not like a secretive person like Future Donnie wouldn't lock the super secret door after himself!

And then it clicked.

"Hey, guys?" He interrupted the two bickering brothers.

"Yeah, Leo?" Future Raph shifted his attention to Leo.

"Should we go after Donnie?"

"I mean, we would, but it's not like we can get through the locked door!" Future Mikey motioned towards the mysterious door behind him and Leo.

"But what if we could?" Leo smirked at his confused brothers.

"What do you mean?" Future Raph managed to look even more puzzled.

"You see…" Leo started to get off the old couch. "Our dear genius brother seems to be a tad forgetful. Doesn't he?"

"Leo, what are you talking about?" Future Mikey frowned.

Leo started to slowly walk backwards towards the door. "Because…" He grabbed the door handle.

"He didn't lock the door."

He pullled the door open with ease as his brothers gaped.

"What." Future Raph looked between each of his brothers and the door.

"Leo, you're an absolute genius." Future Mikey was looking at Leo, still amazed.

"Oh, you know, it's natural." Leo's cockiness returned along with a grin at the praise, but that grin fell right off, when a loud crash echoed from the open door. A quiet curse was faintly heard afterwards.

Only when they all properly looked inside the door, did they notice the spiral staircase leading into a lower level.

"Huh…" Leo exhaled.

Future Raph stepped forward.

"Let's go."

The staircase seemed endless, but maybe that was because they were going so slowly.

Leo didn't complain.

None of them were sure, what to expect at the end.

Unfortunately, they could already see the last step of the staircase.

Future Raph suddenly stopped, also stopping the younger two behind him.

"Why did you stop?" Future Mikey whispered to his brother.

Future Raph pointed at something in front of him, but then moved aside so the two behind him could see, what he was pointing at.

There were glass shards on the floor, some a bit bloody.

"Oh geez…." Leo whispered to himself.

He almost didn't want to go further.

Almost.

Each of them carefully stepped around the shards and looked around the room.

It looked like some sort of secret underground lab.

It seemed pretty empty and small, the only things there were a desk filled with papers and notes, a closed door and some weird huge curtains.

Future Raph stepped around the shards again to get to the desk and started looking through the papers.

Future Mikey joined him soon after.

But Leo wasn't interested in some boring papers, he wanted the real secrets.

So, he went straight for the huge curtains.

He reached for one of the curtains, but before he could see what's behind, he heard a loud sound to his right.

The door was wide open and inbetween stood a shocked Future Donnie.

"What are you doing here?" He asked in a hurried tone.

"We came to see, what YOU were doing here." Leo responded cockily.

"That's none of your buisness." Future Donnie's shocked expression quickly turned into an irritated one.

"Donnie you're our brother and we're worried about you!" Future Raph frowned.

Future Donnie looked like he wanted to say something but his older brother cut him off.

"Which makes your buisness also our buisness." Future Raph gave his genius brother a stern look.

The said genius didn't say a word, he just gritted his teeth and stormed back into the second room, but before the door could shut, Future Raph stopped it.

He entered the room with a desperate call for his brother.

"Donnie! Why do you always-" He suddenly stopped mid-sentence, when he saw Future Donnie's terrified look.

He just now noticed the weird hospital bed right beside his terrified brother.

He froze.

His eyes went wide at the sight before him.

"Raph?" Future Mikey's worried voice cut through the silence as he folowed his older brothers into the room.

He came to stand right beside his oldest brother and gasped, when he saw the reason his brothers were so quiet.

Tears started flowing from his eyes, soaking right through his mask.

They heard hesitant footsteps.

"Guys?...What's up?" Leo peeked around the door.

"Leo don't come in here." Future Raph said through gritted teeth.

Leo had a feeling the anger wasn't directed at him, and as it seemed, it was directed at the terrified genius in the middle of the room.

"Come on, Raph!" Leo whined as he tried to squish between his brothers.

"Just let me see!" He tried and tried.

And finally, he got the distraught orange-banded brother to move.

"Now, what are you all so quiet abou-" His words got caught in his throat.

"W-What?" He croaked out.

But…that wasn't possible!

"Donnie…" Future Raph growled.

"L-Look, I can explain!" Future Donnie took a cautious step away from his older brother.

Future Mikey pointed an accusing finger at the genius and stepped forward.

"Well, you better! 'Cause we're not fooling around anymore!" He was furious.

"Is that…" Leo couldn't find the courage to utter the single word.

Future Donnie looked at Leo.

"Leo…" He whispered apologetically.

He breathed out as his shoulders slumped.

"Yeah, that's…that's our Leo…" His gaze drifted to the bed beside him.

Future Raph took a loud step forwards, gaining everyone's attention.

"Donnie, start talking. Now."

His previous calm manner was completely gone by now.

Future Donnie pointed his defeated gaze to the floor and sighed heavily.

"Four years ago, when I went to search for Leo on my own, I did find him." His gaze very suddenly shifted into a glare.

"He was unconsious and badly hurt. But he wasn't alone. Draxum was there with him. He wanted to make a deal. He said he'd give me back Leo, if I didn't ever see you guys again. Well, and as you can see, I took the deal. I had to act quickly, because of Leo's injuries. Thankfully, I found this abandoned factory and made it into my hideout. I took care of Leo's wounds, and had been waiting for him to wake up ever since." The quick explanation came to an end and no one said a word.

Future Raph broke the silence first.

"You know, Donnie… I don't even know, what to believe anymore." He quietly said and left the room.

The sudden hurt expression on Future Donnie's face was something Leo thought he would never see.

"Why didn't you tell us..?" Future Mikey's eyes were glistening with unshed tears.

"I…was afraid. I feared, that Draxum would hurt you guys, if I did. And… I didn't know, if Leo would survive this… I didn't want to get your hopes up, only for them to come crashing down." The purple-banded brother looked at the unconsious turtle next to him.

Future Mikey's sad frown turned into anger in the matter of seconds.

"WE THOUGHT YOU TWO WERE DEAD, YOU KNOW!" He shouted, tears spilling out of his eyes.

Both Leo and Future Donnie were surprised at the loud outburst, but the older of the two recovered quickly.

"I THOUGHT ONE OF US COULD BE DEAD!" He shouted back with an extremely desperate expression.

Future Mikey went silent, but after a minute, he spoke in a quiet voice.

"I bet you didn't even try your hardest to save him." The anger behind those words was obvious.

He left the room afterwards.

Leo heard a faint "Raph, wait!" a few seconds after.

He sadly looked at his miserable looking twin, and then left after his other two brothers without a word.

To be continued…