There was a time when I was perfectly happy to spend endless hours honing my skills in the dojo, but today was not one of them. Honestly, I would rather be in bed. But what kind of message would that send as a leader? It was hard enough getting Mikey up most of the time. I closed my eyes for an instant, hoping to stave off the burn of a late night spent staring at a glowing computer screen, wondering how Donatello did it. Oh, right. Energy drinks and coffee. I smile softly, my attention now on Master Splinter and Mikey.

"You're doing excellent today, Michelangelo," Splinter says with an approving smile, blocking a series of kicks and punches with ease.

"Yeah, Mikey," Donnie chimes in, crouching a little ways to my left. He taps his bo against the dojo floor, fidgeting. "You haven't been scoleded once today. Nice going."

"The day's still young, Donnie," Mikey exclaims with a grin. The air is warm with persperation. He manages to catch Splinter's cane between his 'chucks and sends it flying across the room, clattering loudly. "Oops. Sorry."

With a shake of his head Splinte abandons the match, a smile hinting at his lips. He crosses the dojo, off to collect his cane. "Hmph."

Mikey tucks his nunchucks into his belt, sheepishly grinning. He chuckles and throws hands out in exasperation. "I said sorry!"

Donnie shakes his head. As Splinter joins us, he tilts his head up at me.

"Ready?" he asks, offering his hand.

"Ready," I answer, grabbing his hand with a loud smack! and pulling him to his feet. We each take our respective sides of the dojo, weapons drawn. Mikey, now seated on the sidelines with Splinter, sits lazily, back against the dojo and his foot spilling out into the arena. There's a puddle of sweat where he was standing earlier. With a grimace I move around it and ready myself.

"Go!" Splinter calls out.

The butt of my sword feels heavy in my hand. I spin the blade once, just for show. I want Donatello to attack me. He must be reading my mind because I don't have to wait too long. He leaps toward me, staff sweeping at my ankles. This I quickly dodge by flipping over him. He's ready for me when I land, though, and charges me again. Lean to the left, lean to the right, learn to the-wait, he tricked me! In my grogginess, I don't catch it in time and take a staff to the gut. Unluckily for him, I am now fully awake. The spar continues for about seven minutes in total before I end things, sending Donatello sailing through the air. His back strikes the wall, hard.

Breathing hard, I sheath my sword and squint through the sweat collecting on my brow.

Donatello holds the back of his head, hissing through his teeth. "Ow."

"You okay?" Mikey asks. He jogs over and helps Donnie up before I can get to him.

"Yeah, I'm fine."

Don bends to pick up his bo. He congratulates me on winning. Splinter then announces that we're done for the day, but that he wants Mikey back in the evening, after dinner. With all this extra energy Mikey's had lately, Splinter and him sometimes do a little one-on-one. I'm glad Mikey seems to be taking his training seriously, but do feel guilty that Splinter is there with him. I feel like that's something I should be doing. Intergrating back into things is...still a little weird. I guess they got along without me for so long, they sometimes forget that I'm here.

"You got it!" Mikey exclaims. Then he grabs Donatello by the shoulders and steers him from the dojo, talking incessantly about something I can't make out.

"Sorry," I mumble to Donatello's retreating form. I kind of feel bad, even though I did exactly what I was supposed to do. A sigh escapes me.

"You seem distracted." Splinter's voice comes from behind me. He can always tell when something is bothering us, so I'm not surprised by his concern. "Something you wish to talk about?"

I am however a little annoyed. "It's nothing, Sensei," I lie. "Just didn't sleep well last night."

He doesn't believe me, and he's not wrong, but I stick with my lie. I didn't sleep well, but that isn't the whole truth behind my awkwardness. I know that at some point he expects me to tell him about my trip, and at some point, I will. There's this feeling inside me I can't put a name to, but it makes me feel guarded even now, like I'm a scared wounded animal. A part of me tells myself I have no right to feel this way-I'm the one that left them. I can't shake the feeling, but I can do my best to bury it until it soffocates.

"Please," I murmur, my eyes still trained on the spot on the wall where Donatello hit.

"Okay," is all he says. He gives my arm a squeeze and then he's gone.

Again I shut my eyes. I draw in a deep breath and let it out with a soft noise of frustration.

I need air.


There's a spot under New York City where my brother is buried. He lived here, grew here, died here, and now his body will return to the Earth here. It's a shame he couldn't be buried topside, but the risk is simply too great. Maybe someday, when we're all gone, someone will find my brother's bones. Mine too, maybe. I wonder if we'll end up in a museum somewhere. They'll piece our bones together and maybe a gifted artist will smooth clay over our skulls and sculpt our featues from beyond the grave. I wonder if that ever happened if they'd ever truly capture what made us unique- Mikey's smile, Raph's hard brow and piercing gaze, for example. I guess it's sort of a morbid thing to think about, but it doesn't really bother me. I think it's extremely interesting. Don might agree with me, if this were something normal people talked about.

But it's not. I try not to let these thoughts consume me, try to push them into the back of my mind. Sometimes they manage to make it to the surface.

I gaze down into the busy streets, listening to cars honk in the distance. Beams of lights fill the streets and building fronts and then fade away. People walk two and fro, some alone, heads craned down to the glow of a cellphone, others in masses that talk and laugh loudly, the smell of alcohol catching the breeze and wafting to me. I think for a moment of the village I spent the last few months of my time in, the music and dancing and the alcohol. Stronger than anything here, I'm sure; everything is made from scratch there, and everyone helps. The tobacco is excellent, too. I miss it.

I take a drag from the cigarette, the smoke burning in my chest. It's weak compared to what I know, but the it's enough to quell the need.

I wonder if Raphael was a smoker. I could see it. I'm sure he did a lot of things I never knew about.

I exhale, disgusted with myself, and snub the cigarette out against the side of the building. I consider flicking it over the edge and onto the sidewalk, but don't. I curse myself and tuck it back away, frowning. My phone begins vibrating. It's Donatello, asking where I am and how late I plan on staying out.

"Not too much longer," I tell him. "It's a nice night out. You should have come."

"Maybe next time. I'm upgrading the security system. You should get an alert any minute now." My phone buzzes a second time. "Did you get it?"

I pull the phone away from my face and squint at the screen. "Says I have a text."

"Yeah, so with this new upgrade, we'll all get alerts to our phones from now on when the system is armed or disarmed."

I groan in protest. "That's going to get annoying fast."

"Yeah, well," I can practically hear him shrug through the phone. "It's safer this way. We had a group of meth-heads almost stumble into the lair while you were gone."

I say nothing.

"Okay, well...see you when you get home."

"Wait! How am I supposed to get home if I don't know how to disarm this?"

"I'll leave it unarmed for now and show you when you get here. It's easy. Even if you lose your phone or it's destroyed, everyone will have their own code, so no one but family can get in or out."

After the call ends, I start to tuck the phone into my belt but pause. Instead, I pull up my text messages. "LAIR UNARMED" is the first one, a timestamp following it. The next one is Don. I keep scrolling. Mikey, Don again-Raph's name pops up and I stop in my tracks. I select his name with my thumb and read through our last conversation, timestamped over a year ago.

L: supposed to be home 4 hrs ago

L: where R U?

R: nyc

Before I realize I'm even doing it, I roll my eyes.

L: Im serious, get home NOW

R: or

L: or what

L: ?

R: lol exactly. what u gonna do

I continue to go further back. There wasn't much more, just a couple other friendly jabs, one message that simply said "dick hed," (no context, wonder what I did to piss him off?) and the last text I ever received from him.

R: k

It infuriated me when I got it, but now it just made me feel hollow.

Two women below walk by, heels click-clacking on the pavement. Their giggles fade away down the corner.

I bite tongue staring at that stupid "k" and type back:

I miss you