Everything was burning. Their supplies, Master Donatello's tech, the resistance fighters, everything, and everyone. And he couldn't move, couldn't do anything but watch as it all burned.
Couldn't do anything but watch as his mother died.
As his best friend was captured.
As he failed, over and over again.
As Michelangelo sacrificed himself to give him a way out.
As Leonardo—
Casey jolted awake. Taking deep, gasping breaths, he grasped at the thin blanket covering him and yanked it off, sitting up in the chair. He wasn't supposed to have fallen asleep. Making sure Leonardo didn't get out of bed while he was on bed rest was a full-time job, and he had gotten the night shift today. Pushing aside the terror from his dream, he looked over to Leonardo's bed.
Empty.
Shit.
He wasn't anywhere in the lair, so Casey took to the streets of New York City. It wasn't too hard to find him, you can only get so far with several broken ribs after all. Leonardo sat atop a building, watching the streets.
"Hey, Case." He said, having heard Casey's grappling line.
"Master Leonardo, you really shouldn't be out here."
"Yeah, yeah, I know. I just… I needed some air." There was a distant look in his eyes, one that was hauntingly familiar to Casey.
"You had a nightmare?" He asked more out of courtesy than anything. He knew that it had been a nightmare, and he knew what the nightmare had been about. It was weird, to know so much about someone and so little at the same time.
"Yep," Leonardo said, gesturing for Casey to sit with him. "Why'd you wake up? You were out cold when I left."
"Same as you."
"Ah, that sucks." Leonardo looked back over to Casey, obviously wanting to say something.
"What?"
"You said that… That everyone died. That wasn't just to motivate me, or you exaggerating, was it?" Hidden inside his dull tone was the slightest hint of hope in his voice, a small ember that Casey hated to stomp out.
"No, it wasn't."
"I figured." Leonardo took a deep breath and looked back at the city's skyline. "How did they die?"
"Leonardo I don't—"
"I would rather have one nightmare about them dying than a billion wondering how they died." Leonardo looked back at Casey, eyes pleading. "At least tell me who was first." Casey hesitated, but he caved eventually.
"Raphael was first. I was really young, probably seven or eight, so I don't know much. I do know that it was on a supply run gone wrong and that he died saving someone. No one ever told me who."
"Of course he did." Leonardo laughed a bit, sadness permeating his voice. "Of course he did."
"Yeah," Casey said, not knowing what else to say.
"What about Dad? Did he get a cool warrior ending, or was he just old?"
"He died a couple of weeks after Raphael, he passed in his sleep. You said it was a mixture of old age, old battle wounds, and a broken heart. Raphael's death hit him hard." It had been so much, losing Raphael and Splinter within the same week. The rest of the Hamato clan barely survived it themselves.
"Who was next?" Leonardo said.
"Master Donatello. I—" Casey took a deep breath. "I was there with him for most of it. His Battle Shell had broken a few years back so we tried to convince him to stay out of the fights as much as possible, but the Krang found where we were hiding and did a raid in the middle of the night. We had been helping Jiayi get out, she had a bad leg." He remembered it well. The screams, the terror, everything. "Master Donatello told me to go ahead, that he had a plan. There wasn't any time to argue, so I did." Frantically helping Jiayi out of the cave, wanting to run back in even as the cave started to collapse, only for April to hold him back, saying they had to go. Seeing that look in her eyes and knowing that she knew. She knew what Donatello had done. "He never came out of the cave."
"God we need to have a conversation about not sacrificing ourselves."
Casey snorted. "You're one to talk."
"Yeah…" Leo sighed. "What happened to me and Mikey? And April?"
"You guys lasted the longest. Commander O'Neil died just a few days before the final battle. She wanted to do one last reconnaissance mission to make sure everything would go smoothly. She never came back." So many other people had offered to do that mission, but April was so insistent and didn't let anyone come with her. "Master Michelangelo went looking for her the next day and confirmed she was dead." Casey didn't mention that he didn't bring back a body to bury, or that he had seen her in the final battle, among the hordes of other humans who had been captured and transformed against their will.
"So it was just me and Mikey at the end?" Leonardo asked, looking back at Casey. He nodded, and Leonardo went back to starting at the city. "Who went first, me or him?"
"He did." A tear fell down Leonardo's face, but Casey pressed on. "We lost the battle, there's no other way to say it. The resistance failed. But you wouldn't give up hope. You told Master Michelangelo to open a time portal, to send me back. It took everything he had." Michelangelo, falling apart, literally, yet still managing to give Casey a goofy smile and wink. "Then you threw me through the portal, and got vaporized." A police car drove by below them, sirens blaring, and Leonardo made himself stop crying. The silence between them was deafening until Leonardo gasped.
"Wait, opening a portal killed him?" Leonardo's voice was frantic as he looked back at Casey, face terror-stricken. "Like the portal that he made to save me?"
"Yes?" It took Casey a moment to catch on. "Oh, Oh! Don't worry, I told Mikey not to make portals like that anymore and explained everything, he's not going to try it again."
"Okay, okay." Leonardo took a deep breath. "Okay." Running a hand over his head, he continued. "Shit man, are you okay?" He was laughing a bit when he said it, bitter and sad.
"What? I should be asking you that. You almost died—"
"Yeah, yeah, the keyword here is almost. You lived through the fucking apocalypse!" Leonardo looked down at his lap. "You lived through everyone dying." He lowered his voice, soft and sad. "I don't think I could survive one of you guys dying, much less everyone." Casey wasn't sure how he had survived it himself. "Just, god I'm bad at this, just know that you can talk to me, all right?" Leonardo did his best to smile at Casey.
"That goes both ways, you know," Casey said, giving Leonardo a friendly, light punch to the shoulder. "You went through a lot too, everyone did. I'm here for you, we all are."
"Thanks, Case." Leonardo was tearing up again.
"No problem. We need to get back though. If anyone realized your gone—" The telltale beep of the communicators sprung to life. "Of course." Casey stood up and offered Leonardo a hand.
"Well, let's not keep them waiting." Leonardo grabbed the hand, leaning on Casey for support. "Though, can you do me a favor?"
"Of course."
"Stop calling me 'Master Leonardo' and using my full name." He said it with a wink. "I'm your friend, you can call me Leo."
"Sure, Leo." It felt strange to call him that. But it was true, this wasn't his Sensei, this was Leo.
And maybe that was okay.
A/N You can decide who Raph died saving :)
Also I wrote this before learning that you can see April's dead body in the movie so uh, just ignore that lol
