A/N: Thank you so much, all of you who reviewed. Your words mean a lot to me. And without further ado, I give you the last chatper. Enjoy.

Chapter 4 - The Return Home

I thought I was prepared for it. I used to think about what life would be like without him, back when he was still alive. I don't know, I guess I did it to remind myself that one day, I had to be there to look after my family alone.

I don't know how many times I tried to envision what would happened to the rest of us once he passed.

But that was just it.

I only thought about what it would do to my brothers. How they'd react. But I never thought about the effect his death would have on me. And because of it, it came like a complete blow to my head. I couldn't think, I couldn't breathe.. much less eat or sleep. All I was left with was this empty feeling in the pit of my stomach, one that no matter what I did, it still lingered there.

We stayed at the farm for a few days. Reflecting on the recent events, taking them in when we were ready to digest them. I meditated most of the time. It was my way of dealing with it. We all needed time away from home. Also, I don't think any of us were ready to leave him. We needed a few days to build up the strength to do it.

I dreaded going back to New York, to our home in the sewers, where he raised us, trained us and then finally died. I knew there would be so many changes waiting for us as we got back.

I knew he wouldn't be there.

And yet, I don't think I could ever have prepared myself for how empty it would feel in that abandoned old subway station without him.

It was horrible.

As we got there, April offered to come with us. I told her I appreciated her concern but that we would be all right. Sooner or later we had to deal with it. So her and Casey went back to their apartments, while my brothers and I climbed down the dark manhole, wandering through the tunnels with our stuff on our backs. Then, as we actually got home, it was just so quiet. Everyone went to pack up their stuff, while I just sat down on the living room couch, staring at the door to his sub-car.

I tried not to think about him so much. It would only weaken me. The wound was still too fresh to open. In time, I'd let myself remember. But there were more important things to take care of. Like my brothers and their well being. And poor Mikey. He seemed like he'd taken it the hardest. I don't think I've ever seen him cry so much like he did during those few days at the farm. And he's cried a lot. He was such a cry baby when we were little. He didn't need anything more than a scratch for his gates to open.

But this time it was different.

His tears didn't sound like he'd gotten hurt. They sounded more desperate and... and needing, for the loss of a better word. He needed Master Splinter and cried for him to come back. There wasn't anything any of us could do to dry his tears. God knows Donnie tried. Those tears would only dry when Mikey was ready.

While Don focused on taking care of the more emotional burdens considering our family, or what was left of it, I embraced my responsibilities as the oldest. I took care of the ceremony on his funeral, I called April's about the flowers to buy. Had there been a church to go to, I would've taken care of that as well. I knew the others depended on my strength and leadership to help them through this, so I took the job.

As the night came, the four of us gathered around the table. Don had cooked dinner and insisted we'd all eat something. I don't know if it was because we were grieving, or maybe it was because we were used to Splinter's food, but his macaroni n' cheese didn't taste very good. Of course, no one said anything about it. After all, any of the rest of us hadn't thought about serving dinner, so who were we to point fingers?

During our very quiet meal I brought up something I knew we had to deal with, yet it was something no one wanted to be reminded of.

"We have to clean out his room."

Everyone just froze around the table, silverware still in their hands. I didn't exactly receive loving looks from my brothers then, especially not from Raph. He completely lost it. He started yelling about how we barely put him in the ground before I wanted to throw his things out. Mikey and Don didn't say much, they just looked at me like I had slapped them across their faces. I hadn't meant for it like that, at all. To tell you the truth, I didn't really want to do it, either. It's just... it was the right thing to do. Splinter would've told us not to dwell on the past, because staying there we had no future. We had to move on.

After I explained this to them, they seemed more open to the idea, at least Don and Mikey. They knew it was what Splinter would've wanted.

So we agreed to take care of his room in a couple of days.

The next few days were so quiet. Not even Mikey said much. I guess cause every time he did, one of us asked him not to. He actually started sketching then. I don't know how many things he would draw a day. In the beginning, it didn't look very impressive. Some of the drawings were even hard to tell what they were supposed to be. But as time went on he got better. There's actually a drawing of Sensei in charcoal hanging in the kitchen. Although he hadn't drawn that until a few years later. Took him some time to get used to the pencils and finding his style. But as he did... wow.

It's a very beautiful drawing of him.

Donnie returned to his computers. God knows what he did in there. Could be anything from surfing on the web to solving world hunger. You should never try and get inside his head. It will only get you confused. I've learned that instead of trying to understand my peculiar brother, I should just appreciate him for who he is. And I do. I wouldn't have him any other way. Besides, there's more to Don than just numbers and computers. He's a very compassionate and empathic person. I think he knows more about us than we realize. He's very understanding. And not just of us, but of everyone. He has a way of putting himself in someone's position, seeing it through their eyes.

No matter what's bothering you, or what you're thinking... he always seems to know.

Then there's Raph. He didn't spend that much time home. Most of the time he were at Casey's and other times he just haunted the streets of New York City. I tried to punch some reason into his fat head. But he just wouldn't listen. Finally, something got me to realize I was only pushing him further away. I admit, it sure took its sweet time for me to get it, even though Don and Mike had been telling me over and over, but as I did everything got better. Raph and I got along so much better. We still do. He's able to come to me when he feels like it. If there's a problem he thinks I should know about, he tells me. Wish we wouldn't have wasted so many years on fighting with each other. I guess in a way, I've felt like a parent to him. I haven't been able to let him go and do his own mistakes. And my way of helping him was to restrain him. Something we've all come to learn is that there is no restraining Raphael.

He is his own person. And truthfully, I'm glad he is. At least now, when he's a much nicer person to be around.

Anyway... I guess I've been stalling for the part about cleaning out Sensei's room. Just like we did back then. No one wanted to do it. But we still had to. Raph didn't help, of course. He left and went to Casey's, so it was just Don, Mike and myself.

I remember going in there.. I hadn't been in there since we left for the farm. Don't think any of us had. At least it didn't seem like it by the looks on their faces.

Everything we had just buried was inside that room. His bed, his plants, his books, his candles... his smell. The entire room was filled with him. Still, with all of that surrounding me, all I could think of was the morning we found him, almost a week before that. But I had obligations and pushed it aside. The room wouldn't clean out itself. So the three of us started putting together his things.

Donatello did his bed. He removed his sheets to wash them, while he folded up his covers on the mattress and piled up the pillows on top of it.

Mikey took on the job of finding new places for all of his plants. He actually took care of them from thereon. I don't know how he managed to keep them alive down there in the sewers. I had always thought our father was the only one to keep a flower alive without the help from the sun.

And then there was me. I took the job of going through his bookshelf. Putting away some of his books in a sport bag, because a lot of them were written in Japanese. Although he had other books, too, which I moved to the bookshelf in the living room. Like dictionaries in all kinds of languages, as well as a detailed World Atlas.

But the books that really caught my attention were his journals.

I opened one of them and looked up a random page. Because they were his own, and not intended for anyone to read, he'd written them in Japanese. Luckily I still remembered enough from back when he used to teach us. I think Don and I are the only ones who are able to speak the language properly. Mikey and Raph's forgotten most of it. They weren't that interested in learning it like I was, while Don... Well, he kind of has this way about him to absorb knowledge. He'll remember anything. He could pick something up in a commercial or something and he'll be able to tell you about it years later. It's pretty amazing.

But anyway, about Master's journal. I took it with me and sat down outside of his sub-car, on the living room couch, where I started reading to myself. I must have found one of his older journals. Because it was dated back to 1989, when we were only nine years old. Of course, I can't remember his exact words, and I guess there would be no point it that either, since they were in Japanese. But he wrote about this incident when Raph and I had gotten into another fight at the dinner table. It had been about Raph interrupting Donnie when he'd been talking about something and, according to Splinter, I had scolded him for it. Raph, being who he is, hadn't exactly leaned back and listened, so as our argument evolved into another fight between the two of us, Master Splinter got tired of it and sent us both to our rooms. I don't know when we got our own rooms, I think it was around that age. But according to his journal we did have separate rooms by then, luckily.

I don't remember the incident. How could I? Raph and I have fought so many times.. it would be impossible for me to know which one he was talking about.

Later into the entry he wrote about how he wished the two of us would be able to get along, like we had when we were younger.

I was so shocked by that. I even think my breath got caught in my throat for a couple of seconds.

Apparently Raphael and I had been the best of friends when we were younger. How much younger, I don't know. Young enough for me to have forgotten it completely. He wrote that the two of us used to look out for each other and always play with one another. I remember him using the word 'kusareen.' In English that means 'inseparable.' He wrote that we were very similar to each other, very equal. Although there were of course things that separated us from one another. Raph has always been impatient and more forward, while I've been more thoughtful and careful. But according to Sensei, our differences had only given each other what we lacked in ourselves. Apparently that had been his reason for deciding on who would share rooms.

In the beginning, so long ago I can't remember, all four of us had shared the same room. But as we got a little older and wilder, he divided us into pairs. It had been as we'd gotten older, that Raph and I didn't see each other as equals anymore, but as rivals. He always challenged me while I put him down for it. Eventually the two of us couldn't stay in the same room anymore. So all four of us got our own rooms. Even though Don and Mike got along just fine, it seemed like the natural thing to do. We'd all gotten older and needed our space to grow as individuals.

As I sat there on the couch, with his journal in my hands, I just couldn't believe it. Who would've thought Raph and I were so close when we were kids? I suddenly felt like I had let him down. He only wanted for the two of us to get along. He often worried about us. Feared that our differences as individuals would get in between our bond as brothers.

For the first time since he died, I actually felt the need to see him and talk to him. I looked up at the door to his cub-car and tried to picture him coming out of there with his wooden cane, waking up from his afternoon nap. He started doing those a few years before he died, and the closer to the end he got, the longer he slept. But... no matter how hard I tried to picture him coming out of his room, I just couldn't. The only thing I saw when I thought of him was the way he looked when we found him that morning, dead in his bed, his mouth gaping slightly.

I tried out different scenarios. Him drinking tea at the breakfast table, stirring his spoon so systematically; clockwise, always four times before he neatly clinked the spoon against the porcelain and brought the cup to his lips to drink. I knew exactly how it worked. But I couldn't see it.

Finally, I just tried to picture him with his eyes open; alive. Still, all I got was the image of him in his bed, the sense of death hanging over him.

I felt my entire body tensing up because of it.

My father was dead and I couldn't picture him any other way. My eyes welled up with the tears I'd been suppressing since the funeral. They resurfaced. I have never cried like that, not even afterwards. So... uncontrollably. For the first time in my life I actually felt myself loosing control over my body and my actions. The gates were open.. and there was nothing I could do to close them.

Michelangelo came out of the kitchen, where he had put one of Sensei's plants, and saw me sitting on the couch with my head in my hands. He didn't say anything. He just walked up to the couch and sat down next to me, embracing me with his arms. Comforting me like I had been afraid to do with him when he cried. I had focused on other tasks to deal with, rather than take my responsibility as a big brother and take care of my siblings. I realized then, when crying in Mikey's arms, that they hadn't needed me to clean out Master's room or take charge over his funeral.

They needed me to comfort them. To care about them and tell them things would work out. There was always time for the rest when we were ready to deal with it. They needed me to treat them the way Mikey treated me.

Our father had just died and we only had each other.

That moment on the couch was my breakthrough in the grieving process. I hadn't allowed myself to mourn him, not really. Guess me keeping myself busy with responsibilities was also a way of ignoring the pain. As long as I had something else to focus on, I didn't have to deal with myself.

But I learned then that in order to help and protect my brothers, like I had promised our father on his funeral, I had to help myself first. They had no use of me when I couldn't even handle my own problems.

So slowly I started heeling and patching up, and I learned from my mistakes when I shaped my future. Now, I'm not saying it was easy. Because it wasn't. It still isn't. But if anything I owed it to my father to keep my promise. He had a vision of all four of us together.

It was up to us to fulfil it.

Like I said earlier, I no longer restrain Raph. Instead I give him the space he needs. And whenever any of my brothers are in pain, I don't close my eyes and turn my back on it. I deal with it. When they need their big brother, I'm there for them; mind, body and soul.

Because of what his death made us realize, we've come far together. We really have.

I only wish that he could see it, somehow. I know he would be proud of us. It is what he would've wanted.

THE END