20. The Stages of Grief

Leo had thought the weight of failure was the heaviest of all burdens.

He felt it when Shredder had disappeared in the portal the night of the prison transfer. He felt it when they came home from the incident at Police Headquarters. He felt it the day Ibis had run into the lair in a panic saying Ardyn had been taken.

This failure was heavier than all the others combined.

He'd not only failed in retrieving the device, he'd failed in bringing all of his team home.

"...think standing on the sidelines makes you some kind of hero?" Raphael growled.

"You can't just push past me like that, bro!" Mikey shouted back.

"You were being a nitwit! You were gonna lose that thing!" Raph argued.

"I had it right in my hand, and you acted like I wasn't even there!" Donnie shouted.

"It is not my job to make your presence known, all right? Get out of your head and communicate!" Leo snapped.

"Well, what do you expect, he's all logic and no skill!" Raphael growled.

"Coming from the guy who's all instinct, no restraint," Mikey retorted.

"What do you know about anything," Leo interjected. "You're all heart and no brain!"

"How could you?" Donnie scolded. "You may know a lot about strategy, but you know nothing about feelings."

"That's for damn sure," Raphael agreed. "'We can't miss Yodie's plane.' She saved your shell and you couldn't even be bothered to look for what's left a her!"

Leo locked his jaw. The damp pack of playing cards he'd found on the banks burned to look at, so he cast his gaze at his brothers and stood. "You want to know what I'm feeling?"

None of them moved.

"You want to know so damn bad?" his tone was low, dangerously even, like the stillness of a snack before it strikes. "Ask me."

There was a beat of silence.

"What?" Raphael growled out.

How could he tell them? What would he say? 'I'm more afraid of finding pieces of her than finding nothing at all'? No, he couldn't say that.

"We may be brothers," Leo rasped in a tone barely audible about the noise of the plane, "but we are not a team."

He tossed Ibis's pack of cards on a crate as he turned to leave the group.

...

Ardyn was working on helping Vern find the footage from TCRI when the turtles made their way back to the lab. She stood, abandoning her earpiece on the makeshift desk, and rushed to Leo's arms. Her grip was almost too tight, but his was hesitant. She pulled back to look him in the eye.

Her expression fell, "Did you get it?"

He simply shook his head as she stepped out of his embrace.

"Oh," her eyes drifted to the others, noting their somber expressions. "Where- Where's Ibis?"

Nobody spoke. Raphael glared at the back of Leo's head and stormed off to another part of the lair. Donnie and Mikey left quietly, not making eye contact with her. Worry tightened its knot in her gut as she turned her gaze back to the leader. His eyes were so full of sorrow, it almost broke her heart to see.

"Leo," she repeated with a stern tone. "Where is Ibis?"

"She's somewhere along the banks of the Amazon," he answered quietly. "I'm so sorry."

Ardyn's worried expression became angry, "You left my sister in Brazil?!"

"Ardyn-"

"Do you have any idea how pissed she'd going to be when she get's back?" Ardyn shouted. "How could you do that?!"

"Ardyn, please-"

She tore from his gentle grip, "Don't 'Ardyn' me, you left my sister in Brazil!"

He tried to grip her as hysterics took hold. She fought his attempts, speaking over his explanations with venom in her voice.

"She'll beat the green off you for this! You know she's got a temper! How could you just leave her-"

"Ardyn! She didn't make it!" Leo finally shouted.

Ardyn stilled, finally meeting his gaze, "She what?"

His grip became gentle, rubbing circles on her wrists with his thumbs, "Ibis didn't make it. She blocked a shot for me, Ardyn. From a tank. She's not coming home."

Ardyn's skin grew impossibly cold as her eyes became crystalline. "No. No, I don't believe you. She's still alive. You left her in another country!"

He pulled her to his chest as she became more hysterical. Tears dropped from her face and melted on his skin as she beat his chest with her balled fists. "Ibis doesn't die! She fell from a building! She's always come back! You left her!"

Tears fell from Leo's eyes as her screams echoed in the lair. He held her tighter as she wailed. Her struggling ceased and her legs gave out. He sunk to his knees, clutching her as her violent sobs wracked her body. Frost rolled from her like smoke, and jagged ice crystals sprang out from the floor around her. The cold of her didn't hurt Leo nearly as much as the sound of her pain.

This was the heaviest of all his failures.

...

The lair was impossibly quiet.

Days passed this way now. The sound of shuffling feet, grunts of effort in training, and soft snores of sleeping were the only things to break the thick tension that hung in the air. The occupants of the lair could've been perfect strangers. Splinter was becoming worried.

As a Sensei, he knew his students were more than capable of taking care of themselves and one another. As a father, he was afraid for his sons. They had faced many things in their years that normal kids didn't have to, but they hadn't experienced loss. It was perhaps Leonardo that was taking it the hardest. He felt a personal responsibility as the leader to take care of his team, and as a brother to watch out for his family. Ardyn and Ibis had become a part of it, along with April.

Now April was in Police custody, Ardyn and the brothers were inconsolable, and Ibis was dead.

It weighed on Leonardo, Splinter knew. Despite the wall of calm the leader erected around his emotions, Splinter knew his son well enough to see behind the facade. This was more than failure, in Leonardo's eyes.

"She chose to save you," Splinter had told him. "Ibis made the decision to save your life."

"Why?" Leonardo had asked. "When she had so many other options, why would she chose sacrifice?"

Splinter had pondered this for a moment before answering. "It is perhaps only in times of great need, moments of trial, that we learn how someone shows their love."

Leonardo had pinched his brows.

"I have spent a considerable amount of time with Ibis after her mutation," Splinter had explained. "She has lived her life in such a way that makes her devoted to others. Death has never aroused a sense of fear in her, unless it were to breathe down the neck of someone else."

He hoped that made Leonardo easier. The leader held her in high regards, like an older sibling. He left the hooks where her wooden tonfa had hung empty, sometimes touching them when he thought he was alone in the dojo. The weapons had been lost with her body. All that they had found were her playing cards, which Leo had dried out and kept on his bedside table by a bonzai tree and his sharpening stones, and the scrap of deep maroon cloth that used to be her shirt. Raphael had wrapped the singed material around his wrist and donned his gear atop it.

Ardyn trained relentlessly. Her chair in Donnie's lab was empty now, save the knit blanket. It was strange how opposite she'd become. When she had first befriended the brothers, she had been quiet. Sarcastic and somewhat dramatic at times, yes. But somehow soft and gentle.

Now, she was nothing of the sort.

Her voice took on a sharp edge when she spoke. Her tone was forceful and short, rather than the soft, melodic tones that everyone had been accustomed to. Her sense of humor had disappeared. She only spoke when necessary, and ceased singing. The piano and turnstile collected dust, having been abandoned for Ardyn's new obsession.

Splinter had been the one to continue her training. She had bowed her head respectfully and requested his assistance. Splinter didn't have it in him to deny her request.

She had been training with Ibis before, he knew. Her muscles had recovered quickly from the atrophy, but she lacked the patience to let them grow. Frustration easily sank it's teeth in her, and once it's jaws locked, there was little that could be done.

Her cryokinesis was a mystery, but Splinter did his best to coach her through it. Meditation made the falling, smoke-like frost more controllable, and she had found a few basic defenses with ice. She was more comfortable with weapons, however. Splinter gifted her two ice axes, making it easier for her to climb and fend off bladed attacks. Her claws weren't stone like Ibis's had been, but were far sharper. She was far lighter, too, which allowed her an easier time in stealth training. A few times, she managed to startle Leo by simply walking into a room.

Donnie never admitted it aloud, but he missed Ardyn's company in the lab. Her sarcastic comments always made him crack a smile. And, though he and Ibis weren't particularly close, he missed her. She was the big sister he never had, not to mention her expertise in mechanics came in handy. He felt particularly bad for Mikey.

The lair's resident ray of sunshine had encountered cloud cover. Ibis had been his best friend, second only to Raphael. The tension in the lair coupled with the fresh wound of loss made it difficult to be happy and light, but he did his best. The comforting white noise of activity in the lair was usually him, and, though nobody had outright said so, it was appreciated.

Then the earth shook.