After all these years, the lights still came up with the flip of the switch. Raphael left most of them off. He only needed to go as far as the door to Splinter's room.
Every step through their lair brought back echoes. Michelangelo's laughter and scribbling on one of a thousand drawing pads. The warmth of Leonardo's candles as he settled his thoughts. A clatter of batteries and screws as Donatello brought out his latest gadget, working on the living room table.
Raphael chuckled humorlessly. "Living room." He walked by the 'room' in a few short steps. How cramped together they'd been. How far away now. Blown away like smoke.
He stopped at Splinter's door.
A small pile of clipped flowers lay on the floor, wilted so badly that he could barely make out the violet hue. So Leonardo had already been by. A card with candy. A small salt lamp that would glow for months. Everyone had been by recently.
He sat down heavily, staring at the door.
He had nothing to give. Nothing more. Just his exhaustion. His frustration.
Without authority to rebel against, he could do whatever he wanted.
A shame that he still didn't know what he wanted.
Running over rooftops and knocking heads was all well and good for a few months, but then he started to long for a little bit more. After a year...two...he saw what made thieves and thugs. Saw the corruption rooted underneath. Wanted to attack some of the root causes of the thugs in the neighborhoods.
But it was hard for a mutant turtle to affect the human word.
Not, of course, for Donatello. And, to be sure, his brother's wealth and resources were put to great charitable use.
But there was still more to be done. Work that got your hands dirty. Work that took sweat. Artistic innovation. Maybe even a little blood.
The idea began to coalesce in his brain. Work that was larger than some busted heads. Work that would leave a more lasting effect than some shady donations to local soup kitchens. Work with new enemies to be fought.
Work that required a family.
Standing up, he gave a final look to the room where his master still lay under a silk cover, no doubt the candles long since burned out, the flowers long disintegrated, just dusty petals on the pillow.
Scattered. But not forgotten.
He gave the only thing he had to give. A nod of acknowledgement, for all the things said and not said, for the all the things done and not done. And he buried the regrets down deep where he would not have to look at them again.
He had phone calls to make. No time for regrets.