Title: The Last of Us (2k12 – Future older turtles)

Rating: T

He laid the bundle of flowers at the last site. His knees pained him especially in the dead of winter, but he would be damned if he wasn't going to pay his respects properly. Gently he rubbed the rock that he had carved with his own hands. They weren't big fancy headstones or anything. Hell they were barely proper graves, but they were something and Raphael was going to honor them.

They'd fought all their lives from boyhood until well after master Splinter had suffered through years of Alzheimer's and then finally succumbed to pneumonia. Those last few years of Splinter's life had been hard on all of them, but it was hardest perhaps on Leonardo, who wished desperately do fill their father's shoes. In Leo's estimation that never happened. What he hadn't realized was that his brother's didn't need that, they'd just needed Leo at his best. Leo had given them his best and beyond that.

Raphael cleared the dense snow from around Leo's headstone, then hastily dusted his hands and put his gloves back on. He recalled the day Leo had left with Karai to Japan for what they all thought was the final time. He never liked it to be brought up, but now that all his brothers were gone he could admit. Raphael had cried the hardest at the thought that Leo would never return. Raph tried everything to make Leo stay.

"So you leavin' us, is that how it is Leo?" Raph had screamed in his brother's face with tears streaming down.

Leonardo only gave him that familiar hateful look of patience, as if he were explaining this for the tenth time to a stubborn child.

"Raph we've been over this already. I'm going to try to make a life with Karai. It's not that I don't love you all, but it's just that….I don't know how else to say it Raph. Please don't make me do this again. Can't we part on good terms?" Leo said reaching for his brother who only snatched away.

"You're choosing her over us. We're your brothers Leo. How're we gonna be a team without you, huh? How?!" Raph said, trying anything to make his brother change his mind.

Leo sighed deeply, wiping away tears of his own. He didn't want to say goodbye like this. He didn't want to feel guilty, and he didn't want to have his brother hating him.

"Raph we haven't needed to be a team since the whole Mutant Liberation Wars. We don't need to stay hidden Raph. We can live our lives now," Leo said once again trying to reach out and hug his brother. Raph folded his arms like the petulant ten year old he used to be. Leo frowned.

"Is that what Master Splinter would say? You think he would say we don't need to be a team anymore?" Raph said and he could see his words had an effect. He hated himself immediately afterwards for saying them but what was done was done.

"That's not fair. If Donnie and Mikey can be happy for me why can't you?" Leo asked. Raph had no reply other than to turn his back and walk away.

He'd regretted it every day since then. It would be ten long years before Leo and Karai came back to the states. It would take five more years for Leo and Raph to repair their relationship, with Raph doing all the heavy lifting.

Raphael shook his head at the memory and ran a gloved hand back over Leo's headstone. Every time he visited their graves he had apologized to each of them, but he would pay special attention to say sorry to Leo.

"M'sorry Leo. For all those times I was a pain in your shell for no reason. You forgave me each time even though I didn't really deserve it…" Raph said trailing off. He gave the makeshift headstone another gentle rub and then tightened the coat he was wearing around him a little more. The winter wind was picking up even though the sun was still relatively high in the late afternoon sky.

Raphael stayed a while longer thinking of his brothers with a mix of grief, guilt, and a few fond memories. After Leo left for Japan, the rest of the brothers had gone their separate ways. Raph still kept in touch with Mikey, but Donnie kept his distance. Raphael couldn't blame him. After Splinter's death and Leo's departure Raph took a swan dive right into depression and alcohol. Donnie had tried everything to bring him out of it, but Raph had always been stubborn and prone to wallow in his own self-pity. After years of drunken violence in the lair against his brothers, Donnie had finally banned Raph from it. Mikey protested heavily, but Donnie was staunch and Raph simply accepted it.

Prior to all of that, he and his brothers had been heavy participants in what became known as the Mutant Liberation Wars. As the mutagen spread, so had viable mutant life. After years of Kraang invasions, and Shredder's antics a fairly sizable community of mutants had cropped up all over New York City. Spotting of some mutant or another became commonplace and moved quickly from internet hoax sites, to becoming legitimate nightly news.

At Leo's insistence the brother's had remained hidden, keeping true to their lifelong teachings and instincts. Of course it was Mikey who ventured forth first. Finding secret mutant hangout spots and making connections with others outside the lair. Leo tried so hard to stop Mikey from being so trusting, but in the end Mikey had gotten his way as usual.

It was with great trepidation that Leo had really allowed his brother's to go out and about, gradually loosening the reigns. Raphael had hated all the coddling at the time, but now he would give anything for a spar and a meaningless argument with his brothers.

"Raphael, it's getting late my love," he heard a voice say, bringing him out of his memories with a gentle touch to his still broad shoulders.

Slowly, with aching joints that he would not outwardly favor Raphael stood to his full height. He looked over his shoulder to the woman standing there. Even at sixty-two years old she remained in top physical form, aging flawlessly. The only sign that she was older was the greying at her temples, and the small crows feet sitting at the corners of her eyes and mouth. She still remained a beautiful as ever. Raphael also kept to his ninjutsu training daily to maintain his physique, although he didn't hit the weights as hard as he used to. Too many fights, too many injuries and broken bones had filled his body with various aches and pains, despite the presence of mutagen. Being a sixty year old turtle didn't help either. He had longevity but was now just trying to live out his years with some kind of dignity.

He struggled to smile a little at the woman he had painstakingly come to love. To his surprise, and to this very day his utter consternation, she had been the one to save him. It was her strength, and dogged determination to look after him as Leo had wished that finally brought him from the depths of his despair. He had cursed himself that he should be the last surviving brother. He believed in his heart that any of the others deserved life, and that living without them was a punishment the universe visited on him for all his years of being an asshole to his family. She had all but wiped that away. He never expected to love her. He had spent so much time hating her that it was a smack in the face when he realized his feelings for her had changed.

She hadn't had it any easier, with constantly feeling as though she was betraying the memory of Leonardo. Despite all that, here they stood linked arm in arm and walking away from the paltry cemetery reserved for mutants.

"C'mon Karai let's go. Sorry I kept you out in this cold," Raphael said wrapping an arm around her shoulders and making their way to his old motorcycle.

"I'm fine. We just need to get you warm," Karai said smiling and handing him his helmet before donning her own.

He managed a small smirk behind his helmet and settled on his two seated Harley. He'd need to get a better vehicle suited for winter, but for now this was what he had. The rumble of the Harley coming to life and the feel of Karai's arms wrapping around him as best she could, grounded him to the here and now.

There was no escaping the pain of the loss of his family. He thought alcohol, fighting, and trying to mate with any woman that would have him would drown the pain, but it only delayed the inevitable. It was Karai who told him that the pain never goes away, you simply make room for it. It was impossible to do, but year by year he had found that he could do it, that he must do it if he wanted to go on living and stop dishonoring their collective memories with his self-destruction.

By the time he pulled out of the small cemetery the sun was low and twilight was almost upon them. He headed home with the woman to whom he now owed a life debt. She'd saved him, and now they were the only two left. His brothers and father would live on in both their hearts, but they remained that last of the Hamato line, and Raphael would honor their memory until he lay next to them in the small cemetery.