I like writing in Leo's POV. His words flow in a poetic way, which is cheesy at some points (you'll see) and not something that I could come up with in regular conversation, but hey, cheers to him. I think that usually I come off a little uneducated when it comes to verbal convo, especially with my accent that people love to poke fun at by going "PAAK THE CAA IN THE PAAKIN LOT. LOL."

Aaaaaanyway, here's his chappie. It's short, and I'm sorry for that. I could have kept up, but that would be beating a dead horse. Mike's is a little longer, I think. He'll probably be next.

By the way, sorry if this chapter's a little not-creative. Don's is worse. Guess what topic I tried to stay away from, but couldn't help myself with? Oooy.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and related characters are not mine. Beta read by Simone Robinson!

Leonardo: Gone, jagged.

I can't see him, I can't feel him. He is everywhere and nowhere. Memories are triggered so easily; they crush my chest, suffocate me.

Gone.

If there's one thing that I can say confidently, something that I know right from the bottom of my heart, it's that I've always known who we are.

I am a perfectionist which, by some ironic twist, does not make me perfect. I strive to do my best, and am constantly learning my lesson. I enforce my authority and when I mess up I dwell, and my brothers just roll their eyes in the end, having accepted the "quirk" in my personality.

We are brothers, a family. The words describe us completely, yet there isn't enough meaning there to do us any justice. We love each other, but in a world where the word is tossed around, four overused letters can't possibly convey the connection we have.

We are pushed from society. We're left alone, but we're never alone. We're a unit, a culture within ourselves, the only members of our species. We're unique. When it comes to each other, we're so desperately connected that one slip causes a network-wide fall.

I say desperately, because that's what it is for us. Nothing but desperation can describe the feeling of a family member down. There is a point where nothing is impossible, where physical limits are met and broken, in order to save him.

I can recall several instances where such a feeling came in to play, the almost painful way the adrenaline supplies my muscles with energy. It bends me in insane ways, causes my limbs to tremble with the exhilarating rush of relief, harbors my immediate, angry response as soon as danger passes:

"What were you thinking?"

To lose a brother is to break off a physical part of me, a piece of my soul. The mere thought puts my heart off-beat, settles a pit of cold dread in my stomach. Like I said, it's more than your word love. It's more than one term in any human language can describe, because no human can say they are as separate from their species as we are.

It is our reason to be.

I can say these things because I know what it's like; I can sit here and feel the pain raw and unbidden like the first hour of a loss, because I've felt it before.

We had always thought Raph would be the first to go, because he is the one who most often bares his neck to the wolves. He holds with him the fantasy that he is invincible; even after everything we've seen, he seems to believe his sai can match any weapon, that his sarcasm can deflect bullets.

Nobody expected to find Michelangelo's nunchucks soaking in a puddle of his blood, in a few pints of what used to supply my youngest brother. Even after the fact we refused to believe it, such a finding could almost be considered a normality for our lifestyle. So, we kept searching mindlessly topside by night and sewer by day, willing away the exhaustion as we scoured the city.

We couldn't give up. For some reason, Don felt the need to slam us in the face with the reality of the situation; looking back on it, I want to say that it was a defense mechanism, that he was preparing himself for the worst. He kept searching, but was like a broken record… he spoke to me and Raph, keeping constant with the words, even though his tears.

…too much blood…

He was all talk of probability, and Raph didn't want to hear it. So my hotheaded brother kept on. I worked myself in to a state of near madness, following him out while ordering Don to stay behind with Splinter, that desperation driving me to all but beg Raph to come home. Completely unbearable was the thought of losing two.

We were constantly fighting. We screamed our throats raw. Twice we sparred till the sweat gleamed halo-like on our skin. I finally settled in to a state of defeated silence, shadowing my brother in his mad runs, turning from him whenever he collapsed to grip his head and howl at the moon like a wounded animal. My heart fell to pieces with every tortured scream, the brittle bits ground to a finer dust whenever Raph called Mike's name.

There were no limits to my shame; the loss created a hole which was bottomless. It had its own gravity, and it sucked from me everything which made me alive, save for my heartbeat. I ran on autopilot for the sake of the other two, for our father, but nothing could shake me from my numbed state. I was detached, lost in my own thoughts, trapped in misery and grief.

The hole had even taken my voice, something which proved to be a fallback when I finally stumbled upon Mike's unconscious body, when I pressed my trembling fingers to his neck and found that fleeting pulse. My mouth open like a fish, I could only let air out in a silent scream, my insides spiking with relentless, dread-induced pain as I clawed my belt for my phone, eyes never leaving my wounded brother.

When Mike woke up, when he smiled at me, he melted me at my core, turned my legs to jelly, caused me to lose balance and topple over the edge. When he cried with me, with us, he sealed the understanding; if there had been any chance one of us wanted to wallow in ignorance, that was ripped from us. There is no way anything could be taken for granted again.

The leftover dust from my heart melted, too. It was forged to pieces, not exact replicas of the original. They don't fit together right; they are bound with your love and then some, but they do not function like they used to. Jagged, they yield an uneven surface, sharp edges which poke, prod, and sometimes stab. Images cloud my mind, ghost memories of pain and loss and paranoia haunt my most terrifying nightmares.

The first time my heart was broken, it was broken completely.

Always the perfectionist, when I do something the first time, I try to do it right.