"Look! Look!" Hana exclaimed loudly as she burst into the main room of the top floor of their beach house. She proudly held up the plastic container she'd borrowed from the kitchen before her walk through the forest with her dad.

Miwa automatically smiled and turned at the sound of her daughter's voice. Hana's face was bright and her smile was huge as her little hands held up the container so Miwa could see what she'd collected this time. Usually it was leaves or interesting rocks. Once a caterpillar. But Miwa quickly paled as she saw what Hana had brought back this time.

"It's a snake!" Hana said, practically jumping up and down in her excitement.

"Yes it is," Miwa said slowly.

"Daddy said you can tell it's a snake and not an eel because -,"

"I'm well aware of what makes up a snake, sweetie."

The laugh that came out of the turtle standing next to her actually sounded more like a snort and Miwa quickly elbowed Leonardo in his side. Since he wasn't going to be able to keep the grin off his face, Leo hurried to finish filling his plate and move away from her so he could join Raphael at the main table to eat.

"Sweetie, tell mommy how to measure a snake."

"With inches," Hana said, already laughing before she got to the punch line of the joke her dad had told her on the walk back. "Because they don't have feet!"

"That's hiss-terical!" Mikey said as he hugged his tiny niece's shoulders and peered in at the snake before moving back to fill his plate for lunch.

Miwa ignored Mikey and tried to offer her daughter a smile before turning to Sam. "How could you let her bring that back?"

"Did you – did you just hiss that question at him?" Mikey asked with a grin that would make the Cheshire cat jealous.

Woody pushed Mikey down onto a stool at the island in an attempt to protect the now chortling turtle from Miwa's own famous glare. "I'm sure she didn't," Woody said.

Miwa might have believed him if Woody's own grin wasn't a mile wide. She shot both of them her best glare, which somehow only led to more laughter from the pair, before turning back to Sam. "Well?"

"You – you weren't there to see the face she gave me when she asked if she could keep it. And Hana said she just wanted to bring it back so you could see it," Sam said. He moved in close so he could whisper to his wife through her shiny dark hair. "And you know I have a serious weakness for ladies with golden eyes."

"You are the biggest pushover," Miwa muttered back to him and crossed her arms as if it could stop the blush from spreading across her face.

Machi walked over to the kitchen island where the others stood and leaned down to peer into the plastic container as well. "We've never been allowed to have pets," she said. She quickly glanced over at her fathers where they sat at the table finishing lunch. She'd always had the feeling the no pets rule was more her papa's rule, but she'd never really pushed the issue to figure out why he was against having them.

"That snake is not a pet," Miwa said quickly. "It's going back to the forest. Right now."

"Not even a fish," Machi continued. The snake eyed her in return and jutted his little tongue out every few seconds. "I mean, how much trouble could a fish be?"

"You'd be surprised," Raph muttered and ignored the not so silent laughter coming from Leonardo beside him.

"Let's eat lunch first," Sam said, hungrily eyeing the spread of food left out on the island. "Then we'll return Mr. Snake to the forest."

Hana pulled the plastic container closer to her chest and pouted. "Why can't I keep it?"

Mikey spun around on his stool and scooped Hana up into his lap. "Oooh, I have the best story for you!"

"Michelangelo," Miwa said with a clear warning in her voice.

"You see, once there was an evil kunoichi," Mikey whispered. He ducked down to Hana's face so that he was not only on her level, but also avoiding Miwa's glare.

"I don't think she was evil at that point in the story," Leo interjected with a thoughtful look on his face that had Raphael rolling his eyes.

Hana waited patiently for her uncle to continue. She loved her Uncle Mikey's stories anyway, but the fact that this one seemed to be a story that her mother didn't want her to hear made her all the more interested. "Did the kunoichi have a pet snake?"

"Even better," Mikey said with wide eyes. "She had magic ooze sprinkled on her -,"

"Sprinkled?" Leo asked with a frown.

"- and she turned into a snake!"

"Cool!" Hana said, her eyes lighting up. "Did she live in the forest? Wait, do you think this could be her?" She nearly slipped off her uncle's lap in her hurry to lift the container up to his face so he could closely inspect whether she had managed to catch the kunoichi snake.

Mikey's eyes narrowed in closely to inspect the snake while Miwa sighed dramatically next to them. Sam piled more food on his plate and grinned over at his cute, pouting wife. He made a mental note to ask Michelangelo to tell him some stories about Miwa when she was a snake mutant. Maybe sketch him a little picture as well.

Mikey felt Woody lean into his shoulder to take a look at the snake. He glanced over at him when he felt the loss of Woody's warmth from his side and watched him scroll through his phone.

"Looks like it's a corn snake," Woody said, holding his phone up to show them a picture of a similar snake. "I don't think the magical ooze would turn her into a corn snake. I bet she was something cooler."

"Something with venom," Leo added with a wide grin.

Miwa glared at him.

"Don't listen to them, Hana," Mikey said with his own wide grin. "This could definitely be the kunoichi snake."

"Maybe we should give it a sword to find out," Raph added dryly. He listened to Leo laugh again and shivered as one of Leo's hands trailed over his neck. He shot Leo a smile before he turned back to his lunch and thought about how grateful he was to see Leo in such a great mood. While Leo was generally happy, the turtle had a knack for finding something to worry over on a pretty routine basis. Admittedly, they'd faced real crises that required the leader's full attention in the past. But it had been quite a while since he'd seen a tense, stressed Leo.

He glanced back over to Leo to offer another smile when he noticed that Leo had paused with his fork raised halfway between his plate and his mouth and appeared to be neglecting his lunch in favor of ogling Raph's upper arms. He grinned to himself before purposely flexing the arm closest to Leo and then watched those blue eyes darken as he audibly heard Leo swallow. Hard.

Leo's eyes shot up to Raphael's eyes. Part of him thought he should scowl at the hothead for teasing him. But the more insistent part of him made sure he had Raph's full eye contact attention before glancing at the closest exit, which happened to be the doors leading to the deck.

"Need somethin, babe?" Raph husked over to him. He let his eyes tease Leo before he flexed his arm once again while taking another bite of his sandwich. He glanced back over to him and caught Leo's eyes on his arm again. He was about to continue the teasing when his thoughts were interrupted by a growl.

"Go," Donnie growled at them from across the table.