Sooo ... obviously just being determined doesn't get the job done. Oh well. We're still close. I'm pretty sure we've got like one more to go, but don't hold me to that. It could be two. The fact of the matter is, nothing is certain ;)

He watched her eyes stare at the reflection in her mug. The steam from her tea just barely touched the tip of her nose, but she didn't seem bothered by it.

She was so like her mother, with eyes that could see the world through something as simple and minuscule as a teacup, and it was a sensory gift that would always and had always been a mystery to him. He remembered glancing up at Tang Shen as they strolled through the park, as they ate at the dinner table, as they settled in for bed or sat down to enjoy each others' company, and he would always catch her, at least once, gazing off into space, reading the world the way he never could, understanding its pain and smiling, sometimes sadly, as though she were sympathizing with it.

Miwa … Karai had that same look in her eyes, except that he could see a deeper pain in the gold painting her irises. It was a personal pain, a pain he could very much relate to this time. And he felt sorrow for her, for the loss no girl her age should ever have to feel, for her confusion, for her longing, for her stubbornness.

He looked down at his own tea and realized he could not encourage his daughter to drink if he did not drink himself. But he too could only stare, until the waft of aromatic steam made him sick. He pushed his mug away and blinked at the table.

His stomach tightened and dropped, as though re-experiencing the rage that had consumed him when he stabbed his enemy of nearly twenty years through the throat. And even acknowledging that they had indeed been enemies, even reminding himself that it was a choice between his son and a monster, he could not shake the sickness he felt now, the sudden and aching loneliness, the guilt. He had scrubbed soap between his fingers and through his fur for a long time, but he would never be able to get the stain of Oroku Saki's blood off of his hands.

He looked back up at his daughter and grimaced yet with more guilt. She had not spoken to him. Her silence, in a strange way, reminded him of Leonardo's silence, and he feared that he would have to experience the same failure he had months ago when his eldest son had woken from a four-day sleep only to be full of anger, and anguish, and hate.

The fur on the back of Splinter's neck stood and he tensed his shoulders.

Leonardo had spoken four very true, very heart-breaking words to him that day that haunted him in his sleep even now: "I am not yours." And Splinter could feel those words climbing up his spine this very moment. This may have been his biological daughter sitting before him, but she was not his, just as much as he was not hers, and she had every right to remind him of that. They had only known each other for a short time, and so far, had had even less time than that to rekindle their relationship. He was not the man who'd had the privilege of caring for her, of loving her, of watching her grow. That man was dead now, because Splinter had killed him.

"Miw—Karai … I cannot begin to tell you the immensity with which I am sorry."

She continued to stare into her mug, unblinking and silent. His chest tightened.

"I—understand what you must be feeling right now."

She shook her head, distantly, not so much in disagreement as to acknowledge that she heard.

He waited, and she finally took a breath, though her eyes never lifted.

"I'm just confused," she said, in a voice more honest than he had ever heard her speak. "I didn't think that …" Her shoulders tensed and then relaxed again as she breathed. "I thought I wanted him gone."

Splinter dropped his gaze. "None of us deserve death, no matter the trouble we have caused throughout our lives."

"But he didn't just cause trouble, Father. He was evil."

Splinter glanced up again to find his daughter looking him now, her eyes round and just as unsure as they were confident.

"He deserved every bit of it." As she said this, a gloss sprung to her eyes and she looked off to the side. But there was no hatred in her voice. "I wish that I had grown up here—with you, with Leo, and Mikey, and Donnie, and even Raphael."

She grimaced. Splinter fought off the urge to round the table and fold her in his arms. She was not his baby anymore, and he wasn't sure if the gesture would comfort or disturb her.

"I wish … I wish I had never known him. I wish I didn't …"

She pressed her lips together as though forbidding herself to speak of any remorse she might have. But though the words did not pass her lips, he saw the grief in her face and in the tears that escaped her notice and slid down to her chin.

"Karai."

She looked at him, and every muscle that was holding her expression together did its best not to crumple. Her cheeks even began to redden.

"What has happened is what is. Oroku Saki was … a vengeful, unfortunate man. He was a man that cared for you and loved you fiercely. Even I cannot deny him that. Just as I cannot deny that I loved him, very much the way you loved him. His heart may have darkened and hardened over many years of anger, but he was family. He was a father and guardian to you. And as much as I may wish to detach myself from the memories that we shared, I cannot deny that he was my brother, and is still my brother to this day. That has never changed, even as we grew apart, even as he began to hate me, and even as that hate turned on my entire family. He may have taken many things from me, but he loved me once too, and for that I could never fully hate him."

She grimaced again, then her expression loosened to one more fitting of a saddened child's. "But why did it have to be that way?"

More tears found their way over her cheeks and he found he could not statically watch them without every single one stinging his soul. He had never been able to watch his children cry without at least attempting to wipe their tears away, not his boys, and not his daughter.

He allowed himself to kneel beside the table and opened his arms in invitation and was surprised when she not only complied but did so as though she had been waiting for the opportunity. She clung to him the very same way that his sons did when they were in pain, and for some reason, the fact that the fists bunching around the back of his robe were so much smaller than his sons' rose a knot in his throat.

He wrapped his arms around his daughter and stroked her hair. It was all so different, and yet so much the same. His body instinctively carried through all the motions of consoling his child as it had learned to do over the past sixteen years, but the child in his arms this time was one that his body did not recognize—and yet it still felt so natural, which pained him as much as it was a comfort to him.

"My daughter," he said. "If everything had happened differently and perfectly—I would not be able to hold you as I am now, because I would not be the man I am now, and neither would you be the woman that you are."

He tilted her chin up and brushed a thumb across her cheek, finally whisking those tears away.

"I have not told you this. But despite the upbringing you endured, I am very proud of the young woman that you have become, and you became that woman on your own. You may have gotten lost along the way, but—very much unlike the Shredder—you were able to find your way back. And I could not be happier."

Her expression finally became distorted beyond the point of masking what weaknesses she felt, and she hid her face in his chest, shoulders shaking as she cried.

He passed his hand over her hair again and kissed the top of her head. "I love you, Karai."

She whined into his chest and said, in a muffled voice, "Miwa … I like when you call me Miwa."

The old rat exhaled and stroked his daughter's hair again.

"Miwa it is then."

They sat in silence after that, holding one another for what felt like the first time in sixteen years, and maybe that was true. At least, holding her had never felt so real before, so achingly desperate and comforting at the same time, not even when she had first been retrieved from the Shredder's lair as a prisoner and brought home … his home, their home. They were a family now—a whole family. And that suddenly hit him very hard.

He inhaled deeply as he looked up. His expression softened when his eyes caught the shift of his second eldest son ducking back behind the archway to the dojo, just enough to leave one bright green eye staring out across the room at his father. Splinter could see just the barest hint of embarrassment in his son's expression, but Raphael stood his ground—as he was well known to do—and he made it known through his silence that he had something pressing on his mind, not, Splinter was intrigued to realize, for his father to hear.

The old rat took one last moment to appreciate his daughter's presence then gently pulled her out of his arms and brushed her hair from her face. Then, in his most secretive voice, he whispered, "I believe he wishes to speak with you."

Karai's brow creased and her eyes followed the tilt of Splinter's head. He did not look upon the exchange of expressions between his son and his daughter, but after an initial moment of hesitation, Karai filled her lungs with a breath of air and exhaled as she stood, taking care to clear her face of whatever tears may have lingered. Splinter did not watch her walk away, but instead looked back at his tea and the reflection it provided him.

He picked up his mug and took a sip.

He couldn't help pinching his lips to the side as he backed out of the archway and waited for her to join him. His hands wrung themselves together and the charred skin beneath the bandages on his face burned even hotter. He was so tempted to scratch at it, but in his experience nursing injuries, the moment he lifted a hand to relieve an itch under gauze, bandage, cast, or sling, Donnie would be there to swat at him with a ruler. So he resisted—not that he believed Donnie had the will in him at the moment to care or fuss over Raphael's petty injuries. Even Raph himself didn't much acknowledge his battle wounds, besides gritting his teeth at the sting.

Karai emerged from the dojo, her hazel eyes already staring directly into his soul, and his throat went dry. He would never get comfortable with that stare, and he wasn't sure he wanted to. In fact, he was half a step away from turning on his heel and saying never mind, but he stood his ground. The only thing that kept him there was his incredible distaste for awkwardness, which was ironic. He knew if he didn't confront her now, they'd be sashaying glances at each other and producing pregnant pauses for as long as it took to finally get the night's events—and every event previous—out of the way.

So, he allowed his eyes to gaze off to the side as he filled his chest and coughed.

"Look, Karai, I uh … I just … I wanted to …" He rubbed at the back of his neck and wrinkled his nose at the stupidity of saying nice things. He'd pretty much taken a bullet for her, right? Wasn't that enough?

"I have to just …"

"Thank you, Raphael."

He glanced up, finally meeting those eyes, and was surprised when he found they were still unwavering. She neither smiled nor frowned. Her eyebrows didn't rise, her lips didn't twitch, her breathing stayed perfectly even, and yet he could tell—somehow—that those were probably the hardest words for her to say.

"I know you didn't do it for me," she continued. "But I probably wouldn't be standing here now if it weren't for you so … I appreciate it."

He tilted his chin up, eyeing her as though searching for the lie. But somewhere along the line his defensiveness loosened and he dropped his shoulders.

"Well …" He cleared his throat and looked away again. "You're welcome, I guess. I just uh …" He wiped his palm across his plastron and sighed. "I'm not very good at—apologies."

He peeked at her in just enough time to see her blink and tilt her head. But her expression remained blank.

She shrugged. "I used to say that about saying thank you." Her gaze dropped. "But then I came here, and there were suddenly a million things to be grateful for." She crossed an arm over her chest and squeezed her bicep, then sucked in a breath. "You know, Raph, I'm kind of tired of fighting."

Her eyes met his again and his jaw slackened. He nodded.

"I mean, we just spent, what like three hours killing robots and stuff? I really just want it to be over."

"Yeah," he mumbled. "Me too."

"And it's kind of stupid isn't it? I mean, Leo loves you. He can continue to deny it all he wants to if that's his choice, but that's not going to change how he feels. I can pretend I'm good at handling relationships—doesn't mean I ever will be, which is why I turned him down to begin with. I just wasn't built for that kind of thing—emotionally, I mean. I'd just be a disappointment to him …"

A snicker burst through Raph's nose. Karai's eyes tightened on him. He coughed into his fist and let his gaze roll once around the room before coming back to her.

"Sorry, it's just …" He bit the inside of his lip as a swell of emotion rolled over in his gut and left a bitter taste in his mouth. His teeth didn't want him to go any further, but for the sake of getting it all out now, he knew it was for the best. He sighed. "Leo loves you too."

He didn't watch her face, but he could feel her eyes still staring.

"He kinda always has, I guess, and I never liked it. Still don't, but … I know that's not something I can change about him. You're important to him."

He finally looked back up at her and was surprised to find a glimmer of tenderness to her gaze—a small one.

"That's why I … That's why I pushed you out of the way. I guess I realized it didn't matter whether it was me or you. As long as I could do something about making him happy …" He shrugged. "Then I had to do it. It's my job as his brother, as his … Because I … I love him too."

He matched Karai's gaze and for a moment they got stuck staring at each other with something Raph would almost call understanding. For the first time since they'd met, Raph wasn't seeing his mortal enemy, but instead he was looking at someone who shared the same sense of stubbornness, care, and determination for Leo and his well-being as he did. For the first time ever, he and Karai were eye-to-eye, were on the same page, were agreeing. And it was totally weird.

"Look, I don't want to make this complicated or anything. I just wanted to say I was sorry—am sorry. I was a jerk, and—well, I'm not sure I'd go as far as taking everything back but—I want you to know that I'm o-kay with having you as a sister."

Karai's nose finally twitched and she straightened her head. "Yeah?"

He shrugged. "I mean, siblings fight, right? They don't have to like each other. I'm just saying you can have some of my air. I'll share it, I guess. Don't really have a choice, but it's whatever now."

Karai coughed a chuckle and shook her head. She looked down as she shuffled her feet. "Kusottare."

Raph waited until her gold eyes met his again before he let his lips curl up into a smirk.

"Well, that's not what I expected to see."

Raph jumped. He and Karai both looked toward Leo who was just walking around from the kitchen.

The corner of Raph's mouth turned down and he sniffed, rolling his eyes away. Even still, he could feel the tender teasing in Leo's smile, and it made his stomach tickle.

"How's Donatello?" Karai asked.

Raph peeked back in time to see the strain on Leo's face though he kept the smile going. "He's home … That's what matters at the moment. I'm glad you two aren't fighting."

Karai shrugged. "Doesn't matter anymore."

"Not like it means we're besties," Raph mumbled at the same time.

Karai smirked, but kept her eyes on Leo who's expression became even more strained, until it ate away his grin. His blue eyes gazed up at her in a way that Raph wasn't sure he was even meant to see. And he didn't know how he felt about that either, but he kept his mouth closed.

"Karai," Leo said over a breath of air that sounded serious.

Karai held up a hand before he could go on and walked down the steps. Both boys followed her with their gazes and both were as equally surprised when she strolled right up to Leonardo and yanked him into a hug. Leo was so surprised, in fact, that his arms remained frozen halfway between sticking to his sides and hugging her back. His eyes glanced to Raph as though to ask what he should do, but Raph just crossed his arms and shrugged. He still didn't say anything. And it was strange, whatever it was that he felt when he watched his brother give in and close his arms around Karai's back with a new softness to his expression.

Karai whispered something to him in Japanese that Raph didn't catch, but he could see Leo's heart hit a special kind of beat behind his plastron. His smile returned, and he firmly squeezed her once before he let her go. She started walking toward her room, and instead of watching her leave, Leo pulled in a long breath and looked up at Raph again.

"I'm gonna check on Mikey," he said, flicking his eyes toward their brother's room.

Raph took the hint with relief and followed.