Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Fan Fiction ❯ Stitches ❯ Chapter 1 ( Chapter 2 )

Thank you for reading through the Prologue and actually continuing! I'm very much obliged. And I know that a lot of thoughts revolve around Raph. I just figured that if you don't know what happened to somebody, you think about them and what might have happened a lot more often than the people whose lives you at least know a little bit about.

 

Disclaimer: Not mine. I'm out of ideas on how to say it, so there it is.

 

Leonardo: New York

 

Leonardo, it could be said, lived a very comfortable life. Everything he needed, he had, and that was perhaps as simply as it could be put. He had electricity, food and shelter at any given time. Despite his somewhat recent discovery of his utter lack of connections in the city, he was still capable of providing for himself without needing to rely on a human friend. And if he got around to thinking he was lonely, the feeling could be pushed back as quickly as it arose. He didn't need to have his family within fifty feet at all times to get by or to know they were safe. They didn't need to live in the lair for him to know they loved him. If finding their own paths meant leaving the city behind, then he was happy that they were happy, and he'd lived without his brothers before.

 

It had occurred to him, once or twice, to consider taking off for a while not long after their master's death. Overnight, the responsibility of being the head of the clan had been dumped on his shoulders, and he hadn't been sure of his ability to handle that on top of everything else. Just a few more months of training, he had thought, and he would be ready. He didn't bring the consideration up, not wanting to upset his brothers so soon after such a great loss. On a deeper level, he had also been rather against the idea, not wanting to let his brothers out of his sight. And it didn't matter if he thought it was kind of selfish; he wanted to give himself that small indulgence in light of everything that had happened. So he'd taken up the duty of head clan one step at a time and discovered that, as with any other thing in life, there really was no being ready. There was only choosing to live with what you had.

 

When Raph had left, he felt the sharp pang of failure stab at his heart. He was the oldest. He was responsible. It was his job to notice his siblings acting strangely, and it was his job to confront them about it. Such a simple task, one that Master Splinter had managed to perform with four unpredictable children under much more trying circumstances. The ninja master would have seen Raphael's sudden lapses into silence, his diversion from conflict, would have recognized that he would leave before it could happen. And Leonardo hadn't managed to notice it. And so his brother had left without a word to indicate where he was going, what he would be doing, and what had driven him away in the first place.

 

The small, well-hidden, childish pieces of Leonardo were furious with his younger brothers for leaving, Raph in particular because he had started the entire thing. While he was trapped in the lair by ghosts of the past, they were scattered around the world, beginning lives away from their family. He blamed his anger on getting used to the changes that had ensued. When you grow up with only four other people that you know and love, whose business is always intertwined with your own no matter how hard you try to separate it, you get used to speaking to them daily, to seeing them perform mundane tasks and taking note of their personal habits.

 

To suddenly find yourself isolated, only communicating with them once in a blue moon, was a definite change; one he wasn't certain he liked.

 

The eldest turtle ran through his katas with the single-mindedness only achieved through frequent repetition and insane focus. Sometimes he wondered if his brothers still trained or if they'd let go of that part of their lives as well. In the end, it probably didn't matter, he figured. He still had the means to train, and so he did. He could still make solo runs every so often, keeping one eye open for trouble, and so he ran.

 

His life was run on what was both a strict schedule and an aimless one. Every morning, he woke up at the same time; he ate, and he trained. From there, he found life took to a generally boring pattern. Nobody to talk to. Nothing one person could do that interested him. Until his next meal, until his next run for supplies, until his next training session, there were few things to occupy him. He was left with silence, reading, television, thinking and meditation. But he'd been able to function on his own before. His life was satisfactory.

 

Exiting the dojo on nearly silent feet, Leonardo strolled into the main living area and calmly settled himself in their old reclining chair. If he listened carefully, he could still hear the sounds of heavy rain trickling through the sewer pipes overhead. The last time he'd checked the weather, they'd mentioned a pretty substantial rainfall over the next few days. He reminded himself to watch the news later, to gain an idea of when things would dry up again. Rain wasn't his favorite kind of weather; there were too many tunnels that could give out and flood the lair. It was something he'd always kept an eye and an ear on the lookout for growing up.

 

He wondered if it was raining in Boston and San Diego, too. Leo sometimes found ways to check up on things like weather and other happenings in the cities he knew his brothers were in. It was reassuring to be able to at least have some idea of what was going on around them, even if he couldn't really warn them or protect them if something should happen. Things had been relatively quiet for all three of them lately, he noted with satisfaction. Quiet was usually good; it meant that there was less of a chance of his little brothers being swept up into fights that were over their heads. He wished he could say he knew the same for Raph, but chances were that the hothead had managed to get himself involved in some kind of massive trouble. It was practically written into his genetic code.

 

Leonardo shook his head, reaching forward and snagging a book off of the coffee table. He flipped it open to a random page and scanned the lines, but found his eyes wandering over the walls of the lair more often than not. Since his brothers had left, he hadn't changed a single thing. All of their posters and games and projects were still in their rooms where they'd left them. On some level, he berated himself for keeping their rooms like some kind of sick shrines to the dead. On another level, he told himself that he was most certainly not keeping shrines, but was really rather foolishly hoping that they would come back someday. And on yet another level, he told himself that he wouldn't know what to do with their things anyway, because he could never gather up the heart to throw them away.

 

He felt it to be rather bittersweet. Once, he had hated the burden and responsibility of being eldest and being leader. He'd resented his father for placing it on him and resented his brothers because he had to look out for them at all times. Their mistakes were his mistakes. His mistakes could get them injured or killed. Leonardo had found that he didn't exactly want to be responsible for that. It went to figure that once his brothers were gone and he was free of the responsibility, all he could do was wonder if they were safe; if they were taking care of themselves; if they'd gotten themselves seen or hurt while he wasn't there to watch them. He had the freedom to do whatever he wanted, and all he wanted was to be responsible for his brothers, because he wasn't sure who he was without them. It was a biting cycle.

 

The book landed heavily on the table's surface, unable to pull him in enough to occupy both his thoughts and his time. He took in the familiar sound of silence, sighed lightly, and was debating the benefits of tuning in to late night television when the familiar yet long unheard sound of the door hydraulics hissed into existence.

 

Turning sharply and pulling himself into a defensive crouch, Leonardo took in the sight of one rain-soaked Donatello panting in the doorway.

 

“Donnie?” He asked, leaping forward with a growing smile. It had been ages since he'd seen the purple-banded genius, and while this was certainly unexpected, he wouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth. The smile froze and dropped as they locked eyes, his younger brother's shining with fear and what looked suspiciously like tears. “Donnie, what's going on?” Donatello caught his breath for a moment, looking away as he seemed to struggle to regain his composure.

 

“Leo…I need your help.”

 

There we are: the end of the chapter. Was it any good? OOC? I'm still planning it out, and this thing's going all over the place lol. Please review?