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...Yeah. [Not in this family. He looks up again, focusing back on Leo. He'd lived through Casey's worst fear, ever since he was a little boy. Death, all alone, the Krang with a knife to his throat. He's had so many nightmares, with those awful, gleaming eyes front and center. He can only imagine how hard it's been since that day.

His hand shifts again, this time to grasp Leo's, squeezing gently.]

Leo, please.

[Casey takes his hand. Leo just sort of stares at it. So many others in his life now that are as touchy feely tactile as him now. It's odd. But not unwelcome.

But the request...

Casey isn't going to let it go.]

....After the invasion. I ended up being pulled to some... other other version of earth. Some town in Massachusetts. [Does Casey even know Massachusetts? Probably not.] It's a tiny little state not far from us, it's- stupid. But. It was some secret government agency that was trying to stop an apocalypse on their world. A bunch of us got summoned there to help stop it. But any of us that had mystic abilities or magic couldn't use it. Said whatever we used would feed the ...'Entities' that were closing in.

[He lets that sit, lets Casey think about the implications of what that meant.]

[He doesn't know Massachusetts, but the rest he understands plenty.]

I heard a little about it... ADI. You couldn't use your ninpo.

[He's never had mystic powers, he can't even fathom how that would feel. But for it to come so soon after the Krang stole it from him, after he'd only just regained it, makes it so much worse. Another apocalypse? More invaders of Earth? Makes him shudder to imagine it. One was bad enough.]

[Leo nods, getting up to his feet. He isn't shying away from talking about it now. It's been a year for him since it started, and six months in this place to start mentally sorting out the feelings about it. He picks up his sword from where he dropped it, just examining the ito and the tsuba.]

Cut off from the ninpo entirely. I didn't trust anyone there the first month and a half. Almost entirely humans. Any non-human I met disappeared pretty quickly, so I couldn't trust them until I met Rue. [He turns the katana to make sure the blade didn't chip when he dropped it.] Donnie showed up about a month and a half later. Peter around the same time.

[Casey watches him, shifting his position to sit cross-legged in the grass. He re-fits his mask on his head, never taking his eyes off Leo's movements. The explanation is quick and vague, but he can read between the lines. More than a month of isolation, so soon after the prison dimension. Had he been safe? Healthy? Was he wounded and trapped in a new world after almost dying? It couldn't have felt safe, separated from his family and the ninpo. Then months until only Donnie arrived. Post-invasion had been a lot for him, but he'd been here, not even remotely alone. He can't imagine.]

That's... horrible. [Understatement for Leo especially, he knows, but the gravity of it is clear in his voice.]

[Stuck. Couldn't portal home; would his family even be in that version of Manhattan if he could?]

It was. [No sugarcoating that. Rue, Peter, and Donnie know his utter disdain for ADI. He wouldn't hide that from Casey either. He swipes at the air once with the blade, easy and familiar. Then starts idly making small portals to nowhere with it. Like reminding himself he can while he talks.] They gave us places to sleep, food to eat. Gave us a curfew. But for us non-humans, that we couldn't leave unless we were disguised. And expected us to try and stop these entities of 'fear' or whatever. Sometimes random bits would get loose and we'd have to track them down, bring them back.

Donnie ended up going to pick up these glass or something shards that had fallen everywhere. It... messed with him. Like- made him super lethargic, slow. Not like him at all. The guy he was rooming with [Not Leo. Hadn't wanted to stay with Leo, but they've sorted that out. They talked about it and Donnie understands how much that hurt now.] contacted me making it sound like he'd died. He- He was fine. We, um. Got him back to normal.

[Casey listens quietly, trying to focus on the big picture without losing important details. It's so strange. In another context, parts of that would be normal. Curfew, assigned residency and rations, just typical aspects of an apocalypse life. The smallest slip-up, the wrong person, wrong place, wrong time combination could have destroyed the entire base. (Had, in the past. Multiple times.) But they lived that way mostly by choice, for self-preservation and to protect each other. To be abducted, captured, depowered and then treated like that... there's no agency in that. He hates the idea of his family othered that way, too. Non-humans. As if humans are better.

(He thinks of Hunter. Maybe he's right to hate humans. There are so many, apparently, who are just terrible to the core.)]

I'm sorry... that must've been so scary for the both of you.

[So slow and lethargic he seemed dead? And for that to be the message Leo received? His thoughts immediately turn to sensei, the day Uncle Tello died. He'd never witnessed such pain before, never felt it resonate so powerfully with his own. Twins. They should never be separated...]

[Haha well about that.

Leo stops to look back at Casey for a second. Then at the ground. Casey had asked him. So simply, so heartfelt. Please. He wanted to know. He lowers the blade, the portals disappearing. Dr McKay was... just an asshole, really. Similar breed as Donnie. He hadn't thought about how the message was received, just stating facts as he saw them with no context provided. Leo had misread the situation.

Leo should sit. But he can't, he's got the anxious energy thinking about the last couple of months in that place.]

Wasn't the worst.

The worst was- [He takes a sharp breath.

"I only know who you are through process of elimination and a discussion with Rue."

It still is ice in his veins to remember. Standing on those steps, staring at his brother who was bewildered staring back at a stranger.] A little later.

I don't... I don't know what happened or how, but. Donnie.. forgot me. He remembered everyone, everything else. But not me. That place made him forget me. [His grip on the hilt of his katana is shaky with how tightly he holds it.]

Got that fixed too. It took a while. [Donnie had read that book, he'd seen and felt and heard everything Leo experienced alone with Krang Prime. But the important part was Donnie remembered him again.]

But by then, there was some crap about other people trying to take over ADI and everyone trying to leave. But ADI helped keep us non-humans disguised. And none of the humans there thought about what we were supposed to do if we couldn't leave.

...And next thing I know, I'm here.

[In contrast to Leo's restlessness, Casey tries to remain where he is; a fixed point for Leo to orbit, so he'll know where Casey is, where not to throw a blade. Where to return to, if he's needed. At that admission, however, his hands brace against the dirt and he very nearly rises and rushes over. He wants to. His heart is aching for it. He hears the rest of what Leo says but it pales, it pales in comparison to that.

Forgot him. Only him. It brushes up against something Casey knows and has experienced so intimately. To wake in the past, surrounded by his family, his dead family, only to find himself bound and interrogated. "Who are you," from one who'd carried him so carefully as a child. "Why are you wearing that," from the one who gave him all the gear he wore. "Why didn't you tell me," the wrathful accusation from one who in another world had raised him, hands reaching to harm, not to care.

It's not the same. But it's close enough that he feels the ache, recognizes at once how wretched Leo must have felt when it happened.]

How long? [His voice sounds too hushed, too fragile. He tries again.] How long was he like that?

[How long was Donnie Leo-specific-amnesiac.

He shrugs.]

A few weeks? A month? [It had felt like ages to him. The only family he'd had there didn't know him at all. Had outright told Leo to leave him alone in no uncertain terms. It lasted ages too long. Rue and Peter had been balms to the ache at the time.]

...Hunter here doesn't remember me either. I'd met him there, him and Flapjack. But the one here .... [He sighs before finally sitting back down behind Casey, back to back. He'd never just laid everything out before. In his head, sure, but not to anyone else and not out loud. Leo's bones ache with exhaustion from it now.] This place is nice and all but... I. I miss dad.

[Me too, he wants to say. Opens his mouth, closes it. Tilts his head back to bump against Leo's, quietly relieved that he's close again. He's not sure how to address the Hunter comment, and perhaps it's not very relevant right now. (Weeks. A month. That's so long, even in the grand scheme of things. Every day would be suffering. He knows this.)]

You'll see him again. [He squashes that pang of jealousy. He's here for Leo.] I know it doesn't count for much now, but you will. And he'd be proud of you for making it through all that.

[What he'd heard from sensei, what he'd witnessed in those handful of hours in the past- family meant everything to Master Splinter, as much as any of them. Leo's well-being would be his top priority.]

[He shifts carefully, hugging his knees and burying his face into them. He misses home. He misses his subway care they'd barely moved into, misses dad's recliner, misses the sound and whir of Donnie's machines, hearing Raph working out in the early morning hours when Leo hadn't actually slept.

Casey can probably feel the way his whole body shudders. Rue and Peter don't know the full story of what happened back home, just the cliff notes when they had pushed Leo to hear anything. Raph didn't know any of what happened unless Donnie told him. And Casey here is the only one to know the full story.

I wanna go home. It's his thoughts, and it feels so juvenile in the grand scheme of everything they've been through. A year. A year without his family.]

I miss dad, and Mikey, and April. I wanna see them again.

[The shudder is more than enough. Casey shifts, turning around and pulling Leo against him for a proper hug, warm and encompassing, one hand rubbing up and down his shell. He doesn't say anything this time. What can he say? He can't make it better, can't make them magically appear. He can't send them home. He most definitely can't replace them.

It's all he can do. He hopes that even for a moment, it might help. To just be, to sit with him and hold him and understand what it is to miss your family, and long for a home far out of your reach.]

[He'd only let himself be emotional like this partially in front of Peter, and even then Leo had been careful about it. Not fully, not completely. He feels ashamed not keeping it together. But Casey hugging him he can't help it. He sort of half-rolls into the hug, burying his face against the boy some future him had raised in some other timeline.

He'd gone through so much. Leo would never really, completely feel like he's done enough to make up for the pain and death he'd brought to Manhattan. He's only glad they managed to stop the Krang from spreading further.

But somewhere buried in the hug and clothes, Casey can hear him muttering.] Sorry. I'm sorry, Casey. [What for? He couldn't say. Too many things. Everything.]

[He hears it, and he winces, holding on more tightly, wishing it could wash away all of Leo's regrets. He seems so... small, like this. So much more like the young teenager he is than the sensei he'll become. It doesn't make him any less, but it's... easier to recognize it, now. Trembling, apologetic.

But sensei cried, too. He let himself feel loss.]

You don't have to apologize. [What was it that Rue had said?] Feel what you feel. It's not weakness, it's- it's a gift.

[He's allowed to cry. He's allowed to need comfort. He's allowed to seek it out, to ask for it, from the people who love him. Casey's learned that lesson well.

He swallows hard, and musters a small smile.]

And it doesn't make you any less cool. I promise, I'm not going anywhere.

[Wrong- It's...

He's screwing this up too. He hadn't brought Casey out here to start sobbing on him or tell him of what might be the worst year of his life.

Leo sniffles, pulling back to wipe at his eyes.]

Sorry - this isn't what I asked you to come out here for. I-i really meant to train some with you.

[Casey doesn't exactly force it - he couldn't, supermutant and all - but he is reluctant to let go, recognizing a door trying to close in his face.]

Leo... that isn't what you said.

[He thinks back to them trying to unlock their ninpo together on the tree tops. Watching Raph break down, desperate to hold everything together alone. Losing his composure because he thought he had to do it himself. April's words ringing back. He has to trust them like they trust him.

He should trust them. He knows he does. But do they trust him? He's not the same as he was at the end of all of that, he know she hurt his family with that decision to lock himself away.]

Clear my head with training.

How's your head?

[Did it help? This is hard. He knows so many of Leo's tells, but the context makes it harder to navigate. Sensei never broke down and shared his traumas. They'd shattered and cried together, when Raph died, when Uncle Tello died, when Raph died again. The three of them, together with Master Michelangelo. But this wasn't it. He doesn't have this cheat sheet. He is at once unqualified and one of the most qualified. It's a little infuriating.

He wants to help so badly, the hard part is getting Leo to accept it. It doesn't... feel like enough.]

...Could probably use another round of trying to get a hit on you.

[He needs to pull it together.]

[Casey looks immediately reluctant.]

You can if you want. I don't think it's what you need, though.

[Leo sits quietly for a long minute. Just thinking. Feeling his own ninpo out. Feeling the bouncing electric static of his soul and heart coursing wildly through his veins trying to reach conduits not available to him - his father, Mikey, April - that go nowhere.

Doing it his way nearly got them all killed. Doing it his way caused so much death and pain.

Leo thinks back to the rooftop, how brighter everything seemed in that moment of epiphany he'd had.]

Okay... [He starts it unsure. Like he isn't sure he's doing the right thing, but wants to try.] Then... what do you think?

[Some of the tension leaves Casey's shoulders, though not all, as the question itself remains. If Leo had asked for another spar, he'd have done it; at this point he'd do just about anything Leo asked of him, bar one. His heart wouldn't be in it, though, and he doubts it would have satisfied either of them.

What does he think. That is a darn good question. He feels so far out of his league, a flag drifting wildly through an storm with no visible beginning or end. He doesn't feel equipped for this, but no amount of doubts could drag him from Leo's side right now. If they stop now to find someone else more capable, he's not sure when (or if) Leo could be coaxed to open up again. Especially if this has taken a year already.

Rather than answering directly, he holds both of his hands out to Leo, palms up, an invitation and a request, both.]

[Leo wipes at any lingering wetness on his face and cheeks, ignoring the damp edge of his mask. But with no response, he turns to look at Casey and sees the offer. His eyes focus on Casey's hands, then back up to his face before turning to fully face Casey and sit seiza.]

You... wanna dance? [He has no idea really. So smart and yet. Still, Leo rests his hands in Casey's for now, not sure what to expect.]

You're such an ass, [is Casey's retort, without an ounce of venom (maybe a slice of exasperation, affection-tinged). Leo's unlocked something in him, a feral cat that won't return to its cage now. The sensei scales are gone from his eyes.

His fingers curl around Leo's, and he closes his eyes, thinking. Thinking what.]

...You know... in the future, Master Michelangelo became a real philosopher. Sensei would go to Raph for strategy, he'd go to Donnie for making the plan happen, and he went to Mikey to make peace with his decisions. They'd sit like this, talk, and breathe together. And Master Michelangelo would remind him it was worth it. He was the only one that sensei could sit still for.

[He opens his eyes, brows furrowed, and focuses on Leo.]

We both know you're going to keep missing them. Until they're here or you're home, that's how it is. And nothing can undo what happened, not even time travel. [His continued existence alone proves that.] I think... you need to make peace with your decisions.

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