EPILOGUE:

On my first Christmas, they buried Hamato Yoshi.

I don't remember. I was only three months old. But there are pictures of me under that Christmas tree in the Northampton farmhouse, before it burned to the ground. There's snow on the trees outside the windows in those photos. Mama, and Papa, and Dad are sitting there, holding me under that Christmas tree, all decked out in fairy lights and holly. They're smiling, but their eyes are all rimmed red. Papa still had both arms, back then. In those photos, one of them is still slung up in a cast. He told me it was never quite the same after that battle.

Those photos of that first Christmas are about as close as I ever got to a "normal" childhood. Mama and Papa and Dad tried their damndest, but it never did get any less strange. Or dangerous. Things never got any easier, but we did get stronger.

We've all lost someone. I was not the only one who lost a parent, though in the end, I had more than most, between April, and Don, and Casey, and Raphael. I never knew my birth mother, either. But Dad always did love to tell me I had her eyes. In spite of it all, I like to think Hamato Yoshi would have been proud. Of all of us.

I never knew my Papa's father. I was there when they buried him, but I do not remember. Usagi-San told me it went something like this. Who knows what really happened. My sensei heard it second hand, late night, over sake. But I like to believe there was a time when Leonardo still told the truth.

There was no body to burn.

The Foot had taken that from them, too.

But still, Leonardo had sat with their father's ashes for forty days. They kept little black box filled with what they had left of him in the barn. There was no body, so they had burned his walking stick instead. Leonardo could not bring himself to part with scrap of his robe April had given him that day. The morning they found her, white and naked in a room she had burned to black. He tied it to his scabbard; the day his scabbards were empty across his shell. It was not the first night that had become morning without his katana leaving his hands. Though he hoped it would be the last.

Leonardo had considered refashioning that final piece of his father into a new mask for himself, but still, it hung from his scabbard, flicking above his shell in the wind. Red had always been Raphael's color.

Or had it?

Maybe red was just their color. Each of their stories was written in red; in the blood of the Foot, and their father's, and the family they had made, together, during a lifetime at war. Maybe red was the Hamato clan color, after all.

"Leonardo."

Her hand was on his shell. He craned his neck over his shoulder to see her face. The barn door was open behind her, but her presence had been heralded by nothing but silence. The reaching petals of the crysthanamum tattoo on her shoulder crept above the collar of her black dress. Her black leather boots were dusted white with snow. Blood red lips smiled gently at him.

"It's time."

Leonardo turned back to face the proxy of his father's ashes, but still, he put his hand over hers. He could not tear his eyes away from that little black box. Splinter wasn't even inside it, and still, he could not let it go. Leonardo opened his mouth to speak, but no words came. So he squeezed his love's hand instead.

"I - " Leonardo began, but the words caught in his throat. I can't, he thought. The turtle gritted his teeth.

"You can and you will," Karai said, cooly, but not unkindly. "Come on."

There was no family grave to inter their master's remains. Not in America. A frown spread across Leonardo's face as he wondered if there was a Hamato haka in Japan, with Tang-Shen's name scrawled in black across gray stone. Was Hamato Yoshi's name already there beside her's, written in red? Tears crept dangerously close to the edges of his eyes but he blinked them away.

They would bury their sensei in the woods outside the farmhouse.

It would have to be enough.

"When this is over, we should go back home," Karai said, her voice unburdened by the heaviness weighing on Leonardo's heart. "Finish them off."

"We've barely been back a month," he said somberly, standing, his father's "ashes" in hand.

"And there are still Foot in Japan." Her eyes flashed a green that burned in the dappled light peeking through the boarded up barn walls.

Leonardo sighed. "Let me think about it."

"Saiai."

Beloved. She only ever called him that when they were alone.

"You know it's what he would have wanted," she took his hand in hers.

"Revenge?" the word was a bitter taste on Leonardo's tongue. The little black box was so heavy in his hands. He swallowed, trying to rid his mouth of the aftertaste, but still, it lingered. Is that all they lived and died for?

Revenge?

Karai shook her head and long dark locks shifted around her shoulders. "Justice."

"Let me think about it," he repeated, squeezing her five fingers between his three. Splinter's words echoed in the lonely chamber of his thoughts; revenge only brings more suffering. Leonardo closed his eyes, trying to hold on to the sound of his father's voice. But Leonardo knew that reaching for a ghost was like trying to grasp the wind; it would only ever leave him empty handed.

A gale rushed in through the open barn doors, whispering between the cracks in the dilapidated wooden walls. The pebbly scales pricked up on Leonardo's skin, and he shuddered. But Karai was right. The turtle took a deep breath, and stood slowly, his limbs struggling against the cold. He exhaled. Every part of him longed for the sun. He found it in her eyes.

Karai stroked his cheek with a gloved hand, and the box of ash in his hands felt a little lighter.

When they reached the tree their family was there, waiting. There was a gash in the earth, dug out of the black dirt and snow. A rusted shovel was propped against the trunk of an old, tall evergreen tree. Raphael's hands were covered in dirt. They must have been numb with cold, but still, he held little Shadow, who was hardly more than a bundle of blankets with green eyes and a little brown nose. April's fingers were entwined with Donatello's. Casey's hands were fists, balled up tight in his hoodie pockets. Michelangelo's hands hung limp at his sides in a pair of Kirby O'Neil's moth eaten knit mittens.

Leonardo kneeled, and put his father to ground.

He was the first to take the shovel, mending the gash in the earth they had made for their sensei They took the shovel, each in turn, until there was dirt beneath their feet. When the shovel returned to Leonardo, he handed it to Karai, but she did not take it. Instead she drew a knife from her boot.

Leonardo's breath caught in his throat, an ugly reflex from years of loving one of their most bitter rivals. Karai knelt, too, at the trunk of the tree. When she was done, her father's name was incised in its bark. Right beside her mother's.

"Yasuraka ni nemuru," she bowed.

And then she walked away without another sound. Leonardo's gaze followed her until she disappeared beyond the fenceline, her passing marked only by footprints in the snow. He expected he would find her perched on the roof later.

Leonardo smiled. It wasn't exactly a traditional Japanese send off. But since when had any of them been traditional? He bowed to his father, and to the mother they would never know. When he rose, his family was bowing, too.

Behind him, Michelangelo shifted his weight and the snow crunched beneath his feet. Leonardo turned to his family. Michelangelo's blue eyes were watery.

"So what now?" Michelangelo asked. Leonardo watched his younger brother try to shrug it off, but his shoulders drooped like the weight of the world itself was on them.

"I think I'm going to take the baby in," April leaned in next to Raphael, tucking the blankets around Shadow to shield her from the wind. Raphael nodded, and April took the baby in her arms. Her rosebud lips curled into a smile as she held the baby tight to her chest. The wind kicked up again and April shivered. "See you back at the farmhouse," she said, taking a tentative step forward in the snow, only to turn her head and glance over her shoulder. "Casey."

Casey Jones, who had been staring off into the distance, blinked back at her with dark, frosty eyelashes.

"Wanna give the guys a minute?" she asked.

"Oh yeah," he replied, giving Raphael a sideways glance. The turtle nodded again and Casey pulled his feet up out of the snow. "Sure, Red. Let's go."

April turned to Raphael, who gave Shadow's cheek a one last stroke before waving a single finger goodbye to her. The baby cooed in April's arm as she gave Donatello's good hand a squeeze. Leonardo watched as a smile broke across his brother's face, how his expression softened as he watched her and Casey make their way over the snowy gnoll back to the farmhouse.

Michelangelo sighed. "He would have been happy for you, bro."

"Yeah," Raphael snorted. "You actually managed to unfuck your life, Don. Good job."

"Raphael!" Leonardo frowned.

"The whole crass thing is sort of part of his charm," Michelangelo shrugged.

Donatello rolled his eyes behind his tortoise shell glasses. "What do you mean "part"?" he asked, feigning air quotes with his good hand.

Leonardo crossed his arms over his plastron at his brothers.

"You didn't forget, Fearless - " Raphael grinned wider. "Did you?"

"Of course not." Leonardo's expression softened. "How could I?"

Not a day had passed during his time in Japan that he had not thought of his brothers and their father. He had not meant to stay. Splinter had been in poor health for so long, but he had been stable. Karai had assured him it would be fine. That his father would want him to go. He knew that was true, but it offered Leonardo little comfort standing at his grave.

The freshly turned snow crunched under his brothers feet as they shifted during their verbal sparring. He had missed this. Their back and forth. Their bullshit. It would never be the same; he could see the change in their faces. Michelangelo looked brighter, somehow. And Raphael no longer seemed far away. Though Donatello was still in rough shape, he looked…happy. Happier than he had in years.

So what now? Michelangelo's question rang out in Leonardo's thoughts. He had no answer. There was a fire back at the farmhouse, and eggnog. But what came after that, Leonardo did not know.

The eldest turtle let his arms fall, and hitched his thumbs over his leather belt. Raphael gave Michelangelo a soft sock on the shoulder and the youngest turtle winced dramatically. Donatello's gaze was set on the snowy field before them. Raphael pivoted on his heel to give Donatello a playful slug as well, only to pause at the sight of his brother's arm slung up at his side.

"Bet you never thought you'd be happy to see April holding Casey's baby, didja Donnie?" Raphael asked, almost gently.

"No," Donatello said quietly. "Never." He turned slowly to face Raphael, and a wry grin broke out over his face. "But I never thought you'd be changing diapers, either. So – "

Raphael's face scrunched uncomfortably.

"Never say never!" Michelangelo said hastily. Leonardo chuckled. He had to give it to their youngest brother. Diffusing Hamato clan bombs had always been one of Michelangelo's greatest gifts.

"Yeah, well," Raphael sniffed and crossed his arms over his plastron. "We're family."

"Yeah," Leonardo echoed. "We are."

POSTSCRIPT: Thank YOU for reading! Thanks to ALL OF YOU who read, reviewed and favorited. Each one made my day. And major thanks to Princessebee, who kindly beta-read several chapters of this story, and provided endless support and fantastic feedback.

This was not the first multi-chapter I finished, but it was the first multi-chapter I started. Prior to PFT I was writing nothing but one shots. Some of those one shots got strung together to make longer arcs, but PFT was the first story I outlined ahead of time with the intention of creating an ongoing story. This story was originally only supposed to encompass what is now part one, but when I got to the end, it didn't feel finished. So I kept going. The story evolved so much from its conception – I set out to write an Apritello story in the 2012 verse, and it became a story about Donatello, April, and the entire Hamato family in a universe that became a mashup of the 2012 show and volumes one and three of the Mirage comics. I set out to write a story about relationships and ultimately I believe that's what PFT became. A story about the partnerships, friendships and bonds that tie our lives together, circling back to one of TMNT's most important themes – family. What began as a story about April and Don became a story about their entire family, and took a direction I never expected.

I'm sad there's no more PFT to write, but I think I've reached the end of this road. There are things I would have done differently if I had known it would have become something with two parts and multiple perspectives, but what's done is done. As PFT became a story not just about Don, and not just about April, but the whole Hamato clan, I wanted the characters to all have their own time to shine. Leo didn't get his own chapter other than the epilogue; I liked him better as a ghost. Leonardo has always been the tie that binds, hasn't he? There are many things I would have changed if I had known it would have grown and changed the way it did, but what's done is done. Thank you for reading, for reviewing, for all your continued support. I hope you enjoyed.

Thanks for everything.

xx

t-punx