Silence.

A heavy silence had spread to every corner of the lair and no one yet dared to break it. They didn't know what to do with the body, not yet. They had brought him into the dojo for now and laid him under the tree. It wasn't a permanent solution by any means, but it would do for now. They just needed some time to process everything, to accept what's happened, and then maybe they can move forward.

But for now everything is quiet.

For now there is no next step and everyone is silent as they mourn the loss of their Sensei until an almost offending buzzing sound snaps Leo out of his haze of misery. He's sitting on the couch, some of the others close by and snapping to attention when the noise of their leader's phone sounds off through the otherwise quiet lair. Leo, briefly, wonders who in the hell could possibly be texting him. He also contemplates not even looking at the phone but he decides that he needs to make sure there isn't anything that he needs to worry about right now, and sure enough there is. When he sees the message his heart grows even heavier in his chest and somehow manages to sink even lower than it already was, a sickening sense of dread spreading over his body.

Shinigami

Karai is stable; she can leave the hospital tomorrow. How did the fight go?

Leo wasn't sure that there was a reply he could give to a text like that. Of course Shinigami had to ask about the fight. She couldn't just give him Karai's status and be done with it; she had to ask about the rest of them.

"Someone needs to go tell Karai," he finally said, his voice a low and sad sigh that, like the phone, drew the attention of the others.

"Is she-" Mikey's voice squeaked, still wet with the tears that he had been shedding into the couch cushion for the past…. They had lost track by now.

"She's fine," Leo cut off his brother with a firm voice, "But I'm not telling her over a text, or waiting until she gets out of the hospital tomorrow. Besides I don't… I don't think…" He paused and gave a sigh, he wasn't sure if he had the strength to tell her, but he needed to. Splinter had said it, had said it as recently as this morning that once he passed on he was to be like a father to the others. It didn't matter if he thought he might not strong enough to tell Karai, it's his job now to do it. With the others still staring at him he collected his thoughts, knowing that it was now his turn to step up. "I don't think she would appreciate us keeping this from her overnight." He said and finally he stood from his seat, taking his phone with him and sending Shinigami a quick text to say that he would be by soon and to make sure Karai's window is unlocked. "I'll be back."

As the others watched him go they wanted desperately to call him back and tell him wait for them. They wanted to tell him that he doesn't have to do this alone. April and Casey wanted to tell him to stay here and one of them would go to the hospital and tell Karai. But for one reason or another nobody could get the words out. So much had changed, and it wasn't a secret that Leo had suddenly become the leader in more ways than one.

Shinigami tapped her phone impatiently against her knee as she waited for a reply from Leo. Karai was asleep, courtesy of the pain medicine that the doctors had given her. The damage wasn't nearly as bad as it could've been, the deep slice of Shredder's blade in her hip being responsible for the majority of it. That being said her two broken ribs were still going to play a role in keeping her out of commission for the next few weeks.

The sound of her phone buzzing in her hand brought her out of her thoughts, the screen lighting up with the announcement of the text that she had so anxiously been waiting for.

"About time Leo," she murmured as she opened the message, her brows knitting together in slight worry at the words.

Leo

Glad to hear Karai's alright, I'm gonna stop by. Make sure her window is unlocked. Where should I look?

It didn't sit well with Shini that her friend hadn't given her a straight answer about the fight, or an answer at all. But if he was stopping by that meant that he was ok at least. So she decided to comply with the request and made her way over to the window, making sure to stick her head out briefly to try and determine what side of the building she was on and how many rooms down; she hadn't really been paying much attention earlier. Quickly she sent Leo a text with her best guess of the location, he would figure it out if she were a few off. She then went and sat back in her hard chair and began to amuse herself with a game of solitaire on her phone, trying to avoid thinking about Leo's lack of an answer to her question.

It wasn't long before a creaking sound, no doubt intentional as so not to scare her, drew her attention to the oldest of the turtle brothers making his way through the window.

"Hey," he greeted in a loud whisper.

"Hey," Shini replied, but Leo's eyes had already fallen to Karai.

"How is she?" He asked, his eyes narrowed but the anger within them mixed with sadness.

"She'll be ok," Shini assured him, "Two broken ribs and a twelve stitches for the wound, but she'll be walking around in no time."

Leo didn't say anything, just looked down at his sister with remorse. Even in the darkness of the hospital room Shinigami could see that something was weighing heavily on his heart. She had last seen him only a few hours ago, but still he looked so much older. It was like the weight of the world that he so often carried on his shoulders had grown heavier over night and he did not yet know how to carry it.

"What happened?" She finally asked but he didn't answer. The only sound in the room came from the second hand ticking on the clock. A minute passed, then two, and then…

"Splinter's gone."

Time stopped.

There were no words to describe the gravity of that statement, no words of comfort to make it hurt any less, and I'm sorry would be such a far cry from condolence that Shinigami didn't even say it. Instead she stepped forward with a tentative hand reached out towards the turtle.

"Leo," she whispered and he looked away, shutting himself off from her, something she would not allow him.

Her mind made up, she reached out and wrapped her friend into a hug, one hand resting where she assumed his shoulder blades were beneath his shell and the thumb of the other stroking gentle patterns on the back of his head just above where his bandana rested.

Leo was surprised by Shinigami's action but welcomed it nonetheless. He wrapped his arms tightly around her and although he didn't mean to, honest he didn't, he began crying against her shoulder. He broke in her arms. Each sob of his came out stronger than the last and he buried his head in the crook of her neck. So far Mikey had been the only one of them to cry, though he suspected that when Donnie disappeared into his bedroom after they returned home he had sat down on his floor and let the tears flow. By now April had probably dragged him out of there, or joined him, who could say? But Raph and himself, they hadn't done more than let a stray tear or two sneak out. Raph was too tough to cry in front of the others and instead had taken a seat next to Mikey and rubbed his hand in circles along their little brother's back. Leo had just sat there, staring at nothing. He wasn't entirely sure if he hadn't cried because he felt that he wasn't supposed to or if it was because Splinter's death still seemed unreal to him. Either way he was crying now, clinging to Shinigami with a vice-like grip in a dark hospital room while Karai slept soundly behind them, blissfully unaware of the horrific news awaiting her when she wakes up.

As Leo cried Shinigami found herself pressing a kiss or two to his forehead. She was desperate to help him, this primal instinct to stop the tears controlling her actions and willing her to do anything to make things better. But it was all in vain; there was no making this better. Splinter is gone. Leo and Karai's father is dead. Soon Karai would wake and they would have to tell her the awful news.

An hour passed. At some point Leo's sobs had turned to sniffles and Shini had led him to sit in the chair by his sister's bedside. She managed to get the story out of him, about how he and his two youngest brothers had been tricked into splitting off from the rest of the team and realized it too late. By the time they arrived at the Wolf Hotel their father's body was already falling from the roof miles above their heads.

"He said something this morning," the blue-banded turtle sniffled, "About me being destined to take over once he passed on." Another sniffle, "He had been off all week, meditating almost nonstop. Sometimes, sometimes he could sense when things were about to go south. Do you… do you think he knew?" He finally brought himself to ask the young witch standing by his side, she looked thoughtful at his question.

"Perhaps," she answered him with sad eyes, "I don't think he knew how or when, but it sounds like he knew that his time in this world was coming to an end." Tears still shown in Leo's eyes as he looked away from her and over at Karai, still sleeping on soundly and silently. "If I had known she hadn't built an immunity to anesthesia I would've given her some weeks ago." Shini mumbled in an obvious and futile attempt to lighten the mood even just a little bit.

"I don't know if I can do this," Leo sighed, his eyes never once leaving Karai as he reached a hand out and gently grasped hers. "I mean, I'm used to making tough calls but… Sensei's always been there to help me."

Shini hummed in acknowledgement at his words, her mouth pressed into a firm line of thought.

"I did not know Master Splinter well, but I know that he was a very wise man." She finally said and, much to her surprise, Leo let out a rather sad laugh.

"The wisest," he confirmed, Shini nodded and went to sit on the edge of Karai's bed, being very careful not to disturb the kunoichi.

"And he chose you to succeed him." She said, "He chose you to lead your brothers Leonardo, not only in battle, but through the rest over their days as well."

"But what if I'm not ready for that?" He asked, the frustration and dare she think it anger that he was feeling over this finally starting to come through in his voice. "I know that I have to be but what if I'm just not? What if I fail?" He demanded, the tears threatening to break through again.

"Shh," Shini hushed him, "You will not fail, and you don't have to do this alone." She reminded, or she thought she was reminding him anyway. Based on the way he arched his brow at her she got the idea that this was a brand new idea to him and she couldn't help but chuckle. "You and Karai are so similar," she mused, her smiling eyes drifting over to her unconscious friend. "She was so sure that the Shredder was her fight and her fight alone. Believe me when I say that she didn't want me helping her, but that is a story for another time." She said, after all she didn't want to derail too far from her point. "Lean on your brothers and sister Leonardo, lean on your friends. You may be the leader, but you are still just a boy. There is no reason for you to grow up any faster than the rest of us."

Leo smiled at her, maybe the first real smile to cross his face all night. But the moment of bliss was short-lived when Karai finally began to stir and before the two other teenagers knew it she was blinking her golden eyes open. She looked between the two of them, a confused expression on her face because she hadn't expected to see anyone other than Shini waiting for her when she woke. She parted her lips to speak, but didn't get anything more than a strained rasp out of her mouth before she began coughing in an attempt to revive her voice. Instinctively, she sat and brought up her arm to cover her mouth, feeling the rough texture of Leo's hand gliding under her fingers as she did and registering it a moment too late. Shinigami disappeared from the foot of her bed and over to a corner of the room where Karai could hear the sound of a faucet before her friend returned and handed her a paper cup. With a grateful nod Karai accepted the cup and between two coughs sipped some of the cool water until her voice had returned to her.

"Leo?" She finally asked before one more cough came out. "What happened?"

Everything was a blur to her. She remembered the battle, the fire and smoke all around her, Shredder slashing through her hip and throwing her off the walkway. She remembered trying to cushion her landing with a flip and just barely accomplishing such a goal. She remembered the hard concrete of the ceiling crashing down onto her before she blacked out. Then all of a sudden she was looking up at Leo, Splinter, and the others around them. She had to get up, she knew she did, at the very least to ease her father's no doubt worried mind. Then Shini had appeared and her father ordered the two of them to wait for the ambulance. She remembered wanting to protest, but her mind was still so hazy at the time. They put an oxygen mask on her before she passed out in the ambulance. After that it was just a few scattered images of a hospital room and a doctor before she was rendered unconscious again, that time not so naturally.

Now Leo was here in her hospital room, sitting by her side with a look on his face that told her something was wrong.

"Well you acquired twelve stitches and sustained two broken ribs, not to mention I watched your eyes roll back into your head while we were in the ambulance, thank you for the heart attack." Shini half-heartedly scolded and Karai smirked at her dramatics.

"Glad I could help," she teased and her smirk only grew when her friend stuck out her tongue.

But as much as Karai would've liked to continue making fun of her friend she knew that Leo had come here for some reason other than checking up on her, though she wouldn't put it past him to sneak into a hospital just to check on someone. When she turned back to him he looked as uncomfortable as he had ever since she asked him what happened.

"Leo?" She asked again, he had been staring at his twiddling thumbs but looked up when she spoke. "What happened to Shredder?" She asked carefully, not liking it one bit when her brother sighed instead of smiling with victory.

"He's gone, Casey crushed him in a garbage truck but… before that…. He threw father off a high rise."

Karai felt her heart stop.

"No," she thought "No, not after all this. Not… not yet." Splinter, he just, he couldn't be dead, not yet. She had barely known him. After she found out the truth, after her mutation, and then Stockman giving her control of it, she had just needed some time to think. She wasn't ready to except a whole new reality of her brothers and her father and living in the lair. She just needed to live by her own terms for a little while. She had spent so long living under Shredder's thumb; she wasn't ready to just accept that new life of an actual family so quickly. She just needed to live in her little in-between mindset for a while. She needed to be on their side but with some distance. But she had been getting close, even if she never ended up moving in with the guys she had been thinking about visiting them more and more. She knew that it was only going to be a matter of time before she acted on those impulses and soon she would've been going to the lair as much as April and Casey. She had been ready to talk to Splinter about her running off… when was it? The night she mutated? Two years ago? Maybe even longer than that. Everything was suddenly running together. Everything that had happened ever since she found out the truth, it was all meshing into one. She didn't even resister that she was crying until Leo sat along the edge of her bed and draped an arm along her shoulder. She all but fell into his side and sobbed against the hard shell of his plastron. He used the hand on her shoulder to hold her against him while the thumb of the other dried her tears. They sat there for so long, her crying into his chest as he held her and rocked her just enough for it to not aggravate any of her injuries. At some point Shinigami disappeared from the room, both to give the two some privacy and to get herself a coffee.

Karai barely noticed her friend leaving, as she was too busy sobbing and smacking Leo's chest as her anger over everything came bubbling up. It isn't fair. Shredder has now taken both of her parents from her and the fact that he himself is gone doesn't give her any satisfaction, she wasn't there to see it. She has nowhere to direct her anger, nowhere but the hard chest of her ever-patient brother who's pressing a gentle kiss to the top of her head for every punch she lands against him. Eventually her tears cease, for the time being, and she manages to pull herself out of Leo's arms. He's silent for a minute while she wipes at her eyes, scrubbing away any tears that he might have missed. It's then that Shinigami finally returns, and Karai can't help but wonder if maybe she's been standing outside the door listening and waiting for a lull in the sobs as her signal.

"We're going to try and figure out what to do about this in the morning," Leo finally broke the silence; he didn't need to specify that "this" meant trying to figure out what to do with the body. "I need to go," He continued, rising from his seat and giving Karai one last kiss on the forehead and Shinigami a hug.

He then turned back to look at both girls. It was evident in Karai's eyes that she wanted to get up and return to the lair with him, to be with the rest of their brothers on this terrible night, to try and make up for all the times she hasn't been there instead of adding another one to the list. It was also evident in Shini's protective glare that she would not be letting her friend attempt sneaking out of a seventh story window any time soon, not when she was to be discharged tomorrow morning. They could go to the lair then and help decide on where they would all be going from here.

"Goodnight guys," Leo said and the girls echoed his words as he left out the window.

Returning to the lair Leo found that, aside from Casey snoring on the couch and the static on the TV, it was quiet. He glanced over at the dojo but didn't dare go near it. Instead he walked over and switched off the TV before turning for the couch and pulling a blanket over Casey. Once that was done he made way for the bedrooms and found that each door aside from his own was closed. He was careful not to make a sound when he opened the first door, Donnie's, just a crack to peek in. What he saw made him smile with slight amusement. Donnie was flat on his back, a low whistling sound escaping out the gap in his teeth as he slept, and April was mimicking his position in a sleeping bag on the floor just below his bed. Being just as careful as he had in opening it Leo shut the door and turned around for Mikey's, but curiously enough the youngest turtle was not in his room. Leo shut his door and moved onto Raph, where he found both his hotheaded brother as well as his more excitable one. Like Donnie, Raph was on his back, while Mikey was curled partially into his side but mostly on top of him. Unlike Donnie, however, Raph wasn't snoring.

"You awake Raph?" Leo whispered because his immediately younger brother almost always snores.

"I got Mikey on top of me, of course I am." He scowled, the words "and Splinter's dead, I couldn't sleep anyway" didn't need to be said. "How'd Karai take it?" He asked and Leo shrugged, now leaning his shell casually against the doorframe of Raph's room.

"About as well as you'd expect," he answered and Raph hummed.

"She try to kill someone?" He asked and Leo chuckled, just slightly, but enough to bring a smirk of success to Raph's face.

"Ok, maybe a little better than you'd expect." He laughed before his face grew serious again. "She'll be ok, we all will be."

"How do you know?" Raph asked, his voice now as serious as Leo's and he managed to turn his head to look at his older brother without waking Mikey.

With a sigh Leo pushed his weight off of the doorframe and approached Raph's bed, unfastening the straps of his katana sheaths as he did and setting then down gently, making a decision to follow Shinigami's advice.

"Because we're not alone." He said, a promise coming through his voice that they would never be alone.

He then removed his mask and lie down on the floor, settling next to Raph's bed much like April in Donnie's room.

"I don't know how you do it Leo," Raph's low voice came, "I don't know how you stay so focused on moving forward."

Leo smiled at the words, it was very rare that Raph gave a compliment without disguising it as/following it with an insult.

"I'm lucky," the leader found himself saying, "I have you guys to help me."