Disclaimer: TMNT do not belong to me.

005: Heaven

1987 Turtles: When they are about 4 years old. Turtle-tots :) The inspiration for this one was the 1987 Episode "The Missing Map" In it, the Turtles are showing Zach and his brother, Walt, their scrapbook, and one of the items in it is the crust of the first piece of pizza that Michelangelo ever ate (eew). I thought it would be sweet if there was a deeper meaning to his obsession with pizza.

Splinter grimaced at the food in disgust. To his sensitive nose, it smelled awful, and it looked even worse. Globs of grease were congealing in bowls of pepperoni while soggy, shriveled green peppers lined the surface above a mass of cheese. It appeared so unappealing, that his stomach churned at the thought of ingesting it.

Pizza.

It was a popular food in this country, but even back when he was human he had never been able to develop a liking for the circular dish. It was heavy and sloppy and slinked down the throat in a way that reminded him of a shifty cat gliding through the shadows. As a rat, Splinter didn't like cats much.

Or pizza.

He carefully closed the lid to the box and gathered it in his arms. Despite the fact that he found the food distasteful, it was still a fortuitous find for the young turtles back at home. When scavenging for food and supplies, it was not often that he came across food that was not canned or in a box that had not spoiled.

He rushed back to the lair as swiftly as he was able, not liking to leave the boys alone for long periods of time. He tried to stick to foraging when the youngsters were sleeping, but even then he did so in multiple short trips. The turtles would sometimes awaken in the middle of the night, and he did not desire for that to happen while he was away.

Splinter entered the lair, his whiskers twitching subconsciously as his sensitive nose tested the air around him. At times, the mutant had little control over the rat instincts that were now inherently a part of his DNA. While there were advantages to his heightened animal senses, it was still a constant reminder that he was no longer human. He lived beneath the humans, in the bowels of the Earth, where it was lonely and dark. The cold, dank sewers were like limbo; a purgatory where time had no purchase. The dirty streams of the sewers were like the mythical River Styx, ever drawing him deeper into his own personal Hades.

His heart longed for the sun, for the warmth, for the beautiful rain of cherry blossoms in his native Japan.

That would feel like heaven.

The only thing that kept him grounded and moving forward were the little ones he cared for. The four youngsters were his sanity, life preservers that kept him afloat in the wild maelstrom. As they flourished and bloomed into themselves, he thought of cherry blossoms. With every milestone they achieved and every inch they grew, he was reminded that time was indeed real and not the illusion that it seemed to be.

Shaking his mind clear of the thoughts, Splinter entered the kitchen and placed the pizza on the table. He placed his clawed hands on the table, noting how they trembled slightly against the cool surface. His sharp nails scraped on it gently, creating a clacking noise that seemed impossibly loud in the otherwise silent kitchen.

He was drained and exhausted, both emotionally and physically.

"Masser Spinner?"

The sensei turned at the sound of his name. A young turtle with an orange belt stood in the round doorway of the room, rubbing one of his eyes drowsily.

"Michelangelo, what are you doing out of bed?" Splinter whispered harshly. The ninja master wanted to sound as authoritative as possible without waking the three other little ones.

"I hadda nig'mare, Masser," Michelangelo said meekly, his lower lip quivering with the admission. He clutched his favorite teddy bear tightly against his plastron. The stuffed animal's head turned askew from the pressure.

Splinter sighed internally at the realization that he would not be getting to sleep any time soon. He situated himself in one of the chairs at the table and patted his lap in an invitation for the youngster to sit.

Michelangelo eagerly climbed onto the sensei's lap. He gave a sniffle and wiggled himself deeper into the folds of Splinter's kimono. He loved the feel of the soft fabric against his skin, and the way Splinter's fur tickled his head. With his free hand, he grabbed a fist full of fur in an effort to comfort himself.

Splinter subconsciously held the boy to himself with one arm and with the other placed his hand on Michelangelo's small head.

"It is alright, my son," Splinter said softly. "It was just a dream and I am here."

"It was'n'a just a dream…" Michelangelo's voice was muffled as he buried his face into the kimono. "I had a dream dat we had no food and was hung'ry cuz we are bad peeples."

Splinter's eyes widened and his ears perked up in shock. Michelangelo was typically an energetic, happy child with boundless optimism. To hear such words from him was not something the ninja master was expecting.

Splinter took a moment to compose himself and asked, "Why would you ever think that we are bad people?"

"We aren't like da peeples on the TV, Masser. An' in da cartoons, da good peeples go up to heaven and da bad peeples go down to…" the boy paused and shifted uneasily, gazing up at the elder mutant. The turtle's vibrant blue eyes appeared as watery as the sea, an ocean of unshed tears dammed in their depths. "Itssa bad word…" he concluded meekly.

Splinter knew what Michelangelo was referring to, and was proud the boy had held his tongue on that one...

"But we's down, an' da humans are up," Michelangelo's tone was forlorn and subdued, and it broke Splinter's heart to hear it. "An' since we has to stay down, we must be bad peeples."

Splinter's brow furrowed in concern as his thoughts from earlier returned to the forefront of his mind. He had just been thinking about this home that way... The boys had never been to the surface; they had never experienced it as he had. This home was all they knew, and he felt a rush of guilt for the dark turn his musings had taken before the little one had come into the kitchen.

Despite their young age, the four boys had sharply distinct personalities. Michelangelo tended to be the most emotional of the brothers, his innocence and purity of heart something Splinter did not want to tarnish.

"Michelangelo," Splinter said gently, his voice as soft as a dandelion tuft. "Heaven is many different things to many different people." Michelangelo's eyes grew wide and hopeful, the well of tears still shimmering in the kitchen light. "Do you and your brothers look at things the same way?"

Michelangelo wordlessly shook his head.

"That's right. You are all so different, and so is heaven. To some people it is just an idea, to others it is a religious place. Do not believe what you see on TV, Little One. You are far from being a bad person."

"Really?"

Splinter nodded, and the boy relaxed in his arms, fatigue beginning to once again take hold now that his concern had been addressed.

"An' we won' get hung'ry?" Michelangelo spoke up through a poorly stifled yawn.

"Food is sometimes hard to comeby, Michelangelo, but no, I will never let you boys go hungry," Splinter assured the boy.

"Tha's good cuz I'm hung'ry right now."

Splinter chuckled softly as the tot's stomach growled audibly. He reached across the table and pulled the pizza box over. It made a faint scraping sound as cardboard met wood. Michelangelo shot up eagerly, his tiredness apparently draining away, despite the late hour. One defining aspect of the boy was definitely his appetite!

Michelangelo pointed at the box and asked, "Wha's dis?"

"It's called pizza, Michelangelo," Splinter explained.

"P...i...zz...a," Michelangelo echoed slowly, the new word awkward on his lips. "Tha's a really silly word."

Splinter huffed another laugh through his muzzle and nodded, "Well, yes, I suppose it is."

Splinter opened the box and Michelangelo leaned forward in his lap to get a closer view of the new food. His eyes opened wide in wonder as he breathed in deeply to smell the dish.

"Now Michelangelo, I will allow you to have one piece, as the rest of this is for breakfast for you and your brothers."

Michelangelo nodded enthusiastically as he reached in a tiny hand to grab a slice. He picked one up and stuffed as much into his mouth as he possibly could. He began chewing with gusto before immediately going in for another bite. Splinter wondered in amusement how the boy could breathe while inhaling the food so quickly.

"Mmmm, dis pizza is like heaven, Masser!" Michelangelo commented with a mouth full of pepperoni. "I bet it would taste super duper yummy wid jellybeans an' peanut budder on it!"

Splinter rubbed Michelangelo's head affectionately. Before the turtles had come into his life, he had never been a parent, and had little experience with children. But with each passing day, he realized how much these boys meant to him, and how bright they made his life in this dark underground they were forced to call home.

Indeed...heaven is many different things to many different people...and these boys are my heaven.

A/N: A headcanon I have for the 1987 turtles is that when they were infants, Splinter was unable to tell them apart (this was also touched upon in the Archie Comic). Thus Splinter tied different colored cloth with their initial around their waists in order to tell them apart. As they grew bigger, and their individual voices and personalities developed, the color coded belts were not needed as much, but the Turtles still played homage to them by using the colors for their masks and pads.