.:Author's Note: This epilogue was not originally intended to be written, but I'd gotten a few requests to make one last chapter about the future Turtles. As I am immensely proud of how this story turned out, I thought I'd oblige my dear readers and write just a little bit more for you. Please enjoy, and thank you all for reading.:.

Raphael stood in ankle-deep snow, the collar of his jacket turned up against the biting winter wind. He ignored the cold as best he could, for as long as his reptilian blood would allow. He was starting to get used to it, he told himself. It had begun to snow that day and hadn't stopped since. How long had it been? Three days? Perhaps a week? It felt more like years, his heart growing colder with every agonizing second that had passed. Not once had he seen the sun after that hellish dawn, the sky having been painted gray with persistent, mournful clouds. The remains of the city lay silent under a blanket of white snow for as far as the eye could see, peaceful as a grave.

He stood before an altar carefully constructed of stacked wood, Michelangelo's body lain across the top, his eyes closed, his lips just barely holding onto the remnants of his last smile. If Raphael hadn't known better, he might have convinced himself that his brother was merely sleeping. How he wished that were so. A fine dusting of white had begun to gather over his still form, the snowflakes resting unmelted over his pale green skin.

There was so much that had been left unsaid between the two of them, so much he wished he could tell his baby brother, so much time he wished he could have made up between them. But it was far too late for any of that now. Michelangelo was gone, and though Raphael would fight through Hell itself to bring his baby brother back, he knew no such opportunity could be given to him. Not anymore. He'd had his chances, and he'd selfishly thrown them all away.

"Why are we still here..?" Raphael asked in a hoarse whisper, not troubling himself to keep his voice from wavering. "Those kids… They saw everything. They knew what was going to happen. Th-they… They were supposed to change it… They were supposed to make it so this future never had to happen. So why in the hell are we still here?!"

Donatello had been sitting silently nearby on a large chunk of concrete rubble, his elbows resting on his knees, his glasses folded up and clasped loosely in his hands, his gaunt face staring expressionlessly at the smooth cover of snow at his feet. He hadn't said much since Michelangelo's death. Hell, he'd almost seemed to slip back into his previous catatonia after it had happened. The only thing that had kept him from receding back into his own mind in grief was the fact that he knew, this time, there was absolutely nothing that he could do to change the state of things. No equations, no last-minute miracle inventions could bring their brother back from the dead. Finally, he let out a sigh, shaking his head at Raphael's question.

"Time might not work like that, Raph… There's really nothing but speculation that suggests that a change to the past would completely eliminate the future that existed before. They could very well have made the changes necessary to keep all this from happening in their timeline, but it's entirely possible that our own timeline may still exist in parallel. We may be a diverging branch, just off the main path of history. We might not just blink out of existence, just like that. This world could continue to remain on into eternity…"

Into eternity, eh? So there would be no ceasing to exist? Even though the past would be changed, this fate would remain for them? Raphael would have to live on for the rest of his life knowing that, had he just been man enough to swallow his pride, he might have been able to keep his brother from dying. He reached out a trembling hand, gingerly brushing away the fine dusting of snow that had gathered over Michelangelo's face. Could he do it? Could he live with himself after everything that had happened?

The sound of footsteps crunching in the shallow snow approached slowly. Raphael managed to tear his eye away from his brother's corpse long enough to look back at the new arrivals. He almost hadn't recognized them without their blue robes. Leonardo wore a long black trench coat, and seemed to have traded in his silk blindfold for a pair of dark, round sunglasses. Miwa stood at his side wearing a black kimono, her hair pulled up in a traditional Japanese style, her pale skin nearly as white as the snow around them. She stood back a small distance as the eldest of the brothers approached the altar.

"Just you two?" Raphael asked softly, to which Leonardo gave a solemn nod of his head.

"April won't be coming. Sergei couldn't delay the ship back to St. Petersburg any longer. It's a long journey, and they still have to take Rocksteady's remains home to Russia for a proper burial. They said they'd be back as soon as they could to help rebuild, but…"

Raphael gave a small nod of understanding. Perhaps it was better this way, with just the four of them here. Just family. Those who had served under Colonel Hamato in his rebel faction had wanted to be present, but none of them felt that would have been appropriate. They'd given the soldiers time to pay their last respects to their commander, but this moment was too personal to share with an entire military regimen.

Leonardo pulled something from his coat pocket, and Raphael almost couldn't hold back a fresh wave of tears when he saw what it was; a thin strip of faded orange cloth, the fabric almost translucent with age. It was Michelangelo's mask, the one Master Splinter had made for him all those years ago. Leonardo stepped forward and delicately laid the mask across his baby brother's chest.

Donatello rose from where he sat, hands shaking lightly as he put his glasses on – either from the cold or the dread of the moment, he couldn't tell – and he joined the other two at the altar. The three brothers stood there, silent, as they stared down at their youngest brother's body. None of them had ever thought this moment would come; when they would have to say goodbye to one of the four of them. It wasn't supposed to have happened, at least not so soon. Not like this. Raphael choked back his emotions with an effort as he turned to Leonardo once more.

"Y-yer the priest… Say somethin'…" he urged weakly, unable to bring himself to the task of eulogizing on his own. Leonardo let out a sigh, bowing his head.

"I'm not a priest, Raph… And I don't think I have much room to speak about him after all the bad blood I'd fostered between us, even if it was hollow on my end…"

Raphael then turned his gaze to Donatello. He'd been with Michelangelo all this time, after all. Unfortunately, all the lanky turtle could do was shake his head sharply, looking away so his older brother couldn't see the tears quickly gathering behind his glasses. Raphael drew in a deep breath, turning his gaze back to the altar.

"Y-yeah, well… Mikey never was one for a lotta meaningless words anyway… I don't think he'd want us sittin' here and makin' him out to sound bigger than he was. I… I think we should just say… I love you, Mikey. We all do. And… We're gonna miss you, little brother…"

They stood there for a long moment after Raphael stopped speaking, their heads bowed in respect to their fallen brother. After a moment, Leonardo made a barely noticeable motion with his hand. Miwa stepped forward as unobtrusively as she could, kneeling to one side of the carefully stacked wood of the altar, retrieving a match and a small piece of tinder from her sleeve. She struck the match, lit the tinder, and reached into the hollow center of the pile to set the funeral pyre ablaze.

The four stood there in silence and watched as Michelangelo's body was slowly consumed in flames, the smoke reaching upward and disappearing against the gray sky above. And though a great fire blazed mere feet before them, the three brothers knew they would never feel true warmth again for as long as they lived.