A/N Yeah, it's the last chapter. I have had such a hard time getting this story finished. In any case, this closes out the openng trilogy of my Blended Family world. Hope you enjoy it.
The brothers weren't aware they had fallen back to sleep until the buzzing of Leo's shell-cell woke them up again. After fumbling for the phone, Leo groaned when he saw the number on the caller I.D.
"Who is it, bro," Raphael asked as Leo rolled over on his back and threw his arm over his eyes in consternation.
"Raph," Leo groaned. "They must have figured out I'm not where I'm supposed to be."
"And that would be?"
"In bed," Leo said, still not taking his arm down. "Where I've spent the past two days. My shell is going soft from all the time I've spent in bed over the past month."
"Hey, give 'em a break, bro," Raphael said. "Our sibs have had a hard time, too; they're just trying to take care of you. And having seen what I put you through, courtesy of Leo Junior, I don't blame them for being overcautious. We nearly lost you, bro, for good. I think we're all going to be a little protective for a while. Have a little patience with us, okay?"
Leo sighed and took his arm from over his eyes. Rolling over to look at his brother he said, "I know you're right. I'll just be glad when things get back to normal."
"In our family," Raphael asked with a smirk. "That's asking a bit much, don't you think? Especially with the Brats around."
Leo couldn't hold back his laughter. Raphael smiled in response; it had been a long time since Leo had laughed that genuinely lightheartedly.
"Still, I can see you point," Raphael continued a moment later. "So I have a suggestion. Why don't you go for your morning run, and I'll go head off the angry mob. Hopefully by the time you get back they'll have whetted their appetite for violence on my hide, and they'll be content to leave you alone."
"Raphael, you don't have to do that," Leo protested. "We'll just go back together and—"
"Leo, just get out of here," Raphael said lightly, giving his brother a gentle shove off the bed. "For once I'm giving you permission to think about yourself first. Besides, I've got a tough hide. It's going to take more than our pipsqueak brothers to get to me."
"Keep that up, and I'll tell Raph you were calling him a pipsqueak," Leo threatened.
"Blackmail from Leader Mine," Raphael said in mock shock. "What is the world coming to? I think you've been spending way too much time with the Brats."
"Probably," Leo admitted unashamedly. "And what's with the 'Leader Mine'? I thought that was Raph's thing."
"Yeah, well, we were talking the other day, and he happened to mention how much you hated it when we called you 'Fearless Leader.' He explained about calling you 'Leader Mine,' and after I thought about it, I agreed with him," Raphael explained.
"But you haven't called me 'Fearless Leader' in ages," Leo said.
"Not to your face," Raphael corrected. "I said it in front of my twin the other day, and I thought he was going to jump down my throat."
"Yes, well, Raph's nothing if not loyal," Leo said.
"He is that," Raphael agreed simply. "He's a good guy. They all are; the three newbies who followed you home, I mean. I can't imagine this family without them anymore."
The admission shocked Leo a little. Was this really his Raphael admitting he actually cared for his new younger brothers so openly? The astonishment must have shown on Leo's face, because Raphael gently punched him in the arm.
"Yeah, yeah, just don't go sharing that with anyone," he growled. "I have an image to maintain. Now, go on, get out of here."
Giving in to the inevitable, Leo walked over to where his things were hanging up to dry. Raphael watched as his brother pulled his cold weather gear back on and headed for the door. He was just about to open the door when Raphael called out one more time. "Hey, Leo? Love you bro."
Leo gave him that gentle smile that was so quintessentially "Leo."
"I love you too," he said. And then he was out the door and gone.
TMNTTMNT
Things were in a bit of an uproar when Raphael got back to the Lair. From what he could hear, there seemed to be an argument going on about the best course of action to take in getting Leo back to the Lair. Shaking his head in bemusement, Raphael lifted a hand to his lips, and gave a shrill whistle. The room went dead silent as all the younger turtles turned to stare at him in surprise.
"Chill, dudes," he told them. "No need to go chasing after Leo. He'll be back soon."
"And just what business is it of yours," Mikey asked coolly. If Raphael hadn't been expecting it, his brother's tone of voice would definitely have hurt. As it was, it still stung a bit to hear that kind of coldness in his brother's usually warm voice. But of course, he didn't let any of that show in his own response.
"Maybe because I'm the turtle who last saw Leo, and therefore has the most up-to-date information on his whereabouts," Raphael contended.
This time it was Michelangelo who responded. "Really," he asked snidely. "You actually leave him in on piece this time, or will we be cleaning up your mess again?"
Stung, both by the vehemence in his brother's voice, and the nearly too true guess, Raphael was a little slow on his comeback. "Leo's fine. He's just out for a run, so he'll be back soon," he said.
But Donatello had caught the slight hesitation in his brother's voice. "What did you do this time, Raphael," he demanded to know. "Wasn't it bad enough that you severed your empathic bond, rebounding Leo's wounds back on him? Or wasn't that enough for you?"
The red-masked turtle suddenly found himself the center of all five of his brothers' attention. Guilt trickling back in, Raphael swallowed hard, finding it hard to look at his brothers'.
"You hurt him again, didn't you," Donny spat. Raphael couldn't meet his eyes. Donny just gave a disgusted hiss. "Bastard."
"That will be enough!"
Everyone turned to see Leo, hale and whole, standing in the doorway to the Lair, a look of disgusted anger on his face. As one, all six younger turtles gulped. This wasn't just Leo, big brother, standing there, but there was a good bit of Leo the "Leader" mixed in as well. And whenever those two came together, well, it usually meant someone had screwed up big time.
"Everyone to the dojo. Now," Leo ordered. Without a word, the brothers filed into the dojo and took their positions on the floor. Leo came to stand in front of them, his arms crossed angrily over his plastron. "Alright," he said once all eyes were on him. "I am going to say this once. What took place between Raphael and me is strictly our business. While I appreciate how protective all of you are, I do not appreciate you treating our brother like he's the enemy."
"Even if I deserve it," Raphael asked softly.
"Just what does that mean," Raph asked, speaking for the first time since Raphael had returned home.
"Raphael—"Leo started to say, but his younger brother cut him off.
"They have the right to know," he told Leo. "What I did, and what I almost did, would have affected them, too." He turned back to his younger brothers and described exactly what had taken place the night before, presenting the cold facts straightforwardly to his brothers.
When he was done, Raph gave him a cold glare. "Donny was right," he jeered. "You are a bastard. No, worse, you're a traitorous bastard."
The rebuttal, when it came, surprisingly, wasn't from Raphael. "You're one to speak," Michelangelo said scathingly. "The only difference was he actually finished his attack, and you didn't."
And with that, the room exploded into a cacophony of arguments back and forth between the brothers. Accusations and denials were tossed back and forth with ever growing volume. From the sidelines, Leo just stood watching patiently. He wasn't surprised when his father joined him a few minutes later. Rather than ask what was going on, Splinter simply said, "I assume you have a plan for dealing with this, my son."
"I'm going to give them about thirty more second to get this all out of their systems," Leo replied. "Then I'm putting an end to it."
Trusting his eldest to, indeed, have everything in hand, Splinter merely turned back to where his younger sons were arguing. He could almost hear Leo's silent count down. It was apparent when the clock hit zero, for all of a sudden the room went still as all six younger turtles seemed to freeze in place. Leo looked on in satisfaction at the myriad of expressions crossing his brothers' faces as they experienced all of their siblings' emotions from the past month. Leo, recognizing that the rational approach to settling things with his brothers was no longer working, had decided to take a more direct, emotional path. As his brothers had been arguing, he had been connecting with each of their emotions. At the end of his time limit, he had simply opened all those pathways at once, making his brothers feel what the others were feeling. Even their father's emotions were included, making all of them realize just what he, and each other, had gone through during this whole trial.
When Leo allowed the connection to wane a few moments later, the room remained completely silent for a long time. After a few moments for personal reflection, Leo knelt down before his brothers and began to speak softly. "This has been a hard month for all of us," he said. "Each of us has had to face emotions and events we would rather not have faced. But what we must all recognize is that we got through because we're family. We have all made mistakes, and I'm not excusing myself in this. But I want you all to think about this: are we going to let Saki and Darktide destroy once and for all the family we've put together, or are we going to prove once and for all that we're stronger than that? If we keep fighting with each other, if we keep these petty grudges that, in the end, don't mean a thing, then they've won, and everything we suffered was for nothing."
And with that Leo climbed to his feet and departed the room, leaving his silent family in deep contemplation behind him.
TMNTTMNT
Over the next several days, Leo began to see small signs of change among his brothers. Once more the relationship between the Brats and the Geniuses became an easy one. A few days later, Raph was seen joking quietly with Mikey, and then with Michelangelo a few days after that. By the end of the next week, everyone was pretty much back to normal, except Raph and Raphael. This time, however, Leo stayed out of it. It was now up to his younger brothers to work through their own differences.
This time it was Raphael who made the initial move. With some assistance from his brothers, he arranged it so that he and Raph would have the dojo to themselves one morning before practice.
"Hey, where is everyone," Raph asked as he walked into the deserted room.
"They'll be along later," Raphael said, stepping out of the shadows. "Right now, we need to talk."
A number of snippy remarks came to mind, but Raph held them all back. Instead, he said, "You're right; we do."
The two turtles stood facing each other across the expanse of the dojo, their arms folded in an identical pose across their plastrons. At length, Raphael said, "I understand why you hate me. In your place, I would probably hate me, too."
Raph dropped his arms to his side and looked at his twin in surprise. "But…wait, what makes you think I hate you?"
Raphael just gave him an "oh, please, who do you think you're kidding" kind of look. "Raph, you've made it pretty clear you hate me for what I did to Leo. There are still times, if I let myself thing about it too hard, that I hate myself as well."
Raph ran a hand over his face. Then, meeting his twin's gaze he said, "I never hated you. Yes, I was shocked at first. And it made me mad at first that you could so callously hurt him like you did when you decided to move out and cut your bond with him. But that's not why I've been avoiding you for the past week."
Now Raphael really was confused. "Then what was it?"
"I thought you were angry at me for being such a hypocrite," Raph admitted. "I mean, we both attacked Leo for no reason, but I had the audacity to take you to task for it."
Raphael just shook his head. "What a pair we are," he said, mildly disgusted. "You thinking I'm mad at you, me thinking you're mad at me, and neither one of us with the sense to say a thing about it."
"So, you're not mad," Raph asked.
"Nope, but I did want to say I'm sorry," Raphael said. "I've already apologized to Leo and the others, but I want to apologize to you, too. I never should have left like I did."
"I'm sorry, too," Raph said. "You know, for all those nasty things I said the other day."
"Forgiven," Raphael said instantly. "After all, we're the closest things Leo's got to siblings with any sense in this family. We need to stick together. And besides, who else, other than the two of us, are going to be able to make sure he doesn't do something stupid like getting himself killed again?"
"I'm with you there, partner," Raph replied.
The two brothers looked at each other a moment, and then they did something they had never before done. They hugged. It was only a short hug, and if you blinked you might have missed it, but it was a hug nonetheless. But more than that, it was a pact. As Leo's best friends, and self-proclaimed (at least between the two of them) bodyguards, they had made the silent vow that, together, they would do their very best to protect their brother from everything, especially himself.
TTTT
No word of the reconciliation was said, but it was clear immediately that something had changed for the better. The poisonous silence between the pair was gone. In its place, the oldest pair of twins had a silent, understated partnership, centered on and around protecting and looking after their best friend and big brother.
Best of all, though, was the sense of normalcy that had finally returned to the Lair. Everyone knew that things were back to normal the morning the family gathered for morning practice, only to find a collage of very familiar pictures adorning the wall. Pictures of certain sleeping turtles with their faces made up, and one blue rat, blown up, and coating the walls of the dojo. At once, everyone knew who the culprit was, for the Brats were just as stunned as the rest of them to see the photos so displayed.
"Leo, I'm going to kill you," Raphael bellowed. His brother's warm laughter had him charging out the door, while the others just joined in the laughter. Yep, they might never be ordinary, and their family might be stranger than others, but it sure was nice to finally have things back to normal.
A/N All right, I already know what the next story in this series is going to be. Just to give you a clue, I'm doing a re-do of Same As It Never Was, except it's going to be set in my Blended Family universe. In other words, my boys are going to show their distant siblings how it's done. So hang around; hopefully I'll have the first chapter up in the next few days or so. In the meantime, thank everyone for their reviews, and for taking time to read my little story. Hope you've enjoyed it.