Alrighty Chapter 1 of Part 3!

Thank you to everyone who has been reading this story, I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoy writing it.=)

This will get a little angsty, but a little angst can be fun.

A/N Don't own the turtles only my oc's.

Chapter 1

Donatello sat down beside Katherine. She looked over at him and smiled. Her golden hair was moving softly in the light wind that swirled around them. The butterflies danced around her, sometimes getting caught in her golden locks, at other times, they seemed to be content to just flutter around her or land in her hair or shoulders.

The butterflies were always black, white, purple or gold. He didn't know why, just as he didn't know why she was always sitting in the same spot looking out over skies that shifted from soft blues to intense purples. The grass was always too green, the days, always impossibly bright and sunny.

"Hello Kitten." He said softly to her as he watched her pause in her drawing. She was always drawing. Sometimes she would pause to think, or listen, or just watch the pristine untouched valley that stretched out below them.

"Hello." She smiled at him as she went back to drawing.

He watched her for a while. He had never really thought about Katherine's interest in drawing and art, but he knew she enjoyed it. He just didn't know why his mind was so obsessed with it.

He had begun dreaming of Katherine when he had finally allowed himself to sleep. After their world had been shattered and he had had to live with the crushing knowledge that they had failed to bring Katherine home alive, their lives began to splinter and crack. But they held together, they managed to take it a day at a time because they had no choice. The dead didn't care, they were gone, it was the living you had to live for, at least that is what he told himself everyday as he dragged himself out of bed.

When he had begun to dream of Katherine he had wanted to sleep forever. Even though he knew it was just his subconscious creating a world where the object of his grief and his love could live, he still wanted to visit and stay there forever, because in the world his mind had created, Katherine was still alive.

But he had found that he did not dream of her unless he got out of bed and lived. He couldn't just go through the motions, he had to actually deal with his grief. Only then could he return to the dream that would await him at the end of the day.

"What are you drawing today?" He asked her.

She paused. "I'm not sure." She said to him as she showed him a half finished picture of a dragon, specifically the dragon that the other Michelangelo had turned into to get them to Heaven from Hell.

"It's the eternal spirit dragon, Feng." He said to her.

She smiled at him and nodded. "Not an actual real dragon though." She said as she began adding the details of the dragon's scales.

"No. He belongs in another world, where things turned out better." He said softly, grief clenching his heart so tightly it hurt.

"Nothing can ever really be Destroyed." Katherine said softly.

"I know." He said softly.

"Sometimes it is just different."

"I know, but it is still just as gone." He said wretchedly.

She stopped sketching and looked off into the valley. "You always seem so sad Donatello." She said softly as she looked at him.

At least she seemed to know who he was today. When he had first started dreaming of her, sometimes she didn't know who he was, who she was, nothing, she was just a blank slate. Other times, she seemed to know exactly who he was, who she was and what had happened.

He supposed it was his brain telling him that even if they had managed to rescue Katherine, she probably wouldn't have come back sane. Being dragged to Hell and tortured would probably have broken her mind.

He looked away from her and watched the butterflies dance in the wild flowers.

Sometimes he cursed Fate for having such a sick sense of humour. For showing him paradise and then ripping it away by killing the woman he loved. The woman they had all loved. His heart clenched at the thought of his brother, Raphael.

"You're thinking of Raphael again." Katherine pointed out.

"I know." He sighed as he looked back at her. Sometimes he could feel his brother's grief. He didn't know why, or how. Maybe it had something to do with what Katherine had done to him, but his brother's grief staggered him at times.

"How is he?" She asked him.

He shook his head. "I worry about him." He whispered.

Katherine put down her pad of paper and her pencil.

"He is suffering what no mortal is meant to suffer." She said to him as she slid closer to him putting a hand on his cheek.

"What does that even mean?" He whispered to her.

She shrugged. "There are some things that are not supposed to happen, because the results can be..." She stopped and shook her head.

"Tell me." He insisted.

She leaned closer to him resting her head on his chest. "The sunset is beautiful tonight." She said as he watched the sun begin to set. The sunset was what could only be described as sublime. The purples and reds mixed together as if a god were using the sky as a canvas, the clouds became participants as they were painted in hues and colours not seen in the real world.

She turned her head and looked up at him. She sighed, pulling away and flipping the page of her sketchbook as she began a new drawing.

"Raphael's soul rang with mine," She frowned. "With hers."

"I know, Raph lost his soul mate." He whispered in misery.

She frowned and shook her head. "But remember, soul mate is the closest word to describe what they have, but it isn't correct. You remember, when you were told about soul mates and the bindings. What Raphael and she had was bigger than just being a soul mate." She said softly.

He frowned. "You say soul mate as if it was trivial." He said to her.

She tipped her head to the side and assessed him. "His soul rang with hers." She said to him. "How rare do you think that is?" She questioned.

"About as rare as finding your soul mate. I would think finding that one person who you can be with for the rest of your life would be a pretty rare thing to find." He said sadly.

"You can figure this one out Donatello. You are the smart one remember, not me."

He studied her face and touched her cheek. It was still warm from the sun. "I'm not good at this sort of thing Kitten, that was what you were for. You were the one who balanced me, who completed me."

"Donatello, Katherine bound your soul to hers. She made you her 'soul mate'. She joined your souls together. You know this."

"But I am not actually her soul mate, Raph is."

Katherine sighed in frustration. "Do you believe that you could ever love another woman, if one was able to love you?" She questioned as she pulled her knees against her chest leaning her cheek against her knee.

"No." He said shaking his head. "There would never be anyone else but you." He whispered.

"Everyone feels like that, but you are mortal, with a mortal heart, you are designed to be able to move on."

He shook his head. "I could never love another." He said emphatically.

"But perhaps one day, you might be able to be happy?"

He smiled bitterly. There would be no 'one day' for him, but he supposed he would play along, after all, it was just a dream. "One day. Not with anyone else, but I may be able to smile and laugh again." He said softly.

"She was your soul mate Donatello. She bound your souls together for all eternity. It is a bond that cannot be broken except with the destruction of one of your souls." She said softly as she kissed him. Her lips were warm and tasted exactly how he remembered they tasted.

He pulled away reluctantly shaking his head because that had already happened. Her soul was gone. "Then what was Raph?" He asked his voice hitching with grief.

She sighed at him again. "He is...more. Soul mates do not actually exist Donatello. You and Katherine were linked and bound creating a bond closer than anything mortals are supposed to feel. She actually created a soul mate bond with you, but actual soul mates do not exist. Think about it. You think the gods that created mortal souls were out there making souls and cleaving them in two to make one perfect pair?" She asked him. "With what you know souls do you really believe they did this?"

He looked at her in shock and thought about it logically. With what he knew about souls, which wasn't a lot, but what he gathered from Darkness, he knew that if you cleaved a soul in two the soul would be irreparably damaged. You wouldn't get two separate souls, just one very broken soul. Darkness' soul was different and could be broken because it wasn't a god made mortal soul, general rules did not apply to her.

"There you go." She said happily.

He sighed. He wished his brain would just tell him what it wanted him to know instead of having Katherine poke and prod at his mind and heart. "So soul mates don't exist." He said finally.

She looked at him. "No, but that perfect person, your one true love, your other 'half', that exists. But all it is, is love. Pure love. Sometimes you have for life love, other times you have short love. Some people would run away if they ever found true love, some might not have a choice."

"So you were truly my soul mate." He said to her as a new wave of grief passed over him.

"Yes, she was." She said to him. "But she loved you and all of your brothers equally, just as you all loved her the same. Michelangelo and Leonardo would qualify as her soul mates as well. They may not have been bound to her soul, but they love her with a love that is for life. But she bound you Donatello, never forget that. It is important."

"So why didn't Darkness just tell us that we were all your soul mates?" He questioned her, ignoring his being briefly bound to her. He had been bound, the chains had broken.

"Because if she told you that you were soul mates she would be lying." She said with a shrug.

It was then he remembered that Darkness couldn't lie, which meant that soul mates didn't actually exist.

"If you believe someone is your soul mate, why can it not be true? If you lose one love of your life, why can you not have another?" Katherine questioned. "Mortals need to believe that there is one person out there for them, and belief makes it true, but Truth and Reality sometimes have different opinions." She said with a smirk.

He massaged his temples. He could actually feel a headache coming on.

"So it's true, but it's not really true?" He asked her in frustration.

"Something like that. No cleaving of souls in two, but true love, forever love, eternal love, absolutely. But I believe Darkness calling Leonardo her soul mate is rather apt." She said with a nod. "Not the actual mate of her soul, not her 'other half' as it were because stars do not have other halves either but," She paused and looked at him seriously. "Their souls rang for each other. Raphael's soul and hers rang with each other."

"I know that is what Darkness said, but I don't even know what that means! If we all loved you equally and you loved us equally, I don't understand how anything is different for him!" He said in frustration.

"If every single soul on earth is unique, and each is humming or ringing at its own frequency, how rare do you suppose it would be to have two souls ringing at the same frequency?" She asked him holding out her hand as a gust of wind picked up flower petals and made them dance around her open palm.

He watched the petals scatter like snow. "Snowflakes."

"Yes." She said simply.

"No two snowflakes would ever be alike." He said with growing realization.

"Correct."

"So it would never happen...ever."

"Correct."

"And if two souls came together and rang with each other they would essentially be..." His mind stumbled. He still didn't know what that would mean.

"True Mates. Two souls ringing together in a world where that is not supposed to happen, because mortals are mortal and never supposed to know that kind of love. It feels the same as true love, but...more. Humans have no words, but her soul rang in time with his, her heart beat in time with his. They began to exist almost as one entity. The longer they were together the stronger the bond, the louder they rang, but the loss, it would be indescribable. It would feel as if his heart needed to cease to beat because there would be no reason to ever go on. With each passing moment his soul would ring for the one soul that rang with his, and receive no answer. Love that strong, that powerful, that eternal, is not meant for creatures who can die." She said softly.

"The pain will never dull." He said to her.

"Never. Time will not heal this Donatello. Death will give him no comfort. But his heart is mortal and it goes on because it must. He is suffering, but so are you. You have felt what he feels because she bound you to her, and you can still feel him sometimes. But you felt your chains break. You felt the loss of that bond, and that is what he feels every moment of every waking day. But you had the strength of will to move on, to live, to be happy."

"But I have you." Donatello whispered.

"He doesn't have the will." She continued."If he had hope, he could be happy again, but he has no hope, and without hope, there is nothing."

"So basically it is what I thought." Donatello said softly. "He will be miserable for the rest of his life. He will continue to just exist." He said miserably.

"Until he doesn't." She confirmed.

He frowned at her as she flickered.

"What do you mean?" He asked her as she flickered again.

"There is no forward for him." She said to him.

"I know he is hurting, we all are, and maybe time will never dull the grief, but..." She cut him off gently putting a finger to his lips.

"What do you see Donatello?" She asked pointing at the sky.

He looked at the night sky as the stars twinkled brightly overhead. These were primordial stars. The type of stars that lit up the sky over forests that did not know time, because man had not invented it yet.

"Stars." He said to her.

She nodded. "The stars have long memories Donatello. There is no time for them. They just are, they exist, but mortals are so much more than that. So much stronger than anything, because they have to survive with the knowledge of Time. If a mortal soul does not move forward in time, they can never really live." She said softly. "But his mind remains fixed upon his broken heart and his broken promises."

"But he wasn't the only one who couldn't save you, he wasn't the only one whose heart was shattered." He said wretchedly.

"Yes, but he swore a promise to himself and to her, and he didn't keep either one."

Donatello closed his eyes. "I know."

"Who is she?" Katherine asked him.

He opened his eyes and looked at the sketch she had drawn on the paper. It was a sketch of Katherine laughing.

"It's you." He said softly as he reached out to touch it.

"Stop." She whispered.

"Stop what?" He asked her.

"Who are you?" She questioned.

He looked at her in shock. That had never happened before. Normally when he dreamed she either knew who he was or she didn't, she didn't forget halfway through.

Katherine clutched at her head threw her head back and screamed.

The scenery around them flickered. Blue sky became terra cotta coloured walls. Oppressive heat swirled around him as their world was bathed in an eerie orange light.

Katherine in the center of the room, arms over her head as she dangled from the chains attached to the cell roof.

She let out a scream as figures moved and danced in front of her, cutting, slashing, and beating her.

A figure obscured by shadow stood at the door as his mind fashioned Katherine's final moments at the hands of demons who wore their faces.

Donatello's mind reeled in horror.

"Who are you?" The figure from the door yelled.

Donatello lifted his head up off his keyboard. He let out a shaky breath. He closed his eyes as he tried to wipe the images from his brain. He had never had a nightmare about Katherine's final moments before. He opened his eyes and he stood up. He walked over to the sink and splashed water on his face as he tried to collect is thoughts.

He removed the excess water from his face and hands with a towel. He looked at his face in the mirror. He was getting old. He wasn't really getting old, but there were days when he felt as if he was double his age. He grimaced as he stood up and cracked his back. Sleeping at the computer had never been comfortable, but now he woke up sore.

His eyes widened in shock as he felt something pull. He felt as if he couldn't breathe, as if his soul and his body were trying to split.

He took a breath as he was able to breathe again, the sensation gone as if it had never been. He unclenched his hand which had grasped at his chest over his heart.

He looked down at his hand. I hope I'm not having a heart attack. He thought to himself as he gently sat back down in his chair. He slowly breathed in and out. There were no other shooting pains, no tightness of breath, he relaxed slightly.

He knew he was dying. He wasn't sure how long he had left, a few months, a year, he didn't know, but he had noticed the changes in himself. He wasn't as fast or as strong as he used to be, he was more tired, prone to napping, and his joints and muscles were sore and his coughing fits were getting worse. Sometimes he would cough up blood. Luckily none of his brothers seemed to have noticed, though he suspected that Leonardo was beginning to catch on that something was wrong with him.

He wondered how he would die sometimes. He figured his heart would just stop when the amount of life given to him by Katherine finally ran out.

He looked at the clock. He had been asleep for an hour, but the dream that had turned into a nightmare had felt so much longer than that. Time always felt as if it moved faster, or maybe slower. Perhaps it was more a place where time did not exist, it just was.

He shook the ruminations from his head as he slowly got to his feet. He walked out of his workroom and looked at Raphael who was sitting on the couch. He studied his broken brother for a few moments. Katherine's words came back to him. He would never be at peace, because he could never let her go. He studied his brother's face. There was something in his expression that bothered him. Raphael didn't realize he was being watched. His jaw was clenched in pain, which was not unusual, not anymore. But it was the fierce light of determination that lit his eyes that gave him pause.

"You ready to go Donny?" Leonardo asked his clapping him on the shoulder. He looked at his oldest brother who was looking at him with worried eyes.

"Sure Leo, just give me a minute." He said as he looked back at Raphael. The light had died from his eyes and he was blankly staring at the TV. All signs of determination and pain were gone. Instead irritation and repressed anger played about him.

He frowned in thought as Michelangelo walked over to Raphael who looked over his shoulder to where his baby brother stood talking to him softly.

So thoughts, opinions?