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“This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.”
- Shakespeare, Sonnet 73
—
Casey ran across the rooftops, his heart pumping as he soared through the air. The steady pound of his feet on the floor beat through his ears, mixing with his heavy breath and quaking lungs.
Delectable fire coursed through his veins as he took in large puffs of cloudy moonlight. He looked up and stared up into the vast expanse of stars, stretching farther than the eye could see, farther than time could touch.
Around him laid a sea of towering buildings of cohesive stone and glass, with neon lights racing past on the foreign streets below. Gnawing in the back of his mind, Casey remembered moving towers but not of stone or glass. He remembered the horrors of moving buildings built from purple light and creaking metal. He remembered the quiet nights when he couldn't see more than a handful of starlight and a sliver of the Man in the moon.
Even as his lungs burned and his hair whipped in the wind, with throbbing feet and a racing heart, Casey never had a harder time breathing so easily. The air was too clean, too bright.
It's been a month since the invasion was stopped. Since Casey Jones changed the future. Since New York was saved and his family wasn't. No- No, that wasn’t true. Mikey and Donnie and April and Leo and the… the others were all his family, and they were safe.
But, Casey remembered older hands.
He remembered a turtle with graying hair and bright eyes who never failed to save the day or make his brother laugh. He remembered a turtle with burns scars over his body and shaky hands that never slept well but always showed wanted to Casey how to weld or fix something. He remembered a strong commander who loved her family, held the attention of an entire army with a single word, and would do anything for the people she loved.
Casey remembered two graves… both made before he was born. One was much younger, with a pair of tonfās engraved on the stone. Casey remembered a low singing voice, with a slight scratch and a happy chuckle every other line. It was an old memory, but Casey swore he could still hear it every time Splinter tried to sing with Mikey in the kitchen.
Casey remembered his mom. He remembered the exciting bedtime stories and the stain of black lipstick on everyone's face before a mission. It didn't hurt to remember her. She had barely changed before… before she died. Cassandra Jones was the same crazy passionate, insanely skilled warrior she had always been. Just as loving and gentle when needed too. For the last month, she had been the person Casey went to the most.
But the memories that did hurt – the ones that left an ache in his heart and a gaping hole in his chest, were the ones of blue. A blue glow soaring through the air and blue handles in his little hands. Blue hands holding him, fighting against the purple glow of death and destruction. A singing voice that mimicked the one of ancient past, low and scratchy but still full of love.
Tears pricked at Casey's eyes, and he wiped them away, sighing as he looked away from the city around him. He sat on the apartment edge, feeling all too similar to a speck in the middle of the ocean – miles and miles of nothing around him, pulling him down as he kicked and screamed for anyone to hear. To hear and bring him home.
But there was no home, not anymore.
The family he knew was…well, they were dead. They were all dead. Gone. And Casey was the last one left. The last memory of what could have been. A living warning of grief and destruction.
Casey sighed and grabbed his phone. He had come topside to clear his head, but it's obvious it just allowed his brain to run rampant with everything he was trying to ignore. In the last month Casey had been here, he left the lair no more than two times, both times to bring April home safely.
He spent his days by Leo's side, ready to help Donnie with anything he needed to help his sensei heal faster. But seeing him look so broken was strange. Unsettling.
It didn’t feel right.
Casey watched Leo lose everything and come back stronger every time. Each life lost was motivation to keep going for the ones they still had; every drop of blood spilt was repaid tenfold with a broken man's fury and hopeful man's passion.
To see his sensei, his mentor, looking so young and yet lifeless was the greatest shock Casey had experienced in this new life. In this new world.
Casey sighed again, running his hand over his face, wishing his brain would shove it and leave him alone. He had had enough of the non-stop emotion for one day. He placed in his earbuds, and the city's sounds faded into a dull noise of chaos and life.
The soft song played through the wires, and Casey closed his eyes as he relaxed into the lyrics.
A soft harmony played, with gentle guitar accompanying the vocals.
"I am not the only traveler
Who has not repaid his debt
I've been searching for a trail to follow again"
Neon lights raced past, and Casey didn't know what to do. Leo told him that he couldn't stay here forever, and Casey didn't want to stay here forever. But so what?
Was he supposed to go out and make a new life for himself? Make a new family, new memories, a new life? Was he supposed to follow the neon lights into the unknown all over again?
How could he do that?
"Take me back to the night we met"
God, he wished Master Leonardo was here. His Leonardo.
The Leonardo who taught him how to wield a sword when his mom died. The Leonardo who stayed up with him when the nightmares clawed at his mind and the memories of purple light plagued every second. The Leonardo who cried when Casey made his first mask with red stripes. The Leonardo who loved and raised Casey.
He would know what to do, what to say, and he would know where to go. He would know if there was anywhere to go.
He could tell Casey to either stay home forever, protect his family, or… go and follow the neon lights. But should he do something else? Should he be something else?
What else could he possibly be?
"And then I can tell myself
What the hell I'm supposed to do"
His mission was over. It was completed. He had made his family proud. So why did Casey feel so lost? Two months ago, his mission in life was clear. Stop the Kraang, protect his family.
But now- the Kraang was stopped. His family was safe.
So- So, what the hell is he supposed to do now?
He did was he supposed to. He ran.
He ran, and he ran, and he ran. He ran until his heart burst, until his legs broke, and until his lungs popped. He ran until the blood dried from his body and the tears were nothing more than a scar on his face. He ran until his voice was hoarse and his throat scratchy. He did everything he was told to!
So where was the peace? Where was the happiness? Where was his answer?
Where was his family?
"And then I can tell myself
Not to ride along with you"
Fuck, why him? Why did Leo send him here? Why did he send Casey away?
Did he not want Casey to see what his home became after they were attacked? What Leo became?
Casey looked down at the alley below him, dark and vast, the floor seemingly miles away. If he jumped… If he pushed himself forward only a little bit… he could see them all again. Casey could go home.
No- No.
He forced himself to look away with clenched fists and stared instead into the dark stars. Hot tears stung his eyes, but Casey didn't care. His senseis always told Casey he had his mother's fire but… but now there was nothing for the fire to burn. Nothing to keep warm. Nothing to provide or fight for.
What was the point of a fire that only burned for itself and not for others?
"I had all and then most of you"
Did he do enough? Did he truly complete his mission? Did he really make Leonardo proud?
They've lost so many people over the years. First Draxum, then Raph, then Splinter…
"Some and now none of you"
Then his mom, then Donnie, and April. And now- now Mikey and Leo. Then, he almost Leo again on the same day.
So, why was Casey the last one standing? He didn't deserve that. He didn't deserve this chance.
What had he done to deserve life more than anyone else?
"Take me back to the night we met"
But a life of what? A chance at what?
Everything was done! The dust has settled, and the armies have died. The blood is dry, and the screams are silent. Every man has put down their weapon, and the victorious are celebrating. But what about the soldiers who were left alive? Where do they go? What do they do?
What does Casey do now?
Does he leave? Does he listen to everyone whoever told him they wanted better for him? But what if he didn’t want better? Good god, Casey didn’t want better, he wanted his family. He wanted his friends. He wanted to go home.
And he already left once. He can't leave again. How could he leave again?
What if they all need him again? What if he leaves and they all die? What if he loses them all? What if they all leave him too?
Casey couldn’t do that again. He can’t lose everything anymore, the first time is already too all-consuming. Weighing on his mind like the depths of the ocean.
"I don't know what I'm supposed to do
Haunted by the ghost of you"
Casey saw them everywhere he went.
He saw them at the dinner table, laughing amongst themselves as Mikey told everyone to actually eat the food he had. He saw them in the living room as everyone cringed at a stupid pun Leo made, and he laughed hard enough to start hyperventilating. Casey remembered their faces as Leo and April sang the same duet of seven-years strong during karaoke. He remembered April's gentle hands as she taught him about battle strategy. His mom's laugh when Casey threw his first knife at three years old.
He remembered Mikey's expressive voices when he read bedtime stories. He remembered Donnie telling Casey about their oldest brother, Raphael, who was the strongest soldier of them all. He craved to hear the stories Leo would tell him, about all the movies the brothers watched when they were kids with Splinter.
He felt the ghost of their hands patting his back when he learned a new move with the hockey stick. He felt them shaking his shoulders in celebration when he beat Donnie at chess. Casey felt Leo's warm hugs late at night when the nightmares came back and wouldn't let him breathe.
So, how could he leave when he still hasn't made up for the fact that he never saved them?
"Oh, take me back to the night we met"
Casey didn't realize how hard he was crying.
As he took a deep breath, and his chest shook beneath him – finally, the dams broke.
"When the night was full of terrors
And your eyes were filled with tears"
Every watery track of salt felt like ice on Casey's cheeks, and his face was sticky with tears. The pain of being separated from everything and everyone he knew and loved flowed through him. He didn't know where to go because where do you go from nowhere? How do move from the void? How could he take a step anywhere when his feet weren't on the ground.
Casey was thrust into this world – into this mission and took it with pride. But now it was over, and he was still fighting. But there was no one to catch him, no one to hold him, and no one to say it was okay.
Gone are the cold nights when Casey would sit with the gravestones of the past and ask for guidance, ask for help. He would never again sit in Donnie's workshop and tinker with his abandoned projects, still feeling the sleepy warmth from the desk chair. Casey could never again hear Mikey's tired voice telling stories about the warring warrior scientist he had called Dad. All of the presents April and his mom gave him were gone. He could never see or hold them again.
Leo's warm hugs and big eyes were now only a memory. The man who was supposed to defeat God, to stare Death in the face and have Death blink first – was dead. He was gone. Casey could never see him again.
He had saved this family, but he failed his first.
Casey sobbed harder and collapsed in on himself as he struggled to breathe, throat closing up with thick emotions. Casey shook on the edge of the apartment building, unable to cry enough to get it all out. Then, finally, he opened his mouth, and a cry of agony clawed out of him, making his throat ache as he screamed.
"When you had not touched me yet
Oh, take me back to the night we met"
His head hurt more than his heart, and his lungs had holes in them. Waving in his chest like a white flag. Casey had no idea how long he sat on that rooftop, just screaming and crying. Eventually, his breath slowed down, and his eyes ran out of tears. Finally, his voice ran out of screams.
Casey looked back up to the stars. The little lights of gas and dust burning millions of miles away. Some were already gone, and some had yet to come. Millions of stars – physical beings of time for the naked eye to see.
Were they untouched, or were they the very vessel of it – the slow unmoving of time? The thing that kept him trapped, the thing that took them all away.
Oh, what Casey would give to go back. To go back to when it all started, when his mom found Casey and called him "mine." To go back to before his sensei threw him through that portal and beg to stay. For a different plan. A different way.
Casey kept watching the stars and noticed the brightest star in the sky.
Polaris.
He followed it with his eye and smiled slightly when he found it, the Great Bear constellation. He laughed, remembering Donnie's feigned annoyance every time Leo called it the Great Turtle constellation to make Casey laugh. He quickly looked and found the Little Bear constellation.
Right next to each other, just as they've been for centuries. They were never separated, never apart.
No matter how much time passes… They were together.
Tears pricked in Casey's eyes as he smiled sadly.
"I had all and then most of you
Some and now none of you"
The song repeated in his earbuds, playing over and over. Finally, Casey closed his eyes, listening to the lyrics, the slow melody a stark construct to the rushing streets and rushing thoughts.
He lost them, he lost all of them… but he wasn't alone. He- He would always have them with him. Casey will always have the memories.
And they'll hurt. God, they'll hurt. But instead of focusing on the pain of losing them, he could focus on the joy that they have a second chance.
A second chance at life.
"Take me back to the night we met"
He would still give anything to go back home, to join them all again, and be in peace. But, he was free.
Casey was free to choose whatever he wanted and had people to help put his feet back on the ground. And he would do it because he had the one thing his entire family always wanted for him.
Casey had a second chance.
He heard the end of the song coming up, and Casey smiled, and he softly sang the last few lines of the song, "I don't know what I'm supposed to do, haunted by the ghost of you." Casey sighed softly, his voice scratchy after all the crying and the lack of lessons, "Take me back to the night we met."
It was hard to lose everything. But he was Leonardo Hamato and Cassandra Jones's son. He had a heart of fire and a hopeful man's passion. He watched everyone lose everything and get back up. He could do the same.
He wanted to know where to go, but he's been told his whole life. He would get a new mission – live this life to the fullest for the ones who couldn't.
For his family.
For himself.
–
“An immeasurable tragedy:
I will love you for the rest of my life and
You will not be here for any of it.”
- Chloe Frayne