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Leo remembered packing her bags to go, so confused and angry.
What was she sent away to learn? Leo didn’t know.
Leo hadn’t ever known, not really. She tried to learn, she really did. She thought it would be a piece of cake. After she had started packing up to go back home, she had fallen sick. It was terrifying, and one of the only two times she was this sick. The first time she nearly died, the second time was worse. She couldn’t keep anything down, and her survival was a miracle.
But it was okay, her fevered mind told her, they would come. They loved her, didn’t they? They knew where she was. They would come.
She had been wrong. The letters still came, so she knew that they were okay. She stopped reading them, though. She felt bad, but their confident words hurt more. She had purposely avoided everything about the jungle, simply replying to what they said. Eventually, they stopped asking. Eventually, they stopped writing. Well, Mikey didn’t, but he still wrote less and less.
She remembered her father telling her to go. Her heart had sunk. She was so good though! What was she doing wrong?
She still didn’t know, but now she knew that she wasn’t good enough. That if she didn’t do better, they wouldn’t care about her. She needed to stay until she became someone worthy to be found. And she hadn’t even completed that! So when Splinter asked if she had learned her lesson, she said she had. She’d figure it out at some point, she was only eighteen. But eighteen meant adults. It meant she should know better.
(Some part of her, deep inside, told her that sending a sixteen year old out to the jungle by themself was a horrible thing to do, but she trusted her father. At least she hoped she did).
But she hadn’t, not really. She hadn’t learned anything, and it had only gotten worse. For her own sanity, she started referring to herself as a girl, and it felt right. It shouldn’t though, he was a boy! If his family knew they would hate him, and he’d deserve it.
Leo shook his head to clear his thoughts as footsteps sounded outside his door. Splinter was angry at him again, he knew. His mission had failed again! And sure, it had mostly been his brothers’ faults, but that didn’t mean anything; he was still the leader. It was like it was when he was first sent away. It had been his brothers’ faults then too! He was sure of it. At least, he had been. Being so long away from people made him realize some things.
Now he knew better.
Now after all that fighting, he knew better.
And now? He had to prove it to the man opening his door or else he’d have to pack his bags again. Because honestly?
“My son?” Splinter said. “We must talk.”
Leo would rather be somebody’s son than nobody’s daughter.