Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Two days.

For two full days Leo sat in the sewer tunnel outside the lair he once called home, sullen and despondent and wallowing in a deep abyss of sorrow and self-pity.

Not much happened during those two days. Occasionally someone passed by in the sewer tunnel to his left, opting to come and go from the front door and walk all the way around to the back rather than using the dreaded back door where Leo died - the one that was nearer to where he was sitting in his invisible mystic form because he couldn't go much further past that spot if he tried walking away from the lair.

About the most 'exciting' thing to happen (if you could call it that) was when Donnie remotely activated an automatic sprayer to wash away the remnants of Leo's spilt blood that was in the sewer directly outside the back door.

The back door Leo couldn't open when his life literally depended on it, because it was locked from the other side; and because Donnie wouldn't unlock it for him, Leo reminded himself over and over again.

Two days.

Leo let out a sad little sigh, his bottom lip quivering as he did so. He figured eventually he would have to get up and move around - find out exactly what his limits were for travel.

But now wasn't that time.

It wasn't long before Leo saw movement out of the corner of his eye to his left and raised his head to gaze upon his dad, Splinter, sullen and dejected with tears falling from his eyes that was wetting his gray rat fur.

Leo sat up a little when Raph came into view, holding the front half of a small casket that contained his body, with Mikey carrying the back half and April walking behind him; all of them quietly sobbing without saying a word, as part of the traditional Hamato burial customs that had been past down for generations.

Leo couldn't help but notice the clear absence of his purple-clad brother.

"Couldn't even be bothered to go to my funeral," Leo lamented. He kept his eyes on their rat dad - this having been the first time he saw Splinter ever since his death and subsequent abandonment here in the sewers outside their lair. Where he was left all alone without a single one of his ancestors bothering to come by and take him away post death. Just like how his brothers couldn't be bothered to come out and save his life so he didn't die in the first place.

Everyone quietly walked out of sight and Leo sat, waiting.

If he was somehow connected to his body and not something else like the site where he died, then he was about to find out. But as the minutes ticked on he didn't feel as much as a tug on his mystic body pulling him to follow behind, so he crossed that one off the list and wondered if it was his home, the area where he died, or his family members (with one apparently still nearby) that he somehow shared a mystically connection with; one which didn't allow him to go far before feeling like he was walking through thick mud and being pulled back in the opposite direction.

Leo let out another discontented sigh and hung his head, opting this time to stuff his face between his knees with his arms wrapped around his head. Until he heard a soft voice.

"Leonardo."

Leo jumped up from fright and stared at the glowing green figure standing a few feet away from him. Fear flashed up in his figurative mind and heart at the unknown of this whole situation, until he slowly realized he recognized this woman from somewhere.

But where?

. . .

Pop's bedside picture from when their rat dad was a human boy, that was it! She was his dad's mom, Tahmato Atsuko.

Or something like that, he never did pay attention when their dad read to them from those dusty old scrolls.

A smile came across his glowing blue face over the realization that one of his ancestors finally showed up to take him to the mystic realm, and his voice was laden with relief when he uttered the phrase: "Took you long enough."

Hamato Atsuko smiled fondly at her grandson, but surprised him with her next soft, gentle words when she kindly informed him:

"You have unfinished business here, Leonardo."

Leo's smile instantly fell.

"Unfinished business?" he questioned.

"Yes, with you brothers."

The slider curled in on himself and crossed his arms, looking every bit as depressed, sullen, and grumpy as he had for the past two days since his death. Then he turned his body to face the running sewage in front of him instead of looking at her, and sourly spit out: "It's not my fault they left me here to die."

Next, he was surprised when the sewer wall directly behind his back opened up into a circular tunnel large enough to walk through - one that very clearly led straight to Donnie's lab.

Leo initially jumped from fright and looked on in amazement, then he pointed to the lab on the other side and asked: "You don't really expect me to..."

He raised his head to see he was alone once more.

"Aaand she's gone."

Leo stayed where he was for a while, gazing into the tunnel, trying to figure out what to do from here and really not wanting to go face his so-called brother who not only refused to open the back door for him when he was dying and begging for help, but also apathetically refused to join the rest of the family for his burial.

Was Donnie happy he had died?

Leo shook the thought away, and in the end the frightening thought of being left here, all alone for all eternity, sent a cold shiver down his spine (if he had one, that was, he really wasn't sure) so he tentatively took one step toward the tunnel . . . then another . . . and another.

And before he knew it he had walked all the way through to the other side with it closing up behind him as soon as he stepped foot in Donnie's lab.

The very first unusual thing Leo noticed was the Dee's lab was a wreck. Half destroyed tech lay everywhere - on the floor, the worktables, and with some partly on the table and partly hanging off in bits and pieces.

The other thing he noticed was that he appeared to be alone.

His shoulders dropped at the thought that perhaps he would be trapped in here for all eternity now, so the first thing he did was walk over to Donnie's big, triple insulated sound-proof lab door and try to unlock it so he could pull it open. But when he put his hand on the lock and tried to yank on it to unlock the door it stayed right where it was because he couldn't interact with it whatsoever, beyond feeling the cool, hard lock in his hand.

"That's a no," Leo grumbled. He let out a sigh of indignation and blankly stared at the unmovable lock for a moment, until he noticed the electronic display on the door indicated it had been locked from the inside.

"Huh?"

Leo spun around and scanned his eyes around the large disheveled mess of a lab, searching for Donnie. It wasn't until after he walked around a couple of worktables that he finally spotted his brother, curled up in the back corner on the floor with his knees brought up to his chest, his hands on either side of his head, his body rocking back and forth, and his eyes staring blankly ahead at nothing. Caught up in the grips of a major panic attack.

And laying on the floor beside him was the very thoroughly disassembled blue neck piece he had made for Leo as a gift.

Leo stared at him in stunned silence for a moment, and then the sound of raspy coughing caught his attention.

His raspy coughing.

So he turned around and walked to the front of Dee's computer desk to see that his brother was playing the security video that was pointed at the back entrance from the night he died.

Leo stared in disbelief at the video of him laying quietly on the sewer floor in a puddle of his very own blood, slowing dying as he bled out and weakly coughing up some of the viscous fluid that was gradually filling up his lungs.

And a little symbol on the bottom left of the screen indicated it was a video he had been playing on repeat. Possibly for a very long time.

"Oh Dee. Why are you torturing yourself?" Leo asked out loud, not expecting a response.

He stared at the screen some more, getting a better look at the sword slash running through the stylish markings in his shell (the one the Foot lieutenant gave to him with his very own stolen odachi). Then he let out a deep sigh and gazed around at all the many pieces of intricately designed, well thought out tech scattered throughout the lab, that Donnie had disassembled, dismembered, or outright destroyed. Thinking.

It was Donnie's tech that kept him locked out so he couldn't get inside and receive help from his family - so he couldn't even as much as make use of his expertise as the family's medic by dragging himself to the med bay to tend to his own wounds, until someone else was able to take over.

It was Donnie's tech that Leo cried into when he asked for help.

It was Donnie's tech that should have sent alerts and warnings regarding the gradually dying slider's condition.

Leo was beginning to put the pieces together.

Donnie tech didn't do the one thing it was supposed to do - protect his loved ones from harm. Instead, it did the exact opposite of that, by putting up impenetrable barriers between Leo and the lifesaving support he needed.

And because of that, Leo understood Donnie was coming to have a loathing for his very own creations.

"He blames himself," the mystic slider correctly reasoned.

After glancing at the screen once more, Leo dragged his mystic feet over to sit beside his clearly very distraught brother.

Once he got comfortable on the floor right alongside his twin, Leo gazed at his face and said: "Alright Dee, we need to talk." He waited for a few seconds as if he expected his brother - who could neither hear nor see him - to object, like he always did when one of his siblings wanted to have a 'dreaded' heart-to-heart. When (of course) no objection came, Leo rested his head back against the wall and continued.

"I blamed you too, but something musta happened I don't know about and . . . I guess you didn't see the security video until after it was already too late."

Donnie's words from the day he came out to his already deceased brother and unsuccessfully attempted CPR came to his mind.

"It was already too late before I found him, Raph."

"Alright, sooo, where do we go from here?"

Leo leaned ahead to rest his arms on his knees and looked at the despondent softshell who never once stopped rocking his body or staring blankly ahead at absolutely nothing; no doubt trapped inside his own troubled mind.

"Those bags under your eyes are bigger than your oversized eyebrows, Dee." Leo commented. Then he told his brother who couldn't hear him: "You really should get some sleep, Don-Tron."

Leo put a compassionate hand on Donnie's shoulder, and a heavy fog descended over Donatello's mind, his eyes closed, his body relaxed, and his head fell back against the wall in the corner as he fell into a much needed deep, deep sleep.

"Huh, that was weird," Leo thought out loud, before standing up. He chalked it up to nothing more than a happy coincidence, gave his sleeping brother a passing glance, and walked back over to the computer to stare at the dying body laying on the cold sewer floor.

His dying body.

A few minutes passed by with Donnie sound asleep in the corner and Leo staring ahead at himself on his brother's computer screen. Then he once again thought out loud (after all, he didn't have anyone else to talk to him): "I wonder what really happened. It's not like Dee to ignore his alerts."

The glowing slider felt a pull on his heart and mind, an urge to reach out and touch the screen. So he gave in to it, touched the computer monitor, and the window of the video playing on repeat abruptly closed out.

"Huh, maybe there is stuff I can do like this," he said to himself. He raised his head to gaze at his sleeping brother, wondering now if he was the one to help him get some much needed sleep, and then he gave his attention back to the screen.

If he could close a window with just a thought, perhaps he could open one, too.

Leo gave it a try and reached out to touch the screen again. Immediately the video he wanted began playing.

The one from the night of his death that was recording in the rec room where his brothers were.

He watched the screen with keen interest as his voice came through on their coms, begging for help, and then he saw their reactions.

An enormous sense of relief washed over his whole mystic body at the realization his brothers didn't willfully and knowingly abandoned him in his time of need.

A big smile came across his face while he watched the entire thing from beginning to end, then he blurted out: "A prank! That's what you all thought? Wow! That really was the mother of all pranks hey Don-Tron!? I think I earned back the title of Prank King, don't you?"

Leo looked at his sleeping brother, who didn't in any way acknowledge his presence.

His smile fell.

"Oh. Right."

Donnie wouldn't have heard him even if he wasn't asleep.

Next, Leo gave his attention back to the video and reached out once more to touch the computer screen. Immediately that video closed out and a new one popped up on screen from later that same night.

Leo watched with keen interest as Raph, Donnie, and Mikey all came home from the comicon wearing their turtle alien costumes with big smiles on their faces. He continued watching all the way through up until Donnie rushed to the back door, at which point he stopped the video with nothing more than a thought.

"I wonder if that Lou Jitsu action figure is still in my room?"

He gazed at his sleeping brother and got an idea.

If only he could leave through the locked door he wasn't able to interact with when he wanted to open it and high-tail it out of here.

As though someone else put the thought in his mind, an idea struck him like lightning, that perhaps he could only interact with his surroundings if it was to help his family in some way.

If it was to put an end to this 'unfinished business' he was coming to understand, so he could join his ancestors in the mystic realm.

So he turned around to gaze at the door before walking over to it to try again.

"Let's see if this works," he told himself. And this time, when he raised his hand to unlock the door so he could open it and leave, instead of meeting an immovable object his hand passed right through it.

Instantly Leo drew his glowing blue hand back and looked it over front and back to ensure it was intact.

It was, so he tried again, and this time when his hand went through he took in a deep breath through his mouth (out of habit, not necessity) and followed it by stepping straight through the door to come out the other side.

"Alright! I think I'm starting to get the hang of this!" Leo said out loud to no one but the empty, quiet lair, where he was standing directly outside Donnie's locked lab door, before making his way down the hall toward his bedroom.

When he got there, instead of waking through the blue curtain separating his room from the rest of the lair, or bringing up in it because it was something he could feel but not interact with, Leo was able to push it aside and go in, to search for the Lou Jitsu action figure.

But something else caught his attention right away:

a memorial on top of a little white, rectangular table pushed up against the back wall.

Two unlit candles, one on either side of the smiling picture of him, with an untouched pizza slice on a plate in front of it and his (empty) odachi wall mount moved from its spot beside his bed and put right above where the picture and candles were located, for some reason.

Leo didn't know anything about ancient Hamato customs surrounding death and he wondered why the candles weren't lit, before turning around to search for the action figure he saw Raph bring to his room.

And there it was, sitting on the end table by his bed, awaiting his arrival home right where Raph laid it on that eventful night when his red-eared slider brother arrived home but never stepped foot through the door.

Leo walked over to it, reached his hand out to touch it, and was relieved when he discovered he was able to pick it up.

And play with it! The 'real chopping action was great!

A smile came across his face as he gazed down on the action figure in his glowing blue hand, because he had a plan that he suspected he could put in motion. One that would hopefully help break Don-Tron out of his cycle of self-tortured over the very much accidental death of his beloved 'twin' brother.

"An accident."

Leo didn't realize he spoke those words aloud, but hearing it from his own mouth made another wave of relief wash over him.

"The don't hate me," he said out loud, this time on purpose because he wanted needed to hear himself say that.

Then, just before leaving the room to put his plan in motion - a plan he would never have had the chance to even think of if not for his Gram-Gram Atsuko showing up and nudging him in the right direction - he said as a quiet whisper:

"Thanks gram-gram."

Chapter Text

~A Few Hours Later~

Donnie woke up to a strange sight and blinked his bleary eyes as he came out of dreamland back to the real world.

At first he thought he had fallen asleep in his bed because his pillow was behind his head and his purple blanket was draped over his body.

But then, as his senses returned to him, he remembered he had fallen asleep on the floor; in his lab nonetheless.

"Wha?"

Donnie gazed around for a moment, in a state of sleepy confusion, but that was when he noticed there was something in his hand and took it out from under his blanket to see he was grasping a Jupiter Jim action figure.

Leo's Jupiter Jim action figure.

The one they got at the comicon that Raph had put in Leo's bedroom the night of his death.

The one that was still in his room.

Or, rather, it should have been still in his room.

"Bwa!"

Donnie threw the action figure halfway across the room and then when his tired mind woke up sufficiently to fully comprehend he was on his lab floor with his bedroom blanket and pillow, he cried out: "Whaa!" and abruptly jumped up and kicked it away from him as though his blanket was some sort of strange creature trying to attack him.

Leo watched from his spot standing in front of Donnie's computer desk as the panicking softshell took quick, shallow breaths through his mouth while gazing down on the blanket and pillow laying at his feet, before casting his eyes on the action figure that belonged in Leo's bedroom.

"What kind of sick joke..."

Donnie stopped mid sentence when he looked up at his door to see it was locked from the inside, just like it had been ever since he barred himself in his lab and refused to come out.

The door that could not be unlocked from the outside.

Meaning it was scientifically improbably for someone to have have come into his lab while he was asleep and pulled some kind of a sick, twisted prank on him.

"What is happening!?" the confused, panicking softshell blurted out.

But Leo wasn't done with him just yet.

"If you think that's crazy, wait 'till you get a load of this, tech whiz."

As if he heard him (he didn't) Donnie bolted over to his computer with the intent of reviewing his security footage to find out who did this to him and how, only to freeze from shock when he saw that the video of Leo dying outside the lair was no longer playing on repeat on his computer screen.

In a fit of hysteria, Donnie abandoned his original plan in lieu of clicking fervently at his keyboard to bring up the video of Leo's death, but he couldn't find it anywhere.

"No, no, no, no," he kept muttering.

It wasn't in the folder labelled 'Leo's Last Moments', it wasn't among the other files in his security program, it wasn't anywhere among his many backups, and it was not among his online backup copies, either.

It was nowhere.

His intense clicking sped up as he was crying out: "Nonono NO! Where IS IT!!?"

Leo silently watched as Donnie aggressively hit the side of his fist on his sturdy computer desk from frustration before bolting to his lab vault, where he input the lengthy code to open it; and pulled open the door to reveal the USB drive containing the video of his brother's untimely demise was not there anymore.

So he immediately and frantically rummaged through his safe, chucking all his valuable and important items that were stored inside behind his back as though they were nothing but trash in his panic to find that drive!

It wasn't there.

Donnie was caught up in the grips of a severe panic attack.

The walls were closing in on him.

He couldn't get enough oxygen.

Sparkles of light danced across his vision.

It couldn't be gone! Where was it!!?

"I say king, you say Leo."

Donnie snapped his head up to stare at his computer, where the video from their most recent Lair Games was playing, with Leo standing on a stage in front of a mic, giving the same speech he gave every year at the start of another annual Lair Games competition after he won the previous year, yet again.

"King..."

"Huh?"

"...Leo. That was great."

Donnie slowly crept toward his computer desk while Leo's voice sounded from his speakers.

"But enough about my numerous victories..."

And then, in a fit of anger he rushed at his computer...

"...there are many."

...and grabbed the mouse to forcefully click at it, thus ending the video and closing out the window.

Leo hoped Donnie got the hint that all this craziness was him trying to reach out, and he looked at his 'twin' brother while Don stared at his computer, his analytical, scientific mind trying to put the pieces together in a logical way to explain all of this that was happening to him right now.

But one and only conclusion his factual, data-collecting mind took him to was that he had lost his mind from the immeasurable grief he was suffering at the loss of his one and only self-proclaimed twin brother.

('twin' despite the fact they were different species, as Donnie so frequently pointed out to his red-eared slider brother every time he used that word. But he would give anything to hear Leo call him his twin again)

Dee stared blankly at his screen, wondering whether he had done those things to himself in some kind of grief-stricken stupor only to forget it all together, or if it was more logical to assume he was currently locked away in a padded room somewhere, wearing a straight jacket and stuck inside his own deluded mind.

Until his wrist tech chimed, indicating a text came in, and he tore his eyes away from his computer screen to click at his wrist and see Raph sent him a text.

'I'm bustin in if u don't come out for Leo's candle lighting'

That was one of many texts the snapper had sent to his brother who locked himself away in his lab and hadn't shown his face once since Leo's death - making use of his lab's ensuite bathroom, tech fridge, and personal coffee maker that he put in place for times like this when he wanted to completely hide away from the world.

Donnie dragged a hand down his face with a groan and filed these strange events away to deal with later. Then he raised his arm to type back a firm 'no' but was surprised to see another text came in without alerting him.

The fact he wasn't alerted to this text when he had all his alerts turned up to his system's maximum volume was the least of his worries.

Because this text...

...was from his deceased brother, Leo.

'Hey bro you can't miss my memorial it's the one time in your life you gotta zip your lip and listen to our fam talk about how awesome I am without any snarky comebacks!'

Instead of confusion, fear, denial, or any of those other emotions a text like this might have elicited in someone else, this text made a surge of rage rise up in Donnie's heart and mind.

There was no way he received a text from his deceased brother! Forget improbable, that was scientifically impossible!

The text itself appeared to give proof of his strongly held, scientifically-minded belief that there was nothing after death, because he knew that in life Leo struggled with his reading and writing due to dyslexia.

He couldn't even write the words 'Paper on sale' on the sign outside their fake 'Lou's Paper Hut' when they were trying to catch the paper thieves, without getting the letters mixed up!

In life that was.

Not in death.

Leo's mystic form wasn't held back by the limitations of a physical mind and body; which was why he was able to write so clearly and correctly now.

Well, not write, think.

He thought it, touched Donnie's wrist tech, and it happened.

"Ah ha! Noow I got you!" Donnie proudly (and a little crazily) exclaimed. He clicked at his touchscreen to bring up the GPS in Leo's cellphone to find out exactly where it was at this very moment, and from there he was going to have a look through the live feed of his security system to determine who was in the same location as Leo's phone.

But he was surprised when the map showed Leo's phone was inside his lab with him, and was accompanied by a loud beeping and a flashing blue light coming from the cell phone laying in a pile of Donnie's valuable stuff that he tossed out of his vault in a panic.

Leo's cell phone.

He stared at it in fear mixed in with a heaping helping of denial, before putting his eyes back down on his wrist tech when he noticed movement on the small screen out of the corner of his eye.

The map app was closed and the group text was open again, showcasing a new text from the brother labeled 'Leo'.

'Hurry up bro I'm not going without you and I don't wanna be late for my own memorial!'

Donnie next snapped his eyes up at the very unexpected sight of a glowing blue light shining from the edges all around his triple-enforced titanium lab door.

The light faded away after three seconds...

...there was an otherworldly sound of metal scraping against metal...

...and then the door came crashing down like a single domino that someone pushed over from the other side, with a loud *BANG!* when it landed on the floor.

Donnie swallowed down a lump in his tense throat and pushed his scientifically-held beliefs surrounding death aside to tentatively stutter out the word: "L...Leo?" almost expecting to see a zombie version of his dead brother come around the corner.

Someone was standing around the corner in the hallway, but it wasn't Leo, rather, it was Mikey's sad face that popped into view around the edge of the now wide-open doorway.

It took less than one second for Donnie's fact-loving, genius mind to put the pieces together that whatever just happened, it could not have been cause by his baby brother, Mikey, who was outside his lab in the hallway while all this craziness inside his securely locked lab was going on around him.

So the only two possible explanations left were either:

1. he really had totally lost his mind and was currently locked away in a padded room somewhere; or

2. Leo really was trying to reach out to him from the mystic realm.

"What happened?" Mikey asked innocently, wondering why and how Donnie's extremely sturdy, practically impenetrable soundproofed door suddenly fell off its hinges and crashed onto the floor.

Instead of answering Mikey, Donnie decided that - regardless of how scientifically impossible it was - option 2 was currently a much better conclusion to come to than option 1, so he looked down on his wrist tech and typed out in the group chat:

'Real funny Nardo, you could've just opened the door'.

A few seconds passed by with no response. Mikey looked down on his phone in confusion when an alert came in that Donnie added a new text to their family group chat, and then he raised his eyes to look with worry at his intelligent older brother just before April texted: 'Are you ok Dee?' followed another message from Raph:

'What r u talking bout Don?'

"Wha..."

Donnie scrolled through the messages in the group chat, but Leo's wasn't there anymore.

"That's it, I've lost my mind," he abruptly and firmly concluded with 99.9879% accuracy.

"Uh, Dee?"

Donnie looked up to make eye contact with Mikey, who was gazing straight at him with his eyebrows furrowed in worry. "Are you ok?" he asked sincerely.

Donnie's smile stretched so far across his face that it looked a little creepy to the poor, grieving box turtle.

"I don't have to answer that question because none of this is real, Miguel!" Don replied in an almost pleasant tone of voice that was just as creepy as that unsettling oversized smile on his face.

Then, Mikey watched on in confusion when Donnie confidently marched straight out of his messy lab, carelessly walking right over his felled door along the way, and turned down the hall to go towards Leo's bedroom.

With a wave of his hand for the box turtle to follow along, he called out in his eerily pleasant voice:

"C'mon Mikey, we've got an imaginary candle lighting to attend! Oh, I hope they're serving pizza puffs! Gasp maybe Lou Jitsu will be there!"

Chapter Text

Splinter stretched and cracked his aching back while he was standing on his feet, waiting for his currently only middle child, Donatello, and the youngest, Michelangelo, to join him, Raph, and April, who were in Leo's room ready to start his simple candle lighting ceremony.

According to the ancient Hamato scrolls on death and burial customs, the lighting of two memorial candles would help guide his son to the mystic realm where their ancestors were awaiting his arrival with open arms.

The memory of burying his son deep in the ground at a Hidden City cemetery was fresh in his mind and heart. As was the frightening realization that hit him like a tonne of bricks when Mikey pointed out Baron Draxum’s mansion on a hill in the distance as being a place they had all gone to before.

Without him even knowing, his three sons and honorary daughter had all not only been to the Hidden City, but also had run-ins with Baron Draxum, who was a ruthless warrior alchemist that Splinter unfortunately knew all too well.

He really needed to start training them.

Splinter sighed and picked up the one of the two parchments he had laid on Leo's bedroom desk when he came in here to start the traditional memorial service.

This parchment was a scroll containing information about the life of his dear son, Leonardo Hamato, that he wrote out over the past two days as an important component of the candle lighting, and the second one belonged to their closest deceased relative who would take Leo to the mystic realm: Hamato Atsuko.

Splinter's mom.

Splinter gazed at the second scroll laying on the table and mournfully thought about his mother, wishing she was here with him right now to hug him and sing to him and comfort him like she used to when he was a little boy.

Wishing his son, Leonardo, was here with him and not about to be sent to the mystic realm where his mother and their ancestors already were - far before his time should have come.

It wasn't long after that when Donnie and Mikey came into the room - one with an odd smile on his face considering the occasion, and the other with a face that radiated grief and sorrow with a little confusion thrown into the mix.

Splinter ignored the unusual smile on his middle son's face, carefully put the scroll back where it belonged, and planned on starting the memorial by saying a few words about his deceased son, Leonardo, but instead he got choked up and had to stop.

Just at the moment he felt a warm, comforting hand rest on his right shoulder, and another one on his left.

He looked up to the right and gave a weak smile to his eldest son, who squeezed his shoulder and softly smiled back. But when he looked up at who was resting a hand on his left shouder, no one was there.

Or it appeared as though no one was there when, in reality, Leonardo himself was standing beside his weeping father, comforting him in the only way he knew how.

He looked down at his shorter dad's face and smiled fondly for the rat dad who could feel him but not in any way see him. Then, when Splinter opened his mouth again, he was so overcome with grief that - once again - no words came out.

A small memorial had been given at Leo's graveside; adding a few extra words here and now wasn't necessary (their dad was only going to do it for Donnie's sake, since he didn't make it to the memorial service). So Splinter decided to move on to the most important thing that had to be done, by reaching out for the open box of matches laying on the desk beside Leo's new Hamato scroll.

He took out a match to light it, and brought it toward the first of two candles.

But nothing happened.

The fire on the match burned all the way down until there was nothing left to the tiny little flame, but despite being held up to the wick of Leo's memorial candle, the candle itself didn't ignite.

Splinter furrowed his eyebrows in confusion and his three remaining sons and daughter - even including Donnie, who up till now firmly believed this to be nothing more than a very realistic grief-stricken hallucination - likewise looked on in worried confusion.

Silently without a word, Splinter ignited another match and held it up to the candle's wick.

Once again, nothing happened.

"I don't understand," their grieving rat dat mumbled. He lit another match, held it up to the wick on the second candle, and stared intently at it all while the fire burned down almost to his fingers and went out, once again without lighting Leo's memorial candle.

The invisible member of their mutant/human family smiled fondly when he thought about his gram-gram Atsuko's words to him, and he gazed loving at his worried dad, who was in the process of lighting another match.

"I can't go yet, Pops. I have unfinished business here."

Leo smiled at his brothers next, who he understood now still needed him (at least a for a little while) and Splinter straightened up and his ear flicked as though he heard Leonardo's voice.

Leo snapped his eyes back on his dad and would have held his breath if he was breathing in the first place.

"Dad? Can you hear me?"

No response; no acknowledgement of any kind. Splinter gently shook his head and gazed at his eldest son when Raph put his hand back on his shoulder.

"I'll try, Pops," the big snapping turtle offered.

Splinter merely nodded his head and stepped aside so Raphael could try to light Leonardo's candles.

But once again, nothing happened.

Leo saw that the heartbreaking look of sorrow on Splinter's face turned into one of dispair, with both of them ignoring a sudden commotion in the background between Donnie and Raph.

Mikey groaned along with April (who muttered under her breath: "Ugh, not this, it's that old lady's birthday all over again.") while Raph and Donnie loudly argued and fought for control of the flamethrower.

"Move aside, let a professional do the job!"

"Donnie so help if you light that flamethrower anywhere near Leo's memorial..." "Let me go, this'll work Raphala! I got those candles at that old lady 80th birthday party lit in point three seconds!"

"Yeah, and the cake and the big pile of gifts on the other end of the table! I'm not letting you burn Leo's memorial to a crisp, now hand it over Don!"

Donnie argued something back about 80 candles on a cake being a fire hazard with or without a flamethrower, and that was when Splinter decided to intervene; so he let out a deep, sad sigh, turned around, and sternly ordered his two sons who were currently wrestling for possession of the already lit flame thrower: "Boys, that's enough!"

"Sorry Pops," Raph and Donnie both said in unison. The wrestling stopped, the fire on the end of the flamethrower went out, and Splinter put his gaze back on his deceased son's picture, at a loss as to what to do from here, or what this could possibly mean.

"It's ok dad, I still got stuff to do here," he heard as a tiny whisper in his ear, almost as if it was a noise carried on the wind.

"Leonardo?"

Everyone froze and stared at Splinter when he said that name.

Splinter, meanwhile, ignored everyone else in the room to gaze around for his deceased middle son.

But he wasn't there.

Or, at least, Splinter couldn't see him there.

"Maybe we need different candles?" April suggested as a possible option.

Splinter gazed at Leo's unlit candles, his mind numbed and frozen in a state of dispair.

"I know!" Mikey piped up. "I'll got get my candle lighter, that always works!"

He abruptly ran out of the room, Donnie finally put his flame thrower away, Raph sternly watched him to make sure he put it all the way away and wasn't trying to pull a fast one , and April walked closer to Splinter to put her hand in his. When he looked up at her face, she weakly smiled at him and tried to offer words of encouragement by saying: "Don't worry Splints, if Mikey's candle lighter doesn't work I'll go out to the store and buy up all the candles they have."

Splinter gently smiled back at her and Mikey ran back in the room with his lighter in his hand.

But when he clicked in on the trigger and a little flame on the end of it ignited, he brought it up to the candle, but the wick wouldn't ignite.

So he left it there.

And everyone watched with bated breath.

Ten seconds turned into thirty turned into two minutes and still nothing changed.

The wax didn't even melt from the heat.

"Seriously Pops don't worry, it's all good. The candles'll light when I'm ready, but it's not time for me to go yet," Leo reassured.

He hoped his dad got the message.

"Perhaps it is not yet time for Leonardo to leave us," Splinter suggested, hinting that he may have heard his son after all.

Leo smiled and April patted Splinter's shoulder, told him she was going out to buy a bunch of candles, and left with Mikey following close behind - who wanted to stretch his legs and go outside for some fresh air to clear his head.

Splinter gazed sorrowfully at Leo's memorial picture and raised his right hand to pat whoever's hand was resting on his left shoulder.

But when he felt nothing but the fabric of his robe, he looked at it in surprise, not knowing first or last it was his deceased son, Leonardo, who was doing the best he could to try and comfort him in his time of need.

Chapter Text

Leo followed the pull on his heart by joining Mikey and April topside on their way to purchase candles for his memorial.

Before leaving the lair, Mikey put on his warm clothes because it was an exceptionally chilly day, and so he could pull the hood of his warm hoodie up over his head to hide his mutant turtle face from passersby.

The walk to the store they needed was done mostly in silence, until Mikey's troubled mind and heart bubbled over into his words when he spilled the contents of his heart with the blunt, impactful statement:

"It's my fault."

"It's not your fault, Splinter's matches couldn't light the candles, either," April said in a soft, reassuring tone of voice, thinking Mikey was talking about the fact his candle lighter didn't work to ignite Leo's memorial candles.

Mikey didn't respond, instead he tucked his hands into his hoodie pockets and scrunched his head down a little.

"He doesn't mean the candles. He blames himself because I died."

"Leo?"

April confused Mikey when she abruptly stopped walking and mumbled out Leo's name, before scanning around for someone who wasn't there.

Or, rather, for someone who was there but she couldn't see.

"I could've sworn..."

April's voice trailed off and Mikey looked at her in confusion while she gazed around some more.

Until she locked eyes with her younger turtle brother and saw the never ending grief they held within, like two deep pools filled with a lifetime's worth of tears and sorrow ready to burst out through the dams any second.

"Do you blame yourself for what happened to Leo?"

Those words sounded just as strange coming out of her mouth as they were to Mikey's ears when he actually heard the phrase uttered aloud that he had only thought up until now.

The pools of tears became a cascade overflowing from the corner of each eye and April gently took Mikey's hand and led him away from the busy street to a nearby alley; before he lost all self-control and sobbed forcefully and bitterly, more than any other time he previously wept over the tragic loss of his beloved brother. And for the first time since Leo's death, the numbness that overtook all his senses gave way to overwhelming and unrelenting feelings of guilt and sorrow that threatened to swallow him whole.

April hugged into her crying little brother, and when Leo lovingly rested a hand on Mikey's shoulder, it was as if he could feel it. So whatever was left that he had been holding back came out full force; with Mikey heaving and sobbing openly in the privacy of a cold, dark alley in the arms of his caring sister, and unknowingly under the tender gaze of his beloved deceased brother.

"Hey. It's not your fault."

Mikey's head shot up at the words that should have come from April's mouth considering she was the only one here with him; but instead the voice was undeniably Leo's.

The same Leo who was standing behind April; a glowing blue form with a hand on Mikey's shoulder and gazing at him with love in his eye and a fond smile on his face.

"Wha..."

But just as quickly as that, it was gone - the sight of his brother in his mystic form and the comforting, warm, and inviting touch of Leo's hand on his shoulder.

Mikey gazed at April's face now, feeling a little dazed from what just happened. Until his mind caught up to his senses, and a big smile spread across his face while the tears of sorrow continued falling down his cheeks.

"You heard him too, didn't you!?" Mikey exclaimed.

At first April was a little taken aback and needed time to process all of this. That was, until Mikey's sobbing was mixed in with laughter, and while the tears continued flowing freely he loudly exclaimed: "I saw him! He was standing behind you and his hand was on my shoulder! And he smiled at me! I knew it! I knew he was still here with us! He's here and he doesn't blame me! I thought he blamed me but he doesn't!!!"

Mikey put his hand on the same spot where Leo had laid his; and then the slider who was being whisked away to another spot - but not by his own power - heard the welcomed sound of his little brother's voice when he loudly proclaimed: "It's not my fault!!! Leo doesn't blame me! He told me! He told me it's not my fault!!!"

If only Donnie could be so easily convinced.

But, as Leo was about to discover, Donnie was the least of his worries.

It was his strong, dependable, and very overprotective big brother Raphael who was about to get himself in real hot water.

Leo didn't question what happened or why when he was whisked away from Mikey and April, figuring all would be answered when he got where he was going.

Wherever that was.

And the answer did become evident when he landed on a rooftop behind his big snapping turtle big brother.

Who was gazing down into an alley, with his entire body very tense.

"What's ya doing, big guy?"

Leo's voice sounded more tense and strained than he thought it would come out, and the atmosphere shifted the closer he got to the edge where his brother was crouched so still he could have been taken for some sort of gargoyle statue.

The mystic slider went through the motion of swallowing nervously, even though he didn't have any saliva in this form. The closer he got to the snapper - or rather, to the alley the snapper was peering into - the more he felt it.

His mystic odachi.

He could sense it was near - the odachi he forged a mystical connection to during his life. The connection that apparently carried through in death.

"No no no," Leo mumbled under his breath, as he stared down into the alley at the same door Raph was intently focused on.

Whoever had his sword was very definitely inside that very building.

Leo hoped beyond hope that the Foot commander who swiped it off him sold it to someone else.

"Please no," Leo begged.

That was when the door swung open...

...and the flame-head Foot commander who stole his weapon and took the lead in his murder came out, with it prominently strapped to a sheath on his back, like he was proudly keeping his stolen stash on display for all to see.

"C'mon buddy, let's go home," Leo urged, while tugging on his big brother's arm.

The other, bigger Foot commander came out next.

Two 'flame head foot faces', as Mikey aptly dubbed them.

Raph's eyes narrowed in anger, and for the first time Leo turned his glowing head to take his eyes off the alley below them so he could straight into the enraged snapper's eyes.

His eyes widened. "Oh no," he uttered from the fearful sight he had never once before seen in those usually soft, inviting eyes; realizing his big brother - who was a big softie on the inside and even afraid of the kids show puppet 'Mrs. Cuddles' - was out for revenge.

He was out for blood.

"Raph don't do this!" Leo yelled. He grabbed Raphael's arm tightly but if his big brother heard his voice or felt the tug on his arm, Leo didn't know it; and he was helpless to stop what happened next when Raphael jumped down into the alley below, tonfas in his grip and mystic powers glowing around his hands almost all the way up to his elbows.

The ground shook with the force of his land. Unbeknownst to everybody but him, Leo likewise landed in the alley beside his brother - the one who two armed and dangerous murderers were now facing.

Raph's eyes narrowed in anger, and in a menacing tone of voice that even sent a chill up Leo's back, he coldly said: "You have something that doesn't belong to you."

Leo had to do a double take when he heard such a menacing sound coming from the turtle who slept with multiple teddy bears every night.

Raph's voice had never sounded so angry.

It had never sounded so scary.

Leo's eyes bounced back and forth between his big brother and the two big, deadly threats straight in front of him - one of them punching an oversized set of brass knuckles into his hand and the other one holding out a mystic blaster - hinting that they were actually yokai from the Hidden City and not humans (which explained the mystic flames hovering above each one's head).

The shorter of the two who was holding the blaster deviously grinned at the much bigger snapper and slyly asked in his always raspy voice: "You mean this?" He made a show out of slowly unsheathing Leo's stolen odachi, to hold it in his left hand without once lowering the blaster pointed right at Raphael's face.

"That's the one," came the serious, deep reply; one that Leo would have sworn came from some sort of giant monster if he wasn't looking right at Raphael's face when he uttered those words.

Everything seemed to be going in slow motion for the panicking slider who was very afraid right now he was about to be joined by a glowing red mystic brother any second. So he tried with all his might to push back on the snapper's chest while grunting: "Come on big guy, we got to get out of here! NOW!"

No response, his attempts were futile.

Step by step, the enraged snapper was slowly closing the gap...

...Leo was being pushed along with him....

...and the Foot commander tensed the arm holding out the blaster and warned: "Take another step and we'll be having turtle soup for supper."

Without a word, to Leo's horror Raph very defiantly took another firm step forward.

The Foot commander squeezed his finger on the trigger.

"NOOOO!" Leo cried out in fear, trying to use his mystic body to block the blaster from hiting his alive big brother, so he could keep him that way.

There was a loud *zap!* and a flash of pink from the mystic laser attack, that went through the invisible slider, firing out at the speed of a bullet....

...followed by a flash of red when it collided with Raph's mystic armor.

Not the armor that was wrapped around his hands and arms, but a whole body, giant armor that formed around the entire big snapper as though he was now standing inside a giant glowing red 'Raph' mech suit.

If Leo was in his physical body right now, his knees would have given out from under him and he would have collapsed to the cold, hard ground from the intense fear that was immediately followed by a wave of relief because his brother was still alive.

For now.

"Let's get outta here!" the bigger of the two cried out at the sight of a ferocious giant mystic 'mech turtle' coming at them.

"Good plan," the shorter one exclaimed in agreement, before they both turned tail to run.

But neither one got far before, without a word - no 'knuckle sandwich!' or 'super smash jitsu!' or 'hoot sooup!' like was the norm for him - the vengeful snapper went on the attack, smashed the bigger Foot with his huge mystic fist that was almost as big as the big brute himself, and literally crashed him through the brick wall of the building they came out of.

Leaving the other Foot running scared for his life.

Raph chased behind in his mystic forcefield body, quickly closing the gap.

"Here you can have it!" the Foot cried out in a panic, dropping Leo's odachi on his way into an intersecting alley.

"Looklook! There's my sword! We can go home now Raphala!" Leo cried out in his own state of panic.

Raph ran right past it, reached his giant glowing red hand out, engulfed the entire Foot commander when he grabbed him, and then slammed him down to the ground, pinning him there with his giant right mystic fist raised, ready for the 'hot soup' of a lifetime.

Leo did the only thing he could do and watched the interaction, feeling very alone and helpless right now.

The fist didn't come down.

The angry scowl in Raph's face melted away, along with his forcefield form, until it was just him standing over and staring down on the Foot.

But when Leo looked at his face, he realized that was a very bad thing with the way Raph was glaring the one who took the lead in murdering his very own beloved brother.

"Raph?" Leo softly asked, very, very worried with the look he saw in his big brother's eyes and written all over his face right now.

What was it? He had never seen it before.

It wasn't anger.

Not rage.

Grief? Nope.

Come to think of it, it was a look he had seen before, somewhere; and when he remembered where it sent a cold chill all the way down his mystic spine into the tip of his little turtle tail.

He had seen that look once before in a movie, from a method actor who reportedly took his acting career of really 'getting into the character's head' much too far, and actually got to the point of believing he was the real villain he was only supposed to play for a movie, and tried to kill the hero actor in cold blood during one of the scenes they were filming.

The main evil antagonist in the unusually dark (for him) movie: Jupiter Jim and the Heart of Hatred.

In that movie, JJ was on an abandoned planet, searching with his sidekick - Red Fox - and a third one-off character who turned into the main villain, for an elusive item called the 'Heart of Hatred'; only to discover it wasn't an item, but rather, the entire planet itself was the elusive 'Heart of Hatred'. A planet that infected any poor soul who happened upon its alluringly deceptive lush gardens and shimmering pools with an all consuming cold hatred of everyone and everything, including themselves.

Murderous hatred.

That was the look in Raphael's eyes.

Leo's fear spiked when the Foot rose to his feet and raised his arm to point his blaster at the snapper, only to have it snatched from his hand so forcefully that Raph broke his enemy's wrist in the process.

*Snap!*"AAAUGH!" "NOOO!" the Foot and Leo each cried out - one audible voice from pain, and the other that only he could hear.

The blaster clattered to the ground, Raph picked him up by his throat with his flesh-and-blood mutant turtle hand, and then smashed him against one of the buildings, holding him up and squeezing so tightly his enemy was gasping and coughing while sputtering out the words: "*cough cough* Aren't you *wheeze* supposed to be *cough cough hack* the good guy!?"

Leo gripped Raph's arm tightly, staring with fear at the enemy who's windpipe was steadily being crushed.

"Raph let go."

No response.

The sputtering and coughing stopped, replaced with a fearful silence from the person who was actively being choked to death before the slider's very eyes.

"Please Raphala."

No acknowledgement whatsoever.

Leo watched helplessly as the big snapper crouched down just far enough to reach for his odachi.

"NOO! Don't DO it!!!" Leo fairly screamed in a panic.

He slapped both hands on the sides of his head and cried out: "He'll never forgive himself!!! STOP him Leon! You gotta do SOMETHING!!!"

Raph raised his odachi up over his head in preparation for a lethal slash against his most hated enemy.

"THIS ISN'T THE ANSWER RAPH!"

The commander stared straight at the blade in the snapper's hand with fear in his eyes now, on the verge of either death from asphyxiation or from the sharp end of a hero's sword.

"This is for my brother," came the cold, hateful words from Raphael's mouth that Leo couldn't believe were landing in his ears.

"YOU'RE NOT A MURDERER!!! DON'T DO IT!!!"

No one heard his pleas.

Then, without a moment's hesitation the blade came down.

And Leo's hands went up to block it.

"NOOOO!"

In an impressive display there was a loud, deep *whooooomp* along with a blindingly bright flash of blue light when the blade of his stole odachi made contact with Leo's outstretched mystic hands, as though it had hit an impenetrable barrier.

The sword was thrown back along with Raphael, who left an impressive indent in the front of a dumpster with the back of his spiky shell on impact...

...but who did not lose his grip on the now sputtering and gasping foe who dared to bring agony and death upon his brother, as well as sorrow, grief, and endless heartache to his entire family.

As if this whole situation didn't even happen, the single-minded snapper was so stuck in his all-consuming fiery hatred of this particular cold-hearted murderer that he abruptly righted himself, smashed the enemy down to the ground - once again pinning him in place by his throat - and he raised Leo's odachi so the tip of the blade was pointed straight down between the Foot commander's two eyes.

Leo tugged on his big brother's arm.

Something changed in Raph's face - specifically his eyes.

Something softened.

Raph stayed frozen in place.

The Foot stayed frozen from a combination of shock and complete and utter terror as he stared intently at the tip of the blade that was once again threatening to take his very life away in a heartbeat.

Leo know - he just knew - that Raph could feel his touch.

So he tried reaching out to him once more. He had to say something to reach his heart.

"You're not a murderer, big guy."

The snappers eyes became glossy with tears.

He stayed frozen in place from the familiar touch on his arm, and held himself back from the sound of Leo's voice whispering in his ear like it was being carried on the breeze.

"I know you can hear me, Raphala."

Raph's composure softened ever so slightly.

"You're. Not. Like. Him."

Raph began breathing heavily through his mouth as he was battling with his own inner turmoil while the sound of Leo's voice kept quietly whispering in his ear, like it was there but it wasn't at the same time.

"We're heroes, remember?"

This time Leo was relieved to see his big brother's composure soften significantly as he very slightly lowered his arm holding his deceased brother's deadly weapon.

But it was what happened next that finally got Leo's overprotective hero big brother to lay off on his vengeful, murderous attack.

Leo tugged on his big brother's arm and in a soft, tender voice urged:

"Come home with me."

When he didn't move, Leo threw in the heartfelt plea:

"Please Raphie."

Raph's entire composure softened at that heartfelt request. He released his grip on the Foot, who coughed and hacked on the ground, cringed back from fear, and protectively pulled his broken wrist up close to his body, with the snapper standing tall and stiff overlooking him.

And as soon as the coughing and wheezing subsided enough for Raph to be certain his murderous enemy could clearly hear what he had to tell him, he let out the stern, authoritative words:

"I'm not like you."

And to Leo's great relief, he turned around and walked away, taking his brother's sword with him and being sure to thoroughly smash the mystic blaster by stomping down on it with his foot.

If he could cry in this form, Leo was really quite certain he would have been shedding tears of relief all along the way, staying close to his big brother with his hand on Raph's shell, and the snapper leaning into the touch as though he could feel it, all the way to their sewer home, where two heroes like them belonged.

Only one of them didn't belong there for much longer.

Chapter Text

Donnie sat at his computer, working on a new software that was compatible with the mystic gem he stole from Draxum the day his three brothers likewise stole their mystic weapons.

Like he had been doing all day (and night) every day for the past three days since their first unsuccessful attempted candle lighting ceremony for their deceased brother and son.

And, for the past three days Leo had been bending over backwards trying to get his attention - to find some way to reach out to him, to help lead him to accepting his invisible presence and forgiving himself.

But whether the messages weren't getting through because of this whole situation he found himself in, or they were and weren't being received by the strictly facts-and-logic, scientifically genius mind of his purple-clad brother (aka were being ignored), Leo didn't know.

What he did know was that something was wrong - something felt wrong. He wasn't supposed to be here this long, he could sense it.

But he couldn't move on until the candles on his memorial finally lit, and despite all of Splinter and his family's best efforts, there hadn't been as much as a single spark or a wisp of smoke coming from the two wicks of whatever candles they placed on his little memorial table.

Even when they went against Hamato customs by bringing in two pre-lit candles, the second they got them past the threshold of Leo's bedroom doorway, they both went out...

...over and over again, each and every time of the fifteen times they tried.

Leo sat back in the empty computer chair beside Donnie's and stared at him, wondering what to do from here, how to move ahead.

And trying very hard not to think about what might happen to him if Donnie never forgave himself.

"This isn't good for either one of us, you know that, right?" he spoke up.

No answer.

Not that he expected one.

"You can't keep yourself lock in your lab twenty four seven, and I can't hang around here for who knows how long, I don't know what'll do to me. I . . . don't . . . belong here anymore I can feel it." He sighed, sadly added: "I'll miss you when it's time to go, but..." then gestured to himself with both hands and added in a nervous, tense tone: "Mystic body, mystic realm, do you see the connection here?"

He continued watching his brother hard at work, and let out another sad little sigh.

"What are you even doing?" the mystical slider asked next, in annoyance. Then in an outright angry tone he barked out: "I don't understand you! You refuse to believe in a mystic realm because it's not 'scientific'," he used air quotes with a scowl and continued, "but you've got no problem tinkering around with that mystic gem you stuck in your goggles! What are you even doing with it!?"

No response yet again.

Not a single indication that he was even there.

Evey though Leo know Donnie couldn't hear or see him, from his frustration he still stuck his glowing blue hand out to wave it around in front of Dee's face with a loud, long: "HELLL-LOOOO!!!"

No acknowledgement whatsoever, beyond blinking a few times; which, to be fair, was almost definitely because his bloodshot eyes had been staring at that screen for six hours straight without as much as a bathroom (or snack) break.

Leo sat back once more, looked Donnie over, hoping for some sort of indication he knew he was here, and then he stood up, complained: "Mikey believed it was me right from the get go! And Raph almost killed a guy but he still forgave himself when I reached out to him, but yooou..."

Leo's voice rose from anger when he spoke those next words: "Oohh no, you don't believe anything you can't study mister 'I need scientific proof!'"

Donnie clicked at his keyboard.

Leo stared at him a while longer, then said in a sour tone: "Forget it," before walking away.

"I'm going to my candle lighting, not that it matters. Are you coming this time, or staying here like always?"

No response.

Donnie's phone dinged, indicating a text came in from either Raph, Mikey or April, no doubt inviting him (or in Raph's case, ordering him) to attend the next twice daily event where their worn out, worried dad took the lead in trying yet another approach to get Leo's unresponsive candles to light.

Donnie glanced at it and then continued on with his work without in any way replying.

"Fine, be that way. But if they light this time it'll be your own fault when I'm gone and you didn't get a chance to say good bye."

Leo turned his head to sadly look at Donnie behind his back, before walking away and going straight through his shut and locked triple-reinforced soundproofed door, like he had been doing every time he came and went from Dee's lab over the past three days.

Unbeknownst to Mikey, Leo joined him in the hallway when he left his room to head toward the memorial, and when they got there, Splinter, April, and Raph were already inside.

"I got new electronic candles in the mail, they look like the real thing and are guaranteed to work or your money back," April told Mikey with a sad little smile for the grieving box turtle.

"I don't know how I feel about using electronic candles," Splinter commented, sounding very unsure as to whether they should try this approach, considering the Hamato scrolls made clear the fact that a real flame was required. "I don't know how they will affect Blue's memorial."

"It can't be any worse than those Roman candles Mikey tried when no one was around," Leo remarked, thinking about how relieved he was that his impulsive little brother didn't almost set the entire lair on fire by lighting actual fireworks inside his bedroom, because even they wouldn't ignite.

But despite saying that, something still felt off from them moment April placed the two fake candles on his memorial table, after Mikey removed the two real ones that were there.

Something felt unsettling, like the whole aura shifted in the room, sending a chill up Leo's mystic back.

"Uhhh, on second thought, let's stick with tradition, hey mi familia?"

"Alright, here goes nothing," the snapper who didn't in any way hear Leo said.

Nor did he (or anyone else) see the 'blue'-eared slider when he blurted out: "NO!" and rushed at the memorial, both hands out, trying to grasp at the candle when Raph flicked a switch on the bottom of one.

It lit.

The light dimmed and the room went cold.

For Leo, anyway.

He cuddled into himself, hugging himself for warmth, and watched helplessly when Mikey reached out for the second candle, to turn it on.

The instant the second candle flicked on, Leo felt a stiff, cold wind blowing down from the memorial onto him that lasted just a few short seconds. And when it was over, he gazed down on his hands to see they - in fact his entire mystic body - was now glowing a very dim blackish blue instead of the normal bright blue it had been since he found himself in this whole situation.

And why was he so cold?

As his family stared in disbelief at the two fake candles glowing on Leo's memorial table, each of them waiting in silence (for what only Splinter knew), Leo shivered, hugged into himself a little more, and nervously said: "Uhh, ok, you can flick those off any time now."

No answer, as usual.

"Guys? Please tell me one of you hears me?"

No one heard his voice, and then April smiled, gestured to one of the candles, and proudly said: "See, Splints, I told you it would work."

Splinter simply gazed at the electronic glow of the two flameless candles on the memorial table with a frown for a moment, and the room fell silent once more while everyone (including Leo, who was shivering periodically) looked at him, waiting for his response.

Leo's eyes widened when Splinter shivered from a chill, and he waited - hoping his rat dad recognized something was off and would remove those two abominations that were definitely not candles and also that definitely did not belong on a Hamato memorial.

In a whisper of a voice, almost afraid to break the silence, Leo begged: "Please tell me you feel it too, dad."

The grieving father never once took his eyes off the candles, staring at them as though he was expecting something to happen; but nothing did.

Eventually when he did break the silence, Splinter quietly mumbled: "I don't understand."

"What's wrong, pops?" Mikey tenderly asked.

Splinter pointed to one of the candles and told his family: "The scrolls I read mentioned there would be a burst of air and a flash of light when the candles ignite, indicating our dear Leonardo passed on to the mystic realm."

Everyone - including the shivering Leo - put their eyes on the candles, waiting for something to happen, but when nothing did, eventually Raph laid a supportive hand on his dad's shoulder and suggested: "Maybe it'll take a while pops, cuz they're not real."

"Or maybe we can take them down, like now," Leo urgently suggested.

"Perhaps," Splinter quietly agreed, but still sounding worried.

"Donnie put the security camera in here, we can ask him to keep an eye on the memorial and let us know if anything happens," April next suggested.

"If you can get him to answer his phone," Mikey grumbled under his breath.

"Or unlock his door," Raph added in an equally grumpy tone," then he patted Splinter's shoulder, gave his dad a reassuring smile, and told him: "C'mon pops, maybe Don'll open for all of us, let's go ask him to keep an eye on that memorial." He turned his head from looking at Splinter to looking at the candles and added: "There can't be any harm in leaving them like that for a while. Right?"

Splinter joined his son in gazing at the candles, but something didn't settle right with him. He shivered and hugged into himself, and Leo urged: "You can feel it too, can't you pops?"

Leo shivered again.

Very slowly, and feeling very unsure of himself, Splinter reluctantly agreed: "Yes, I suppose there's no harm in leaving them here for a short while, to see what happens."

"Oooh no there's harm! Lots and lots of harm!" Leo blurted out, gazing down on his dull, blackish (cold) mystic body and very worried about what might happen to him next if this new problem wasn't rectified muy rápido.

"Let's go get Purple," was the next thing Splinter said, and when everyone turned to leave, Leo tried to join them, wanting to get anywhere that was away from this cold room with the equally cold aura in the air, and hoping once he distanced himself from the two fake candles that definitely did not belong on his memorial, his cold mystic body would warm up and his bright blue glow would return.

But to his horror, he discovered the moment he tried to leave behind Mikey, he simply couldn't.

Instead of being the last one to walk out through his open bedroom entrance, Leo brought up solid in what felt like an invisible wall-like block of ice, that flashed black the moment he made contact with it.

"Nonono!"

The mystic slider instantly panicked and felt around the cold, invisible surface that glowed a dim black every time his hands made contact.

"Nono! Don't leave me here!"

He pounded both fists on the icy surface, but that only served to make the black light flash a little brighter at the contact points, so in a desperate bid to get out of his cold, uninviting room, Leo backed up to give himself ramming speed, and rushed at the open doorway.

But instead of breaking free, in a bright flash of black light the slider brought up hard in the immovable, invisible something that kept his locked inside his room. So after feeling around in every possible spot and trying to close and open his curtain in the hopes that would do something (it didn't, despite the fact he could interact with it), he whipped around to glare at the two intrusive candles that did not belong, and rushed over to his memorial in a last-ditched attempt at freeing himself by knocking them down onto the floor.

But when he did that, his hands only went through them (and the pizza slices, the two scrolls, and everything else on the table), so instead he leaned over it, staring at one of the candles, and muttered to himself: "Eugh boi, this can't be good."

Meanwhile, outside Donnie's lab door, April texted that Splints wanted to see him, while Mikey was in the process of texting that they were all here, and Raph was just about ready to try to bust the triple-reinforced door down mystic ninja style if Don didn't open up.

To everyone's surprise, after only receiving one text from his sister, the door hissed, made a loud *click*, and a red light that had been glowing above it flicked over to a green one, indicating Donnie had actually unlocked it for the first time in the three days since he snuck out when everyone was asleep, to hastily install a camera facing the memorial in Leo's bedroom.

"It's about time," Raph grumbled under his breath, at the same time Mikey wondered out loud: "What's up with that?" Splinter simply turned the knob and pushed the door open, to be greeted by his intelligent son, who was standing at his computer desk with his entire body tense as he clicked fervently at the keyboard and stared intently at his way-too-bright screen...

...just before spinning around with a look of wild passion on his beaming face and very loudly declaring: "I have finally done it!"

"Uhh, you finally did what, Dee?" Mikey asked. The four of them walked into the dim room - gazing around at the clutter of broken/disassembled tech, food packages, and empty energy drink cans strewn around the normally well-organized lab along the way - as Donnie spun back around to face his computer once more and loudly announced:

"I have created a way to combine my technology with the properties in my gem so that I can now see any and all mystic energy signals no matter the frequency or source, and regardless of what part of the spectrum they're on, or how finite or miniscule it may be."

"Uh, in English Don," came Raph's bland response.

Donnie stopped his typing, straightened his stance with one finger hovering over the 'enter' key, and smugly told his family: "Now, with the touch of a button, my programming will not only let us see mystic energy signals emitted by yokai, but my systems will also detect and alert me to any unusual mystic energy signals so I can finally prove to EVERYBODY beyond a shadow of a doubt that Leo is not here with us in some sort of mystic form - a form that does not exist!"

Splinter hung his head in sadness at Donatello's forceful words, Mikey hugged into him for support and Raph glared at Donnie and said in anger: "Way to go Don!"

But the techy softshell who always needed a scientific explanation for everything seemed completely oblivious to his dad's sad demeanor and blurted out an enthusiastic: "Ah ha!" at the same moment he pressed down on the 'enter' key on his keyboard.

"Mystic energy signals detected," came a computerized 'Donnie' voice from his computer.

"Wha..."

Donnie whipped his head around to stare in disbelief at his computer screen, and he was alerted to the location when the 'Donnie' voice informed him: "Location: sleeping quarters for dumb-dumb brother number two," and the live video from the security camera he placed in Leo's bedroom flicked on the screen...

...to reveal a dim, blackish-blue mutant turtle hugging into himself and poking at the open doorway, that flashed black every time his finger made contact with some sort of invisible forcefield, apparently keeping him confined to his room.

Everyone walked up to the screen to stare in stunned silence at the mystical mutant turtle who poked at the open doorway a few more times, before he wrapped both arms around his apparently cold mystic body and turned around to walk over to his memorial table, where he briskly paced back and forth, clearly distressed, shivering, and hugging into himself - apparently for warmth - all without taking his eyes off the two electronic candles glowing on top of his little memorial table that clearly did not belong there.

Donnie stared slack-jawed in shocked disbelief at the dimly glowing form of his very own deceased brother, with the entire room spinning around him and all the voices from his family sounding muffled and far away while his genius, scientific mind tried to wrap itself around this whole unexpected situation.

"Something's wrong with Leo!" Mikey blurted out.

Raph pointed with an outstretched arm at the candles glowing on the table and exclaimed: "It's gotta be those candles!" "I knew something was wrong!" Splinter next exclaimed, before April yelled: "Hurry! We gotta take them off Leo's memorial!"

He, Raph, April, and Splinter rushed out of the room, with their dad muttering something or other about how he knew the air shifted when they first lit them; leaving the stunned softshell behind staring at the turtle clearly displaying on his computer screen, emitting energy signals that were being picked up by his system and displayed as fluctuating numbers across the bottom of the screen as undeniable, factual, empirical proof that Leo really was still with them in some sort of a mystic form.

From his bedroom, pacing in front of the memorial and wishing he could knock down the candles (or at least shut them off) Leo heard a commotion and turned his head to see Splinter running into the room, followed by Raph, Mikey, and April, with all of them looking like they had just seen a ghost.

But clearly they hadn't with the way Leo had to jump aside so his dad didn't run right through him, only to accidentally jump straight into the path of his big brother, who did run right through him.

With a whole-body cringe, Leo stuck out his tongue and let out a loud: "Blaaah!" at the unpleasant feeling of having his big brother literally run through him, and that was when he noticed something felt different; he was warmer. So he looked down on himself and he saw that the blackish glow enveloping his blue form was gone; only his blue mystic light remained.

Leo raised his eyes to see that Splinter and Raph were each holding a candle they had (thankfully) removed from his memorial and shut off. Then he casually put his hands on his hips, and with his 'faceman' grin, he said: "Hey, good job fam. How'd you figure it out?"

"Did it work?" Raph next asked, with all of them gazing around the room for Leo, as though he would suddenly appear before their eyes.

Then Mikey opened his mouth to say something to his invisible brother who he knew was there, but it wasn't the sound of Mikey's voice he heard. It was someone else who was now standing behind the slider who spoke first.

"Leo?"

Leo turned around to see none other than the skeptical Donnie standing in his open bedroom entrance, wearing his high-tech goggles over his eyes that contained the gem and were synced to his computer systems.

His goggles that now let him see all mystic energy signals, even the unique ones being emitted by Leo's glowing mystic form that couldn't be detected by any other means.

"Did it..." "Yeah, yeah, it worked," Donnie absently interrupted his dad, who was about to ask if his beloved 'Baby Blue' was ok. Then he stepped into the room, looking like he was staring straight at Leo and not through him or at something else, prompting the slider to nervous ask: "Uhh, what's going on?"

"It is you," came the whisper of a voice from his sciencey genius brother, before Donnie began talking rapid-fire to his invisible-to-everyone-else brother standing right there in front of him.

"I didn't believe it, I can't believe it, I only did this to prove to myself - to everyone - that you really aren't here, that you don't exist, there's nothing after death."

Leo and his family silently watched as Donnie went through a clear mental dilemma, with his entire body tense as he continued:

"There's nothing after death. There can't be, it's scientifically improbable. But you're standing right in front of me, I can read your energy signals, you're emitting point two zero seven five..."

Donnie abruptly stopped when Leo rapidly waved both hands at him to get his attention, and the very first thing their invisible brother (who couldn't see himself in a mirror) did was to strike a pose, playfully kissing the air.

Donnie's shoulder's dropped and in an almost annoyed tone (that carried an air of fondness) he said: "Yes, you look fine, dumb-dumb."

Leo's mouth fell open in faux-offense and he threw his hands out, mouthing the word 'fine!?'

(Actually saying the word, but Donnie's tech didn't let him hear what his brother was saying)

Everyone continued watching silently as Donnie flashed Leo a cheeky grin and replied: "Alright, you could still pass as our self-proclaimed 'face man', happy?"

Leo smugly grinned at his brother - who finally believed he was real and could actually see him!!! - with a nod of his head, looking very pleased with himself that even now he still had his 'good looks', especially considering the circumstances surrounding the untimely demise of his physical body.

Next, Donnie opened his mouth to say something, but that was when the youngest of the bunch reached ahead, grabbing at his goggles and yelling in excitement: "Let me see him!"

Leo stepped back just in time so that Mikey wouldn't walk right through him, and Donnie immediately grabbed his goggles off his own face to hold them up in the air, away from the impulsive Mikey, sternly telling him in no uncertain terms: "AFTER Miguel! I have some things I need to, ahem, say to Leo. Alone!"

"Uhhh man," Mikey groaned. He flopped his arms down while Donnie reaffixed his goggles back on his head, but then his smile came back when Raph suggested they watch the interaction through the security video displaying on Donnie's computer screen.

"Ok!" Mikey instantly agreed. And with a wave goodbye for his invisible bro, he happily exclaimed: "See you in a bit, Leo!" and was the first to rush out of the room to watch the interaction, followed by Raph, who turned his head just before leaving to look at a random spot and say something to his deceased brother.

Leo took a big step to the right so he was in the snapper's line of vision, and he shared a smile with his brother who was looking at - but yet through - him when he said:

"It's good to know you're here, bro. And, uh, thanks for the help when I was . . . you know."

April and then Splinter expressed a similiar sentiment on their way out, leaving the two of them alone to talk.

Donnie closed the blue curtain door behind April, clicked at his wrist tech to mute the security camera so his fam wouldn't hear what he had to say next, and then he sat on the edge of Leo's bed, with the glowing blue slider sitting beside him.

At first, Leo watched as Dee anxiously tapped his hands on his knees, not sure what to say. So when he did speak, the first thing he said was: "So, uh, this is really something, hey bro. You've been here all this time and tried reaching out to me and, uh, I treated you like you're nothing but a figment of my imagination."

Donnie turned his head to look at his brother's glowing blue face, and when Leo smiled at him, he very gently smiled back, before turning away again - because this was getting to be too much for him.

When he next spoke, he very quietly and tentatively said: "I, uh . . . I guess what I'm trying to say is, um. I'm sorry. For everything."

Leo was really quite certain that he could successfully reach out to his brother right now, so he tried, and that was when a notification chime sounded from Don's cell phone, indicating a text message just came in.

Dee sat up a little, looked at his deceased brother to ask: "Was that you?" and when Leo nodded his head with a smile, a tech claw came out of Donnie's shell to put his cell phone in his hand.

Donnie clicked at his phone and looked down at the text Leo had somehow mystically sent to him.

'It's not your fault Dee' were the five words displaying as coming from Leo's busted phone that lay in a million pieces on Donnie's lab floor.

As expected, when Donnie read that message he abruptly stood up, tense and angry, and gestured wildly with his arms when yelling: "Not my fault!!? Not my fault he says! It's all my fault!" He began pacing the room next, exclaiming: "I muted my tech that would have alerted me to all of this," he gestured angrily to Leo's glowing mystic form, "in time to save your life! It was MY tech that locked you out, it was MY TECH that SHOULD have alerted me to your..." *ding-ding*

Donnie stopped his rant before it really even got started and looked at his smiling glowing brother before rasing the hand holding his phone to read the message:

'You gotta forgive yourself Don-Tron, it's not your fault'

"FORGIVE MYSELF!!?" came the angry reply. "FORGIVE MYSELF HE SAYS!"

*ding-ding*

Once again Donnie stopped just before his lengthy rant even got started to look at the message illuminating on his screen that simply read:

'I forgive you'

"YOU forgive me!?" Donnie next yelled, not angry at Leo but at this whole situation that he firmly and thoroughly blamed himself for causing.

Leo stood up and smiled fondly at the brother who was finally listening to him and loudly ranting once more: "YOU'RE DEAD and YOU forgive ME!" You'd still be alive if not for ME and MY tech and..."

Leo put his hand on Donnie's shoulder.

He gasped in a sharp breath of air from the sensation.

All the anger and every word of his 'logical' argument fled from his mind at the touch he hadn't felt in what felt like a lifetime.

Leo instantly realized his brother must have felt his touch, so he did the next logical thing by immediately wrapping both arms around him in a much-needed, warm brotherly embrace.

"Leo?" came the soft voice of his living brother.

Donnie hovered his hands in the air, staring straight ahead at nothing with the edges of his goggles picking up on the blue glow of his brother's mystic blue light as he squeezed him tighter in a hug.

Then, although no visible tears came, Donnie could feel that Leo was definitely crying with the way his body heaved with each inaudible sob.

"Leo . . . are you crying?"

Still without any tears - mystic or otherwise - to accompany the motion, Leo continued crying in his brother's arms.

"Just hug me back dummy," came the undeniable sound of 'Nardo's' voice speaking in Donnie's ear.

So that was what he did.

Leo figurativey melted in his brother's arms when he finally felt what he had been so desperate for all this time at the moment Donnie wrapped his arms around him to return the hug. All the tension Leo had been holding in melted away and then Donnie began crying, too.

The techy softshell shut his eyes, wanting to hold onto a sliver of imagination inside that factual, scientific mind to live in the moment, pretending Leo was still alive and they were sharing in one of their annoyingly regular hugs like they had routinely done all throughout their lives.

Even if one of them wasn't really alive any longer.

The two of them stayed locked in a warm embrace for a long time, crying on each other's shoulders, until Leo sensed within himself that he finished what needed to be done and it was soon time for him to move on. So the sobbing tapered off, and with a tight squeeze he whispered in his brother's ear:

"Forgive yourself, Dee. Do it for me. I love ya bro."

"I..."

. . .

Donnie's voice trailed off.

Leo squeezed him a little tighter again, Donnie reciprocated, and then he heard his deceased brother's voice once more when he begged:

"Please Dee. Promise me you'll forgive yourself."

. . .

"Promise!"

"I promise I'll . . . try. And I love you too. Dummy," Donnie fondly promised.

"It's not you're fault, Donnie. You didn't know. Ok."

Donnie opened his mouth to reply, but no words came out so he shut it instead.

Then, in reference to his brothers not coming to the rescue because they thought he was pulling the 'king' of all pranks, Leo laughed and told him: "I really took our pranks to the next level, hey Dee? I had to! I was just dying to win back that crown!"

Donnie let out a sad little laugh over that bad pun, and more tears fell down his face as he replied with faux annoyance, but in a tender tone: "You really are a dummy."

In reply, Leo got his brother laughing through the tears when he happily joked: "All-time prank king champ! Make sure that crown goes on my memorial after I'm gone! And, uh, don't try to win it back, ok? Believe me when I tell you, it is not worth it!"

Donnie sniffled, squeezed Leo a little tighter, and softly asked: "Do you really have to go?"

Leo patted his back and lovingly replied: "Yeah bro, I don't belong here anymore."

"You ALWAYS belong here!" Donnie immediately countered. Tears began falling down his cheeks again, and then - referring to something Splinter had read to all of them at one point from one of those dusty old scrolls (that he actually remembered for a change) - Leo promised him: "Hey I'll visit once a year when you light those candles on my anniversary, I promise. Do me a favor?"

"Anything," Donnie immediately agreed, grabbing his brother a little tighter, afraid if he opened his eyes or let go he would awaken in his bed to discover none of this was real.

But it was real. And deep down he knew it now.

"I can't be around to knock your door down anymore, so promise me you won't cut out our fam. They need you and you need them. You can help each other, alright?"

Squeezing him as tightly as he could now, the tears came back full-force to Donnie's eyes and as they dripped down his face he loudly exclaimed: "I NEED YOU!"

Once again, in a soft, loving tone of voice, Leo told him: "Nah bro, I can't stay here, I belong somewhere else now. You gotta let me go."

Donnie squeezed Leo with all his might and wept on his shoulder, crying out: "NO! I'm never letting you go again! DO YOU HEAR ME NARDO! You're staying right here where you belong!"

"Tell everyone I said I love them, and that I'll be ok," was the only thing Leo said in reply, before finishing with the word: "See you in a year, bro."

That was the moment Donnie's arms went through the brother he was hugging, as though he was grasping nothing but thin air. And when he raised his goggle-covered eyes to search for him, instead of seeing the glowing blue form of Leonardo, he was met with the red word: 'ERROR' displaying across his vision.

Donnie gazed around in a panic, wanting to see and hold his brother, needing to hang on to the undeniable proof of his existence, but there was nothing.

Not until he noticed movement out of the corner of his eye, and snapped his head to the side, to see that somehow the original two candles Splinter placed on Leo's memorial table had been put back.

And that was the moment Mikey burst into the room, yelling: "You said I could see him too!" He ripped the goggles off Donnie's face to put them on his own, gazing around for the brother he couldn't see and calling out Leo's name as the rest of their family slowly walked into the room, one at a time starting with Splinter; who informed his intelligent son that Leo disappeared from the computer screen and the word 'ERROR' flashed on it, instead.

"I didn't want him to go," Donnie sadly expressed, at the same time the disappointed box turtle sadly took off Donnie's goggles and handed them back to him.

Donnie put his goggles back on top of his head, and told his grieving family: "Leo told me to say he loves us all and he's going to be ok, and he'll see us in a year. And, uh, ahem, I'll be keeping my lab door unlocked from now on."

Raph walked up to his younger brother to put a hand on his shoulder, and with a small smile reassuringly said: "I'm glad to hear that bro. We can get through this if we do it together. I know we can."

Donnie opened his mouth to object they were not, in fact, all together without Leo, but that was when - as if he could read his mind - everyone's phone's dinged simultaneously, indicating someone sent them a mass text through the group chat Dee set up for them after Leo's death. And when they all took out their phones, each and every one of them saw a message from their beloved deceased son, brother, and friend, that told them:

'It's time to let me go'

Immediately after reading that, a warm breeze blew in against their backs through Leo's door, leading straight toward the memorial, where a box of matches had mysteriously joined the two white memorial candles; awaiting them.

Raph and Mikey each put a hand on Splinter's shoulders, with April doing the same for Donnie. Tears dripped from their dad's eyes as, one at a time, he raised his head to softly nod to his eldest and then youngest son. Then he stepped away from them, softly patted Donnie's arm, and walked up to the memorial table to stand directly in front of the match box laying on it, between the two slices of pizza and the two Hamato scrolls - Leo's and Atsuko's.

Very slowly, somberly, and quietly, Splinter raised his hand toward the table and picked up the box to open it and reveal one single, solitary match inside.

Because one was all he needed.

From his spot standing alongside his little white memorial table, Leo was smiling at his family and then watched when Splinter struck the match to light it.

Then, with a trembling hand, he very slowly brought it up to the first candle.

While he was doing that, Leo looked at his bedroom entrance, to see the glowing green form of his gram-gram, Hamato Atsuko, walking into his room up to Splinter and placing a comforting hand on her son's shoulder, with a smile for the grandson she was about to bring to the mystic realm with her.

The place where he sensed within himself he belonged now.

With a big grin and a single laugh, Leo looked at his gram-gram to tell her the same thing he said when he first laid eyes on her; but much more softly this time:

"Took you long enough."

Then he turned his head to watch with her and the rest of his family as Splinter touched the lit match to the wick of the first candle, which instantly ignited with a large, blue, sparkly flame.

At the moment the flame ignited, Leo's mystic form glowed a little brighter and sparkled as well, and his mystic odachi hanging in its wall mount over the memorial likewise began glowing a bright blue for all to see.

Then, when Splinter did the same thing to the second candle, it too ignited with a tall, sparkly bright blue flame. Their mourning dad stepped back to watch with the rest of his family as both flames twirled around one another, fanned by a warm breeze that blew upward, mingling the two blue flames in with the glowing mystic odachi, and taking the invisible slider to the mystic realm with his gram-gram, where he (regretfully) belonged now.

The flames settled down into the usual soft orange glow, the sword stopped glowing, and when it was over that single, brief event had taken their beloved Leonardo away from them to the mystic realm, where his honorable ancestors were joyfully waiting to greet him with open arms.

And where he would joyfully await his loved ones who were left behind here on earth to mourn, grieve, and heal from the much-too-early death of one of their own, visiting them briefly once a year here on earth on the anniversary of his candle lighting, until they, too, eventually joined him and their ancestors in the mystic realm...

...where they would forever become part of one big, happy, united mystical family.

Together.