To Crack a Shell - ROTTMNT

4 - Future Present

Casey pokes his head into the infirmary. I coulda sworn I heard something, he thinks. I'll check on Michaela– on Mikey . The young man walks in and stands at the bedside to look over the unconscious turtle, then at the machines monitoring vitals. Pulse steady, breathing evened out. Huh, the fever broke! Donnie will be glad to hear that.

Mikey shifts on the bed. His trembling hand lifts and his eyes struggle to open.

"Mikey?" Casey reaches for the turtle's shoulder.

"Leo..." rasps Mikey in response.

Casey's heart sinks. "I-I'm sorry, Mikey. Leo isn't here."

Mikey flops his hand over his plastron and closes his fist over his heart. "Leo..." His spots start to glow.

"Woah, woah!" Casey puts his hand over the thin green shoulder. "You can't be using your power, that's how you got like this in the first place!"

"Where'd he go?" Mikey asks.

"He's not here," replies Casey, "Leo isn't here."

Mikey's eyes open, blearily turning toward Casey. "Is he gonna visit again? He felt cold and smelled like flowers."

"I don't think so, Mikey." With every word, Casey finds it harder to keep his voice steady. "You... you should go back to sleep."

Mikey sticks his tongue out and half-heartedly blows a raspberry. He complies to Casey's suggestion, however, and settles back down to sleep.

Casey watches the little turtle, thinking. Did the fever make Mikey hallucinate? Or did he accidentally unlock his gold vision? If the latter, maybe he got confused from seeing mystic energy and thought Leo was there.

Then again... Leonardo did tell a story of how his ancestor Karai was able to help them from the spirit plane. But even if the turtles ended up in the same place, Michelangelo never mentioned seeing them. Not to Casey, anyway. Of all the masters, Michelangelo was the most secretive, especially when it came to his powers.

It gets Casey thinking. If Mikey can see into the spirit plane and Leo is in fact in the spirit plane, would it be possible to talk to Leo again?

Casey knocks his forehead. Enough thinking like that. That's not what Master Leonardo taught you. He's gone. Leo's gone. They're both... they're all... gone. You know how to handle this.

He turns to leave the infirmary and lets his feet take him to Leo's room. Once there, he kneels by the bed and stares through the middle distance. Michelangelo taught him how to meditate, but Casey could never truly connect with anything like how the ninpo-powered ninjas could.

Nevertheless, he curls his hands together and breathes deeply. A shiver zips from his lower back up to his scalp. He exhales slowly and stares at the swords.

"Sensei? It worked. I found the key and stopped the Krang. The future is different now, heck, the present is different! It's been nice to actually meet Raph and Splinter, even though... they're not really themselves right now. I guess I failed one part of my mission. You always told me to keep as many people safe as possible. And I... I failed to keep you safe. I know it wasn't my job, but... I was hopeful."

Casey lets out a deep sigh. "I'll be honest, this isn't the future I wanted. Yeah, we stopped the invasion, but you're... you're gone too soon. I just thought, maybe I'd have a chance to get to know you, really know the real you, the you that wasn't forced to become an adult so soon.

"I-I also feel like I got over this too soon. I mean, I know you taught me to, 'functioning in war' and all that. But there is no war anymore and the others are struggling, and I don't know if I can teach them what you taught me. I knew a you they never did. A-am I going to have to teach them? They haven't lived the same life I have so would it even help?"

Casey slumps over his knees. "I really wish you were here. I feel like I need you more now that the war has been prevented. I don't know what to do."

The swords give no answer.

"I should... go tell Donnie how Mikey's doing," Casey mumbles. He pushes himself to his feet and pulls his gaze away from the katanas.

Donnie's lab had changed since... that day. Where once had been permanent clutter is now religious organization.

He had hastily set up some kind of Faraday cage and locked it with a system Casey recognized as the precursor to Master Donatello's "Shell Code," an encryption impossible to crack. No one knew what he was keeping in there.

Casey raps a knuckle on the wall as he enters. "Donnie?"

"Come."

Casey peeks around a corner and finds Donnie hunched over his workstation, scrutinizing a metal rod. "Uh. I thought you might wanna know that Mikey—"

"Has stabilized. I know. I know everything about him, Jones, the machines tell me."

Casey's fingers fidget with his pant leg. "Well... aren't you gonna go check on him?"

"Is he awake?"

"No."

"Then there is nothing to fix."

"'Fix'!? Donnie, he's your brother and he's sick, that's not something to just 'fix'!"

"His life is not in danger. Worrying about him would do nothing but be an interruption."

"So what?" Casey demands, stamping his foot. "Mikey isn't a machine! He's infinitely more important than whatever you're doing. He's alive and he needs help."

"Go hold his hand if you're so concerned."

"So you're going to just let another brother die?"

Donnie slams his hands on the table and shoots to his feet. " Don't you dare! "

Casey crosses his arms. "What if I do? You've become more machine than turtle, drowning your grief in caffeine and metal while Raph is forced to deal with your deadbeat dad and Mikey is hallucinating about Leo."

Donnie splutters. His shoulders tense and his fingers dig into his palms. "Where do you get the gall! Alright, tell me this, wise guy. Why is it that we're here trying to deal with this whole situation while you're traipsing about, living like nothing's happened?!"

Casey's top lip curls. "Maybe it's because I'm trying to keep the rest of you from dying again! Maybe it's because you had to teach an eight year old what survivor's guilt was. Maybe it's because despite losing everything I've been forced to condense my grief so I can function and survive. I can't make you guys get over this, but you can't tell me my grief hurts any less.

"Or, hah , you know what? Maybe do exactly that! Insult the living while they're still here to say something about it. Work yourself to death for all I care! Maybe then you'll have Leo back!"

Casey storms from the lab and breaks into a run, fleeing the lair and his insults.

He runs and runs until he reaches an overflow junction. Pipes spew water into a deep pool and the resulting white noise offers the sound mask he needs.

An instinct tells him to keep his mouth shut. Noise is dangerous. Noise attracts threats. But he reminds himself that this is a different world. Noise happens all the time and no one cares.

No one cares.

Casey's jaw parts and his stomach clenches.

Stagnant water ripples.

A rat flees and sends a cockroach skittering.

The walls offer the impartial courtesy of an echo.

The water keeps flowing.