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It's April's idea to drive the whole clan up to her old family home in Southampton for the summer. The turtles were beside themselves with excitement, and with no leg to stand on, Splinter had agreed.
Plans were made, an ex-warring warrior scientist was kidnapped, a caravan was 'acquired' (and modified by their resident genius to fit Raph and Draxum), and they were off. Crammed in what had become a tiny house on wheels, drivers switched between pit stops. All nine of them.
Casey remembers hearing of April's old farmhouse in the rare moments of quiet in the main base. She'd sit down with him after a nightmare or a failed mission—there was plenty of both—and talk about the early days before the war, before the Krang, before mutants or Yokai had been more than a myth or a story in what she called a 'comic book.' She'd get a look on her face, worn with wrinkles and hardened by years of conflict that was softened by the stories of her early youth. Of her parents and the time they had before work took over. Streams and forests unspoiled by pollution (or blood or Krang fluids), singing birds, blue skies and trees that changed with the seasons. It sounded like a dream, a fantasy, and he'd said so aloud.
Commander O'Neil had smiled, a sad thing she rarely allowed, and threw an arm around his shoulders to bring him close. “One day, baby,” she'd said, kissing his cheek, “it won't be.”
As they pull up in the dirt driveway, Casey wishes she was here now to rub it in his face how she was right.
(Technically, she is here, whooping and hollering with the rest of the family as they pile out of the van with their luggage in tow. But it's not her at the same time, and now it never will be.
He ignores the pang in his chest.)
The farmland itself is beautiful. Wide, spacious, green and free of prying eyes that would have the mutants and Yokai in hiding. The air and the skies are clear, the sun beaming down on them in glares of warm, unspoiled midday gold. He can hear the stream nearby over birdsong and Mikey's laughter as he and Donnie persuade Raph to spin them dizzy on the tire swing they discovered hanging on the branch of a sturdy tree.
Casey drops his bag on the grass. He shuts his eyes, breathes in deep and sighs.
He loves it.
(It terrifies him.)
Once they're settled in their rooms, April gathers everyone in the front yard to pick berries in the brush so Mikey can make pies for dessert tonight. Casey and Leo make up one team, leaving Mikey with a mildly reluctant Draxum as he tugs their stepfather by the hand. April steers Donnie away from poisonous berries, and Raph wrangles a dangerously competitive Cassandra—
“Come, Raphael! We shall acquire the ULTIMATE AMOUNT OF BERRIES! We will be the reigning champions of Berry Pickers in the history of the Hamato Clan!”
“Cass, yer gonna rip off my arm!”
Splinter hurries to supervise and ensure the safety of the forest under Cassandra's... eagerness.
“God,” Leo says with feeling, watching them go. “I'm still not over her being your mom.”
Casey gulps. “How do you think I feel?”
Berry picking goes about as well as Casey expects. He and Leo fill their baskets, casual conversation flowing naturally—about Casey's online classes, adjusting to big city life, his new favourite food joints with the greasiest hot dogs known to man that he adores—and it's fun. Foraging for food isn't new to him, but the berries look delicious, far more than rats or leaves that reeked of rot and mould. Plus, the routine is comforting. A good distraction from—
From what? How good things are? How much fun you're having while everyone from your timeline is dead?
If Leo notices anything off once they rejoin the others, he says nothing. He gives Casey a searching look, but it's gone after the boy smiles and urges him along, losing themselves amid Cass and Raph's victory screeching, having 'bested' Donnie's team in berry picking with their baskets overflowing. Donnie quietly seethes.
Dinner is more the same—loud, chaotic, messy and everything that comes with the Hamato family. Casey remembers moments like this when he was small; back when the Resistance was stronger, more than just the fractions of the family left in the aftermath of hell unleashed. Master Michelangelo would gather them once a week for a meal between raids, missions and rescues, sit them down in a quiet corner of the base and just—be together.
In those small moments, Casey saw a glimpse of who the Hamato's used to be. Seeing them now, whole and everything they are, and will be, as this timeline thrives, Casey's chest aches with a whirlwind of emotions he can't pin down long enough to name.
That's not true. One is grief.
He excuses himself after several helpings of Mikey and April's delicious pies, shutting himself in the room he's sharing with Raph and Leo. He flops onto his sleeping bag and stares at the ceiling fan. The sunset filters through the window in shades of vibrant red and gold, bathing the room in its warmth and Casey with it.
He's too angry to enjoy it, and that only pisses him off more.
Damn it, why can't he stop thinking? His future (past? Present? Freaking time travel) is gone. The Krang are gone, defeated, and the Key is safely hidden. Everything Casey had feared and despised is gone, replaced with the warmth, love and care of everyone he knew and everyone he never had the chance to meet. He has a family, a life, a second chance.
But he had a family before, too.
The future he came from may not exist now, but the people he'd known since birth were real. His memories, the scars from training accidents, missions and close calls, are real. His Master's dying words were real.
And he misses them.
He adores his new family, these mismatched outsiders who have given him everything he never had and more. But he misses Master Michelangelo and Commander O'Neil. He misses the mother he barely knew but loved anyway. He misses—
“When you're done saving the world, do me a favour... grab a slice!”
He misses his dad.
The door creaks on rusty hinges as it swings open, Leo strutting inside like he owns the place (technically, he does, but only for a few weeks, and he has to share). Casey startles, wiping tears off his cheeks with a half-baked excuse on his lips as to why he's crying on the floor, but Leo doesn't give him a chance. The slider is on the floor with him, pulling Casey into a hug. One arm curls around his shoulders, the other cradling the back of his head and pushing his face into Leo's solid plastron. Casey lets him, confused, blinking hard—
“Breathe, Casey,” Leo says. “It's okay. You're okay.”
That's when Casey realizes he's hyperventilating. Crying and hyperventilating. Leo must have heard and come running.
Great.
But he breathes in time with Leo, the turtle's heartbeat strong and steady under his ear, and it helps.
Just like always.
Because Sensei used to hold me just like this when I was little.
The floodgates burst, and Casey's sobbing in Leo's chest, clutching him for all he's worth, weeks and months and years of grief, fear, loss and guilt pouring out in heaving cries.
Leo doesn't say a word. All he does is hold him tighter, both curled up on the withered floorboards of an old family home Casey had dreamed of seeing with the aunt who'd spun its tales, with the father and teacher he'd adored, now years younger. History repeats itself in the strangest ways.
(It's as he's calming down, feeling Leo's fingers card through his hair, that he realizes he's seen Leo do this with Mikey not long after the invasion when they were all still healing. He'd done it with all his brothers, with April, and he'd seen Splinter do it in the rare moments of vulnerability that Leo lets himself have.
It's a family thing, familiar and loving in every way Casey remembers. It's different. But it's not bad, doesn't invoke the same guilt that's been following Casey like a shadow since the night he arrived in this timeline.
They're different, but they're still family. Casey's family.
This Leo isn't his sensei, his father, and he never will be. He's gone. But Casey has gained a brother in his younger self—four amazing big and little brothers, a sister in April, fathers in Splinter and Draxum, and... well, they'll talk about Cassandra.
It's a strange feeling. But a good one. A really good one.)
Even once he's cried himself out, Leo doesn't let go until after he uses his mask tails to dry Casey's cheeks—which nearly sets him off again, but now he's too tired to cry. Then they sit up, and Leo smiles at him.
“I may not get what you're going through,” he says, bracing a hand on Casey's shoulder, “but I know what it's like to feel like you've lost everything while trying to save it. And no matter how good things are here and now, what you lived through won't go away. The memories of the people you left behind will still hurt. And that's okay. As long as you remember that you did everything you could.”
He lifts a hand to cradle the back of Casey's head in his palm, smiling bright and wide. “You saved us. You saved me. And no matter what, you're not alone. You'll never be alone.”
Casey's chin wobbles with his grin. “Right. Anata wa hitori janai.”
Leo's eyes go wide with surprise. Then his smile, touched, awed and proud, returns. “... yeah. You're Hamato, alright,” he says, bringing their foreheads together.
Casey shuts his eyes and smiles through the last few tears.
Then when they part, Leo is grinning.
Uh oh.
“Hey,” he says, and Casey feels fear. “Y'know what's a surefire way to cheer yourself up after a moment of emotional vulnerability?”
Casey blinks. “... that's very specific, but, no, what?”
Leo jumps to his feet, hands on his hips. “Help me grab all the pillows from the bedrooms, Jr. We're gonna start something.”
~0o0~
When they return downstairs, precariously balancing the biggest, softest pillows Casey has ever seen or felt in his life, the others are gathered in the comfortably cramped living room. They're settled on the couch, both armchairs and the floor, watching a movie with a dinosaur chasing a jeep full of people. It looks interesting--even Draxum seems invested--but then Leo grabs one pillow and taps Raph on the shoulder.
The snapper turns, smiling automatically at his little brother. “Hey, Leo—”
WHAP!
Leo slaps Raph full in the face with the pillow, Raph's head snapping to the side. All heads whirl to stare as feathers burst from the case and drift lazily down.
Raph blinks into space, stunned. Leo bites his lip hard against laughter.
On the floor, Mikey giggles madly. Donnie's face flattens as he stands and grabs a pillow from where Casey had dropped them. Draxum pinches his brow. Splinter hurries the cutlery and china back into the kitchen. April scrambles for her phone.
Then Raph shakes with a dangerous chuckle. “Ohohoho, little brother,” he says lowly as he stands. Leo's giggling hard now as Raph makes a show of cracking his neck and rolling his enormous shoulders. “You wanna be startin' somethin'?”
Casey grabs one pillow and throws it to Mikey's grabby hands, holding another up to his chest as a shield.
Raph grins sharply, yanking the pillow from Leo's laugh-weakened grip. “Cos you know,” he says idly, “if you're gonna start somethin'. I'm gonna finish it. How am I gonna finish it, Leo?”
Draxum accepts the pillow April throws at him and holds it over his head, hunching low on the couch with a groan.
“I dunno,” Leo giggles. It's infectious as Casey snorts behind his pillow. Cassandra is standing on the arm of the couch with two pillows at the ready, grinning like a shark.
“Ask me, Leo. Ask me how I'm gonna finish it.”
Leo doubles over with breathless laughter. “How—snrk!—h-how're you gonna finish it—?”
“LIKE A BOSS!”
Raph charges, Mikey hollers “Pillow fight!” at the top of his lungs, and all hell breaks loose. Pillowy, feathery hell.
And Leo was right. It's freaking amazing.
It escalates until they're taking the fight outside, the sun fully set behind the trees and the stars glittering in the night sky as their laughter and shrieks fill the air.
In the middle of the chaos, Casey is laughing. Tears prick his eyes again from the ache in his gut (and face from April's eager swings) rather than his chest, where a new (old) warmth sits comfortably.
He leaps from the trees to ambush Raph with a bellowing cry—
“GOONGALAAAA!”
—and Raph catches him against his plastron, falling back to the grass and laughing his heart out as Casey pummels him with his pillow. “Okay, okay, I'm dead, I'm dead, staph, mercy little brother—!”
“Turtle pile on Raph!” Leo shouts, and that's how Casey ends up crushed between four turtles, April, Splinter and Draxum when Mikey yanks him by the arm to land on top of Cass, who wheezes under his weight.
(Casey understands, now, why Commander April had loved this place.
The clean streams, flowers, untouched grass and acres of unspoiled land are beautiful, Casey's dreams made real. But it's laying in the grass, sweating in the muggy summer heat with dirt and feathers on his face and hair, crushed under his brothers and sister(s?) and wheezing through heaving laughter...
That's what made it magical to her. It's magical to Casey.
He loves it.)
He meets Leo's eye in the tangle of bodies, and the slider winks at him. His heart swelling fit to burst, Casey winks back and says, “thanks, brother.”
Leo stares at him.
You're not my Sensei, but that's okay. You don't have to be. You can be someone just as inspiring, just as amazing.
His crooked smile wobbles slightly even as he shoves Casey in the shoulder. “Anytime, bro.”
And just like that, Casey finally feels at home.
I'm home.