"Tell me about it. Me and my brothers were lucky. We would've been four little freaky mutant turtle kids growing up alone in the sewers if Master Splinter hadn't decided to take us in. And he didn't just do the minimum, he taught us how to talk and homeschooled us and taught us how to fight so we could take on whatever the world threw at us. The first time he let us go up to the surface when we were fifteen, he was freaking out worrying and telling us to be careful to look both ways when crossing the street."

He'd taught them to speak and bandaged their boo boos and done airplane to make them eat their algae. He'd read them books and fixed up a broken TV and VCR and scavenged trash in the shadows to get them cartoons to watch.

Over time, the grimy little life they lived had gotten better and better as they built their home in the sewers - and it wouldn't have been a home at all if not for Master Splinter. It would've been four voiceless, scared little freakboys hiding alone in darkness and slime away from a world that would have never accepted them.

His expression grew a little distant as he thought about it. There was a part of him that wanted to think the same thing as Mikey and Leo, that he might still be alive out there, somewhere, wondering what had happened to his sons and April.

"He was a good dad. And a good teacher."

Past tense. Because now he was probably gone.