Journey's end

Ch 1. Catching up

Raphael Hamato leaned against his motorcycle as he watched his fiance, Leonardo Tartaruga, walk up the path of a New York City cemetery to a newly laid grave. He sighed heavily as his mind drifted to the past few months. Since the year began it had been one thing after another for the two turtles but, so far, things have finally begun to settle down and Leo had been doing his best to move forward and get past all that had happened.

First, Leo had to deal with all that Raph had put him through; from the purple dragons to coming clean about Mona Lisa being his girlfriend at one time. Then he had to deal with his father, Oroku Saki, returning from the dead and wanting to continue some strange experiment on him he started years ago as well as admitting to the conspiracy with Chris Bradford on killing his mother and being in cahoots with Leo's aunt.

Raph shook his head as he remembered the night everything finally came together for Leo. His aunt's death, her knowledge of everything that was going on. It had torn him up inside. But in the end, some good had come out of it, if they could call it good. Leo's aunt had left him a large amount of money and Leo used that money to relocate his mother's body from California to New York a week after he buried his aunt.

During Spring Break, they returned to LA so Leo could go back to his mother's house and pack up what was his. He made arrangements to put the house up for sale. Since it was never put in his step-father's name, he was next of kin and was free to do with it as he wanted. He hired movers to assist with the things he wanted to keep and send to New York to be put in a storage unit and hired a Real Estate Agent to take care of the sale. After everything was done, he and Raph came back to New York and shortly after, his mother's body followed.

He then made arrangements to sell his aunt's apartment. Turned out that she actually owned it and since he was her only next of kin, as was stated in the will that the apartment was to be his, Leo had decided he could never go back into it let alone keep it after his aunt's murder. So he once again hired people to take care of it and refused to step foot in it, which Raph completely understood. Leo was doing everything he could to move forward and put the past behind him for good. So Raph had gone in and got Leo's stuff out as well as most of his aunt's personal belongings and left the rest of the furnishings for the real estate company to deal with.

Now, Raph watched as Leo placed a small bouquet of flowers on his mother's grave. He whispered loving words to her before turning to a slightly older grave next to it; his Aunt Irma's grave. He placed flowers on it and once again spoke words of love before turning to Raph.

He walked down the path and smiled lovingly at him. "Isn't your mom's grave just on the other side of the cemetery? Leo asked. "You've have yet to bring me over there, maybe you'd like to do that now and pay your respects to her?"

Raph put his arms around Leo's waist and gazed into his blue eyes. It was good to see Leo looking happy after all he had gone through. If there was one thing he had come to discovered about him from the start was that Leo was a very determined turtle, and when he set his mind to something, he was determine to see that it would happen.

But at this request, Raph shook his head. "Not this time." He replied with a smile. "Maybe another day." Leo frowned at him but didn't push the matter.

They kissed tenderly before putting their helmets on and getting onto Raph's bike. As they were just about to leave, Raph looked at Leo in his rear view mirror and noticed Leo looking around nervously. "Something wrong babe?"

"I just can't shake the feeling that someone is watching me…or…us." Leo muttered, his eyes searching over the area he had just been at.

Raph got the bike in gear and shook his head. "You've been feeling like this ever since we got back from LA." He told him rather hesitantly. "Are you sure your not just feeling a bit…um… paranoid, what with everything that happened and all." It was more of a statement then a question.

Leo glared at him from behind. "No, I'm not just being paranoid." He said rather hotly. He put his arms around Raph's waist and looked back at the two graves as Raph drove the bike out of the cemetery and toward home.

As they drove off, Leo continued to look over to his mom and aunt's grave site, still feeling a strange overwhelming sense of being watched, but still, he saw nothing so he forced himself to look away and revel in the fact that his mom was finally home.

But what the turtle didn't see, just beyond the graves, several feet away from the where he had just been, hiding behind a mausoleum, stood a tall lanky man with lightly sandy brown hair and brown eyes filled with anger and hate. In his hands, he had a camera that held a long range telephoto lens. As Raph drove off, the man took pictures of the two turtles, an angry twisted scowl on his mouth and a murderous look forming in his eyes as he took photo after photo of the two turtles.

"I promised you I'd never let you go Leonardo" Jeffrey Moore seethed, his angry eyes narrowing. "And I always keep my promises. You will be mine again and this...Raphael…will be nothing more then a mere memory." He clenched his fist in anger around the strap of the camera. "Once I get through with him."