Journey's end

Ch 6. Dealing With The Past

"Are you sure you want to do this now babe?" Raph asked Leo, watching Leo unlock and open the small storage unit where Leo was keeping things from both his mom's house and his aunt's apartment.

"I have to Raph." Leo told him, grunting, he pushed the doors up and stepped inside. He looked at the various size boxes with a look of sadness. There were only about a dozen boxes, but it still was overwhelming for him to look at everything that was his past. "It's going to be a year in April since we've brought these things here, and I've put it off long enough." He turned to look at Raph. "If you want to go wait in the truck, I can bring them over by myself." He made his way over to the closest box.

Raph walked with him and hugged him from behind. He nuzzled his neck which made Leo giggle. "I'll stay and help." He told him. "Besides, I'm kinda curious about some of the things that had to come back from LA with you."

He walked over to a box marked books and went through it. "Look at all the books on war and ancient Japan." He exclaimed, pulling out one book after another. "Do you want to keep them all?"

"Not sure." Leo replied absentmindedly looking through another box. "I'm going to bring them home and go through them there." He stood up and pulled out a snow globe wrapped in bubble wrap. He unwrapped it and looked at the snow globe intently. It showed the Statue of Liberty surrounded by New York City in a snowstorm. "My mom brought this out to LA with her." Raph saw the sad smile come across Leo's face as he thought back. "After my fath…Saki died, or disappeared rather, I remember her telling me that she wanted to come back here." He moved the snow globe around making the 'snow' fall.

"But you didn't." Raph pointed out. "Is it because Bradford came into the picture?"

Leo nodded and put the snow globe back in the box. He pulled out another item wrapped in bubble wrap. He carefully unwrapped it to show it was a 'Precious Moment's figurine' of a young boy and girl in dutch clothing leaning in and kissing. Each held something behind their backs, the girl had a book and the boy had a bouquet of flowers. Leo looked at the figurine and then wrapped it back up. He swallowed hard and was about to pull out another item when Raph put a hand on his hand making him stop to look up at him.

"Let's get these things back home." He told him with a tender smile. Since there were not that many boxes, Raph figured his pick-up truck would be enough. He grabbed hold of another box and looked inside in amazement. "There has got to be at least a dozen trophies in here." He exclaimed. "And what's with all these Space Hero comics?"

"Not a dozen trophies, only ten." Leo told him with a shy smile. "And Space Heroes is my favorite show. I use to want to be just like Captain Ryan, he was my hero as a little kid." He explained. Raph gave a light chuckle and continued to dig through the box.

Leo watched as Raph pulled out what looked to be a photo of someone and saw his eyes narrow. "Who is this?" Raph asked. He sounded almost jealous as he held out the picture.

Leo took it and stared in confusion at the picture. "I thought I destroyed this." He muttered. He turned away from Raph and frowned at the picture in anger. Raph stared at the picture over Leo's shoulder. It was a picture of Leo with a tall human boy of about eighteen. He had dark brown eyes and dark brown messy hair with a shaved beard. He had his arms wrapped around Leo from behind and had his head leaning on top of Leo's head. While the human smiled happily, Leo's smile was small and timid.

"Care to tell me who he is?" Raph asked, his voice had a demanding tone about it and Leo turned back to him with a look of surprise.

"If you must know." Leo shot back rather angrily at Raph's sudden attitude. "He's my ex."

"I thought you said I was your first." Raph actually sounded as though he was accusing Leo of infidelity.

Leo was taken aback by Raph's sudden attitude. "I said I never had a lover before and you WERE my first." He insisted. "I had a boyfriend before you but it never went anywhere." He quickly began to rip the picture into small pieces and shoved them into the box. "After only a month of dating, I found out he was a big-time jerk and I quickly broke it off." He roughly grabbed the box out of Raph's hands and headed out of the storage bin. "I don't even know how that got in there but now that you know, can we please keep going?" Leo walked toward the truck and put the box in the bed. He then proceeded to go back into the storage unit and continued to get more boxes. For the rest of the time, he didn't speak to Raph but instead, kept focus on his work.