Thanks, Llama! I appreciate the kind words! And thanks for visiting my site (you, too, Splinter!)!

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are the property of Mirage-- 'Nuff said.

It is nostalgia that brings Splinter to this first place he lived on his own.

He looks around. He doesn't remember it being so small.

But then, he was very small himself when he first came here.

He looks in the direction of the tunnel that leads to the surface-- the surface near his old home, when he was a pet rat with his beloved Master Yoshi. He wonders briefly if he could go take a quick look-- then decides that it would not only be foolish, but dangerous as well.

"What would you think of my life, I wonder?" he muses, thinking of his master. "What advice would you give me if you could?"

He sighs, then makes the place as tidy and habitable as possible.

The old pipe where he slept is uninhabited-- no animals have been living here. He cleans it out, and finds it a tight fit but suitable for sitting in for meditation-- though it might be too cramped for sleeping in.

Camp is set up in no time.

He sits in the pipe, and starts to calm his spirit, starts to meditate in spite of the lateness of the day.

But all he can think of is four baby turtles tipping over the coffee can he'd placed them in; four baby turtles that suddenly looked bigger than the day before when he'd found them.

He opens his eyes and sighs in frustration.

He wants to meditate, not recall old memories.

He needs guidance for the future, not reminders of the past.

He needs guidance for the future, because the events of this morning have shown him that somewhere he is doing his sons more harm than good.

"I am not surprised they are growing up," he says to himself. "I did not think that I was treating them like children-- though they are children-- my children. My sons. Was I wrong to try to send them to their rooms this morning?"

And he tries to recall exactly why things unfolded the way they did today.

Perhaps he has no right to be angry, he thinks. Perhaps Raphael is right-- they are no longer children, and it wasn't fair to try to ground them for something as simple as what they'd done.

"I am getting old," he decides. "I am not fit to train them any more. They need no further training. They can survive on their own."

And he takes out his Rememberal and meditates on it.

And "visits" with his Master Yoshi.

He doesn't recall much of what passes in this meditation, until just before it ends.

Training never ends, he thinks he hears as plain as day, and it startles him out of his trance.

He looks around for the source of the voice, on guard-- sniffing, listening, feeling.

It had sounded like Master Yoshi.

He calms down finally, realizing that it was just a trick of his imagination-- or else a voice in a vision during meditation.

He realizes it is late, so he heats up his water and prepares a simple meal of tea and rice, with fruit for afterwards. Then he sets various traps to warn him of intruders, and goes to sleep in the cramped pipe-- for old times sake.

He spends the next two days meditating, but his meditations bring no further enlightenment.

As a matter of fact, he finds that he is spending less and less time meditating and more and more time worrying about what is going on back home.

He envisions the kind of trouble Michelangelo and Raphael have probably gotten into through fighting.

He imagines Donatello blowing up various parts of the Lair-- mainly through the interference of Michelangelo, but still--

He pictures Leonardo trying to take his place as Sensei, causing friction among his brothers, and he quickly banishes that vision from his head as foolish. Leonardo would do his best to not cause friction.

Though, he does manage to get into his fair share of fights with Raphael...

Mainly over these types of situations...

Meditate, Splinter! Meditate! Calm yourself! They are not children!

No, they are teenagers, which is worse.

Once again, Splinter is startled out of his meditation by the voice of his Master Yoshi.

He drinks several cups of green tea, and thinks about these two incidents.

Perhaps Master Yoshi is trying to contact him-- like he did regarding Shredder.

But why? This is just a family matter.

Family, he hears in his head.

He makes up his mind. This will require the utmost concentration and energy.

He goes to bed, and prepares for the task at hand. He will need a lot of rest if he is to do this.

First light, he eats a light meal, arranges things in a specific manner, and then makes himself as comfortable as possible.

Holding the Rememberal, he goes into the deepest meditation trance that he has ever managed, all the time concentrating on three things: Master Yoshi, his sons, and family.

He spends many blank hours in his mind, concentrating on these things-- time is hard to judge when entering a deep trance.

Then he realizes he is in the middle of a conversation.

It is quite simple, Splinter-san, he hears, as he sees his Master sitting across from him in some unknown place. They are still young, but they are feeling the restrictions more than ever. You know this as well as I do. They are no longer children, but they are far from adult. I think you acted a little childishly yourself.

Yes, I agree, Sensei he responds. And I do tend to be overly protective of them. With just cause.

And through memory he gives examples of the many dangers that his sons have encountered and survived-- from their first encounter with the Foot to their battles with Shredder; from their squabbles with each other to the discovery of the Utroms and their unexpected voyage into space; from their battles with their Sensei to their battles with Triceratons, and Drako, and Bishop-- all of these things he shares with his Master Yoshi-- all that they have encountered and survived.

Yes, my Splinter-- encountered and survived. Due to your training. Due to your upbringing. Due to your love. You will always be a parent to them. That is the way of the world. And they will challenge you and rebel against you-- that, too, is the way of the world.

And Splinter is treated to some memories of a young Hamato Yoshi defying father and sensei alike at times-- showing rebellious and stubborn traits that remind him of his own sons-- showing the same foolish behavior as his sons--

-- the same foolish behavior as his sons!

And Splinter is amused to see other traits of all four of his sons in this vision of his master as a teenager: Leonardo's perfectionism, Raphael's temper, Donatello's inventiveness, and Michelangelo's humor.

And yet his training continued, and he became a Guardian in spite of his clashes with adults and foolish behavior as a teenager.

And Splinter sees that these rebellious and stubborn traits he showed his father and Sensei helped him in the end, when he was defiant to Shredder in the face of death.

And he comes out of his trance with tears streaming down his face and the words of his beloved Master Yoshi whispering in his mind.

Training and Family-- both never end.

Splinter has no idea how long he has been in trance-- though the stiffness of his legs and back, along with the dimness, indicates that he has been at it since early morning, and it must be now sometime in the early evening.

He gets up and moves stiffly and slowly, and prepares a small meal, and some tea, and after thinking about what has transpired, finally goes to sleep outside of the pipe.

He wakes in the dark to find four turtles sleeping rather close to him, and it startles him for several reasons, most among them the fact that he never heard them arrive.

"Or else I did, subconsciously, and knew there was no threat," he says to himself.

He has little room to move, as they have managed to squeeze in as close as possible-- like they used to in the early days, when one would suffer a nightmare and he'd hear the age-old words: "Can I sleep with you?"

And he would wake up later, after letting in one, to sometimes find all four in bed with him, and no room to move.

He sits in the dark, and yet can make out their features as clear as day.

To the untrained eye, they are indistinguishable, but Splinter is familiar with every subtle difference in their features, and can tell them apart even in the dark, even when they are asleep.

He spends some quiet time just looking at them.

Then he goes back to sleep.

Let them make the first move in the morning, he decides. He will not set the tone.

After all, they came looking for him. It is up to them to set the tone.

They are up before him, making breakfast as quietly as possible-- but he has been awake long before them.

He toys with the idea of keeping them waiting, then remembers the words of Master Yoshi: I I think you acted a little childishly yourself. /i

So he sits up, and doesn't pretend to be surprised.

After all, they aren't stupid.

"Good morning, my sons," he says, and they all smile-- it's the first time since this business began that he has called them "my sons" instead of by their names.

"Good morning, Sensei!" they say in unison, grinning. Then they stop what they are doing and, as one, kneel and bow to their master.

"Please accept our apologies, Sensei, for our behavior," Leo once again says, speaking for all of them.

This time he acknowledges them by kneeling and bowing to them.

"Please accept my apology for my actions and reactions, my sons," he says simply, and they are shocked and make him sit up, protesting that he should not apologize to them! It's unthinkable! They were in the wrong! Etc. etc. etc.

"We will discuss it later, at home," Splinter says, and they eat breakfast together, quietly but happily.

"Well, I assume you were out on a training run, and happened to accidentally find yourselves here with me," he says as breakfast ends, giving them the face-saving "out".

They look at each other, and shake their heads.

"Nope, we were shamelessly looking for our dear old Dad," Raph voices the truth.

"We didn't think we could wait any longer for you to return," Don says.

"We couldn't stand being in the Lair without you," Leo adds.

"And besides, there was nothing good on tv anyway," Mike jokes-- and Splinter is the only one who doesn't looked shocked or upset at what Mike has said.

They spend the rest of the morning cleaning up, packing up, and slowly making their way home.

Don returns the stove to April, then hurries home to be with his family.

That evening, after dinner, they come to some understandings.

Splinter will attempt to not overreact or treat them as if they are little children.

They will attempt to not act childish when he does treat them like little children.

Grounding is still an acceptable punishment-- but the reasons must be for more than just what had upset Splinter in the first place.

They all agree that their training is far from over, and that they are not adults yet-- especially Splinter, who admits that he was the one who had jumped to the wrong conclusion through his pique-- and he apologizes to Raphael for his words of earlier.

Raph, of course, accepts this apology by saying Sensei should not be apologizing to him.

And he promises to always be their father.

"Even when you are no longer my students, I will always be your father. Even when I am gone, I will always be your father. And you will always be my sons. My sons."

And even Raph is wiping tears away at that statement.

And when he says good night to each of them, he makes sure that he calls each one "my son".

And for some reason, it doesn't surprise him to wake up in the middle of the night to find four turtles sleeping uninvited in his room.

Though he regrets the fact that he can barely move, as they have crowded in so close...