Disclaimer: Not mine. TMNT belongs to Nick.

A/N: This is an idea I have had for a while, and the plot has going through many revisions before I got to the point where I felt I had solid story. Many of the themes/characters are drawn from the 2012 verse, but there are elements from other series in here as well.

"By itself, a year seems finite and self-contained. But break it down...52 weeks, 365 days...and a year appears to become a much longer distance to traverse. And when a brother is gone...that year morphs into an insurmountable chasm with no definable beginning or end. It is a chasm without hope, without compromise, where two of my brothers and I have been clinging to the sides in unspoken desperation. For a whole year we have searched the depths, into the reaching darkness for even the faintest glimmer of light. I fear if we cannot find the light soon, all of us will be swallowed by the night…"

Michelangelo's pen moved deftly over the crinkled page of his journal, tears rimming his eyes as he recorded his innermost thoughts. The words flowed with unbridled honesty, the privacy of his writings enabling him to drop the pretense he held around others. He had no need to hide here, no need to hold back. Everything was laid out - sharp and painful and twisting in his gut; but regardless was a stark truth he wished he could deny as a fading nightmare.

Closing his journal slowly, he placed it back in the drawer to his desk and got to his feet with much reluctance. He knew what awaited him outside of his room: a hushed, oppressive silence covering layers of unspoken guilt like a thick coating of unwanted dust. And in the times that the heavy quiet was broken, Mikey was forced to battle the tides, sanding the shores against two raging forces: brothers who used to be so rational, so logical, now reduced to…

...ever since…

He hated to think about it.

He glanced wistfully at a picture on his desk of himself and his three brothers. He picked it up gently and held it reverently in his hands as if it were a sacred artifact. Three of the siblings were smiling widely at the camera. Michelangelo's eyes focused on the fourth, whose stoic expression allowed only the slightest upturn to the sides of his mouth, but whose expressive green eyes gave away everything.

"Has it really been a year, Raphie?" Mike asked of the picture, obviously knowing he would get no reply. Sometimes it was just nice to hear a voice - even if it was his own - that wasn't laced with bitter accusations and blame.

The image of the bright red mask in the picture blurred as the tears grew upon him mentioning his brother's name. The word felt foreign and uncomfortable on his lips, his mouth clumsily forming itself around each letter. That simple realization was the ice chipper that broke the elaborate frigid sculpture Mike had formed himself into over the last year, the tears falling like the melting of a spring thaw. He hastily replaced the picture on the desktop, face down.

"You always used to call me a crybaby," Mike said, letting out an uneasy, derisive chuckle.

He had known before bed last night that today - the anniversary - was not going to be easy. A day is not tangible - just a moment in time and a number on a calendar, but this one Mike felt he could reach out and touch...a weight in the very air around him holding on with nothing but a promise of more empty tomorrows.

"But," he sniffed, continuing, "no use for these anymore." He hurriedly wiped his eyes with the back of his wrist band. "It's not going to change anything. You're still gone."

As much as part of him didn't want to, he felt a sudden need to get away from the picture; a need to get away from everything, from nothing…from what exactly he wasn't sure. But the urge was overwhelming.

With light footsteps echoing the stillness around him, he made his way down the stairs, ending up in the kitchen. One of the few joys he still experienced was in cooking. He felt pride in the fact that he could craft nourishment from the odds and ends they kept in the fridge and cupboards to feed his family. It was a small comfort, and a task he took to heart.

The pots and pans he gathered clattered off each other, the sound seeming to multiply upon itself in the otherwise stagnant aura of the lair. He mused upon that as he cooked with robotic precision; cracking eggs...it was as if his family were stuck in a single moment in time; sizzling bacon...they refused to move on; popping toast...a whole year had passed and yet it was like yesterday.

Despite not feeling in a cheery mood himself, Mike arranged the eggs and bacon on four plates into smiley faces. He knew no one would notice, but it was the small details such as this that the young turtle tried to stick to. It was habit for Mikey, and something Raph had always jokingly given him grief about...which now had become Mike's silent, unspoken tribute to his brother.

He wiped his hands on the dish towel and headed out to gather his family for breakfast. His first destination was the dojo, where - like clockwork - the disciplined Leonardo was training. Splinter was meditating under the tree at the center of the dojo, a single stick of incense burning next to the ninja master, its smoke snaking into the air in erratic curves.

Leo's brow shown with the sheen of a fine layer of sweat, his eyes narrowed and intense in his concentration. One katana clenched between two hands, the other in the sheath behind his shell, Mike watched as Leo brought it about in graceful arc after graceful arc. The blade reflected the sunlight which filtered in from the grating above the tree flashing dancing reflections upon the walls. Each move of the young leaders' was timed and precise, but was much more mechanical than it used to be. Leo's ninjutsu used to exude his love of the art, not just his dedication, but how it was a part of his very being. Now... even as he had gained in skill, it was as if the spirit had been drained from him and all that remained was one of Donatello's pre-programmed automatons.

"Leo, Master Splinter," Mike cleared his throat to gain their attention. "Breakfast is ready."

Leo grunted an acknowledgement, but had not even broken the kata. His brow furrowed behind his blue mask as if irritated by the interruption. One of Splinter's ears twitched before his brown eyes opened and he regarded his youngest son with a distant sadness. The sensei gathered his jade topped staff in one clawed hand and then raised himself to his feet to head out of the dojo.

As he passed, he said in a hushed, but grateful tone, "Thank you, Michelangelo, as always, for keeping your brothers fed. I will see you soon in the kitchen."

Mike nodded appreciatively before turning his attention back to his oldest sibling. "Come on, Leo, I made your favorite: eggs and bacon and toast. If you don't hurry, the toast will get all cold and chewy and I know you hate it when it's like that…"

Leonardo stopped mid-kata in a sharp motion and sheathed the katana. His ocean blue eyes met Mike's baby blue with a look of hardened steel, tempered into a cold sharpness. The leader then wordlessly left, his agitation radiating off of him like hot rays from the sun on stifling summer day.

Mike tried not to let it get to him, as he did every day, but Leo's attitude still hurt. The orange masked turtle knew it was Leo's way of grieving...but it was unfortunately as dysfunctional as a certain other brother of his...

Raph would not have wanted it this way... Mike thought morosely to himself as he spanned the distance from the dojo to Don's lab and gave the large door a cautious knock.

"Enter!" came the muffled, gruff reply from the other side.

Michelangelo slid open the door carefully, just enough to let himself squeeze through, and shut it behind himself. The sheer size of Don's lab rivaled that of the dojo itself, but the darkness in which the genius kept it made it seem so much more substantial and imposing than the training room. Besides the pinpoints of light from various inventions blinking from the shadows, the only illumination was from a lamp placed on the desk in which Donatello was working. Don's form was silhouetted by the meager light, from which Mikey could hardly make out his details. The purple clad turtle was faced away from his younger brother, his shell like an insurmountable barrier separating the siblings. Don appeared still except for the slight movements of his shoulders as he worked on a project.

Mikey immediately felt awkward and nervous, Don's lab nothing even resembling the lively hubbub of ingenuity that it used to. Now it seemed as if he were an intruder, a foreigner invading an enemy camp.

"Ummm, D?" Mikey asked tentatively. "Breakfast is...ummm...ready and since you didn't eat last night...I thought that...ummm...you would want to eat…"

"Stop saying 'umm'," Don chastised in a clipped tone. "It makes you sound uneducated."

Mike winced at the comment, eyes squinting painfully shut, but as he did with Leo, he tried not to take it to heart.

"Donnie…" Mikey said in a pleading tone. "You need to eat."

"Is Leonardo going to be there?"

"Well, yah, D…"

Donatello replied darkly, "Then I will eat later."

"Donnie, I thought that we could all eat together, especially today -"

"I'm aware of what today is, Mike," Donatello said coldly as he reached for a tool grasping it so tightly that it bit sharply into his palm. He added as a mumbled afterthought, "Doesn't matter."

"But it does matter, Donnie," Mikey protested.

As if Mikey had caught him in a lie, Don pushed his chair back and rose to his feet. He calmly put down his tool and turned to face his brother. Michelangelo swore he would never get used to the haggard look to Don's face, the deep circles under his brown eyes that shone through the bottom of his purple mask.

In a rare glimmer of his old self, Don's voice and expression softened, "I'm sorry...Of course it does, Mikey. I will try...for you."

"Thanks, Donnie," Michelangelo said gratefully.

Mikey allowed a weak, hopeful smile to play at the corners of his mouth. Maybe today, as Mike desperately hoped, would mark a new beginning and they would finally begin to heal.

A/N: Thoughts? The vagueness of this first chapter was purposeful. Things will start to piece together as it goes along.