𝙎𝙃𝙀 𝘾𝘼𝙈𝙀 𝙁𝙍𝙊𝙈 𝙏𝙃𝙀 𝙎𝙏𝘼𝙍𝙎 the first time around.

Just as she does in every other timeline in every other universe. However, in this particular mystic-filled universe, in this particular timeline where the Krang prevailed and killed the Earth, Stevie Carter crashed-landed.

"Oh, shit, shit, shit!" She had cursed as her trusty spaceship — the Harlow — was losing altitude and fast.

Her ship had been blasting The Smiths who were singing about panic on the streets of London.

See, here's the thing.

Stevie had been born on Earth just over nineteen years ago. She had been born in the midst of summer on a particularly hot day in Phoenix, Arizona. Her mother was named Harlow Carter.

Her father ... well that was complicated. He was a traveler, a space traveler that was.

Ton-Yong came from a race called the Kree. He was visiting the Earth when he met Harlow, and he whisked her away on an adventure in space.

Stevie was the product of this union — a humanoid girl who was half-human and half-Kree.

Stevie's mother died when she was young, she had been eight. Her father took Stevie away from Earth after that, claiming that the Earth was too painful to live in without his Harlow. Stevie grew up as a traveler of the stars, never staying on one planet all that long.

Even Grace, the world of the Kree was a place her father would only be at for so long. They visited Grace a lot though, after all, her grandparents and aunts and uncles all lived there.

And eventually, when Stevie was old enough she came back periodically to visit the Earth. Specifically to visit her mother's grave and to keep up with everything that had happened in her time away. Specifically the newest movies and music.

She was quite a fan of her home planet's pop culture.

However, on this particular visit, as Stevie flew her spaceship that was still fairly new (2 years old, to be exact, and named after her mother) she had been shot down.

Now, that was odd.

But to her horror, she was greeted by a planet that her been overtaken by an invasive species called the Krang. Her ship crashed in the plains of Oklahoma, and she barely made it out alive.

Seeing as she was now trapped on this newly horrible Earth, something that brought tears to the girl's eyes and all but destroyed her, she managed to survive on her own for a few good months before she ran into the resistance.

The resistance had been ambushed by the Krang, and Stevie swooped in with her rocket boots and blaster, and infinite lasso to help.

After all, an enemy of the Krang was a friend of hers.

She still remembered the look on Leonardo's face when she appeared. Her mask had been pulled down, the girl's clothing tattered and worn. However, she came guns blazing.

She had used her Kree lasso in taking down one of the monstrous creatures of the Krang before blowing its head off with a bright blue burst from her blaster.

When she turned back to Leon who had been by himself at the time, he was staring at her in wonder.

When she was confident there was no more threat, she had shoved up her mask revealing her features. Leo had been even more starstruck when he was greeted by a pretty face of freckles. Her eyes shone brightly — they were a beautiful swirling mixture of purples, pinks, and blues.

They reflected the cosmos.

Her hair had been dark, the ends pink from when she first crash-landed on Earth.

His eyes remained wide, the normally very talkative slider silent.

She had bent down to his level and the happy smile that she gave him had his heart-stopping on the spot. So bright and full of joy despite everything around, despite the living hell that was his fault.

"You good?" She had asked, voice a tad itchy from the recent fight and lack of water.

And it was then as Leo was examining the bags under her eyes, a clear sign of more than a fair amount of restless nights. Leonardo deducted immediately that the girl was on her own.

"Oh no," she had gasped, gently prodding at his head with fingers, far softer than they should have been in this kind of a world, "your head..." she had mumbled.

For the first time since the world had gone to shit (it was now a whopping eleven months and twelve days) Leo's eyes glistened with pure wonder.

In seconds he threw himself into a standing position. He had grown since everything had gone down, he was only slightly taller than before but much more muscular from putting his body through it every day.

As Stevie could now see just how much bigger the turtle mutant actually was to her, she took a few cautious steps back.

"Female Jupiter Jim?" Leo found himself saying at a loss for words.

Stevie tilted her head at this, but a smile ate at her lips. "Not quite," she expressed before holding out her arm, a common Earth custom if she remembered correctly, "I'm Stevie..."

Leonardo smoothly slid up to her side and smoothed his bald head as though he had luscious locks.

"Neon Leon at your service..." he spoke, flamboyant as ever.

It was the start of something beautiful in a world as ugly as the Earth had turned into.

Leonardo took her back to base with him — she was shocked when he used his swords to portal them somewhere in what used to be New York City. She met the others soon after, and Donnie was equally as mystified as Leo but for different reasons.

Reasons that had to do with her technology and scientific knowledge that was not of Earth.

It was not long before she was an official part of their family. Her hope was contagious, her laughter and brightness spread throughout them all like wildfire. And upon learning of her origin, and how she spoke of the stars — well, that just about did for them all. The long-time fanatics of the Jupiter Jim movie series.

Especially for Leo who seemed to love the thought of the vast cosmos more than all of them.

When she told them of other worlds, other galaxies with so many different peoples, so many different cultures, and so many different stories: hope burned brighter than it had in a very long time for the turtles, April, and Cassandra.

She promised to take them with her to the stars... when she was able to fix her starship that was.

After a few months of description, Leo was finally able to track down where she needed to go and he managed to portal both she and Don to it.

Stevie was hopeful that with Donnie's help, they could get her demolished ship up and running again. Or at least get it running well enough that they could take it to the Zantar.

Zantar was the nearest planet with enough intelligence that they could get the ship properly fixed, or if the condition was too bad, just sell what was left of it altogether and buy a new ship.

Her hope and promises to take them away from this terrible planet to start a new life were enough to give everyone inspiration. Inspiration to do more than just survive till the next day: there was the inspiration to survive so that they may live new lives.

Start anew with each other.

She was Stevie Carter, space explorer: the girl who came from the stars and promised to take them with her when she went back. She was everything that Leonardo could ever want and more, especially considering the shitty hand that had been dealt to them.

Stevie became Leonardo's hope, she became the inspiration for his jokes and one-liners and his bright smile: all of which that had been temporarily lost in the months since the Krang won.

It was not long until Stevie became his.

They were flirting within days of meeting each other, kissing within weeks, and officially girlfriend-boyfriend within months. Marriage came fast — Leo realized that in this world they could lose each other on any given day, and he did not want to wait.

He proposed just over a year after meeting and they were officially married (by Donatello, thank you very much) one year and four months after meeting.

They moved around a lot during the first few years of living in the wastelands of Earth. But Don and Stevie did their best to go to Stevie's crashed starship — the Harlow — and work on it when they had a chance.

It was not an easy feat, and they knew it would take years.

When Cassandra fell pregnant (by some dude she met in the wastelands who sadly died not long after the two met) they all managed to get a semi-permanent base somewhere in what used to be Philly.

It was hidden from the Krang and was underground. They were very careful about the location of their main base of operations, the underground bunker which soon became their home.

Casey Jones Jr. was born on a cold day in December.

Leonardo was his master in ninjutsu. They took in more survivors as time passed, and soon it was a whole operation. A working resistance. Michelangelo taught those who were strong in the mystic arts. Donatello took those with a keen knack for engineering and medical knowledge. Leon and Raph trained the warriors.

April served as a commander of the resistance along with Stevie and Cassandra.

The years of danger seemed to pass quickly, and losses happened at every corner. Finally, a real hard-hitting loss happened when Cassandra did not come back from a mission. Everyone took it upon themselves to raise Casey, as they had already been, but it was different now.

Leonardo and Stevie were the real parents; however, that became apparent very quickly after Cassandra died. Casey rarely left either of their sides, the little boy with eyes far too big for his face would often be seen hanging from Leon's shell when he was at the base or clinging to Stevie's side.

Stevie made sure to keep the wonder alive in the little boy as he grew. Teaching him the fun things in life that could often be lost just as Leon tried to do. Master Leonardo took one of his trainings to teach him how to dance until Donnie saw and cut in.

Donnie immediately took over which started a fight between the turtles who were once-upon-a-time called the disaster twins as to who was the better dancer. Stevie then caught wind of this and took over the lesson claiming that both of them knew nothing as opposed to her knowledge that spanned more of the universe than either could dream.

Both grumbled as they could not deny that point.

After Cassandra, the family was spared another major heartache for quite a few years. About five, almost six years to be exact.

Now, it was not supposed to be possible. At least when looked at it from the standpoint of human DNA mixing with turtle-mutant DNA. Even though the brothers were part human, it was not enough to mix with a full DNA human.

However, Stevie was not fully human either.

But they were unsure as to how Kree's genetics went. But all signs pointed to it still being impossible if not highly unlikely that any breeding could happen between the two species.

It had been a day just like any other. Everyone had known that Donatello and Stevie were getting rather close in their engineering of the ship. According to them, the Harlow was nearly back online and ready to go.

And that particular day, it had happened. One last loose screw had been tightened to the newly fixed console when the entire starship had buzzed to life, a whirring sound that Stevie had not heard for a very long time.

The lights had come on, the ship buzzed loudly and the engines were warming. Donnie's eyes widened in shock before they turned to glee. Stevie's eyes, on the other hand, had widened in horror.

She rushed forward, desperately trying to shut it off, but it was too late.

Donnie was confused at first until Stevie hurried to explain it.

The ship, as it had been offline for so long was originally coded to send a distress signal if it could. By coming to life so suddenly, that signal had no doubt been sent to the nearest starship.

AKA, it most likely would have alerted a Krang ship.

And Stevie was right because Donnie was barely able to get a hold of Leo before the Krang were closing in on them. It was a decision that had to be made.

The Krang would kill them anyway but not before they would forcibly read their minds to find the base. And no one from the base was in any state to form a rescue mission, not before the Krang got what they needed from Stevie and Donnie's minds, at least.

There was no other option.

Unless they chose to try and blast off with a cold engine, and with the starship in such a state it no doubt would cause for a very big explosion. Killing themselves but also the majority of the Krang surrounding them in the process.

It was a no-brainer.

Stevie Carter and Donatello Hamato had died that day along with the last hope of getting away from the Earth that the others had. The hope that had kept them all moving for the past two decades.

A few weeks after Don and Stevie died, Leonardo and April had been going through Donnie's lab when they found the test results. Against all odds and after two decades — Leon had actually done what the others constantly teased him about.

Leonardo had knocked Stevie up.

Leonardo was never the same after that — losing his wife and twin brother on the same day. And his unborn child.

That was the day Leonardo's hope shattered.