#mikey saw his ghost form again when splinter had an emotional meltdown after their talk

[skeleton-in-a-hoodie]

Donnie and Leo do eventually stop being furious with Splinter. They've not forgiven him, and they're still angry, but they can be in the same room as him without looking like they want to set him on fire.

Splinter is relieved, but decides he is not going to push his luck, so continues to give them space. If they want to talk to him they can, but he's not going to force them.

When Leo is ready to talk to Splinter, he kinda follows Mikey's lead and asks Splinter if they can talk. Leo also brought him some tea as an icebreaker, and only realised when Splinter just stared at it that Splinter properly can't drink it anymore. The awkardness that creates actually helps. Like it's less the serious conversation Leo thought it'd be, and now it's just them trying to quickly get rid of the weird atmosphere.

(There are some ghost stories of people leaving them offerings and the ghosts taking it, so I don't know if Leo making the tea and giving it to Splinter would count, and if it did if that'd mean he could drink it)

It's... not a bad conversation. Parts of it are difficult to get through, and they get close to arguing more than once, but Leo feels better after the fact. And before Leo goes to rejoin his brothers, he asks Splinter if they can start having stratergy meetings again.

Donnie sort of asks Splinter to talk, sorta doesn't. He wants to know how ghosts works, and figures if they're real, then chances are more likely than not that he and his brothers will have to deal with them at some point. Donnie essentially asks Splinter if he can take some samples to experiment with.

... it's the single weirdest olive branch Splinter has ever heard, but he agrees anyway.

His son asks quetions before, during and after taking the samples. To begin with they're mostly aimed at figuring out how Splinter works now and how his powers function (he can't really answer many properly, because he has no idea) but eventually segue into other topics. Donnie tells Splinter outright that he's not forgiven him and isn't happy with him at all, and Splinter tells him that's okay.

There is one other thing Donnie asks and Splinter instinctually wants to say no: Donnie wants to see his ghost form again. When Splinter relents, he does say that he doesn't know how to change on command - usually he reverts to that form regardless of what he wants. If Donnie wants to see that then his best bet is in the morning, before training. Splinter doesn't know why but he reverts to tha form when he sleeps, and that time of day is dedicated to not looking like a monster.