Dr Don - Chapter 5

Mikey's gaze was almost tip-toeing over Raph's body, as if he thought a direct stare could hurt him.

The red masked turtle was still suffering from the repercussions of the rocephin injection. But it was unclear how much, since his efforts to hide his condition were nothing short of admirable. He was breathing unsteadily, changing from deep inhales to short ragged ones, as if he couldn't figure out which kind of breathing would ease his agony the best. He had persistently buried his face into the soft mattress beneath him, allowing himself a false sense of solitude in his discomfort. He only looked up occasionally when breathing through the thick fabric got too difficult. Sometimes, a sudden sound of pain escaped him, which would immediately be followed by a period of complete silence where the turtle wouldn't even let himself breathe too loud.

Mikey's big, sympathetic eyes were brimming with a compulsive need to help his brother, but he had no idea how. He wasn't used to seeing Raph like this, no one was. The hothead's resistance to pain was of legendary proportions, and Mikey knew that he would go to ridiculous lengths just to prove how tough he was. Mikey couldn't tell if Raph wanted to be comforted, hear some encouraging words, or simply be left alone. The last option seemed the least likely to result in a vicious response.

"Raph...?" Mikey carefully inquired, feeling it was his duty to at least try. "You okay there, bro? Can I do somethin' for ya...?"

The low, pained growl from the older turtle strongly implied that it took a great deal of willpower to not start yelling angrily at his little brother. He hid his face deeper into the mattress, shielding himself from the others. Like a hurt animal that didn't want to show weakness in front of its pack. But Mikey didn't seem offended though. Judging by his face, Leo could tell that this was one of those moments where Mikey actually had a situation perfectly clear to him. He knew he hadn't done anything wrong. And he knew that Raph's anger wasn't with him.

"... Do you think Donnie's being worse to Raph than to us?" Mikey asked Leo, carefully looking between the busy scientist at the desk and the green eyed turtle.

"I don't think Donnie knows that he's being worse to Raph," Leo theorized. Donnie and Raph were the brothers who had the least in common, sharing only a notoriously short temper. After years of verbal and physical abuse, it was only natural if the genius had developed some level of resentment towards the violent turtle. Perhaps the undiluted antibiotic was not an act of innocent neglect as much as payback for a lifetime's worth of bullying. But even if that was true, Leo doubted that Donnie was even aware of it. If anything, Donnie seemed to be just as much in the shadows of what was going on inside his head as the rest of them.

Leo kept a watchful eye on the tall turtle, making sure that Donnie was too preoccupied to notice Leo's struggling arm. Donnie had gone back to experimenting with his brothers' blood, and was studying a sample closely under a microscope to see if it reacted favorably with his attempted retro-mutagen.

"Great… Another reject batch," he sighed, and looked up from it with a disappointed glare as he removed the glass slide to discard the useless content. "You know, considering all the enemies we've been up against so far, I never thought my ultimate adversary would turn out to be biological repair systems and chemical agents..."

"I wouldn't be so quick to decide," Leo pointed out, while weakly trying to twist his arm free. "I think Raph punches harder than your samples..."

"Yeah, speaking of which," Donnie pondered, and curiously threw a glance at the turtle in question. "How is he holding up over there?"

"He's holding on. And not thanks to you," Leo replied, and tried to shoot him a narrow look, but felt too lightheaded to do it very well. "What's the point in giving him medicine if it only makes him feel worse than he did before?"

"It'll pass. Just give it some time," Donnie assured Leo, with a self-evident gesture. "Though exactly how much 'time' is a little unclear at this point. Are you sure you don't want me to give you something for the pain, Raph?"

"I'll give you something for the pain!" Raphael suddenly snapped at his brother, like a snare around an animal, ready to strangle it until it stopped twitching. "I'm gonna make your shell into an open casket and bury you in it! You hear me?!"

"It's kinda hard not to..." Donnie admitted and winced, indicating that the sudden rise of volume had caught him off guard. "Look, I'm asking because I don't know how long the pain is gonna last. It's a real possibility that you'll feel like this for hours, in which case I'm wondering if there's anything I can do to make you more comfortable?"

"I have an idea! Let me stab your leg with a piece of glass fifty times," Raph suggested, his eyes burning with the viciousness of a mythological beast that had awoken from its 1000-year slumber to destroy the world. "Then you can get me a bucket of water to shove that egg-head of yours into. We can call it even when ya start gasping for air and beg me to stop!"

"I really don't think that hurting me is gonna make your leg hurt less," Donnie reasoned, but scratched his cheek in an uncertain manner.

"And I really think we should put that to a test!" Raph bit back, baring his teeth at his brother in an animalistic way.

Leo was almost glad that his brother was restrained, because that threat sounded alarmingly close to a promise. He had no idea what Raph was capable of doing in this state, and Leo hoped he'd never have to find out.

"Dude… I can't even remember last time Raph lost it this bad," Mikey felt the need to point out, looking almost impressed. "You know… I feel like I should talk to him or something, but I don't think I want to..."

"It's called self-preservation," Leo stated with a sigh, taking a break from his escape-attempts when his right arm started to hurt. "Stay out of it until he's cooled off, or he'll lash out at you too. If this is what he needs to do to take his mind of the pain then by all means; let Raph have his tantrum. To be perfectly honest, I think Donnie had this one coming..."

The insults and threats were hailing over the scientist like a blizzard of raw, unfiltered rage. Mercilessly trying to do as much damaged as possible, with no sympathy for the target. Donnie endured it for almost a full minute before he made a tired sigh and got up from his desk. He walked over to the furious turtle, crouched in front of him, and just when Raph was about to unleash a new collection of discourtesies, Donnie picked up a lollipop and put it in his mouth. It silenced him instantly. Like a pacifier to an inconsolable child. Raph was momentarily paralyzed by the unexpected action, but then quickly spitted out the candy. He threw a murderous glare at the scientist, who had casually walked back to his desk.

"What the heck was that about?!" Raph called out, his eyes fixed upon Donnie as if he was the most hated object on the entire continent.

"I was hoping it would keep you quiet for a while," Donnie explained absently, as he stopped in front of a drawer.

"Are you completely brain-dead?!" Raph yelled furiously, almost turning hoarse from all the screaming.

"No, but I'm starting to feel another headache coming along," Donnie clarified, while tiredly rubbing his eyes with two fingers. He reached for something inside the drawer and came back with some sort of old-fashioned gas mask with a small canister attached to it. "I'm thinking it would be good for you to rest for a couple of minutes, don't you agree?"

"Oh no you don't!" Raph quickly exclaimed in objection, and flinched as Donnie approached him with the instrument. "No, don't you dare! Stay away from me!"

"Stay still," Donnie simply instructed, as he sat down next to his brother and covered his face with the transparent plastic. He pressed a switch on the canister, allowing the gas to fill the hothead's lungs. Raph's rapid breathing soon fogged the inside of the mask, completely hiding the turtle's features except from his panic-struck eyes.

He started twisting and turning his head, similar to a horse that refuses to wear a halter, frantically trying to get rid of the intrusive gear. But Donnie persistently kept it in place, using one hand to keep the mask on, and another to hold down Raph's resisting head.

"It's okay, Raphael. Don't be scared, it's just anesthesia," Donnie reassured his panicking brother in a calming voice. "It's not gonna hurt you, trust me. You'll feel all better soon."

Raph shook his head violently in denial, making muffled sounds in protest behind the mask. He then suddenly closed his eyes tightly in what looked like determination. Donnie promptly raised an eyebrow at him in disbelief.

"Really? You're not gonna breathe until I put this away?" he asked unamused, as if the turtle was playing a game with him that the scientist failed to see the fun in. "You know that I quite recently analyzed exactly how long you can go without air, right? You can't win this, pal. Not that twenty minutes isn't impressing, I'm just saying that I can sit here longer than you can hold your breath. If you refuse to inhale this, you'll eventually faint from hypoxia. Which, to be brutally honest, would also do the trick. Do you see where this is going?"

But Raph kept struggling, ignoring Donnie's words. He started bucking and thrashing against the restraints, but his efforts soon started to cease. His furious face was growing more worn and tired by the second, and his panting made him involuntarily chug down the gas even quicker. His eyes were blinking groggily as he desperately tried to keep on fighting, but it was a losing battle. All his remaining energy was being stripped away from him, forcing him into a submissive state where rage was an emotion that was out of his price-range. Donnie didn't even have to force his head down anymore, and settled with just resting his hand on it.

"Easy… Slow breaths. There, that's more like it." Donnie smiled, and patted Raph's head in an encouraging way as he felt his brother's tensed muscles involuntarily relax. "See? There's nothing to worry about. Everything will be fine, you're just gonna go away for a little while, okay? You won't even remember this when you wake up. Sleep tight, buddy."

Raph's eyes were the last part of his body that gave up. The eyelids slowly closed as his head finally fell to the side. Donnie kept the mask on a little longer for good measure, apparently not completely convinced about the hothead's state of consciousness. After another minute, he snapped his fingers in front of Raph's face a couple of times and parted his eyelids, looking for some kind of response. When he was certain that Raph had lost all sense of awareness, he finally closed the canister, removed the gear from the turtle, and corrected the position of his brother's head so that it was lying straight. He then picked up the mask together with the rejected lollipop, and went back to his desk to continue his research. But his expression was oddly displeased as he studied the gas mask in his hands.

"... I'm gonna need your help to keep an eye on him. I just realized that I've no idea when the effect will wear off," Donnie said, and scratched his head. "Anesthesia generally works quickly and doesn't stay in the system for long unless it's given continuously to the patient. It's possible that the dose I gave Raph will only keep him knocked out for a little while."

"So what now? You're gonna do more bad stuff to him while he's asleep?" Mikey asked, with a reproachful look at the purple masked turtle.

"First of all; he's technically not asleep," Donnie corrected, with an annoyed sigh. "General anesthesia puts you in a state that's actually closer to a reversible coma than sleep-"

"Raph's in a coma?!" Mikey freaked out, looking at the scientist as if he didn't just have a screw lose, but a whole bunch of them parading out from his brain through his nostrils. "That's the bad kind of sleep, even I know that! Why would you do that?!"

"Secondly," Donnie continued, ignoring Mikey's sudden outburst. "Stop assuming that everything I'm doing is bad stuff! Have you any idea of how discouraging that is? I'm trying to create a retro-mutagen, a cure for everyone that has been mutated by the Kraang, and you're acting as if I'm the villain here?"

Mikey gave Donnie a long narrow glare. He then held up his restrained hands and feet for all to see, and looked at his brother as if to say "exhibit A". Donnie blinked at him with an unreadable look.

"… Point taken," Donnie acknowledged, but immediately dropped the subject as he started fiddling with some chemicals on his desk. "Anyway, the perk with anesthesia is that it's supposed to work as an analgesic too, in simple terms; a painkiller. So hopefully, Raph should feel much better when he comes around from it."

"Sooo..." Mikey concluded in slow-motion, as his brain was trying to filter out all the fancy words and translate Donnie's sentence into a more understandable Mikey-lingual tongue. "Wait... Does that mean that you actually tried to help him? Like, be nice to him?"

Donnie didn't answer. Instead, he momentarily looked up from his work, gave his youngest brother a crooked smile, and then went back to add a green liquid to a beaker with an orange substance. "Assuming there won't be any complications, of course. Most kinds of anesthesia have various undesirable side-effects, and I'm not entirely sure which one I just gave him."

Donnie picked up the canister again and squinted at the tiny text. "I'm fairly certain what its properties are, but not what it's called. I have to admit my shortcomings when it comes to the Russian language… Plus, drugs and medicines tend to have different names depending on where they are manufactured."

"You speak Russian…?" Mikey asked wide eyed.

"If I did, I'd know what I just gave Raph," Donnie stated, and put the canister away. "Like I said: please keep an eye on him for me."

Leo was only half aware of the conversation taking place. He was experiencing problems of his own, and his hazy head found it difficult to concentrate on all the words flying around above him. He had attempted to free his hand again, but felt like it was getting harder every time he tried. He had ignored it at first, but the truth was becoming painfully clear to him. He was getting weaker. Tired. He felt like he hadn't had water for days, and his muscles hurt as if he had just finished a brutal training session. Which was a very unnerving feeling when he in fact hadn't moved for what felt like hours. He had also recently noticed a gnawing pain in his head that wouldn't go away. He had tried to shake it off, but it got worse every time he moved.

"Are you okay over there, bro?"

Leo flinched at the sound of Mikey's voice, surprised to find that he wasn't talking to Donnie anymore. His bright blue eyes were observing Leo with concern written in them, apparently able to tell that Leo wasn't feeling well.

"I..." Leo started uncertainly. He didn't want to worry his brother, but didn't want to lie to him either. He looked up at the ceiling with a sigh, avoiding eye-contact. "It's okay Mikey. I'm... I'm just a little tired. It makes my head hurt. Don't worry about it."

"You sure?" Mike wondered, and twisted his head in a bird-like manner, as if looking at his brother from another angle would make his statement more convincing. "'Cause, you kinda look like you're gonna be sick. Are you?"

"... Don't worry about it," Leo repeated in a low voice. He didn't possess the energy to come up with a better answer. He hadn't lied to Mikey about his condition, but he hadn't told him the whole truth either. It was a fair compromise, and hopefully, Mikey would settle for this explanation. Like he had done before when Donnie was filling up all those vials with Leo's blood. It felt like a lifetime ago...

Leo took a deep breath and closed his eyes, trying to gain some control over his body. Slow, deep breaths. He wasn't going to allow himself to feel lightheaded. Wasn't going to allow his muscles to ache or his head to hurt. He needed them. He and his brothers were going to get out of here, and he needed his body for that to work. Slow deep breaths. Ignore that feeling of weightlessness, ignore the black spots dancing in front of him, ignore...

The sudden feeling of peacefulness was unexpected but welcomed. It felt like he had been transported to a higher plane where the maladies of his body were completely non-existent. He didn't know how it had happened. Didn't know if he was dead or alive anymore. But he wanted to stay like this. Could he do that? Was he allowed? He hoped so. He didn't think anyone would mind. At least for a while...

His reverie was cruelly interrupted by a piercing bright light, quickly followed by pain, nausea, and coldness rushing back to him. Overwhelming his senses. Leo tried to close his eyes again to get away from the intrusive brightness. He wanted to go back to the soft darkness, but something was keeping his eyelid open. Forcing him to look at the light that was moving in and out of focus. He didn't like it. The beam felt as sharp as a needle, and the eerie similarity made his heart beat faster in stress.

"Let go of me," Leo groaned feebly, trying to turn away his head. He winced when the sudden movement was rewarded with another spike of pain in his head.

"... He's back," Donnie declared. He finally removed the penlight from his brother's temporarily blinded eye, making Leo blink hard a couple of times to regain his vision.

"Leo!" he heard Mikey cheering from somewhere in the sidelines. "Man, you can't scare us like that, I thought you were gone! Like, gone gone!"

"... W-what happened?" Leo wondered, feeling how his lucidity was returning to him. He hadn't even noticed that he was missing it.

"I would also like to know that," Donnie replied, and pried apart Leo's other eye to expose it to the penlight too, despite Leo's protests. "Mikey told me that you had stopped moving, and when I tried to rouse you, you were completely unresponsive. I think you must have blacked out, but I'm not sure why."

"You wouldn't talk to me, or look at me, or do anything!" Mikey clarified, still distressed by the memory. "It was scary, dude… Like in one of those zombie movies. But without all the blood, missing toes, and the bad teeth, and… Okay, you didn't really look like a zombie at all, but definitely something zombie-ish!"

"Are you feeling alright, Leo?" Donnie asked him, finally leaving his brother's eyes alone to meet them with a concerned expression. Leo observed the scientist with a wary look, not feeling too enthusiastic about sharing his medical state with the very person who was responsible for it in the first place.

"I didn't black out," he claimed. "I... tried to sleep a little. That's all. I promise, I feel fine..."

"You're not fine!" Mikey objected, with an upset look at the leader. Leo flinched at his exclamation, surprised to find the freckled turtle siding with the taller brother.

"Mikey..." Leo said in a low voice, giving the turtle an insistent look to tell him to stay quiet. But Mikey didn't share Leo's ambition to keep his condition a secret.

"He said that he was tired and that his head hurt," Mikey revealed to Donnie, with a determined look.

"He's been experiencing fatigue and headaches?" Donnie repeated in medical terms, scratching his head in confusion over this information. Mikey nodded with an important expression, while Leo made a deep sigh. Donnie then swiftly left them to free Raph from the analyzing cuff, and Leo could tell that the tool was about to switch owner again.

The blue masked turtle gave Mikey an annoyed look for the betrayal, but soon dropped it when he saw his brother's worried features. The older turtle's expression softened in sympathy. Mikey must have figured that the thought of Leo getting sicker was worse than the thought of what Donnie would do about it. And Leo couldn't blame him. Raph was out cold, and Leo was in a pretty bad shape too. If things would go south, there was a real possibility that the youngest turtle would be left all alone in this nightmare. He must have been genuinely terrified when Leo didn't want to wake up earlier. It was no wonder he had alerted Donnie...

Donnie strapped the cuff on to Leo's arm again, and then quickly left his side to check his vitals on the computer. He studied the results closely, his pupils darting from left to right.

"... Strange," he suddenly spoke up, presumably double checking the data to make sure that he wasn't incorrect. "Your blood pressure and vital signs haven't gone back to normal yet."

"And what does that mean?" Leo asked, surprised over how little he cared about the answer.

"Actually, it doesn't have to mean anything," Donnie elaborated with a shrug, leaning forward over the desk with his chin resting on his knuckles. "Your wristband isn't exactly 'cutting edge' in the heart monitor business. It basically uses light to shine through the skin and into the blood vessels to detect any changes in blood volume. I can see at least two problems with that in your case..."

He turned to Leo as if he expected his brother to agree with him, but a quick scan of Leo's face informed him that he had no idea of what the scientist was referring to. Donnie made a bored exhale at this and let his chair twirl around so he could face his brother properly.

"Our skin is tougher than that of regular humans, and your blood volume isn't back to normal levels," he explained with emphasizing hand gestures, before he turned back to the computer to write something down. "It's possible that those components mess with the analyzer somehow. But, I'd also like to stress that these results are expected given your current health, so I have no reason to doubt the instrument's reliability in this case."

"I don't care what your computer is telling you," Leo argued impatiently. "I'm feeling better now, and I have no intention of ever blacking out again. Can't we just leave it at that?"

"Do you know what I'm looking at right now?" Donnie asked him calmly, keeping his eyes strictly focused on the screen without giving Leo as much as a glance.

"... No?"

"80 over 20," Donnie revealed simply. The statement was followed by a thick silence, where Leo patiently waited for his brother to continue, but where Donnie seemed to feel no obligation to explain himself further.

"What is that?" Leo finally asked, finding Donnie's lack of conversation unnerving.

"Hypotension," Donnie informed, finally turning away from the computer with a serious look at Leo. "Your blood pressure is abnormally low. I could prove it to you by removing your restraints and let you sit up, since a sudden change of position could literally make you faint in this condition, but I don't wanna add concussion to your symptoms as well."

"Try. I'll risk it," Leo claimed, with confidence.

"Yeah, that's what concerns me..." Donnie clarified tiredly, and started drumming his fingertips on the keyboard in a busy manner. "Anyway, the fact that your readings have stayed the same means that your recovery is taking more time than I anticipated, probably due to some sort of underlying complication... But you shouldn't be in any immediate danger as long as none of these numbers reach critical levels and your only symptoms are weariness and a headache."

Donnie momentarily stopped tapping the keyboard, and turned to Leo with a slightly raised eyebrow. "Unless there's something of medical significance that you're not telling me about?"

The short answer was: Definitely. But Leo didn't feel like enlightening his brother about it. He didn't trust him with the information. This Donnie had a spooky habit of justifying the most disturbing ideas by stating that it was all for the sake of finding a retro-mutagen. For science. It was disheartening to see Donatello, the most ethical person Leo knew, go through with these things without even hesitating. And what worried him the most was the fact that despite all the things Donnie had done to his brothers, he still claimed to care about them. That he didn't want them to get badly hurt. Some would say it was a reassuring thing. That it proved that the real Donatello was still in there somewhere. But Leo thought this made Donnie even more dangerous. It was difficult to be on your toes around someone who talked and acted so much like their harmless, lovable brother. Right up to the moment he no longer was.

Donnie apparently interpreted Leo's silence as an inconclusive answer, and left his chair to take a closer look at his specimen. Leo could almost feel how his brother's calculating eyes were moving all over his body. Studying every twitching muscle, breath, or even eye-movement in order to diagnose him. Leo swallowed involuntary, feeling as if he was on display in front of a jury that was grading his performance as a healthy individual. He closed his eyes and tried to pay as little attention as possible to Donnie's hands that snaked over his skin. Feeling for a pulse on his neck, resting on his forehead to check his temperature, and pinching his fingertips for a medical reason Leo couldn't figure out. Leo tried not think of how intrusive the procedure felt, and was so occupied with blocking out Donnie's presence that he at first didn't notice how his right arm was released from the restraints.

He blinked in shock when he felt how the belts slipped off his wrist, and quickly turned his head to make sure that he wasn't imagining it. Donnie was standing right next to Leo's freed arm, looking down at him. He then made an inviting gesture towards himself.

"Hit me," Donnie instructed him.

He was kidding. He had to be. There was no way he could be serious. But even with his arm untied, Leo still hesitated. His upper and lower body was still firmly secured. There was no way for him to leave the table unless he could undo another seat-belt, and Donnie would most likely stop him the second he tried. But not if Leo knocked him out first. He could easily reach him from this position.

But it couldn't be this simple, could it?

Leo ignored the last thought. He gathered up all the energy he had left and took a swing at the scientist, aiming for a pressure point on the arm to maximize the damage. The punch hit Donnie on the left side of his plastron. It wasn't a pressure point, and the force was nowhere near enough to bring down the turtle, or even make him wince.

"Hmm… Okay," Donnie pondered, with a thoughtful expression at his own chest, but then looked at Leo while tapping the area in an encouraging way. "Can you hit the same place again?"

Leo didn't like the idea of taking directions from Donnie, but he couldn't give up the plan just for the sake of rebelling against him. That was more Raph's thing. Leo decided to try again, concentrating and bringing all he got into the attack. But the result was the same, with the only difference that his fist ended up on the other side of the plastron this time. The hit was so weak that it could have been mistaken for an attempt to wipe off some smudge from Donnie's chest.

The scientist was still standing patiently by Leo's side, politely waiting for him to give it another try. When Leo did no such thing, Donnie made a sigh and picked up the seat belts. Leo tried to retrieve his arm before Donnie could strap it to the table, but he didn't have enough energy left to put up a fight. The leader started to feel nauseous when Donnie pinned down the arm to secure it again. Taking away his brief moment of freedom.

"Dude, what kind of punch was that?" Mikey asked Leo straight out, with a puzzled frown. "I think I've seen Spike eat salad with more attitude than that. What gives?"

"I can tell you that," Donnie said in Leo's place, as he made sure the belts were tight enough. "Except from the fatigue and headaches you told me about, Leo suffers from dizziness, volumetric thirst, muscle cramps, and most likely perceived muscle weakness." He looked up and turned to Leo with a curious look. "Feel free to stop me if I get any of this wrong."

Leo didn't. The scientist was spot on with everything, and it felt silly to try and hide it anymore. The only thing he could do now was to hope that Donnie wouldn't act on this new intel. So far, most of Donnie's treatments seemed to be more excruciating than whatever they were supposed to treat.

"You could tell all that stuff from just letting him hit you?" Mikey wondered, looking almost fascinated by the thought.

"More or less. It's not an absolute accuracy, but I had to figure it out somehow since he didn't wanna tell me..." Donnie clarified. He straightened up from his hunched position with a look at the blue masked turtle. "You're basically experiencing symptoms from your excessive blood loss, possibly even hyponatremia if your sodium levels are too low, but I can't tell for sure without another blood-test... Oh, but don't worry, I'm not gonna take any more blood from you." He made an apologetic chuckle as he reassuringly patted Leo's needle-pricked arm, making the turtle flinch in pain.

"But if I'm right," he continued, as he walked back to his desk. "the headache and muscle pain can get pretty bad if left untreated. Now, the standing procedure would be to give the patient intravenous fluid replacement. But if you happen to live in a sewer with limited access to hospital equipment, I guess an oral rehydration solution will have to do instead… I'm pretty sure I got everything I need right here in the lab. I just have to add the right proportions of electrolytes to the mix and you'll be all better."

"I don't think..." Leo tried to object, but the scientist had already put himself to work. He was carefully measuring different kinds of powders and liquids, only to merrily stir them down into a big glass container in the same spirit as if he was in a cook-off. Leo didn't have a clear view of what was added to the content, but he doubted he would understand what most of it was. Though, he was certain that he at one point saw the turtle pour down something that looked a lot like salt or sugar. Whatever the components were, it gave the mixture a pale, almost foggy look. Like water diluted with milk.

"It's okay, bro," Mikey told Leo reassuringly. "I've read enough comic books to know that the bad kind of stuff is supposed to be green. Or red. Sometimes purple, but that's like ridiculously super-rare. I think I've only seen it once in a- "

He stopped himself when he caught a glance of Leo's face. His brother was barely keeping his eyes open, and his manner was a bit distant compared to before, as if he was only half aware of the freckled turtle's loud voice. Mikey raised his eyebrow slightly. "Dude, are you hearing any of this?"

Leo let out a weary sigh and shook his head with a miserable expression. Mikey gave him a peculiar look before leaning closer, lowering his voice to a whisper. "Do you want me to stop talking for a while?"

"Would you…?" Leo asked with an almost begging look, knowing that it wasn't an easy request to ask from Mikey. But the freckled turtle just smiled at him and made a motion where he pretended to zip his mouth. The action came out clumsy, since his tied up hands didn't allow him to use any refined gestures. Leo gave him a small appreciative smile, but dropped it when he saw Donnie finishing up at the desk. He poured some of the mixture in a small beaker with a wide bottom and a narrow neck. He then picked it up and swirled the liquid in his hands before going back to Leo with it.

"What exactly is that?" Leo felt the need to ask, strongly suspecting that he was going to regret the question.

"As I'm pretty sure I explained to you approximately six minutes ago;" Donnie politely explained, and tapped a finger on the glass-container in his hand. "it's a type of homemade fluid replacement. It mainly contains the water-solvable electrolytes that you're running low on for the moment, like potassium chloride, glucose, and sodium. In very precise proportions, if I might add."

"… are you gonna make me drink it?" Leo wondered, with just enough hostility to show what he thought about the idea.

"I don't see why I would have to 'make' you drink this," Donnie replied with a frown, genuinely confused by Leo's comment. "Your body is suffering from various kinds of deficiencies, and it looks like you're not gonna get better any time soon unless we ease the symptoms. Do you wanna get better? Because if you don't, I can see how drinking this would totally foil your plan to lose basic motor functions, perception, and experience increasing pain in your extremities."

Leo looked at the container with wary eyes. The idea of drinking something Donnie had prepared wasn't an appealing thought, not even during normal circumstances. There was a reason why Mikey was their designated cook... But it really looked like Donnie wasn't trying to force him to do it. Leo still didn't feel very well... If he got an opportunity to escape, he was more likely to end up collapsed on the floor than outside the lab. Neither his mind nor body was working the way they should right now. Donnie had even freed Leo's arm, and he couldn't even use it to punch him properly. He couldn't save anyone like this. He couldn't save Raph and Mikey…

He had no choice. If he and his brothers would have a fighting chance at freedom, he needed to speed up his recovery. Even if it meant playing along with Donnie's delusions. Leo finally gave the tall turtle a defeated nod, silently giving him permission to execute the treatment. Donnie leaned closer over him and let the beaker rest at Leo's mouth, carefully tilting it to let a small stream of liquid pour out and touch his tongue.

Leo violently flinched away from the glass-container the very moment he felt the vile taste hit him, unable to swallow more than a spoon of the stuff. Donnie only narrowly managed to retrieve the beaker in time to save its content from spilling.

"Whoa! Careful, Leo. Just try to take small sips," Donnie suggested calmly.

"Don't worry," Leo panted, with a rueful grimace. "it isn't as appetizing as you think..."

"I didn't expect it to be," Donnie explained, and dipped his finger in the pale water and put it in his mouth, tasting the content with a pondering look. "This solution contains saline. Rough translation; liquid table salt, which coincidentally is a common solution used to induce vomiting in cases of severe intoxica- ...Sorry, that wasn't very helpful. Forget what I said. Um… Try again?"

Leo took a deep breath, trying to mentally detach himself from his tongue in order to ignore the lingering taste. He then reluctantly opened his mouth slightly. Donnie smiled a little, and made the glass touch Leo's lips again to let the ghost-white fluid pour into his mouth. Leo tried to swallow as much of it as he could, but the simple task proved to be much harder than he thought. The taste was absolutely horrible. Like a bitter mix of seawater and a pinch of something sweet. Flavors never meant to share a confined space together. Leo could feel how his gag reflex protested with each gulp he convinced himself to take. It was like his whole body was rejecting the medicine, like a fortress refusing to let in a suspicious intruder.

Leo soon had to close his lips again and shook his head until Donnie removed the mixture from him. "... Stop! Just... Stop it."

"It's alright, just a little more," Donnie coaxed, and made a motion to continue administering the liquid.

"No, no I don't want anymore," Leo protested, turning his head away to avoid Donnie's hand.

"Come on Leo, don't be like that. Look, it can't be more than one third left. That's like one third away from nothing," Donnie urged in a comforting voice, and nudged the corner of Leo's mouth with the beaker. "Just open your mouth again."

"I can't. Stop that..." Leo insisted angrily, with a stern look at his brother. "I've changed my mind, okay? I've managed to drink some of it, that's gotta be enough..."

"It doesn't work like that," Donnie pointed out, with a subtle head-shake. "There are no shortcuts in modern medicine. You can't just settle with consuming some of the solution and expect that it's gonna help you the same way. You really have to finish the whole thing if you want it to have any effect on you at all."

"And a half dose is better than nothing. I'm sure I can manage," Leo claimed, trying to sound determined enough to end the discussion.

But Donnie didn't put away the glass container. He dropped his head in mild annoyance before giving Leo a look. "Okay, take this from someone who has a way wider perspective of what happens to your body when suffering from low blood volume; if you don't finish this mixture, you'll most likely be very sorry you didn't later. You think you're feeling sick right now, but the fact is that you're only displaying a handful of all the symptoms associated with your condition. This is gonna get worse before it gets better, and I think you know exactly what I mean by that."

Leo hesitated, carefully considering Donnie's words in his head. He hated how rational he sounded. If Donnie wasn't making any sense, it would be much easier to reject his reason. He didn't want the scientist to be right. And he didn't want to continue drinking this vomit-inducing remedy. But he knew that Donnie was right. And if Leo would have any realistic chance of regaining enough strength to escape, there was only one thing he could do.

Donnie offered him the glass again. The leader swallowed uncomfortably at the sight of it, but didn't turn away when the scientist started pouring the sickly pale liquid through Leo's slightly parted lips. He closed his eyes with a faint hope that it wouldn't be so bad this time. But the taste was still nauseating, and he could feel himself gagging as he tried to swallow as much as possible in an attempt to get rid of it faster. It was a battle between mind and body, where his brain kept telling him how important it was to drink the solution and his stomach insisted that this poison had no business inside Leo's intestines. The brain's argument felt less compelling by every second.

The blue clad turtle couldn't take it anymore. He turned away from the glass container, refusing to continue the procedure. But he was only allowed a moment of relief. His eyes widened when he suddenly felt a pair of fingers pinching his nose, and how the beaker was pushed inside his unexpected mouth. He cringed when he felt the disgusting liquid entering him again. He desperately tried to shake off the intrusive hand and container, but it was no use. Donnie was perfectly able to cut off his air supply and hold his head still while feeding him the rest of the concoction. There wasn't anything Leo could do but to keep gulping down the vile water against his will. Quietly hoping that Donnie wasn't gonna let him drown from it. He wondered how Raph must have felt down in the water tank…

Donnie suddenly removed the glass from Leo's mouth and the fingers from his nose, allowing him to breathe again. Leo was gasping and coughing sickly, as if he had been washed up on a beach after a storm.

"Don- cough- Donnie, please stop..." Leo managed to choke out weakly, feeling his insides turning from the experience. His throat felt too sore to talk, but he had to do something to stop the scientist from making him drink the liquid again. He had to tell him, even if he wouldn't listen. "I can't- cough- I can't do this. Okay? This stuff is not staying down, I can feel- cough ... Please, I think it's gonna come up again..."

"It's okay, it's okay, Leo. Don't worry about it, bro," Donnie said, and patted Leo's chest reassuringly. He then made a presenting motion to the beaker in his hand. "There's nothing left now. See? You finished the whole thing. Just lie still for a while and let your body digest it, alright? You'll feel better soon, I promise."

Leo coughed again as he tried to get rid of the remaining taste in his throat and mouth. He turned to Donatello with a dark glare. "You said you wouldn't force me to drink it."

"And you said you wanted to get better. Right?" Donnie replied simply, and gave Leo's shoulder a soft squeeze before he went back to his desk. "I did what you asked, not what I said. Funny how that turned out."

"How long will it take to work?" Leo wondered in a low voice, having second thoughts on his decision to go through with the treatment in the first place.

"Well, considering the amount of fluid loss in combination with how far progressed your symptoms are... " Donnie counted on his fingers and calculated something in his head before turning back to Leo with a comically blank face. "… I have no idea. You could feel better within a couple minutes, but it could just as well take an hour. Or two. We'll just have to wait and see."

Leo let his head fall back with a tired sigh, not happy with Donnie's idea of an answer. Donnie didn't take any notice of him, and instead picked up the egg-shaped timer and turned it up to an unknown amount of minutes.

"I'm just gonna make sure that Raph doesn't display any signs of allergies to the antibiotics," he shared openly, as he left the table and headed towards the red clad turtle. He met Leo's eye's briefly on the way and made a swift gesture to the desk behind him. "I set the timer for when your next dose is up. It seemed like a good idea; since we're gonna have to do this regularly until the bigger container is empty."

"Great..." Leo muttered without enthusiasm, and gave the timer a long uneasy look. He dearly hoped that Donnie hadn't set it too soon. He wasn't planning on being around when the alarm went off.

"… Is it okay if I go back to talking now?" Mikey's soft voice suddenly spoke up next to him. "I think you look a little better?"

He knew that Mikey was lying, because he felt more nauseous than ever. He could almost physically feel how the color was being drained from his face, and he was certain that a sudden movement would make him throw up for sure. He took another deep breath, ignoring his aching body so he could make his voice as steady as possible. "Mikey... If you and Raph get any chance to escape... You have to promise me that you'll leave m-"

"NOT LISTENING!" Mikey cried out so suddenly that Leo's eyes took the size of baseballs before he turned to his younger brother with a frown. Mikey was spinning his chair again with his eyes stubbornly closed. "Nope! No, no, can't hear ya'. La la la la, crazy noises over here, la la la la..."

"I'm serious, stop joking..." Leo told him, with a hint of irritation.

"I'm not joking, you're joking," Mikey claimed, and shot Leo a judging glare every time the revolving chair let their eyes meet. "'Cause you can't be serious if you're trying to say what I think you're trying to say, and if you are saying that, then don't you dare say what I think- … You get my point!"

"… No, I think you lost me."

"You said that we're gonna get out of here together, remember?" Mikey elaborated, as the chair finally slowed down enough for them to have the conversation face to face. "That's Raph, you, and me. That's the plan, and it's a great plan. We just have to make it happen. Don't start making up some lame plan B that one of us isn't part of. What kind of plan is that? No turtle left behind, right? Raph says that's a rule, so you better not break it, or he might break your leg or something... I don't know. I'd rather just not break it if I were you."

Leo surprised himself when he suddenly started to laugh at Mikey's improvised pep-talk. Mikey had always had a strange gift of cheering up or annoying his surroundings, and Leo almost envied how it came so natural to him even in the worst kinds of scenarios.

"Fine. It's a deal." Leo smiled, and gave his brother a determined look. "If we escape, we escape together. And that's a promise."

"Seems like a rather odd arrangement considering that you're not prisoners and are free to leave whenever you want," Donnie suddenly added, from where he was examining Raphael. Both Leo and Mikey stared at him in utter disbelief. Not because of the fact that he apparently had been aware of their conversation, but mostly because of what he just had told them.

"What did you just say…?" Leo asked him, but the words were so clear in his head that he knew he couldn't have misheard them. "So... if I would ask you to cut me lose right now...?"

"I wouldn't," Donnie stated simply, while forcing Raph's jaws apart to check his tongue.

"That's funny, because I thought you just said-" Leo began tetchily, but was quickly interrupted.

"I know what I just said," Donnie explained tiredly as he quickly finished up his work on Raph, and headed back to his desk. "But right now, you're all playing a crucial part in my research, and it would spoil hours of work to have you all walk out in the middle of it like this. But don't sweat it. The moment I'm done, you can do whatever you feel like and ignore me like you usually do."

"And when will you be done?" Leo asked warily, not allowing himself to get his hopes up.

"I'll let you know," Donnie revealed casually, as he brought back his container with attempted retro-mutagen along with some vials of mutated turtle blood to test it on.

"Seriously?" Leo groaned in frustration. "Come on, Don. You've been at this for almost a full day already. Don't you think it's time for a break? You said that you barely slept at all last night. How are you supposed to focus on your work if you're sleep deprived?"

"Don't worry, I have means of making myself stay alert," Donnie assured him with a semi-smile, and patted the right pocket on his lab coat. Leo had no idea what he meant by it, and the scientist went back to his lab equipment without explaining it further.

"And by the way, I can't go to sleep yet," Donnie continued, his face suddenly furrowed in concentration as he was adding a blue liquid to the container. "I still got tons of stuff I need to do today, and tons of stuff I should have done before that. I can't rest when I'm at the peak of solving something I feared was unsolvable. This is too important for that. But I guess you wouldn't understand..."

"We get it," Leo clarified, with a firm look at his brother. "We understand that finding a retro-mutagen is a top priority, but that doesn't mean that you have to spend every waking hour doing it!"

"Then you don't get it," Donnie stated, with such dark look at his brothers that Leo almost got the impression that he had insulted him. The scientist reached for his bō staff and hit a poster about turtle anatomy on the wall behind him, like a pointer at a world map. His voice was about as calm and composed as the eye of a storm; a false sense of security.

"What I'm essentially trying to do here is to find a way to turn people that've been mutated by the Kraang back to normal. Are you with me?" he rapidly explained, and frenetically tapped a certain spot on the poster which Leo couldn't quite see from his angle. "But we're not talking about a couple of single based nucleotides that've been misplaced here and there, oh, no, no, we are talking about a chemical agent that completely reverse engineers the victim into something that's as far away from its original genetic makeup it can possibly be!"

Donnie had suddenly extended the naginata blade and without warning sliced the poster to shreds. Causing Mikey to jump at the sudden action and Leo to stare at him in shock. The tiny pieces were swirling around the scientist's serious face and settled down like big snowflakes in his surroundings. Or like ashes from a recently erupted volcano.

"That's not an easy fix," he concluded with a grim look at his brothers. "It's comparable to finding a cure for cancer."

Neither Mikey nor Leo could figure out how to respond to this statement, but Donnie didn't wait for one. He simply put away his staff and went back to fiddling with some glass-slides, apparently ready to test a new batch of attempted retro-mutagen. He peeked through the microscope and studied a sample with interest, but then made a frustrated face-palm. Apparently not getting the result he was hoping for.

"... Donnie," Leo started with a sincere look. "Despite what you might think, I can empathize with your situation. I know what it's like… You're not the only one with a responsibility. To have people looking to you for all the answers. To fear that you'll let them down. You're not alone. But you're literary losing yourself in this work, and you've completely lost sight of the things you used to value and care about…! Can't you see that?"

Leo paused to see if his words were reaching Donnie. The scientist was once again busy with adding new components to his experiment, and his face was so focused on the task that it was hard to tell if he had been listening at all.

"Please Donnie, just... Just try to think about what you're doing, okay?" Leo asked him, with an insistent look. "I'm not telling you to stop. I'm just asking you to allow yourself to have second thoughts on what's going on here. Think of what you're doing to us, your brothers, think about Master Splinter-"

"Think about April!" Mikey suggested out of nowhere. His comment was followed by a brief period of silence where Leo stared at Mikey and the younger turtle responded with a clueless shrug.

"... April?" Donnie's voice was close to inaudible. He slowly looked up from his experiment with a blank expression, as if he suddenly had lost interest in it. Mikey looked genuinely surprised over Donnie's reaction, but Leo turned to the freckled turtle with an encouraging smile. He wanted to slap himself for not thinking about this earlier.

"Yes! April," Leo continued in Mikey's place. "Take a look at yourself, Donatello. You're acting like a crazy scientist, and the Donnie she knows is far from one. He's the guy who helps her with her homework, who practices ninjutsu with her, gives her all of his pizza gyoza-"

"Even when he wants ta eat them himself," Mikey eagerly added, feeling that the last detail was of great importance.

"The Donnie she knows would never do something like this," Leo continued, with great conviction. "And I think that deep inside, you know that just as well as we do."

"... I can't do this to her," Donnie answered after a moment, and turned away from his desk with a light head-shake.

"Kinda hurtful that he cares more about a girl than his own brothers..." Mikey pointed out, with a raised eyebrow at the purple clad turtle.

"I'm perfectly happy with being second to April as long as his feelings for her can make him go back to normal," Leo told him in his most rational voice, not looking the least bit bothered by Mikey's observation.

"Actually," Donnie soon added, and held up a finger in a correcting gesture. "I was thinking more of the fact that since she's neither a mutant, nor susceptible to the mutation process, these kinds of experiments would be a waste of time and resources on her."

"… Oh," Leo said, and shared a surprised look with Mikey over the unexpected statement.

"However," Donnie elaborated, and got up from his chair with a curious look on his face. "I would like to study where she got those anti-mutagen properties from. Huh. I can't believe that I've never looked into it before. This could really help me in my research. Maybe if..."

Donnie stopped for a moment and rested his chin on his fist in a contemplative manner. He let his eyes wander freely all over the place as if he was thinking hard on something. Mikey and Leo blinked in confusion at the scene in front of them. It was strange to see Donnie just standing there, doing absolutely nothing.

"What are you thinking?" Leo finally asked, finding the silence uncomfortable.

"I'm evaluating whether exsanguination is an acceptable risk for a decent amount of samples from her," he revealed in a pondering way. But after a few seconds, he made a nod and picked up his T-phone from his pocket. "Hey, April! What's up?"

"Um, dude…?" Mikey asked Leo with a weird look, as he watched Donnie leave the area in order to talk with his lady-friend in private. "What's an ex-invitation or whatever?"

"Something the Donnie we know would rather cut off his own arm than do to April," was Leo's answer, as he watched in horror how Donnie headed for the exit. He was still talking to April, very much in the same awkward manner he usually did, as he shut the lab door behind him.

"... He's gonna ask her to come down here," Leo realized, staring at the door as if it was a monster that was ready to claim its next victim.



Next Time: Getting close to the end! The brothers can't let Donnie hurt April, and decide to break free before it comes to that. Mikey has a surprise, but so does Donnie…