Baby Oh Baby!

By: YHN

Based on a quasi-true(ish) story. Kind of.

The TMNT and associated characters are property of Kevin Eastman, Peter Larid, Mirage Studios, and all licensed and connected parties. No payment of any sort has exchanged hands for this fic.


The problem with CD players is that they don't always show exactly what's wrong with them, even when cracked open. Donnie prowled around inside the machine's guts, wondering if he ought to just tell Raph to give up and buy himself a new one, when someone started slamming his fist on the workshop door.

Don sighed. Once again, right when he was in the middle of something, Donnie was called off to pull someone's chestnuts out of the fire. Being mechanically inclined sucked, sometimes. Why couldn't he have a job where whiny people didn't complain about their computers and where his brothers didn't expect miracles of him? Maybe a plumber. Plumbers make good money, right? And, having no offensive posterior to cover, he wouldn't even have to worry about sagging jeans.

But no. He lived in a sewer, had three brothers who thought their stuff was indestructible (until they destroyed it) and knew too damn much about computers, and genetics, and magic, and other stuff, so he was getting dragged out of his nice, quiet hidey hole, and that was just not fair.

He stood, went to the door, and opened it. (Blast and damn, an idea for making an automatic sliding door popped into his head, and now he was going to have to do something about it, which meant more work and more interruptions.)

"What?" he demanded of the turtle on the other side of the door.

Leo was gnawing on his forefinger hard enough that his teeth left dents. He apparently was biting his hand because, if the tears in his eyes and the smile tugging his lips up were any indication, he was trying not to laugh. "Donnie," he said around the finger, "April says Casey's pregnant and he says he isn't. Can you come tell us if he is or not?"

This was new.

First he checked Leo's pupils, but they were normal, so it wasn't likely the elder turtle was drugged. Then he put his bare wrist against Leo's forehead, which got smacked off, but not before he felt that Leo wasn't running a fever and thus delusional. "Have you ingested any odd foreign substances?"

"For pity's sake, Donnie, I'm serious!"

"Not with that grin you're not."

"Donnie…"

"All right, all right." Don shooed him out and followed into the living room.

Casey sat sulking on the corner of the couch.

Raph, ever and always a pillar of sympathy and empathy and ready to defend his dearest friends from the arrows of cruel words, had fallen out of his chair and was laughing so hard he was giving himself the hiccups.

April, on the other corner of the couch, had the widest shit-eating grin Donatello had ever seen, and was waxing pathetic about maternity wear, and diaper duty, and how she suggested Casey breast feed for at least a full year, and other things that a woman in her position would probably be making the same jokes about.

Splinter was standing at Casey's side, a hand covering his mouth in a way that might have been thoughtful, but seemed to Donnie more like he was trying not to hyperventilate.

And poor Mike was staring at a bundle of papers, flipping through them, and looking adorably confused. "I don't get it."

Casey saw Leo and Don enter and pointed at the purple-clad turtle. "Don't even start with me, man, I'm having enough trouble taking shit from these guys."

"Casey!" April admonished. "Don't swear in front of the baby!"

Poor little Mike handed over the collection of papers, looking totally lost. Well, they were official hospital records, so Don had some hope of them making more sense than his idiot big brother. He read through them carefully, then went back to re-read, his eyes going slightly wide.

Now, a week ago, Casey had made a comment about feeling a discomforting lump in his lower abdomen, and April had expressed some concern about him possibly having a tumor of some kind. That wasn't quite what the paperwork said.

"A chimera," Donnie said. "Um, Raph, he's not pregnant. You can stop laughing now."

"Like hell!" the older turtle chortled, and then he started hiccupping again, which was fine. It kept him quiet.

Mike gave Donnie the Puppy Eyes, evidently because nobody had taken the time to walk him through whatever it was that was happening. Donnie took pity on his baby brother. "Mike, you know what a chimera is, right?"

Mike looked sideways at Casey with narrow eyes. "He's gonna sprout a lion's head and eagle wings?"

About then Splinter lost it and had to excuse himself.

Donnie tried again. "Uh, no. Okay, what happened is that Casey has a case of fetus en fetu, which means he's got a teratoma instead of a cancerous tumor."

Mike nodded along, obviously not understanding a word Donnie said, but pretending he did so Donnie wouldn't give him a headache trying to explain. That was very nice of him; Donnie sometimes got headaches trying to explain things to Mikey, too. "Right, right, so… is he pregnant or not?"

"No. When his mom was pregnant with him, he had a twin brother and ate him, and now its body's growing inside his stomach."

From out of Donnie's line of sight, he heard Leo say, "Eww!" Raph added, "I think (hic) the whole pre-(hic)- pregnant things is less gross."

"Shaddup all of y'all!" Case said. He jabbed a finger at his girlfriend. "And you ain't helpin!"

April drew a mournful face. "You're right, dear. Would you like me to get you a pint of ice cream and some pickles?"

Casey told her what she could do, and Donnie decided to hide in his workshop before April started throwing things.