Cold Warmth

Author's Note: This story assumes that Donatello was taken captive by Bishop and Dr. Stockman. He has been in captivity at Area 51 for almost a year now. The side effects that constant pain can do on one's psyche is being used to the fullest extent. Read and enjoy.

He could hear them talking; he wanted to find their exact location, but his eyes refused the command to open. He could feel himself suspended in something. It felt cool, and he knew through touch that he was encased in something hard, impenetrable. He could never find the ability to open his eyes when he was stationary; found it too difficult and wondered why bother? He knew where he was, he knew his brothers would find him…some day. He hoped he would still be alive when that day came; he had been doing all that he could, but it each day it seemed more and more daunting, and he wondered in those down periods what the point really was.

The voices moved closer and he felt a stab of fear. The last time they had done so, it had resulted in half of his plastron being removed. All in the name of science of course, or so he was informed, through the wandering voices he latched onto. He could feel the cool air hit his exposed chest, and feel pain where his plastron was rebuilding itself laboriously.

He felt the coolness around him recede and strong arms grip his shoulders. He felt his body react to the contact, jerking like a never-ending twitch. He began the silent meditation that his father had taught him so long ago, bracing himself for the pain that he knew was about to come.

His mind frantically thought back to how he could have come to be here but it came up blank; like the rest of his mind, it seemed devoid of many memories. He knew he had brothers but their faces were blurred, colors mashing together to make a brown paste. He listened to them remark on his skin, about how the color was brighter underneath his frontal shell. Olive green, he heard them mutter curiously. Was that his skin color?

He had been here so long that he was starting to forget anything that wasn't the sound of machines whirring, clinking. He wondered if the others would even be able to find him. Where was he? How can they find him, if he didn't even know where he was?

"Amazing, it's started to grow back! He's almost more human than turtle!"

"This thing? Human?" A chuckle and he could hear them moving about, pushing this, turning that on.

His mind turned back to someone called Leatherhead. A friend, he knew, but his mind doubted the thoughts.

He could hear something above him, but it was the commotion to the left of him that caught his attention. There was another person beside him and it was putting up a fuss. Didn't it realize that letting the inevitable happen would make things less painful in the long run? He heard a few curses, and something that made his whole body rebel at being strapped down.

"Donny? Damnit Don, speak ta me!" A rough New York accent broke through the haze ever so slightly.

"…Raph?"

He heard a sob and felt the hands restraining him go slack. He wasn't sure what to think of that. Did those holding him down enjoy seeing others in pain, those so far removed from humanity in their eyes that they were just lab rats to be toyed with? Or did they truly want to see the relationship between the two freaks?

But there were no more words spoken between the two for lack of any besides a slow, steady stream of comfort. The other turtle couldn't fathom why someone would remember him, care for him so much as to spout off such sentiments.

Do I know you? He longed to ask. The name; familiar upon his tongue, faded into his memory like a vanishing dream. He had an inkling that he ought to; Otherwise, why would he be here with him? Unless he was one of those who caused him pain? But no, that wasn't right. He sounded scared, worried. Wouldn't those be the tell-tale signs of a prisoner? He couldn't tell anymore.

All he knew, all his world consisted of now, was when he would be welcomed back into the coolness of his prior constraint; It was a freedom to him now, a diversion to the pain he knew was about to come.

He welcomed it, if nothing else. Beside him, against the squeal of blades, he could hear his new companion scream. Soon enough, he too would learn.

Fin