Title: Son's Duty

Rating: G

Summary: Donatello does his duty toward his father.

Author's Notes: I am attempting to write a true drabble, and at 172 words this is as close as I have yet mannaged. Please let me know if I have succeeded in getting the point across in such a short space, or if I have simply missed the mark.

Warning: Mentions of character death.

Disclaimer: This is a work of Fanfiction. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and all characters are property of Mirage Studios, and are licensed to Imagi Entertainment and Warner Brothers. I do claim ownership of my Original Characters, and any similarity between their names and those of existing characters in Fanfiction or Canon is purely coincidental. I make no profit from this work.


He lies on the thin pallet he always insisted on using, smaller than I have ever remembered him being. His robes just hang off of him; rather than hiding his frail form, they accentuate it. He looks like he hasn't eaten in months, like he's some kind of Holocaust survivor, and there's nothing that I can do to help him. I come in here every day; I feed him, make sure he's clean and comfortable, keep him company, read to him. My brothers won't help. No, that's not fair; they can't help. None of them can handle this. Leo feels that he's failed, Raph is just angry, and Mikey, Mikey is taking this hardest of all. None of them are able to deal with any of it, and so it falls to me to care for my father. It falls to me to sit with him and watch him die; knowing that with all with all my science and all my knowledge there is nothing that I can do to stop this.