Author's Notes: Reviews make my day, so thanks, guys! Now, this chapter is...Prepare yourself. The clan's about to go through something trying, and the drama will explode come next chapter.
Disclaimer: TMNT belongs to Nick/Eastman/Laird. Nia Anders and Melody Gray belong to me. I'm in no way making any money. Thanks.
Chapter 07 - Big Step
Donatello's smile was easy and filled with warmth, and he directed at Melody's profile.
"Must you keep doing that?" the cyborg questioned as they strolled along a raised path in the sewer tunnel. If there were enough room to walk side-by-side, he would've captured her hand; but since he had to occasionally glance at her face by leaning towards the side from behind, he settled for kissing the back of her head when he straightened.
"I can't help it," he said, still smiling.
"I talked with Michelangelo. It is not as if I won a Nobel Prize."
"You're right; it's better."
"I knew there was a reason I waited to tell you."
"What's that mean?"
"I don't want a big deal made out of it." Melody's words sounded hot with frustration—a clear sign the topic irked the young woman on a deep-rooted level.
So, Don reigned in some of his excitement. "This is a big step for you, Mel. Mikey too. Why shouldn't I be happy?"
"We simply called a truce," the blonde replied in her listless voice.
"And Stephen Hawking dabbles in Mathematics. Come on, Mel! Doesn't it feel good to have Mikey working with you? Like Nia?"
"Nia is calm like Sven. I do not mind her company."
"And Mikey?"
It was hard to tell what kept Melody silent, but after a long pause, she added, "He surprised me."
"You'll find that families are full of those," remarked Don while resting a wrist against the crook of Mel's neck. He twisted his hand so his fingers traced her jaw and when she shivered lightly, he gave her head another kiss.
"Do not count me in the inner circle just yet," the blonde mumbled.
Don frowned at the shame in her tone. "Fine. But you're drawing closer to it. And if you're going to help me and LH with Splinter…then you'll prove yourself a daughter as well, whether or not you mean to…"
"Donatello, my friend, you are early."
Leatherhead's rumbling voice drew the genius' attention to a colossus crocodile on two legs, whose hunched, stocky figure stood beneath the warm light of what could be called a front door step. The lamp high-lightened the mutant's scaly texture in red as he smiled with his long row of sharp teeth—a friendly gesture only to those who knew him well. Don's plastron thumped the metal of Melody's shielded shoulder blade when she halted, forcing him to grip the cyborg's biceps so they remained upright. Once their footing was regained, Donatello returned his friend's gesture. Though the sudden stillness that passed over the trio puzzled him.
Leatherhead's and Melody's eye contact continued for several long moments. Neither of them blinked nor moved, but Don somehow knew they were deeply assessing one another. Perhaps they sensed an akin spirit between them—intelligent beings stuck in a vortex of uncontrollable emotion that they can't escape. Solitary. Misunderstood. These traits could be picked up easily by those trained, so when Melody raised her chin, Don was quite aware she knew parts of the croc's history already.
"Leatherhead," she addressed, monotonous.
"Miss Gray, is it?" LH replied in all politeness. "How honored I am to finally meet the woman Donatello has mentioned many times over."
"Many times?"
Donny chuckled nervously at the sharp look Mel sent over her shoulder. "Hope the early arrival hasn't disrupted any plans, LH. Mel and Raph…uh, yeah."
"I was simply replacing this light, friend. I did not wish for you and your mate to injure yourselves with this sudden drop before entering my Lair."
"M—m—mate?" Donatello's face grew hot when LH casually nodded before disappearing behind a bend. Words were hard to find for all of three seconds in the Chūnin's jumbled mind, until flustered emotion forced air from his lungs. "Th—that's an interesting…term," he shouted to the unseen mutant. "Um, intimate. You can call her my girlfriend."
"Why not mate?" Mel retorted coolly. A low grinding of stone signified the opening of LH's Lair, so the croc reappeared to aid Melody from the knee-high drop off. Her heavy weight splashed in the stagnant water then shifted.
"You don't find it embarrassing?" Don muttered while landing beside Melody on the lower platform. He almost swore she smirked with her lithe body partly twisted, except it was so hard to tell under the red light.
"Why would I? It is accurate."
Now she was teasing; the light tone she used accompanied a slight brush of her cold fingers against the outside of Donatello's thigh. It wouldn't have been so bad if he wore clothes, but since the entire trip was made underground, Don had refrained from dressing. And her touch caused him to jump to the side. Mel chuckled behind LH's turned back, who remained quiet in either respect or embarrassment while guiding the couple into his Lair. Either way, Donny's whole body temperature rose with the seductive allure of Melody's blue-gray eye.
"You, just, no—stop," the genius stammered by his girlfriend's head.
She faced his pointed finger slyly, bringing a hand behind her to rub his other thigh.
"This is highly inappropriate."
"When have I ever been appropriate?"
With a brusque huff, Don captured Mel's robotic wrist to spin her towards him. "Remember why we're here," he said, stern. All playfulness melted from Melody's scarred face in an instant. It was heart-wrenching to watch, but Donatello required her full concentration. "Any other time—at home. Not now. I'm sorry."
"No; we have priorities." The cyborg spoke as if nothing had happened and turned when LH called to them from the top of a triple-wide stone staircase.
"You moved your lab station?" Donny questioned, following Mel up the stairs.
The croc nodded his long snout. "My work grew too big. I was feeling cramped."
"Where is it now?"
"The top tier, below the clock."
"Wasn't that area narrow?"
"Not once I did some remodeling." Chuckling, LH continued up a second staircase just as soon as Mel and Don reached the vast second tier.
The turtle mutant scanned over the cracked, twenty-foot ceiling and various arches where he stood. Below it was filled with the bare essentials of life—complete with a mini fridge, bookcases, tossed mattress on the floor, and countless amounts of scavenged knickknacks.
"You got a new armchair," Don noted.
"Yes, the other…broke. Now, come."
The croc sounded eager, so Donny wasted no time conquering the last bit of stairs. He stopped at the wide threshold of a stone arch that once was blocked by a brick wall. Inside resided a deep niche, which was filled with wires, machines, shelves, vials, bins, and other gadgets. The six high-watt lamps anchored to the ceiling gave proper lighting and drew Don to his friend beside a white box that Mikey would describe as a tabletop washing machine.
"Is your ultracentrifuge operational now?" the Chūnin questioned, racing towards it.
"It actually seals," LH replied. "And without the throwing of samples against the vacuum chamber."
"What type of rotor design does it have?" Mel asked. She all but pushed Don aside and opened its lid beside the crude digital display to peer inside.
"Either swinging or fixed, depending on the bolt's tightness," the croc answered.
"And how do the samples remain uncompromised?"
"There is a cubical section of taunt plastic sheets at the back, which I use when necessary."
"You move it."
"My space is terribly limited, so I must."
"What other samples do you—is that an ultrasound machine?"
Leatherhead—an amused smile on his snout—followed the cyborg with his gaze. "The display requires fine tuning and it is prone to cutting on and off, but yes."
"You created these from scratch," she remarked, near breathless as her hands ran over the mismatched metal of the aforementioned machine.
"Essentially; like Donatello does."
"Do you have Petri dishes, syringes—"
"Gloves, microscopes, and more. I have much free time and a love for science, Miss Gray."
"Don,"—Mel stood up then faced her boyfriend with a grave expression—"can I complete the biopsy?"
With no need for protest, Donatello grasped the insulated pouch at his side. He gently unbelted it, frowning at the thought of what lay inside, then placed it in Mel's waiting hands. She looked a little too eager for the reality of their visit, but he let her be, knowing the medical field was her element.
'She'll still need help though,' thought the mutant as he watched the cyborg familiarize herself with the space. 'Many of these machines she's only dreamed of using. Knowing and experience are two separate things…'
"I would also like to study a blood sample from you."
Donny blanched at the metal finger that pointed his way. "Mel, we're concentrating on Splinter."
"And now you. Collect two; I want to place one in the ultracentrifuge."
"And I'm sure wanting to play with it is no contributing factor," the Chūnin grumbled. Yet after a sigh, he neared a plastic table lined with long slivers of fabric for tourniquets and sent LH a lop-sided smile. "Would you mind helping?"
"Of course not, my friend." Leatherhead approached with strange grace for one his size, reaching for a syringe in a plastic tub stuck to the brick wall. Though it looked fragile in the croc's clawed hands, LH handled it expertly through the process of preparation as Don tightly tied some fabric below his bicep. "May I ask why your blood is to be studied?"
"Oh, right,"—Don winced as the needle entered his arm—"you don't know the full story."
"I was never informed of Leonardo's capture until after the matter." There was a tinge of anger in the croc's voice. Thankfully, LH tempered it.
"Forgive us, LH; there were a lot of things going on."
"I could have helped search."
"I know…sorry."
LH nodded under the genius' sorrow, extracting the full syringe. The sight of it filled with red liquid was distasteful, but Don prepared his remaining arm for the same purpose.
"So, what will your mate be searching for in your blood?"
Donatello almost jerked in surprise at the unusual term—until a sharp prick in his arm seized him. Unwilling to tear a vein, the purple-masked mutant ignored the heat in his face, averting his eyes to Mel's animated figure. "She'll probably look for residual abnormalities from a drug called Recro-12."
"Recro-12?"
"It's involved. Having to do with the people who took Leo and…the EPF."
LH about crushed the syringe in his claw when a deep growl sounded in his throat. "Bishop."
"Yeah. But he was just the start." Once the second syringe was pulled out, Don sought the bandages LH had set out minutes ago.
"Has that madman done something to you?" the mutant croc questioned through labored breaths.
Don had the mind to retrieve his blood samples and place them on another table. "Rage, LH," he kindly reminded his heaving friend, hands drawn up. "He laid the base for another scientist named Annabelle Lombardo, who worked as a mole in the EPF before joining Black Lotus. Long story short, it's meant as a regeneration serum to grow back or cleanse damaged cells by purging the old ones."
"And it was successful?"
"It,"—Don's arms dropped—"not really. As far as I understand, it has an eighty percent mortality rate."
"Yet it is in you?" Breaths evening, Leatherhead's features grew grim, his bright eyes dimming.
The genius nodded. "You're looking at a fraction of the rare twenty percent. Me, a little girl named Kaiya, and…and Leo."
"I do not understand. Why is such a risky drug in you when you were not captured?"
"See? That's…"
"Your mate?"
"How did-?" Donatello paused, having caught his glance in Melody's direction.
"I must admit, such is unexpected," LH remarked coolly.
"Even knowing she was working under Black Lotus?"
"Something tells me it was not an order, though."
"Perceptive…"
"So?"
Grin weak, Don twisted his head to meet the mutant he now stood eye-to-eye with. "She did it to save my life. That twenty percent beat the zero percent I was subject to when Stephens poisoned me. She hates herself for having to do it. And worries about it a lot. But I know it was necessary. It hurt like hell at first, but now? I feel great."
"It has not metabolized from your system?"
"As far as we've checked…no. It's a permanent reconstruction, a new marker in our DNA, and it's most prominent in Kaiya."
"The child."
"She suffered internal trauma, a gaping stomach wound, and broken bones. And by the time she reached the hospital, she needed only a few days rest before being discharged."
"Remarkable."
"Few people agree," added Donatello sullenly. "Kaiya's new primary care doctor said her growth rate is slowed down. The drug's so stimulated in her that it keeps revitalizing the same youthful cells. They won't age. No one can say if it's a permanent thing or if it will die down in time. She could end up looking eight until she's twenty or randomly age in between. It's hard to tell."
"Does the same apply to you?"
"Dunno. Maybe I'm too old for the fountain of youth part, but my cells purged the poison completely."
"And your healing?"
"That's accelerated as well, though not as fast-acting as Kaiya's. Leo's leg was broken by the time we were all retrieved, and that healed in under two weeks, not hours."
"What initial research could have been done to create such a drug?"
"Somewhere close to home, actually. It—"
"Don!" Melody's sharp voice cut across the long lab. "You will want to look at this."
The genius couldn't fight the lead ball forming in his stomach or keep his throat from drying up. Mel's gaze bore into him in all seriousness, luring him to a well-lit microscope with the promise of bad news. She stepped aside once he reached it and he needed no instructions to place his face against the eyepiece. On the stage below, a bright display of cells were squished within a slide. It took a great deal of effort to admit the find—especially since the sickly things wiggled like a gelatin that induced nausea.
"Donatello?" Leatherhead asked when he neared the couple.
Don couldn't answer him. Despite taking a seat far from the microscope, his eyes still saw the cells. Those ugly things.
"My friend?"
"Let him be for a moment," Melody noted sternly. She hardly paused before continuing, "His father has cancer…"
