God...I had to quit falling asleep at my desk. I felt like someone took my back and fused all the bones together in the slouched over the desk position. Why do I always keep doing this to myself? And where in the hell did the blanket come from? I stood up painfully, with a lot of popping and crackling. I sounded like a bowl of damn rice crispies right now. I couldn't help but let out a quiet groan of pain as I started moving towards the bed. My little brother looked like he was going to be a bit on the pretzely side too by the way he looked all hunched up in that chair. Carefully, so I wouldn't wake Mikey up, I began checking over Caitlin.

So far so good. It was a bit early to say for sure but it seemed to me that she was going to make a full recovery. The mutation in her inner organs was slowly, very slowly, reverting. Her outside appearance also started to go back to normal. She was going to have to stay hooked up for awhile until the mutation reverted enough for her organs to function properly on their own again but overall I was very optimistic. Shaking my head once again in disbelief over the whole situation I walked back over to my desk and started pulling up the files for this not so wonderful wonder drug.

It seemed the core of the thing was supposed to be the mutagen in our blood. Bishop had apparently wanted to use the mutagen to enhance certain abilities, not mutate the individual. But go figure... I rubbed my hand over my face as I kept digging through the notes I put together. There were traces of mutagen in the serum, but it wasn't like ours. Our was a stable substance, this mutagen was very... fluctuating I guess you could say, unpredictable even. Hey give me a break here, I'm trying to dumb this down so you can understand me, alright? Anyway, I'm not altogether sure where Bishop got this from, though everything still seems to point to our evil counterparts. Unstable mutagen, unstable turtles. It would fit. The problem I'm having is trying to figure out if this was something he tried to replicate from them or if he had it in storage, then again there was the very unpleasant theory that they all survived our last encounter and Bishop still has contact with them.

Then of course there was the addition of other crap that caused the whole thing to go haywire, genetically altered this, messed up hybrid formulas of that, add in Stockman tampering and you have the recipe for one big mess. His strain turned out to be more violent that Bishop's which is why Caitlin turned faster than Marina will, but Marina will turn. There was no doubt in my mind that she will. Caitlin served as a warning to what will happen to her if I couldn't convince her that Bishop was leading her around by the nose. Sometimes I wish Bishop and Stockman, and a few others, really would get abducted by aliens. Then again, they probably gave Bishop back because he was such a damn nutcase they didn't want to deal with him anymore. Could have at least done us the favor of dropping him off in the middle of the sun or something...

I sighed as I leaned back in my chair. I had another problem to face. How to save someone's life when that someone hates your stinking guts. Not to mention my two older brothers would more than likely kill her if she even came close to the lair for me to help her. It was part of our agreement after all. If she stayed away she was fine, if she came back she was dead. I also knew that if I brought the subject up of trying to reach out to her it wouldn't be well received. But I also couldn't just let her die. If I could just find out what the cause of her hatred for us was. What was said or done to her. What Bishop told her. I honestly felt she was more misguided than anything else. But how do you convince a blind person to see when they don't want to? I had a cure to stop the eventual mutation in her but was helpless to use it. For someone who devotes his life to fixing things, this was a moral dilemma. Staring at the screens in front of me I realized that I had to try. If it went against my family's wishes, then so be it. Something inside me was pulling towards her, reaching out to her. I didn't want to see her die, and I wasn't altogether sure if it was just because I wanted to spare her a painful death or the fact that something about her drew me in. Something that had nothing to do with her present situation. So when I caught her on the perimeter cameras near the lair I was actually happy to see her. I killed the alarms before they even went off as I watched her then I rose to my feet and left the lab, I would deal with the repercussions later. She needed me now, even if she refused to see it.

There was really no point in sneaking so I didn't. I just calmly walked through the tunnels to the spot where I saw her on the camera then leaned against the wall. I figured it might be better if she came to me instead of me hunting her. After a few moments movement in the shadows told me she was here. "Not the wisest move to be making right now." I told the now unmoving shadow.

"I'm not at your home." She replied stepping out to where I could see her.

"No, but your close enough to risk the agreement." I tilted my head in curiosity as she approached. "Which brings me to the question of why you came."

"I...I don't know."

"What a fascinating reason to die."

"Are you threatening me?"

"Not at all. I don't think you fully understand how much your actions in your last visit put your life in danger. Going for the twins was the worst thing you could have done." I was hoping to get her to understand that we are not evil, but we will defend our own. Even at the cost of other's lives and right now she was on Leo's and Raph's shit list. Lord help her if they found her here.

Marina broke eye contact with me and leaned against the tunnel wall herself, then looked at the water slowly flowing across the bottom of the tunnel. "I'm sorry. I never intended to hurt them."

"I'm not the one you have to apologize to." I watched her for a moment. "Why are you here, Marina? Why are you willing to risk your life to come here?" I narrowed my eyes at her. I really didn't fully trust her myself, I'm not that stupid, but I knew there was something that brought her here.

She quietly watched the water flow some more before raising her head to look at me again. "I'm so confused." She admitted finally. "I was led to believe that you...you..." She broke off. Even in the darkness I knew that she was fighting back tears. I wasn't used to seeing her like this, so vulnerable.

"That I what?" I gently asked her.

"That you killed my brother!" She finally snapped out. Yup that was the Marina I knew. That did stun me into silence however. "You killed my brother and the grief drove my mother insane!" Her head snapped back up and rage once again burned in her blue eyes. "You destroyed my family."

I was at a loss for words. Shit, where was Leo when you needed him. He was the one that could handle this better than I could. Well, he could if he didn't hate her so much. I sighed, I was on my own on this one. Well I had the big brain, I could figure this out...I hope. "Marina, please. Tell me what happened to him."

"Like you don't already know!" She spat back at me.

"Maybe I do. But don't you think we deserve a chance to tell our side? Even criminals on trial get that chance." I took a deep breath. "I want to help you but I can't if you won't let me."

Her eyes lost their rage filled shine as she studied me. "Why do you want to help me? I have never given you a reason to want to."

I moved closer to her and took her hands in mine. I told myself it was so she couldn't pull her nasty knives out on me. "Because you need it." Her hands felt so warm... "Please tell me."

Her eyes narrowed but she didn't take her hands from mine. "Very well. He was one of the guards at the Sachs estate when you first captured. I was under the impression he was there to keep you restrained because you were a danger. That's what he told me before he left. You were a danger to humanity and needed to be confined." Her eyes grew hard again. "He died in that courtyard with a bullet in his throat. A bullet that came from you!" She tried to pull her hands away but I held them firmly in my grasp. No way was I going to let her pull those damn knives on me. And I wasn't quite ready to let go yet.

"Marina, the only way that bullet could have came from us was if it was shot at us first. We don't use guns. You know that."

"He'd still be alive if you wouldn't have escaped! And my mother wouldn't be in a damn mental hospital!"

"And we would be dead. They had no intention of letting us live that day. I don't know what you were told but the true plan of theirs would have ended up with us dying." I looked in her eyes. "I've told you before, we don't just go around killing people. But they sure want to do us in a lot. We will take steps to survive. I am sorry, truly sorry, you brother got caught in the middle of it all." Somehow that seemed like such an inadequate thing to say. "Please believe me when I tell you that wasn't supposed to happen."

"Bishop seems to think otherwise."

"Bishop." I said with disgust dropping her hands. "Marina just think for yourself! The man would sell his own mother to the devil if it would get him what he wanted. He offers you nothing but lies to get what he wants from you and it's going to cost you your life. Why can't you see that!"

"What makes you think he would do that! He has done nothing but been supportive of me, been there for me as my world came crashing down around my ears. You expect me to believe he would do that to me?"

"Did the thought ever cross your mind he is just feeding you what you want to hear?" I just had to get through to her, somehow I had too. "To give you a reason to agree to all of this?"

"Why would he do that?"

"Because he's Bishop. It's what he does." I sighed in frustration. "The man is a monster, he has no morals. I don't want to see you die just because he misguided you."

"And why should I believe you? What reason have you given me? Your word? I'm sorry but that's not good enough this time."

I looked into her eyes again. "Why did you come here, Marina?" I asked her softly. "If your so set against believing me, why did you come here?"

She returned my gaze, her blue eyes wet with unshed tears. "I don't know. I... I need something to believe in... I just don't know what..."

I have no idea what came over me at that moment. There was just something about her that drew me closer. I closed the few steps distance between us and brought my head down, my lips softly touching hers. She was startled at first, just as much as I was at the moment, but she didn't pull away. Instead she leaned into me and opened her mouth to let me in. We stayed like that for a few moments, softly caressing each other's lips and tongues. With a pang of disappointment she suddenly pulled back, her eyes wide with a little fear in them. "One of your brothers is coming." She whispered.

"Go." I told her. She really didn't need to be found here, I wouldn't know how to explain what was going on right now. I wasn't sure myself what just happened. She turned to leave and I caught her arm. "Believe in me." I whispered to her. "I would never do anything to hurt you. I never did want to hurt you."

She looked at me for a moment, her eyes searching mine, then she was gone down the tunnel. Just in time too. "What are you doing out here, Donnie?" Leo asked as he came walking up from the other direction.

"Thought I saw something on one of the cameras." Well it wasn't a lie...not the whole truth but not a lie. I still felt rotten about it though.

His eyes narrowed a little. "Anything I need to know about?"

"Not really. I took care of it."

"I see." He turned to lead the way back to the lair. "Your a rotten liar, Donnie."

I sighed. I should have know I couldn't pull a fast one on him. Raph and Mikey yes, not him. I walked up to him and put a hand on his shoulder to stop him and he turned towards me again. "Leo, please. Just this once trust me."

"I always trust you Donnie." He replied. "I'm not so sure you should trust her though."

"So far she has kept up her end of the bargain."

"Then why did she come here?"

"To talk."

"That's it?" Leo's eyes bored into mine. "She risked breaking the agreement, and her life, to talk?"

"She's confused Leo. I was just trying to help her."

His eyes continued their assault, then he sighed. "I hope you know what your doing."

"I do."

"Apparently you don't." He shot a grin at me. "It didn't occur to you to shut the camera down? Your lucky I saw you two out here and not Raph."

"Damn it..."

Leo laid a hand on my shoulder. "This will stay between us, Donnie. But please be careful with her. Don't do this again."

"I can't promise that Leo."

He just shook his head but let the matter drop. Quietly we walked back to the lair, nothing else left to say on the matter.