The weeks that followed felt like a blur to Donatello. Jenna had quickly returned to Australia to spend some more time with her parents, before she would have to come back for the start of school in the Fall. Marcus had completely enveloped himself into their world, spending almost every single moment outside of work underground. He, Luke, and Donatello had been strategizing on a daily basis, even when he wasn't able to come physically to the Den. Now that Marcus had decided on the best course for the surgery, the planning of it seemed to consume him day and night.

Luke's primary focus was on the equipment. The main monitors and important pieces were already in place due to Donatello's handiwork, but he did have to acquire some smaller instruments that Marcus would need for the arthroscopic surgery. He found himself obsessing over every detail, weekly running tests on machinery to make sure that everything was running optimally.

Once Raphael was healthy enough, he and Donatello began giving blood under Luke's watchful eye, over five day cycles. Luke wasn't willing to take any chances; he wanted to be fully stocked on their identical type well before it was time for surgery.

Meanwhile Donatello had been lost in his own studies, running tests and sequences with his chosen natural source for anesthetic. Some of the simulations he ran frustrated him a great deal, but Luke was there to assist him as well. They had been reconfiguring their own mixture and running tests through the computer for five weeks, when Donatello was fairly certain the drug would be passable.

"I can't say it's going to be perfect on all fronts, but I think we're about as good as we can hope for." Donatello had told Luke quietly.

"No drug is ever perfect Donnie - but I'm still not comfortable with the idea of you being basically a guinea pig on this."

"Somebody has to use it for the first time."

"Remember, you don't have to--"

"I don't have to do it, yeah, you've mentioned that a few times. My mind's made up Doc."

"I know it is."

Luke had finished briefing Marcus on their own progress over the phone later that night.

"You're confident in it?" Marcus asked.

"We've run it through every possible scenerio the two of us can come up, and the mixture seems to be holding up. I'm expecting it to be a shock to his system, every new drug seems to be, until they've had it a couple of times."

"I keep going through this process in my mind Luke, and I can't escape the feeling that we need another set of hands in there with us."

"I hear you." Luke had said softly. "There's a real risk of the two of us being spread a little too thin."

"Aside from bringing someone else on board..."

"Yeah, that's not gonna happen." Luke interjected.

"Our other option would be to pull someone else from inside the clan. Thoughts?"

"Master Splinter is the only real option that we have." Luke said slowly.

"Are you sure he would be okay in there?"

"If he has to be, yes, he can do it. Anyway, he'd sure hold up better than anyone else, and he actually already approached me about it."

"If you're sure, that's all I need to hear. What's our timeline look like?"

"His swelling has gone almost completely down, so we're good on that front. Our blood supply is almost there. I've been on the equipment every day, it's functioning properly, plus I've got your toys ready as well. Now that we've reached a certain place with our anesthetic, it seems like we're just about ready. There's really only one more thing I think we ought wait on."

"Jenna?" Marcus asked knowingly.

"She'll be flying in within the next week and a half. I think having her here would bolster Donnie quite a bit, and I know she's appreciate it too."

"That sounds like a decent time table actually. It will give us a chance to go through this step by step with Donatello, and we can get ourselves coordinated on all fronts."

"The rest of the guys are going to want to hear the details too."

"I guess we should have a meeting. You wanna talk to them, find out a good time?"

"They're pretty flexible Marc."

"I keep forgetting that."

You could have cut the tension in the air with a knife the next morning, when Luke and Marcus sat down to talk to everybody at once in the living room.

"I'm going to try hard not to make this complicated, but I give you no guarantees." Marcus started off. "I'm going to be taking lead on the ACL reconstruction. I'll be using an anthroscopic technique which is actually a lot less invasive, that just means I'm not going to have to cut him as much as you would through an open surgery. This one basically involves only having to make two small incisions. There are a couple of phases to the procedure, the first one involving taking a graft of the bone from his actual injured knee. Once I have the graft, I'll thread it through the ligaments to get things reconnected, and he'll have some screws to help hold it in place. I want to take the chance to trim damaged cartilage while I'm in there, and that would be the last thing that I address.

I'm still not the biggest expert on your bodies, so in addition to assisting me with the surgery, Luke's going to be gauging everything while we go along. If we hit an issue, he's in charge. I understand that Master Splinter will be on deck to assist us as well with instruments, blood, that sort of thing, so that we never have to leave Donatello's side once we get started. Does anybody have any questions?"

"Yeah, I do." Raph piped up. "What's the deal with the anesthetic? I've heard ya'll say it's stronger than anything you've used before. Is it really safe?"

"Maybe I should answer that." Donatello said. "I've been trying to get myself accustomed to it, using it in very small doses over the past couple of nights. The base of it is completely natural, though of course Doc and I had to tweak it."

"How long's it gonna put you out?" Mike asked him.

"I don't know." Donnie said honestly. "That's really hard to predict. But our tests have confirmed it doesn't have a high probability of interfering with the vital systems and organs in our bodies."

"But it could still go wrong." Leonardo said quietly.

"We're not going to lie to you, try to say that this is going to be a walk in the park. It's not." Luke replied to him. "It's major surgery. But we've prepared, we have the tools that we need, and Marcus has the skills that are necessary."

"I'm ready guys." Donatello said firmly. "I almost wish it was tonight, just so it could be over with. The longer it's put off, the more I have to think about it. So we're gonna wait on Jenna to get here, and set a tentative date."

"I'm taking a vacation from the hospital so that I can stay as long as I might need to." Marcus volunteered. "Luke and I will be here around the clock, with him every step of the way."