A nice long chapter for you, since you've been waiting longer than you should have ;)

"NH2OH … If hydroxylamine is added to an aldehyde or ketone in solution … R2C=O + NH2OH∙HCl, NaOH → R2C=NOH + NaCl + H2O … the oxime should precipitate from the solution … heat it with inorganic acid and restore the original aldehyde or ketone. That's what I was missing."

Donnie furiously ran the eraser across the smudged and wrinkled page for the third time, brushed the shavings away and scribbled down the new formula. He glanced up to the solution simmering in the beaker in front of him and turned up the heat on the burner before finally taking his nose away from the paper and standing.

He paced in a circle, eyes squeezed shut, and tapped the end of the pencil against his forehead, mumbling to himself, reaching into the vaults of his memory to recall the twenty pages of notes that were sitting on his desk who knew how many miles away.

The knot in his stomach had gone from nauseating to grating. And now a stiff ache was spreading out from the base of his skull in all directions with sharp, webbed fingers. He'd never thought he'd hate having to make himself think so hard. And it was Hard, with a capital H. No computer. No internet. No books. No notes. All memory.

It should have been easier than it was proving itself to be, seeing as he'd gone through the process twice already. But he theorized that his panic was putting up a brick wall between what biochemical knowledge he knew and his own basic instinct to think of an escape plan.

He couldn't get his eyes to stop glancing toward the cameras every ten seconds. He couldn't stop his ears from straining themselves to pick up on the minutest disturbance. He couldn't get his stomach to stop moaning. And he couldn't make his body stay still.

He rubbed his palms into his eyes then pulled in a long breath and walked back over to the table as he exhaled. He sat down and hunched over the paper again, his knee bouncing reflexively. He scribbled down a few more notes, glanced at the cameras, then turned the burner off and stuck the pencil between his teeth as he mixed another solution.

The door busted open. Donnie flinched so violently that half the sulfuric acid in his hand splashed out of its bottle and onto his notes. He jumped out of the way before it could spill into his lap and a flame of anger flared up in his chest long enough for him to slam a fist on the table.

"Kuso," he hissed, turning to pace again as he caught his breath. He raked a hand over his head, fingers curling back into a fist on their way over beads of sweat.

"Getting frustrated?" said a voice behind him.

He turned to find Fishface smirking at him as he walked in with a log of foil in one hand and a soda can under his arm. He pulled a chair up to the opposite side of the table, plopped down and propped his metallic feet up.

Donnie narrowed his eyes. The fish continued to smirk. He unwrapped what looked like a burrito, took a large bite, then popped the tab on his soda and gulped down half the can.

Donnie waited for Fishface to taunt him, give him a message from the Shredder, threaten him, explain why he was there, but he did none of these things. Instead, he simply ate as though he was on a thirty-minute lunch break.

Donnie glanced down at the tortilla bulging with meat and cheese and glimmering red chucks of tomato. His stomach snarled greedily.

He stopped breathing through his nose and turned his face away.

"Why are you in here?"

Fishface burped. "I've been put on guard duty."

Donnie wrinkled his nose. "I thought that was what the cameras were for."

He saw Fishface shrug out of the corner of his eye. "I just do what the boss says, okay? It's called a job. I do what I'm asked. I don't complain. I get paid. Plus, I wanted to tell you this is the best burrito I've ever eaten. Have you ever heard of La Lucha? Delicious."

Donnie's jaw tightened. He refused to look in Xever's direction. Instead, he stomped back to the table and pinched a dry corner of his notepaper. He pulled it off the table and let it drip for a minute as it dangled over the floor. He glared at it then shook his head and dropped it in the trashcan next to the table.

He set to work on cleaning the mess, and, for a while, he and Xever occupied the morgue in silence—near silence anyway. Fishface was determined to make a show of his meal and ate it in a very passionate and noisy way. It took all Donnie had not to leap across the table and strangle him.

He'd already rewritten his formulas and was starting to measure out his acid again when Fishface decided he was bored with the silence.

"You know, this is the most pathetic thing I've ever seen."

Donatello did not respond.

"You owe me twenty bucks."

Donnie hunched his shoulders and wrote another note before pulling the microscope toward him.

"I didn't think you were actually going to do it. Bradford bet that you would cave once we nabbed your brother."

Fishface shook his head and crushed the empty soda can in his fist before tossing it toward the trashcan. It bounced off the rim and hit the floor with a hollow clatter, rolling to a stop next to Donnie's feet. He resisted kicking it back.

"I thought you turtles were all about honor. I'd have rather died than do anything on behalf of my enemy."

Donnie's chest swelled. "I don't expect you to understand, Fishface."

"Don't call me that," Xever snapped, dropping his feet on the floor. "You're in no position to hold any cheek, so I'd just watch it, because I might take it upon myself to relieve your so-called brother of that arm of his entirely."

Donnie looked away and squeezed a little more than the drop of solution he needed onto a petri dish.

Another wave of silence broke upon the surface between him and the fish and he tried not to think about how disgustingly right Xever was about him being pathetic.

Sure he could make the retro-mutagen now and prolong the end for both him and Mikey, but how long was that going to last? And what if he couldn't do it? What if he forgot a string of formulas, the correct temperature to heat a compound, a measurement, an ingredient?

He lowered his eye to the microscope and then cursed under his breath.

April's DNA.

He didn't have it. And he wasn't about to tell the Shredder he needed it. But without it there was no way to finish the retro-mutagen.

He pulled in a breath through his nose and straightened his back. His lungs filled themselves with the lingering scent of warm Mexican spices. He pressed his tongue to the roof of his mouth as eager saliva weaved around it.

He glanced back at the fish who now had his hands behind his head and was rocking his chair back.

Donnie ignored his stomach and swallowed past the desert dryness of his throat. "Do you have any siblings, Xever?"

Fishface's yellow eyes flashed across the table, but Donnie looked down before they reached him and casually continued to busy himself.

"That's none of your business."

Donnie shrugged. "It's just a question."

The atmosphere stiffened and tasted stale, but eventually Xever glanced toward the opposite side of the room and murmured, "I had a brother."

The minutest flicker of hope sent Donatello's mind on a scheming spree. He kept his expression neutral, though behind his eyes an elaborate web of ideas began to form. "What happened to him?" he asked.

Xever's scaly jaw rippled. "Why should I tell you?"

"No one said you have to." The turtle shrugged again. "You just seemed kind of bored. I was striking up a conversation."

"And what makes you think I'm interested in carrying out a conversation with you?"

"Nothing … You were the one who came in here."

The fish huffed through his nose and was silent for a while, tightening his arms across his chest in a very Raphael-type of manner. But just when Donnie thought he'd lost Xever's cooperation, the mutated man opened his mouth to speak.

"He was too sick to help … It had been just the two of us for a while. I was four years older than him. He'd become my responsibility after our parents died. We had nothing, so I took what we needed, but it wasn't enough."

Donnie glanced up. Xever was glaring out at nothing, no longer rocking on his chair. "How old was he?"

Xever's yellow eyes slowly turned back on Donnie and they held that gaze for a long, chilling moment. "He was eight."

Donnie finally looked away with a nod and asked no further questions. He pulled the petri dish from the microscope and cleaned it off. "I guess I should apologize then."

Xever tensed and Donnie caught him furrowing his brow.

"You do understand." He looked back up and those yellow eyes twitched before Xever was the one to look away.

He scoffed. "Understand what?"

"What it means to have a little brother who's counting on you to give him just a little bit more time."

The corner of Xever's lips turned down, but his gaze rotated further away.

"We do live by honor," Donnie said. "And what's honorable to us is protecting our family—in any way we can. I don't like the Shredder, and I would never voluntarily give a second of my time to helping him … if I had a choice. But circumstances change when my brothers are involved. I have to do what I can to protect them, because I love them. You understand that, don't you?"

Xever's eyes rolled back over to the table and he glared to the side. "Love is an anchor. You'll never get anywhere."

"And who says I'm not already where I need to be?"

Xever finally faced Donnie squarely. "You're in a morgue, Donatello, making retro-mutagen for your enemy, all for the sake of one stupid little turtle."

Donnie shook his head. "For my brother. What did you tell yourself when you started stealing?"

Xever blinked with widened eyes before he snarled and stood up. He glared across the table as though to make sure Donnie felt it, then turned on his metallic heel and stomped out.

Donatello exhaled for what felt like the first time since Xever had entered the room.

His limbs shook, probably more with exhaustion and hunger than anything, but he felt a slight bit more satisfied. He closed his eyes and fixed his breathing.

"All it takes is a seed," he whispered to himself.

Then he nodded, opened his eyes, and continued working.

All it takes is a seed.

"R-X + NH2OH → R-ONH2 + …"

He closed his heavy eyelids and rubbed a palm into his forehead as though this would massage the creases of concentration off of his face and provide him with an answer.

"Plus what? Plus what … Dammit."

He swam through the fog in his mind, pushing it away only for it to thicken. It grew harder and harder to press on, but he continued to drive his arms out from his chest, performing perfect breaststrokes, moving forward as though he was fighting his way through a field of wheat as tall as his sensei. There had to be something hidden there, something he was forgetting that would reveal itself at any second.

"R-ONH2 plus what?"

Decreased alertness and excessive daytime sleepiness impair memory and cognitive ability …

"No."

He shook his head. Opening his eyes was like trying to peel apart two pieces of duck tape.

"That's not it," he said, hardly aware that he was speaking aloud.

He passed the eraser across his markings and cringed when the metal ferrule scratched the paper instead, leaving silvery gray streaks over his notes. He squinted at the end of the pencil then down at the desk where the eraser he'd once been using was scattered across the table in a thousand bits of shavings.

He groaned and tossed the pencil over his shoulder, then pressed his palms against the desk and stood.

He stared down at the beaker in front of him. The solution it held was clear, and he couldn't remember if it was supposed to be at this point in the process.

It swirled and circled around the table, moving out of his grasp when he tried to reach for it. The room spun and he was jerked back to semi-consciousness when he felt himself tipping over. His arms flopped and caught the edge of the table before he could land on his shell.

It took far too much effort to push himself back up on the chair, and when he made it, his shoulders sagged.

His neck groaned, complaining stridently about the weight of his head, but his body always seemed to complain about something now. It was rather annoying, and just to shut it up, he allowed his forehead to fall against the table.

His eyes closed automatically, but he told himself he wouldn't sleep. He couldn't … Or could he? He wasn't sure anymore. He wasn't sure about much of anything actually. Everything had gotten a little hazy after the sixth, eighth, maybe it was the tenth hour in the morgue. He didn't know. There was no clock.

To be honest, he could've sworn he'd seen one floating around about an hour ago. It looked suspiciously like the clock from his lab. And at that point he'd started to doubt he really knew where he was. Maybe it was all just a bad dream, and he was at home, working in his lab on a retro-mutagen he didn't need. Or did he need it? He wasn't sure.

He fought to remember why he'd even bothered to make it a second time. For Karai. It was for Karai. And he'd finished it right? That happened. And she was human again. Wait … then why did Shredder need the retro-mutagen?

"Shredder, what's your favorite food?"

Pizza.

"Pizza? No way, that's my favorite. That's—that's Mikey's favorite … Mikey …"

A familiar nerve-pinching scream attacked the space between his ears, and he jumped up with a gasp only to find the world tilting. He flailed his limbs, but it was too late. His shell hit the floor and his head followed. Stars popped across his eyes and he blinked rapidly and turned over to push himself back up. But before he could, something snatched the rim of his shell and yanked him up so fast that the room spun again and he stumbled forward.

He felt like he was floating across the floor, somehow never falling even though he couldn't stand up straight. His hands reached up behind him and he felt fur, but before his lethargic brain could process anything, his head was shoved down.

He woke up the moment his face hit water and was submerged up to his neck. It flooded his mouth and shot up his nose, rushed down his throat and suffocated his lungs. He tried to choke, but it only came out as pockets of air that shifted the cubes of ice floating around his head. Every nerve he had jolted and he tried to pull his face free, but the strength of that furry paw on his shell wouldn't allow him.

He waved his hands until they found the rim of the tub and put full force into trying to shove it away as his feet kicked and dug into the floor.

The water was so cold it spread a numbing twinge of pain through his skin.

He shook his head, pulled, pushed, and squirmed until Tigerclaw finally yanked him back up.

The moment the even colder air hit his face, the water in his system tried to gush out all at once. He choked on it, his chest squeezing so tightly that he thought it might pop a lung up his throat. A burn stung his nose and traveled up to his forehead and he tried to rub it out of his face.

He was hardly sputtering for five seconds before he was thrust forward and submerged yet again.

His eyes popped open and met only the grey inside of the metal tub. He tried again to push it away from him, this time with more vigor, and Tigerclaw responded by latching onto the back of his head and shoving his face deeper. His forehead hit the bottom of the tub and stayed there.

His heart began a loud, frantic rhythm in his ears and filled his chest to the point that there was no room for a reservation of oxygen. It was then that he was grabbed by a flush of raw fear. Tigerclaw was going to drown him, right now. Retro-mutagen wasn't going to save him. Obviously, Shredder no longer needed it. Maybe he'd found out about Karai. Maybe he just decided Donatello was useless. Maybe he was impatient.

And what about Mikey? Donnie's heart seized with a chill that had nothing to do with the ice water he was trapped in. If they'd decided to get rid of Donnie, there was no reason to keep Mikey.

He tried to scream, tried to yank his way out of the end he hadn't anticipated. They could kill him if they wanted, but he had to make sure Mikey got away first.

Tigerclaw's claws pinched the skin around his skull and wrenched his head out of the tub a second time.

Donnie gagged and water shot out of his nose. It felt like someone was stabbing him between the eyes.

Tigerclaw flung him back on the floor and he turned himself over on his hands and knees.

The giant cat stepped toward him and he scrambled beneath the table, still choking and spitting up water onto the floor along the way.

He just barely made it under cover before Tigerclaw slammed a paw on the table and growled. Donnie jumped so violently his head hit the underside of the desk. More stars met his eyes and he clamped his hands around his skull and shivered. He watched with wide eyes as Tigerclaw's face lowered itself to his level.

"The next time you fall asleep, your brother will get the punishment. Finish your job."

And with that, the man-sized tiger stomped away, leaving Donatello trembling beneath the table as cold droplets of water snaked their way into his shell.

He wasn't sure how long he sat paralyzed like so, but at some point it dawned on him that they'd send Tigerclaw back into the room if he didn't come out from hiding. So he crawled out on shaky hands and knees, picked up the pencil he'd tossed to the floor, pulled himself back up onto his chair, and with rocky handwriting finished the formula he'd started.

R-X + NH2OH → R-ONH2 + HX

"Leave him alone!"

He beat and kicked at the door, tried to slam his weight against it, but of course it didn't budge. Mikey's screams continued to fill the morgue with an echo that chawed through Donnie's ears with savage teeth.

He felt his face turning red with the push it took to make himself heard over the noise. "I'm working as fast as I can; let him be! STOP IT!"

He kicked the door one more time, then streaked back to the table, snatched up an empty test tube and threw it up toward one of the cameras watching him. It shattered into a million glittering pieces and rained upon the floor with a feather-light tinkling.

He grabbed a beaker and chucked it at the same spot. It too shattered and trickled to the floor. He grabbed a test tube rack, a bottle of ammonia, a handful of stirring rods and threw them all in close succession, wildly convinced that destroying the equipment he needed would somehow make the screaming stop.

He had the microscope clutched by the neck and reared back over his shoulder before Mikey's shrieks cut off like someone had pressed the pause button on a remote. It was followed by silence that rang about the room at an even higher pitch, and Donnie froze, standing in the middle of the room with the microscope hanging by his side, breathing as though he'd just run a 5K.

He gazed up toward the speaker, both hopeful and frightened that something might come out of it. And as the silence dragged on, his heart seemed to beat a little louder. His grip tightened on the microscope and a tug of nausea hit his stomach all too intensely. He almost ran for the trashcan, but a small click stopped him. He held his breath.

"Get back to work," a callous voice spoke.

Donnie's jaw clenched.

For a split second, he forgot the delicacy of the situation and how important it was to remain calm and obedient. He really didn't care. He heaved the microscope up toward the camera, and a satisfying shiver coursed through his veins at the crunching sound of destruction. The lens cracked and a hinge was knocked loose. The camera went limp, facing the wall upside down.

Donnie turned his glare toward the camera on the opposite side of the room and then stomped back to the table and plopped down in his chair.

"I want to see my brother."

Rahzar slammed his massive paws on the table, sending a trembling ripple through each individual beaker and its contents. "And I want to be human again. But I have to wait, don't I?"

Donnie gritted his teeth and dared to lean in closer to the wolf. "And you'll have to wait even longer unless you let me see my brother."

"How about we cut off his head and bring it to you on a plate?" Fishface said, a wide curve pulling up his would-be cheek. "Would that be sufficient enough for you?"

"That is not a threat you have the authority to make, Xever."

Donatello and the two mutant henchmen looked toward the entrance where a sharp figure emerged from the shadows, walking with a slow, empowered stride, as though the ground was moving beneath him. If his face wasn't obscured by his metal kabuto, his voice suggested he might have been flashing a dark smile.

"Bradford, tell Tigerclaw to bring down the young kame."

Rahzar hesitated. "But, Master …"

Shredder shot narrowed eyes at his servant. "Do as I say." He turned his gaze back on Donatello, his one good eye as cold and scarred as the other. "I see no reason why this ... child should not be allowed a visit from his kin."

Donnie swallowed as sickening tremors latched onto his shell and stole the blood flow from his fingers. The Shredder's tone seized his voice from his throat and rendered him silent, holding his gaze and enforcing the intangible power that this malignant man had over him.

He just caught the movement of Rahzar bowing his head from his peripheral vision.

"Yes, Master Shredder."

No one watched him leave. All eyes in the room were on the ever-present Master, except for those of the lord himself. He continued to stare unblinkingly at Donatello with soul-corrupting eyes and walked forward slowly.

Donnie gritted his back teeth and tried not to make the stutter of his heartbeat too obvious, but he could still feel his plastron rising and falling in a rhythm unlike that of a self-controlled ninja. He forced his feet not to step back as the Shredder came uncomfortably close and stopped just before the mask-less turtle, peering down at him as though he was an interesting, and yet altogether disgusting, specimen floating in a jar. Donatello curled his fists to keep his hands from shaking.

"You are very brave," Saki said, glancing away to the table of chemicals to pluck up a beaker and inspect it with a well-played sense of false interest. "I wonder if you would be so defiant in the face of a real threat."

He turned his eyes back down on Donatello who said nothing. He couldn't have if he wanted to. His tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth. He kept his lips sealed and stared with as much of a glower as he could fix on his face.

It was either a smirk or a hateful grimace that narrowed the Shredder's eyes and he set the beaker back on the table with a low rumble of, "Interesting."

The doors opened again and Donnie finally found it in himself to tear his gaze away from the Shredder, and when his eyes rested on his little brother, flanked by Tigerclaw and Rahzar, looking particularly small and battered but alive, all of Donnie's fears were forgotten.

With a knot in his throat the size of a baseball, he completely disregarded the room full of villains and ran toward his brother.

"Mikey!"

Mikey's wide blue eyes finally found him and instantly glazed over with desperate joy. "Donnie!"

He too detached himself from the two henchman and started to run to meet his brother but fell weakly to his knees after hardly getting three steps forward.

Rahzar and Fishface both snickered, but Mikey gritted his teeth and managed to push himself up just enough for Donnie to reach him and throw his arms around him.

The older turtle forced down the knot in his throat as his little brother buried his face in his shoulder and trembled fiercely. He suddenly felt as though he'd been holding his breath for the past few days and could only now truly breathe. He squeezed his brother in his embrace, deathly afraid that he'd be taken away from him, that the Shredder had only allowed him to be brought in so that they could torture his baby brother right before his eyes.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Mikey. You shouldn't be here."

He pulled back just enough to take a good look at Mikey's face. His bright green skin was plagued with bruises, one most gruesome threatening to push his left eye close and underlined by a nasty gash over his cheek. His injured arm was poorly bandaged at the shoulder with blood-stained gauze and hung limply by his side.

Donnie's stomach churned with another spell of disgust. He gingerly rested a palm against his brother's face, just barely brushing his thumb over the bruise. A passionate sting reached his eyes and he tightened his jaw.

"I'm sorry, Mikey."

Despite it all, the little turtle managed a smile, his blue eyes shinning. "I thought they were hurting you too," he said, his gaze searching Donnie's face.

Donnie clenched his teeth. He didn't tell his little brother they were hurting him … Maybe his face wasn't a mosaic of bruises and scars, but they were tearing him apart on the inside. He shook his head instead and tried to smile like his brother, but could only manage a grimace.

"How did they get you?"

The corners of Mikey's lips trembled. "Long story, bro. As soon as April came back to the lair and told us what happened, we went all over the city lookin' for you. I didn't think that—"

"April's okay?" Donnie said, releasing a breath he'd never known he'd been holding for her. The smallest of knots unraveled in his stomach.

"Yeah. She's with Leo and Raph … They've gotta be on their way by now," he said under his breath, glancing toward the Shredder with wary eyes.

Donnie grimaced. "Did you get a chance to study the route here?"

"Nah, dude … D ..." He lowered his voice even more, his wide eyes now staring toward Donnie's workstation. "You're not making the retro-mutagen for them are you?"

He turned a terrified gaze on his older brother and Donnie faltered, shrinking back an inch.

"I—"

"Donnie, you can't!" Mikey hissed, suddenly latching onto Donnie's arms with a tight grip.

It hurt but Donnie was lost for a split second in relief that Mikey's injured arm still worked.

"Don't do it. They already know about Karai," Mikey whispered. "They know she's not a mutant anymore."

Donatello blinked down at him, stuck in a trance of sickened happiness, drinking up the sight of his little brother. In the back of his mind he knew they'd been standing there for too long. He knew the Shredder, and Tigerclaw, and Rahzar, and Fishface were watching and absorbing their every word. A prickle of anxiety crawled up the back of his neck. They were going to take Mikey away soon. He could swear he even felt them hovering closer and closer every second. Maybe if they were quick they could run, they could escape.

"Remember what you guys said, Donnie?" Mikey squeezed his arms, desperate for his attention. "Remember what you said? If we get hit with the retro-mutagen, we'll just turn back into regular turtles."

Donnie blinked and Mikey shook his shoulders hard.

"They're gonna use it on us, Donnie! They're gonna turn us back into turtles!"

Something finally awoke in Donatello's hazed mind, and the full force of Mikey's fear punted him in the gut.

"I don't want to be a normal turtle, D," Mikey said, a heavy gloss building up in his eyes.

Donnie grimaced and pulled him back into his chest, holding him firmly, protectively. "It's okay, Mikey. We'll be okay."

Mikey sniffed and panted against his shoulder, closing both arms around his shell. "You gotta ninja promise, bro."

Donnie opened his mouth to respond with that promise, but before the words could form, his little brother was ripped out of his arms, and with him they pulled Donnie's breath away.

"NO!"

He lunged forward, reaching out with empty arms, but he was yanked back by his shell and that wretched furry paw again. He squirmed, his heart beating so fast he thought it might successfully get away from him.

He watched in horror as Mikey was lifted effortlessly off the ground by giant wolf claws and Rahzar half dragged, half carried his little brother away.

"D!" Mikey cried, struggling against his restrainer, terror flooding his eyes and shimmering on his cheeks. "I don't wanna be a turtle!"

Donnie shook his head, petrified. "Y-You won't," he said. "You won't, Mikey. I promise."

"I'm scared, Donnie!"

Donatello's throat closed and he observed through blurred eyes as his brother was taken farther and farther away.

"It'll be okay," he choked.

"Donnie!"

"… It'll be okay."

And just like that, his one moment of confused joy had evaporated like a puff of smoke. Mikey was gone.

Shredder's dark, looming figure stepped silently up beside Donatello, his eyes carelessly gazing after Mikey too. Once the lingering echoes of his frightened voice finally dissipated, the Foot clan leader looked down at the turtle beside him.

"Do not keep me waiting."

These were the only words he spoke, but they rattled every bone in Donnie's body and when Tigerclaw finally released him, he sank down to his knees.

They left the room, Fishface tagging along behind them with one small glance back in his direction. The door closed. And then Donatello was alone again.