A/N: Mikey's is already in the drafting stage and I have half the first chapter finished. Gawwwd is he moody… Please read till the next A/N for a little snippet about half mutant turtle babies.

*)O(*

Raph had stayed outside, double checking for anyone who had followed since they took a direct path. Mikey was gone, they hadn't seen him for a while so it was safe to say that Mik and Splinter would be ready. They were on the home stretch and once they passed the last of the dangerous areas where Donnie had to help Leo hold up Marcus to ensure that none of the toxic water touched him she ran for it. She barely acknowledged Mik in the door way, holding it open with just her presence. She thanked Mikey silently and made a small note to buy him a secret pizza when this was over as she saw hot steaming water streaming in the sink. She pulled off her shirt and threw on a clean one before scrubbing up.

When she turned around Mik was there with a vest of cotton and Leo was behind her. Donnie gracefully side stepped all of them and took the sprayer and sprayed himself off before starting to scrub. Leo moved straight into the lab and gently laid Marcus down on the bed. Sara followed and set her sights on the first thing that he was going to need. A pre-made IV dangled close by and she grabbed it, checking the label of one of the bags and hooking it up first. A literal life line was ready.

Iodine swab to her right, she reached blindly for it. She cleared layers of blood to revel the crook of Marcus' arm. A large gash blocked sight of a vein. Same for the other one. A new swab was pushed into her face and she gasped. Donnie's grim face stared at her and she nodded in understanding. No emotions. No frustration. No hope. She had to be numb. Therefore, she shut off her mind as she cleared a part of Marcus' hand. If she was going to save him, then she needed to not think of him as Marcus. Finally, a clear spot for the IV on the back of his wrist and Sara took the butterfly needle and inserted it into the faint vein. She waited a moment and sighed when it looked like she didn't blowout the vein. She cleared the air from the bottom of the IV line and hooked him up.

Donnie was rinsing blood away from Marcus' body as he worked anything that opened he dried and closed with butterfly band-aids. She started clearing the semi-dried cakey blood from Marcus' chest checking for any internal injuries. It wasn't until they had cleaned him, and she was sure that he wasn't bleeding on the inside that she finally relaxed and allowed herself to look at him.

He looked like a sick version of a mummy. She'd lost count of how many stitches they'd tied and she had kept her eyes away when Donnie put in a catheter and checked that general area. He already had five different spots that were infected; luckily, only one of those was sever. She hooked up another bag of general antibiotics and set the tray of samples down on the desk. Except for a tube down his throat, Marcus looked like a patient that deserved to be in a burn unit on life support.

Nevertheless, he was breathing, breathing on his own and his temperature was only a little high. Donnie covered him with another blanket and set his eyes on her. She stared back.

*)O(*

She still wasn't back. Recognition of where she was and whom she was around was coming back to her but his Sara, the one who smiled so easily now, wasn't back yet. He knew the feeling. Whenever he had to work on his family, he had to do the same thing and it was painful to emotionally distance yourself like that in such a short amount of time. Having to tell yourself that you weren't heartless for being able to do it was one of the hardest parts. The most painful had to be the point that she was at now. Seeing him as she came back to herself was going to tear her up. He walked over to her and wrapped her in his arms. She stayed stiff for a minute until through the flimsy apron that served as a germ barrier grew soggy in a new spot.

"I got her back." Sara choked. "For every single mark on him and every scratch that she'd ever given to any of my family, I got her back." Donnie nodded and whispered that he knew before picking her up. Marcus was stable. He nodded to Raph who was outside the door who went in to keep an eye on Marcus. He took Sara to their room and sat her on the bed. She still cried silently but he had to get her out of that bloodstained vest. He slowly and gently removed her clothes one by one. Once she was naked, he grabbed an extra blanket and wrapped her in it before laying them both down on the bed. Her tears dried slowly and she was asleep soon. He held onto her and thanked whoever was above that she wasn't the one on the cot in the lab. He fell asleep with his lips pressed to her forehead.

He woke to a soft knocking on the door. Sara was laid across his plastron her head resting on the bed and her knees bent so her feet were against the wall. Everything about it screamed uncomfortable but she was dead asleep with just a little bit of drool pooling under her cheek. He took a moment to smile at her. Her face was soft and relaxed. Her hair was a mess. She still had on some of her patrolling make-up so it looked like she had two serious black eyes. She looked like she was at peace and he didn't want to wake her.

But the knock at the door came again, soft and not calling too much attention to it's self. The person was wary of waking them so it wasn't an emergency. Then… a sound that was ridiculously familiar spooked him. A loud, obviously had some chili, fart scared him enough he jumped a little. His sweet peaceful and totally asleep girlfriend had just farted loud enough to scare him. He couldn't help but to laugh. No matter that he knew that it was a natural, normal, even mandatory bodily function, he still laughed. At his sudden out burst, Sara woke up.

She rubbed her eyes, smearing the black eye shadow a little more and looking at him as if he was crazy. "What?"

"Sorry… it's just that's a weird way to sleep." Yes, he lied but it was so much better than trying to explain why he'd actually been laughing. The knock came again. Sara covered herself and he got up and answered the door. Mik smiled at him. "Dinner is ready. Are you two ready to eat?"

"Dinner?" Sara asked almost shocked.

"How long were we asleep?" Donnie asked.

"Raph took over for you two around seven or eight this morning, and it's around six now." Mik answered softly. Donnie nodded and then stepped out of the room with only a look back to Sara. She'd get dressed and meet him in the lab. He asked Mik if Marcus had been awake at all, if anything had changed, and she told him that while the man had groaned once then went back to sleep it didn't look like there had been any change at all. As she parted ways at the kitchen, she reminded him that dinner would be ready in just a few moments.

He walked in and checked all of Marcus' vitals quickly. Everything looked good. He didn't want to chance looking at the wounds without scrubbing down first so he just changed the full artificial bladder and looked at the test results from the samples they'd taken last night. The current antibiotics would be sufficient to kill his infection and his temperature had remained even. He heard the door slide and looked back to Sara. Some of her eye make up was smeared clear to her hairline and she'd only made her hair worse by trying to pull it up but her expression told him everything without her saying a word. "He's okay?"

"Yeah," he replied giving her a small smile. "Everything looks good but we should go ahead and keep him under for a couple more days so he can heal properly." She nodded and with one more wistful look to the man on the cot, she turned to leave and join the rest of the family for dinner.

*)O(*

Mik relieved Sara and Donnie of their watch over Marcus and reminded them of Splinter's orders at dinner. They weren't allowed to stay up for days monitoring him. They must rest and everyone was willing to help. If the man awoke, they would be sent for, but they were on mandatory down time until the morning.

Sara had been ready to protest when over the TV news of the Foot building came on blaring full blast. 'An explosion of a gas line inside of the building early this morning caused the collapse of this building and survivors are still being pulled from inside of the remains. No one has been able to identify the reason for the explosion but one man pulled from the wreckage said they he'd smelled gas which leads investigators to believe that there was an undetected leak that spread to different levels of the building, which enabled this massive destruction. Luckily, no other buildings were greatly effected when the structure failed. Some debris did cause some cosmetic damage but it looks like only people inside of the building were hurt.' Sara had bolted to the living room to see their enemy's headquarters in smoldering ruins. She'd smiled briefly before the camera zoomed in on something happening in the background. Rescuers were pulling up someone else. "No fucking way in hell!" Sara screamed. Everyone else went to look also. A woman was being pulled out. One clump of black hair stuck up from the top of her head while the rest of her face looked like someone had used it for charcoal her clothes were singed to her body where they hadn't been burned off completely and a katana hung loosely from one hand… Her only hand. The other was gone and Mik suspected that the woman had cut it off to free herself. Her leg looked like she'd put it through a meat grinder and Mik felt nauseated just looking at it. "Karai!" Sara screamed, enraged by just the sight of the other woman. Donnie had calmed her down, telling her that she would be suffering just the same as Marcus now and that she wouldn't be a threat anymore.

Mik came back to the present when Splinter came into the room. "I can take your watch. You have done much today and you also need your rest."

"The same can be said for you, too." She added. Her heart raced just looking at him. The closer he got the edgier she became but she was almost used to it now. "Well then, do you mind if I join you?"

"Go ahead." Mik smiled softly to him. He sat in the other chair opposite the bed with the injured man. They were quiet for a while and she went about checking everything off on the chart that Sara and Donnie insisted be filled out every hour. "Mik…" Splinter's soft warm voice engulfed the lab and she looked to him, pausing in her duties. "You… always seems nervous when I am around. I was wondering if I frighten you…" The words seemed to be a great effort for him to ask. As if he, a ninja master, was scared to know that truth they would bring. She knew the answer to that set of questions. "Yes, I am nervous around you, but no, I do not fear you at all, Splinter." She answered honestly and tried to act bold although admitting such aloud scared her deeply. She felt like the words held an answer to a question she didn't know how to ask. Splinter smiled at her softly. "Thank you, Mik."

"You're welcome, Splinter." She smiled back and then went back to her tasks. His eyes seemed to pierce her and she couldn't look at him any longer.

*)O(*

Leo slumped down on the couch next to Raph and tuned into what the wrestlers were doing. He was exhausted after today's extra training and was glad that until after Marcus woke up they weren't going out on patrols. He felt guilty for that thought but it was true all the same. They'd packed so much into the past couple of days that he was ready to just sit on the couch for an hour or two and watch people act like they were beating the crap out of each other. "So what are we going to do about that guy when he wakes up?" Raph asked. Leo had to stifle a groan the first time in history that Leo had ever just sat down next to the turtle and not started lecturing him and Raph just had to be the one to start talking.

"I'm going to leave that up to Sara and Splinter. If he is accepting and can keep our secret, then he's no threat and he'll be another friend. Other wise we'll have to figure something out."
"Like what?" Raph gave a short laugh. "Use some of Donnie's special dream syrup again."

"'Serum' and yeah. He'll think it was all just a bad dream." Leo corrected.

"Well, I hope that he's okay."

"Yeah, me too."

"So when is Sara going to get her lecture about the dangers of blowing up buildings?" Asked Raph, almost happy that someone besides him was getting yelled at.

"I don't know Raph." Leo groaned. That was something that he hoped Splinter would take care of because he didn't know if he would be able to tell her what she did was wrong. Yes, a lot of people got hurt and even more were killed, but all of them were ninja who served a dishonorable leader and tortured innocent people. Leo didn't know what to do. Not a feeling that he liked and if Splinter asked him to he would do his best to discipline Sara for her actions but he hoped he wouldn't have to.

"You have to admit, Lil' Sis can kick some serious shell." Raph grinned tuning back into the TV.

"Yeah…" Leo grinned. "Yeah, she can." They settled down and watched the rest of the show.

*)O(*

A/N: So, guys, what's been up? I'm so happy to be back and writing… Although updates will be wide spread and I can't promise much in the way of any schedule anymore. I'm excited to get to start on Mikey's story as even though I love Donnie to death and back a few hundred times, I'm ready to get to a lighter character and crack some stupid, lame ass jokes that will make everyone roll their eyes. (In true Mikey fashion.)

I feel that I have to bluntly put it out there that yes… eventually all turtles will be having babies… but that is eventually and not contained within this particular story. If you want to see Sara and Donnie's love child, you have to keep reading my other stories. Thank you guys for sticking with me and although I haven't pm'ed the people that have left reviews in a long time, just know that I love ya'll and seeing that little quote bubble's number goes up makes my heart swell. Thanks and stay tuned for another exciting episode of System Malfunction!