Do not own the TMNT characters, just Kit and her past

Chapter 33; For Great Science!

The papers swished as they cut through the air and landed in silence on the floor.

Don muttered a complaint about clumsiness and bent to pick them up, then returned to his study of the two slides. They should have been samples from the same type of paint he hoped to use on the Battle Shell, but they weren't drying the same and he needed to know if and how that would affect performance.

He straightened up and was about to switch slides yet again when he caught of whiff of delicately mixed cinnamon, molasses, and dear, sweet, coffee-drenched heaven. Turning, Don found Kit holding a container filled with what could only be Michelangelo's fresh-baked coffee cake drizzled with a few lines of frosting and steaming seductively.

Behind the seductive little baked minx stood Kit, wide-eyed and clearly confused. "Turtles have tails?" Suspiciously, she amended, "Or just you guys?"

Don swallowed, the cake smelled so good. So good that he didn't wonder where the odd question came from. "No, tails are normal." Normally he would have followed up with another question, he always seemed to have one, but he didn't always have coffee cake... fresh-baked... steaming...

"Okay..." Kit replied slowly, mentally cataloguing this information. "Anyway, Mikey sent another apology. He said 'so' four times, and 'very' twice." She held up the cake. Donnie unconsciously leaned forward a little. "Does this mean he's forgiven yet, or does it go with the others?" She tilted the pan to a pile of other mismatched containers filled with everything from turtle shaped pancakes and purple macaroni and cheese to cupcakes with the words 'SORRY' and '4GIVE baked into them. Some of the dishes were missing a few bites, others sat untouched. Privately, Kit hoped this apology would work. The kitchen was running dangerously short of any kind of baking ingredients.

"That goes over here." Donnie pointed to a pile of notebooks and paper that was mostly balanced and level on top. Kit moved to put the dish down and before she'd even released it Donnie managed to pull a piece out and pop it in his mouth. His eyes rolled back in his head for sheer bliss. "Mmmmmm." He reached for another piece and added, "No, not yet." Then quickly savored another bite.

"Wow." Kit chuckled and shook her head as she turned to collect some of the untouched food, intent on taking the dishes back to the kitchen where the rest of the clan could get at them before the food went bad.

"M!" Don grunted, remembering something. He quickly told her "-date ah i-uhd!"

Kit paused, trying and failing to translate. "What?"

He swallowed the half-chewed mass, grateful everything went down the right pipe. "Wait a minute... can I ask you some things?" She tilted her head, one ear swiveled down and the other remained as focused on Donnie as her eyes. Donnie could almost picture a little cartoony question mark hanging over her head. He suspected that if he identified where the mental image came from he'd be forced to forgive Mikey a little faster so he swept the thought away and pursued his curiosity instead. "About your mutation, if it's not too upsetting to talk about."

"Upsetting?" Kit said the word like a foreigner whose english wasn't so good. Slowly a smirk spread over her face. "How long have you been wanting to ask me?" Her voice teased him. Her ears relaxed as amusement danced in her eyes.

Don grimaced, not wanting to admit the truth of his curiosity. He glanced at his fingers, noting the baking grease they'd picked up from the coffee cake and quickly trying to find something to wipe them clean on. "Um..." Kit chuckled and Don felt his skin heat up.

"Really, it's no big deal." She assured him. Her tone soothed his nerves. He'd expected a mild jab for being a geek or offense that he'd wanted to be nosey in the first place but now that Kit was pulling up a stool he felt as if he'd been worrying himself over nothing.

After settling herself on the stool, Kit grabbed one of the apology muffins and shrugged. "What do you want to know?"

Don grabbed his chair and quickly settled into it so that his notebook rested on his knee, one hand poised to take notes and the other hand reaching for another piece of that cake. "Right, well..." He gathered his thoughts, jotted his question in shorthand and started, "You said you were human before... from Wyoming. How old were you when you mutated?" He thought he remembered her saying, but it was best to get it on paper.

"I first noticed something when I was ten. Finished, or got where I am now, when I was thirteen."

Donatello nodded and noted this. "Right, and what started the mutation?"

"I woke up covered in fur."

He'd written 'woke up co-' before he stopped. Holding up a hand, Don tried to clarify. "I'm sorry, I meant, what caused your mutation to start? Chemical, radiation...?" Don finished with an encouraging gesture.

His encouragement met with a shake of the head. "Nope. No idea."

"No... none?"

"None." A shrug.

Don stared at her, simply stared.

"I thought he was going to pull his head in his shell and cry! Can you even do that?" Kit demanded, waving a roll of tin foil at Mikey.

Michelangelo sighed at the rejected apologies Leo had ordered him to keep in the fridge or freezer. "Kind of hard to do both at the same time, but yeah."

Tails, heads they could pull into their shells... the wonders would never cease.

"So you really promised him?" Mikey asked.

Kit wrapped a large batch of purple scones in the foil. "Not 'promise' so much as 'agreed to without conditions'."

"I'm betting that wasn't your brightest move."

The muffins were tossed in the freezer, which was filling up rapidly. "No. Donnie immediately perks up and starts talking blood, and hair, and urine." She made a face that sent her fur tufting out in every direction. "Really? Urine?"

"Ew." A pound cake followed the muffins.

Puffing out air, Kit leaned on the counter. "So, any big ideas for your next apology?"

Mikey looked thoughtful, then nodded. "I'm out of flour, so it's got to be something different."

"Like promising to stay out of his lab?"

"Nah, I'm thinking more coffee. With one of those little latte patterns on top!"

Kit took the pan of purple macaroni and upended it over Mikey's head.