I do not own Dr. Elder, nor any characters from the TMNT universe. Dr. Elders belongs to Cheshire Dreaming... pity her.

Oh, and neither of us own the geeky stuff only nerds will understand near the end of this chapter ;p

Don't forget to check out CheshireDreaming's account at; CheshireDreaming dot deviantart dot com -She's the co-author and the person who really deserves the credit for this story ever getting started.

Chapter Thirty-five; Quinn

As Donnie and I descended into the lab, my mind was awash with questions. Questions like what should I say to him? Won't this just be really awkward? What if he asks me more about my nightmares? Or my life before now? What did I even volunteer for this in the first place?

The answer to the last one was thrown back in my face. Because you haven't done anything to help the turtles, and look at what they've done and continue to do for you. And there was nothing wrong with spending some alone time with my favorite turtle, either.

"So how much do you know about dissembling and reconstructing electronics?" Don asked, rummaging through a box of gadgets.

"Not a whole lot. But I'm pretty sure I'm not going to break anything, and if you show me in general what goes where, I should be fine."

"Okay." Don emerged from the box with two shell cells. "These are the shell cells." I nodded. I know what they are. "I'll start on this one. You can try taking the other one apart, if you think you can handle that."

"Sure."

He pulled out two screwdrivers from his almighty tool box and handed one of them to me, along with the shell cell.

"I'll show you what to do next once you've taken off the outer plates."

We got to work, the only sounds being our breathing and the whirr of the computers, and the occasional squeak of our screwdrivers taking out screws.

"I'm impressed," I said once the cover was off, eyeing the complicated insides of the shell cells. Wires ran from a screen and antenna and sound devices and data chips to the center of the cell, a complicated looking little machine.

"Thanks. Could you disconnect the antenna from the receiver?"

I was pretty sure I knew what he meant. "Sure."

He walked me through a few more disassembly steps, and when I was done he took the pieces and I got his almost-finished one instead. It looked very much like a normal cellphone. So much so that I suspected he'd used a normal phone for the outside, and maybe some of the inner parts as well. He showed me how to arrange the inner parts and lock the outer pieces together, and I did so after only a few failed tries. I felt incredibly accomplished.

Don took my finished cell to look over for any mistakes and gave it a thumbs-up. Ladies and gentlemen, we have ourselves two refurbished shell cells!

"Thanks for the help."

"It's the least I could do. I haven't been helping out enough." Got that right. What else have I done so far, make French toast? It was about time I started pulling my weight around here. "Speaking of which, is there anything else you want help with?"

He glanced around the room. "Uhhh…Yeah, actually. I'm working on modifying the shell cycle, too. It's in the garage."

Have I mentioned I know absolutely nothing about motors, motorcycles, cars, or vehicles of any kind? "Sure."

He smiled, and it was all worth it. "Great! It's this way." Don led me into the "garage": a large space filled by the shell cycle, battle shell, turtle taxi, and other souped-up vehicles. Like I said, I knew next to nothing about them. But this was still hugely impressive.

"Hey, what are you two doin' here?" Raph? Forget us, what was he doing here? And what was he hiding behind his back?

"I'm going to work on the shell cycle," Don explained. "And Quinn volunteered to help. What are you doing here?"

"Nothin," Raph muttered. "See ya later." He slid past us out of the room. I looked to Don, who shrugged.

"He's like that sometimes. You just have to leave him alone." I nodded. I was more than aware of Raph's moodiness.

Don wasted no time, towing his tool box over to the shell cell. Carefully, he lowered it onto its side.

"Could you hand me the screwdriver? The size 1 Phillips."

Okay, this I knew. I chose one of the smaller Phillips heads and put it in his waiting hand. He took it and started to work.

"I'll admit it's nice to have people around who don't think everything I say is techno babble."

"Just most of it," I teased. He looked startled, but after glancing up at me he cracked a smile.

"Yeah, well. Thanks for helping me out, too."

I shrugged, even though he couldn't see it. "Like I said, I should do this more often. You guys have done so much for me."

"It's nothing. TORX, size 3."

Uh oh. "Uh…"

"It's the one with the six-pointed star head."

"Got it." I exchanged the driver in his hand for a drill bit. He already had the driver down there, the sly turtle.

I was starting to get bored—listening to a lot of drilling could do that. So I started humming the first thing that came to mind. The Boom De Ya Da song from Discovery Channel. I kid you not.

So it came as even more of a shock when Donnie started humming along.

I mean whoa. Don…watched Discovery Channel. Wait, why was that surprising? Of course he watched Discovery Channel. He probably liked Mythbusters just as much as any other self-respecting geek.

Let's see how far his geekdom stretched.

I switched to the Star Trek theme song. He hummed along.

I hummed the theme to Stargate SG-1. He hummed along.

I hummed the freaking Geeks in Love song from Lemon Demon. And he knew that one too.

"I reject your reality—"

"—and substitute my own." Don grinned up at me, eyebrows raised. I felt the heat rush to my face. It occurred to me that my red face must look really weird with a pink-and-purple striped tinge. "Space—" Okay, so the tables had turned.

"—the final frontier."

"It's life, Jim."

"But not as we know it."

"I didn't take you for a Trekkie."

I shrugged. "I'm not, really. My dad kind of got me into it. And then there was the Reboot with Zachary Quinto. That pretty much cemented it." I grinned. "You'd fit right in at my school."

He gave me a wry look. "Yeah, I'm sure they'd respond well to a giant mutant turtle."

Oops. "Sorry."

He sighed, shook his head. "It's fine. We're used to that kind of thing by now. Not fitting in and all." Something in his voice suggested otherwise. "It's why we live down here."

"Still, that sucks."

"I guess."

"You can talk to me about it, if you want."

"Thanks, but no thanks. I'm fine." His tone of voice told me to drop it.

"Fine."

"Fine."

We fell silent again. Something was starting to smell bad. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but…

"Wrench." I distractedly handed him the tool. Yep. It was definitely becoming more distinct.

"Don, do you smell something?"

"No. Not really." Of course he didn't. He had his face buried in the oily engine of a motorcycle.

"It smells like…" Oh, no. "…smoke. Don, I smell smoke!"

"What?! Where?!" He bolted up from the floor. I was already halfway up the stairs. When I opened the door and dashed out into the main room, I saw Leo frantically trying to put out a small fire in the kitchen. Smoke billowed out from whatever he was trying to extinguish. I also noticed that while Tammy was trying to help him, Raph was watching with an amused expression. And Mikey was just ignoring the whole thing while he played video games on the couch.

"What's going on?" Don asked. Raph snorted.

"Fearless leader here tried ta make dinner. He ain't too good at it. That's his meatloaf," he smirked.

I peeked over Leo's shoulder once the fire was out and saw a small smoking lump in a glass mold. No one spoke for a good minute; it was a feat in and of itself to ruin anything, let alone meatloaf, this badly.

Mikey was the first to speak.

"So does this mean we can order pizza?"

I love the whole world, it's such a brilliant place,

Boom de ah da, boom de ah da...