His birth control had worked perfectly for over fifteen years and now here he was, in his mid-thirties carrying a clutch of fertilised eggs inside him. Four eggs, at first he'd thought there were only three but when they had shifted positions slightly, a fourth could be seen. Of course there would be four. It could have been worse, he could have been carrying many more.

He'd spent many hours after discovering he was gravid, trying to figure out why after all this time his birth control had failed and when he finally realised what had caused it, Donnie had felt so incredibly stupid.

It had been a terrible winter for the Hamato family, with all four of the brothers falling ill. At least with their father having passed long ago they no longer had to worry about him falling ill.

Leonardo and Michelangelo had fallen ill first, Raphael followed a few days later and Donatello was the last to be struck down. The illness had caused a chest infection which all of them had suffered from and not wanting to chance any of them getting any worse or developing pneumonia, Donnie had made sure that they were all resting, drinking plenty of fluids and taking the antibiotics that he had prescribed them.

He should have known that the antibiotics would have interfered with his birth control, causing it to become not as effective. He should have taken extra precautions during this time but he hadn't really been thinking about himself, he'd barely remembered to take the antibiotics and rest, it was only because Leo had started to feel better when Donnie had become ill that he'd even rested at all and as soon as his other brothers were well as well they began fussing over him.

It had taken Don almost two weeks to tell his brothers, it had taken him that long to come to terms that he was going to be carrying these eggs for an unknown amount of time and then have to lay them, at whatever size they might grow to.

He'd gathered his brothers in his lab one afternoon to speak to them, to break the news and wait for what their reactions would be. He knew they would more than likely be positive given what they'd told him previously but he was still very nervous.

"We're gonna be dads?" Mikey asked, his blue eyes wide with disbelief. He was the first to say anything after almost five minutes of stunned silence.

"Yes." Donnie answered him and there were a few more seconds of quiet before Mikey threw his arms around him and hugged him tightly.

"Thank you." Mikey had whispered against his head and Donnie had to swallow the lump in his throat down as he hugged his little brother back just as tightly.

Raph had also given him a hug, thanked him and made sure Donnie wasn't doing anything that made him feel uncomfortable just for them and Donnie had admitted what had happened.

Surprisingly Leonardo had been the least happy with the news, he'd told them that he was but there was something in his eyes that didn't connect with his words. Donnie wanted to question Leo about how he was feeling but he didn't get a chance to catch him alone until he asked Raph and Mikey if they could give him and Leo a little privacy.

"I thought this would make you happy." Donnie said, catching Leonardo in the kitchen.

"I am happy." Leo replied, looking back at his brother with a smile that didn't meet his eyes.

"I kinda expected a better reaction from you given your stance on having children."

"I guess...this has taken me by surprise, I'd got used to the idea of not having children and just being an uncle to April and Casey's children but now you tell me that we're going to be having four. " Leo admitted. "It is...a lot and I understand why it took you so long to tell us."

"It did take a while for me to wrap my head around things...but knowing that these children will have three other fathers is helping me through a lot of the worry...there's not much else I can do regarding...carrying the eggs and laying them." Donnie sighed.

"And you promise that you're not doing this just to make us happy?"

"I promise Leo, this was a complete accident...caused by my own stupidity." Donnie laughed.

"You weren't very well at all...and were fussing over us." Leo laughed as well.

"Imagine how I'll be with four babies." Donnie chuckled but frowned at the same time.

"We'll all be there to help out Donnie, you don't need to go through anything alone." Leo promised, placing a hand on his forearm.

Donnie had spent the night with Leonardo alone, they'd made love before talking about the children they were soon going to have. Donnie told Leo that he would give them all naming rights to one child, but others could still voice their displeasure if they didn't care for the name chosen, they would comprise. They spent almost a half hour afterwards brainstorming baby names. Leonardo wanted to honour their father and his master and name one of their sons after Hamato Yoshi, it had been then that Leonardo had questioned the sex of their children.

Donnie admitted that there would be a lot of guesswork over the next few months, he had no idea how much of their turtle heritage would carry over in the way that he would be carrying the children and what would happen when he laid his eggs. He didn't know if the temperature at which he kept the eggs incubated would decided if the sex or their children would be male or female. They would just have to take things day by day and learn along the way.