Donatello was indeed working as hard and fast as he possibly could, in the hopes of getting home sooner. His first task was refining the EPF's software to more accurately isolate items of interest. Since Valeria specialized in coding and astrophysical data interpretation, he delegated a lot of this to her. His second task was designing and constructing an upgrade to the SETI satellite array to make it more powerful.

Don had also asked Bishop if he could check out the communicators that his spies had used. It turned out that Bishop didn't have any specialized equipment. The spies had been sending messages to SETI using intergalactic communication systems on-board the Triceraton warships. Bishop had only ever been able to hear them. He couldn't send any communication back to them, nor could he hear anything on the old audio feeds now that the spies were presumed dead.

Bishop watched Donatello like a hawk. There were personal debriefings three times a day. Every line of code, blueprint, and acquisition request was triple checked by his higher-ups. Moreso, Bishop ensured that Donatello was in his quarters by 10 at night and that the door remained locked until 6 the next morning. He insisted that Don got a minimum of eight hours of sleep each night. To see Bishop behave in such a fatherly manner was unsettling, especially given Splinter's recent passing.

Donatello would have fought back harder, but after a week or two at Area 51, he found himself getting exhausted very easily. It was odd, because Donatello had never required much sleep. He was used to getting by on five or six hours of sleep a day, even less if he was in the middle of a project. At first, he wondered if his exhaustion was simply because he was on such a strict schedule - perhaps Bishop forcing him into his barren, electronic-free quarters was conditioning him to crave rest. Donatello began to grow more suspicious when he started noticing the return of headaches and nausea. He'd felt better for a few days immediately after settling in, but then his condition began deteriorating. One night, he had a crippling migraine that forced him into his quarters several hours early.

He chalked it up to stress. All the information at hand pointed to a new invasion. Who wouldn't be sick with fear at the mere thought of that? Never mind being burdened with the stress of having the safety of an entire planet being carried on your shoulders. On a personal level, each time Donatello called home, things seemed worse there. Only one turtle was home at any given time. Whoever answered the phone was usually mad at him and everyone else. Sometimes, no one answered at all.

It was enough to make anyone sick with worry.

Don was typing away like a madman, generating new lines of code with incredible speed. He was stunned into silence when the reflection of his favorite coworker appeared on the computer monitor.

"Oh, don't let me interrupt you!" Valeria said. "I was just admiring your typing style."

Don blushed, his green skin causing his face to turn a deep purple, rather than a reddish hue that most humans would have displayed in the same situation. Donatello had always been rather bashful, and was the only one of his brothers to have picked up this embarrassing blushing habit. It was even more embarrassing because it was Valeria that was witnessing it.

Donatello liked her in a way that was unexpected. At first, he thought it was simply that she reminded him of a younger version of April. She was smart and kind and funny, and he thought that she was cute. She was one of the youngest employees here, having been hired right out of college, but she was already considered a rising star at the EPF. Valeria was something of a loner herself, being younger and newer to the team than the others. Perhaps that's why Don felt a connection to her.

In the few weeks since their first meeting, they had already grown into something approaching friends. Most everyone else avoided Don whenever possible, and he was too shy to care. He just wanted to finish his work as quickly as possible, then go home to his family. But, he couldn't deny that Valeria had some sort of power over him. Whenever she came near, the nausea that had become a constant companion erupted into full-fledged butterflies. He got weak in the knees and his palms started sweating. He'd read about things like this, but never expected to experience anything like it himself.

It was a pity really, because he knew that he was incapable of eliciting that sort of response in someone else. Between his strange, mutated form, the social awkwardness that came from being raised in relative isolation, and his intimidatingly intelligent mind that set him apart even from his own brothers, he knew that no one could ever take a romantic interest in him. He supposed that it was at least nice to experience romantic feelings, even though they were so hopeless and one-sided.

Valeria pulled her hair half-back, proudly displaying that purple streak that Bishop hated so much. "So what's it going to be today?" Don asked.

"I was thinking of saying that I went to the salon yesterday, but that the dye hasn't taken yet," Valeria replied with a mischievous grin.

"You should leave your hair like that when he comes in for the lunchtime briefing. Tell him that the air needs to get at it for the dye to work."

"Brilliant!" Valeria bubbled. "I have to say that you arrived at a perfect time for me, Donatello. I was running low on fake excuses."

"Oh please. I'm sure you had a few in your back pocket," Donatello shot back. This was their favorite game, and the highlight of his day - helping Valeria come up with a way to avoid getting rid of her beloved purple streak.

Valeria shrugged. "I was down to claiming that my hairdresser was temporarily colorblind."

"What about saying the salon burned down?" Donatello suggested.

"Oh please, Bishop checks the news."

Donatello tapped his chin. "A lab accident caused a genetic mutation and dye no longer works on you?"

Valeria expanded on his idea. "Except the dye that was already there, of course."

"Naturally," Donatello said as he returned to his work.

"Looks like I'm good for another couple of days," she proclaimed in a singsong voice. "My hero!"

Donatello bit his lip to hide a smile as Valeria pet him on the shell. Her fleeting touch sent a rush of blood straight to his head, leaving his fingers and toes cold as his heart palpitated wildly. The butterflies in his stomach went crazy, to the point where he was sure they were fighting to get out. He gulped a mouthful of air but that only made it worse. He realized with dawning horror that he was about to vomit. There was no stopping it.

"Excuse me," Donatello yelled as he dashed out of the room and down the hall. What was wrong with him?! Was he lovesick? If so, Donatello couldn't imagine why any human would actually want to chase this feeling.

Donatello had managed to return to work after barely avoiding tossing his cookies in front of his crush. For the remainder of the day, he tried to avoid her as much as possible in order to prevent a repeat performance. Rather than returning to his desk, he went to the workshop to tinker with a scale model of the satellite modification that he was working on.

He had been working flat on his shell for a while, when he sat up quickly to reach a part that he needed. Suddenly, the room began spinning. Don gasped and grabbed his temples as he felt himself slipping back downwards. Fortunately, one of the guards caught him before his head hit the ground.

"Are you going to get sick again?" the guard asked, rather gruffly. An added indignity was that Don's guards followed him everywhere during the daylight hours, so they knew how ill he had been.

Don cracked an eye open. "No," he moaned. "Dizzy."

The guards looked at each other. "We'd better get him to his quarters," the one not holding the turtle decided.

Both guards began lifting Don, and before he realized what was happening, he had emptied the sparse contents of his stomach onto their shoes. It turned out that his assumption about not needing to vomit again had been woefully incorrect. "Sorry," Don whimpered. "'Nother migraine comin' on."

If the guards responded, Donatello never heard. He was whisked away to bed. He passed out immediately, despite the pounding in his head. A few hours later, he was woken up for dinner. He somehow forced himself to eat a slice of pizza. It was still roiling in his stomach when it came time to call home.

Don sat in front of the phone, debating which brother to call. He realized that he felt too miserable to think at all and hit a button at random. He still had his eyes shut when the ringing ceased.

"Still alive, huh?" Raph greeted.

Donnie swallowed hard. "Hey, Raph. How's it going?"

"Just peachy," Raph replied. Don could hear the sound of cars honking in the background.

"You aren't in the Lair," Don took a deep breath to calm his stomach before continuing, "... are you?"

"Nah. Got better places to be," Raph answered.

Don rubbed his temple. "Where? You somewhere safe at least?"

"Rooftop. I'm fine," Raph barked. "Are you?"

Don dropped his hand and leaned back in his chair. "Huh?"

"You sound like crap, bro," Raph said. "Your voice is all thick and you're slurring. Did Bishop do something to you?"

"No," Don answered. "Just got a headache, and feeling kind of nauseous. Had a migraine earlier and it wiped me out. Think the stress is getting to me."

"You don't say…" Raph jeered. There was silence for a moment, and then Raph sighed. "You're taking care of yourself, right? Watching your back? Not pushing yourself too hard? Getting extra rest?"

Don smiled. Despite his gruff demeanor, Raph had always looked out for Don's well-being, particularly when he was sick or overworked.

"I'm trying," Don promised. "Wish you were here to watch my back for me."

"Hey, I'd love to be there," Raph proclaimed, somewhat harshly. "But everyone has made it pretty clear that I'm not welcome in Area 51."

"Just because I can't have you here doesn't mean that I don't want you to be here. Do y'know what I mean?" Donatello sighed. "I miss you guys."

"We miss you too, Brainiac. You're just about the only one around here who understands my need for space and knows when to just back off. Leo is behaving like a mother and father combined, and Mikey seems to have made it his mission in life to get everyone laughing again," Raphael grumbled.

"Go easy on'em," Don slurred. "The way you take off makes everyone nervous. They're only trying to keep everyone together."

"If they'd just back off a little, maybe I'd want to stay home more often. Feels like they're always trying to crawl up into my shell with me."

Don chuckled. "That's gross, Raph." When he ceased his chortling, Don realized that the jiggling movement of his stomach had done him in. He dropped the phone on the desk, grabbed a nearby trash can and barfed.

Raph's voice could be heard from the earpiece. "Speaking of gross…"

When Don was finished, he picked up the phone again. "Oh, I am so miserable," he moaned. "Sorry you had to hear that."

"Don't be sorry," Raphael insisted. "Just promise me that you're being careful. You being this sick is real suspicious to me. Are you sure that Bishop didn't cause this, somehow?"

"I'm never sure of anything," Don replied. "But, I really don't think it's got anything to do with him. I'm not sleeping very well. If these guys were up to something, I think I'd know it."

"They could be slipping stuff into your food, you know."

"To what end?" Don asked. "Why would they want to make me sick? They need me for this project, Raph. Plus, they seem concerned. They took some blood from me when I first got sick, then again this afternoon. They've been forcing me to rest and eat right. Why would they be doing that if they didn't want me better?"

"I don't know," Raph confessed. "It just seems weird to me. What did they say when they took your blood?"

"That it was a common stomach virus."

"Then why aren't you better? It's been over a week."

"I probably got something else before I kicked the first bug," Don guessed.

"Likely story," Raph scoffed.

"It is," Don insisted. "We've been isolated for most of our lives. We don't have much immunity to common viruses. I'm being exposed to a ton of new people. I'm probably picking up stuff all the time, and my body doesn't know how to fight everything off. Plus, I might be having a hard time recovering, given all the stress I've been under."

"And, for all we know, you never totally went back to normal after being hit with the Outbreak Virus," Raphael pointed out.

"Ug, you have to bring that up?" Don complained.

"Yes," Raphael barked. "I do. Because that was Bishop. That's who you're in league with, here." Raph paused before finishing. "Watch your back, Don.

Bishop was practically giddy with excitement. He'd had blood drawn from Donatello upon his arrival, then again when the turtle first started showing obvious symptoms of pregnancy. A third sample had been drawn earlier today.

The levels of each hormone that Bishop's team was monitoring were skyrocketing - progesterone, relaxin, human chorionic gonadotropin, even estrogen. Bishop had been slipping these hormones to the unwitting turtle in his daily coffee. It had been a simple matter of programming the machine to recognize Donatello's ID card and slip him a special blend. Given that caffeine was best avoided in pregnancy, Bishop had also programmed the machine to only give the brilliant turtle decaf.

What was amazing to Bishop was that the levels of each hormone were steadily rising, and they were all at the proper ratios. This meant that Don's body had figured out what to do with them. They weren't simply passing straight through him. The pregnancy had taken.

Bishop wondered how long it would be before the turtle realized what was going on. He was dying to have an ultrasound run on Donatello, but now that he was positive the turtle was pregnant, he didn't want to drug him or knock him out again. That wouldn't be good for the embryos. Instead, Bishop decided to wait until Don figured things out on his own, then tell him everything and run as many tests as he could think up. Given how sick and emotional Donatello had been, he didn't think that it would take the genius much longer to begin asking questions.