Each day Donatello got sicker and sicker. He was shaky and nauseous all day, every day. He was perpetually exhausted, even though he had started going to bed right after dinner. His appetite was ravenous, but he couldn't keep anything down for longer than an hour or two. He got headaches that quickly escalated to migraines if he wasn't careful. He was having a difficult time controlling his emotions and was barely able to hold himself together during his phone calls to his family. There were no signs of improvement, and it was really starting to worry him. He was beginning to realize that there had to be more to this than stress and a series of illnesses. Something was seriously wrong with him.

Up until now, he had suffered in relative silence, doing everything that he could to hide the worst of his symptoms from Bishop and his team. They knew that he was sick, but he didn't want them to see just how much he was struggling. Everyone already saw him as a freak, he didn't want them thinking that he was weak as well. Around midday on an otherwise normal Thursday, Donatello realized that he wasn't going to win this battle.

He'd finally hit his breaking point. It felt like he hadn't slept in days. His stomach problems had kept him up all night. He had been getting migraines every afternoon without fail that week, and he could sense another one coming on. He had no energy whatsoever. He couldn't even eat anymore. His lunch should've been fine. It was only a tuna fish sandwich. Still, it sat like lead in his stomach.

The smell of the cafeteria was overpowering him, and he had been so famished that he had eaten quickly, which should've had the added bonus of getting him out of there sooner. Unfortunately, one of Bishop's aides had sucked him into a conversation that he couldn't escape. The longer the meaningless conversation droned on, the worse the cafeteria seemed to smell, and the harder that damn sandwich tried to claw its way back out of his stomach. Eventually, Don threw a hand against his mouth and took off at a sprint, barely making it to the bathroom in time.

The retching continued long past the point where his stomach had emptied. By the time it was done, his eyes were watering uncontrollably, and his legs had turned to jelly beneath him. He was covered from head to toe in a thin sheen of sweat. Don was splashing water on his face when Bishop appeared over his shoulder.

"Donatello, I heard that you still aren't feeling well."

Bishop was the last person that Donatello wanted to be dealing with right now. The ailing turtle leaned heavily on the sink and grimaced, his face radiating his irritation as he considered his next words. "That's putting it mildly."

Bishop was impossible to read. "Have the symptoms changed since the last time we spoke?"

"Not really," Donatello answered honestly. His hands began to clench into fists. "Everything just keeps getting worse."

"Really?" Bishop said, raising an eyebrow.

Donatello pivoted around. "Really," he yelled. "What did you do to me, Bishop?!"

"Me?" Bishop purred, innocently.

"Do you think I'm some kind of idiot?!" Donatello roared.

Bishop laughed at that, and it upset Donatello's cramping stomach even more, but what Bishop said next turned Don's blood to ice in his veins. "Now, now. If I thought that you were an idiot, you wouldn't be here, and certainly not in this condition."

"This condition? What the shell did you do to me?!" Donatello repeated.

Bishop hadn't intended to spill the beans so early, but Donatello was smart. He'd figure things out on his own soon enough, and the stress of wondering what was wrong in the meantime wouldn't be good for his subject, or the offspring he unknowingly carried. "Calm down, Donatello. Follow me and I'll tell you everything."

Don hesitated before heaving his sluggish body off of the sink and trudging after Bishop with leaden feet. "Where are we going?" he growled.

"To an exam room. It'll be best if you see things for yourself."

Donatello simmered with resentment for the entirety of the short walk. He wanted to yell some more, but he also didn't feel like talking. Frankly, he didn't have the energy to, and Bishop was correct that words were meaningless anyway.

As they walked, Don's mind began trying to put the pieces together. What could Bishop need to show him? And, why did this need to be done in an exam room? Then there were his symptoms - hunger, nausea, fatigue, and, what about the childhood development book that he found in his room? The denial set in even as the truth was dawning on him. It couldn't be. It wasn't even possible. He was a male. Something so drastic couldn't be done without him knowing about it. No.

Bishop gestured for Don to lay back, as he rolled over an ultrasound machine. Don was sure he would vomit again.

No!

Bishop gave Donatello a look that was meant to exude sympathy but instead had the effect of making the normally pacifistic turtle want to punch him right in his smug mouth. "Don't panic, Donatello. You're not sick. Your symptoms are just a side effect of something else."

Don bit his quivering lower lip as Bishop squirted cold gel on his belly and moved the wand into position. No, no, no!

Bishop looked up to Donatello's face, which had practically gone white. "By the looks of things you've figured it out on your own. You always were a clever one, Donatello."

Bishop turned back to the machine in concentration. It was far more sensitive and powerful than a normal ultrasound, but it was having trouble penetrating Donatello's still-thick plastron. The hormones that Bishop had been hiding in the turtle's coffee had begun to soften and relax it, but it was still early. These things took time.

Donatello intended to shout, but his voice came out pathetic and broken instead. "Why?"

"Why, what? Why did I do this to you?"

Don cleared his throat. "Yes."

"Well, it's simple really. You're useful, perhaps the most useful being on this planet. You're stronger and smarter than any human alive. You have a mild, dare I say even pleasant personality - the perfect soldier. There needs to be more like you. I need to have more like you." Bishop smiled as he finally found a spot thin enough for the ultrasound to penetrate. He began fiddling with the settings as he continued talking. "I already had all of the information on your biology and genetic makeup leftover from when you were laid up with the outbreak virus. And, as you know, I had plenty of technology and expertise related to cloning and bioengineering."

Bishop was quiet for a few moments as he concentrated, and Donatello found himself to have gone mute. He was so paralyzed with shock and fear that he literally couldn't speak. Bishop had just enough empathy to realize this and make a tone def attempt to comfort him. "It's not as though you'd ever be able to reproduce on your own. And, it would be such a waste if your genetic line simply ended with you, wouldn't it?"

"What about consent?" Don whispered brokenly. "What you did, you…"

"I did something that will help the world, Donatello. And while I didn't seek your consent, it's my job to protect this planet by any means necessary. As much as it pains me to say it, that's something that you and your brothers have excelled at. Sometimes my decisions are difficult, but this wasn't one of them. I did what needed to be done, and I didn't get your consent because it simply didn't matter. This is for the greater good,"

There were so many questions, but Bishop lit up like a Christmas tree, making them all fall away. Don had never seen him like this. "Look!" He said excitedly. "There they are! All three took!"

"Three?" Don choked in terror and disbelief. "Three!"

"Yes," Bishop confirmed, as he pointed to the display. "See? They look to be developing perfectly. That's the thing about internal gestation. It's just so much more successful than attempting to grow them in a cold, lifeless machine. And, in this case, the mutagen in your system was needed to keep the embryos viable. Try though I may, I simply couldn't replicate the equilibrium that naturally exists within that mutated body of yours."

"But, how?" Don managed to whimper.

"I've had the embryos on ice for quite some time," Bishop answered. "That part was easy, really. I had plenty of biological samples from you and your brothers on hand from our previous encounters. Surely you don't think that you managed to destroy all of them, did you?"

Don didn't answer that, so Bishop continued. "The embryos are a mix of all of you four. They aren't true clones. But, they're mostly you, Donatello. It's you that I want them to take after. I want you to train them to help me protect Earth, but I also want you to think of them as your own children. Similar to the set-up that you had with your own so-called father."

Bishop removed the wand, and Don robotically moved a hand to his belly. He shouldn't be able to have biological children, never mind bear them himself. It was too much to absorb, and being reminded of Master Splinter nearly caused Donatello to lose his composure entirely. If only his father were here right now. Don didn't dare speak at all, for fear of breaking down.

"I expect this to play out more or less like a human pregnancy," Bishop continued to explain. "I was able to modify some of your internal organs and create an ideal place for your children to grow within you. We will have to continue to manipulate your body chemistry with hormones, and I'm sure that this experience… Well, it won't be entirely pleasant for you. But, with careful monitoring, you and your offspring will be just fine."

Bishop droned on and on about how he had created the embryos, what hormones he was administering, how he expected the pregnancy to progress, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. The part of Don's brain that made him a genius took in every word verbatim for later processing. The part of Don's brain that made him a living, feeling being, the same part that rendered him mute in terror, kept repeating the same thing: I can't do this. It can't be real. I can't do this. It can't be real.

It repeated over and over, like a bizarro version of the little engine that could. It continued through the end of the exam, and the walk back to his room. It continued as he cried himself to sleep, and on through his troubled dreams. He couldn't do it. It couldn't be real. He couldn't do it. It couldn't be real. He couldn't do it.