Before reporting for work on Monday morning, Donatello stopped at the cafeteria and picked up some toast with ginger jam and peppermint tea to go. He brought them back to his workstation and began eating them very slowly. He'd read that they might help with the morning sickness, but staying out of the cafeteria was essential. The smells were just too much.

After an hour, Valeria entered their shared office. "Donatello! You're back!"

Don's head shot up. It hadn't occurred to him that he would have been missed. "I am," he confirmed. "Sorry for flaking out on you. I promise to work extra hard today to make up for it."

Valeria shrugged off her coat and hung it up on one of the hooks. "Relax, Don. I'm your coworker, not your boss. How are you feeling? I heard that you barfed in the cafeteria, then got into a fight with Bishop."

"I didn't barf in the cafeteria," Don clarified. "I made it to the bathroom."

"So the part about arguing with Bishop is true?" Valeria smiled at him as she took her seat. "That's the part that I found harder to believe."

"Good to know that you can picture me losing my lunch in a public place so easily," a chagrined Donatello pouted. "But yes, I got into it with Bishop a little."

"About what?" Valeria prodded.

Don shuffled his feet uncomfortably. Bishop had assured him that no one outside of the guards and the medical staff knew about his condition. It would fall to him to tell the others if he chose too. He wasn't prepared to say anything until he spoke to his family. "Just… personal stuff," he deflected.

Valeria put her hands up. "Sorry, sorry, none of my business. You're feeling better, though?"

"I am feeling better. And, don't worry; I'm not contagious," Don promised.

Valeria smiled warmly. "I wasn't worried about catching your virus. I just missed you. It's too quiet around here without you."

Butterflies fluttered through Don's stomach. He took a sip of tea to calm himself. "I can bring one of my scale models up here… make some noise."

"That's not what I meant." Valeria looked him in the eyes. "I missed having you around. It hasn't been easy for me to make friends, especially not around here."

"Really?" Don blurted. He found Valeria so vibrant and charming. Who wouldn't want to be her friend?

"Really. When I was younger, I was more into books than playing with the other kids. I had a couple of friends, but then my parents realized how smart I was. I started getting skipped ahead. Then I was the youngest person in class. And after my parents died, I was the poor little orphan that everyone felt sorry for. Now I'm the new girl with the weird hair, and I'm right back to being the youngest person in the room."

"Your hair's not weird. It's cool," Don announced. "Besides, I doubt that you're younger than me," he added, softly.

"I admit, I have no idea how old you are," Valeria said. "You're a hard read, Donatello."

"I'm nineteen," Don confessed. He didn't think about age much. There was no way to know when his specific birthday was, or even his mutation day. So, he didn't celebrate the passing of years in quite the same way as a human. But, he was nineteen- nineteen, orphaned, virtually imprisoned, and expecting triplets. Quite a mess he'd found himself in.

"I'm twenty." Valeria smiled. "So, I guess you win this round. You seemed older to me."

That was a comforting thought. Don sure as heck felt older, especially lately. "No. I'm only nineteen," Don reiterated. "And if anything, turtles being as long-lived as they are, I might be considered younger in human terms."

"You're a turtle?!" Valeria practically shouted.

Don reared back, his head reminding him of the migraine he had only recently recovered from. "Yeah, I'm a mutated turtle. What the heck did you think I was?"

"An alien," Valeria said bluntly.

Don twisted his shoulders to show off his back. "The shell didn't tip you off?"

Valeria laughed. "This is Area 51, Don."

Don laughed too. Aliens were par for the course here, and who's to say they wouldn't have shells. "Touché."

Funny that they hadn't discussed even the most basic of stuff. Don felt rather close to Valeria, but they hadn't really had any prolonged conversations about their personal lives. Don found himself longing to do just that. Just like he had needed Leo's familiar voice to lull him to sleep the other night, he needed Val to provide him with a distraction right now - something to focus on other than his life falling apart and the stress of his work.

Valeria must have picked up on his willingness to chat for a while because she leaned back in her desk chair. "So, if you started off as a turtle, how did you get like this?" she asked.

"My brothers, father and I were exposed to mutagenic ooze," Don explained.

Valeria raised her eyebrows. "From the Utroms?"

"Yes. So, you've heard of them?"

"Sure have," Valeria replied. "And, you have brothers and a dad?"

"Yes. Well, brothers anyway. Sad to say that I'm an orphan too. My dad… he passed away a few months back," Don explained.

Valeria's face fell. "I'm sorry, Don. How'd he go?"

"Cancer," was Don's blunt response.

"That sucks."

"It does, but he had a long life for a rat," Don mused. "According to him, it was his time to go."

"My parents weren't so lucky," Valeria said, sadly. "They were killed during the Triceraton invasion. That's what brought me here. I wanted to find some sort of justice for them, to prevent this from happening to anyone else."

"That's noble, Valeria. A loss like that would tear most people apart. I should know. Seems that it only made you work harder."

"You and I are the same," Valeria observed. "I've seen how hard you're working, even when you're obviously sick."

"I just want to finish this job and get home," Don replied. "It's not a great time for me to be separated from my family, with the death of my dad being so fresh. We're all struggling."

"At the rate you're working at, we'll be done before you know it," Valeria predicted.

"I hope so." Don sighed. "My brothers and I only have each other now. We have to stick together."

"Why can't they come here?" Valeria asked. "If they're anything like you, I'm sure Bishop could put them to good use." She had no idea that Don had been kidnapped and was now being held against his will.

Don chuckled bitterly. "Bishop made it pretty clear that they aren't welcome. He kind of hates us."

"But he seems to like you," Valeria pointed out.

Don frowned. "I don't think that he likes me. He just finds me useful."

"You are useful," Valeria said. "Why wouldn't they be?"

"My brothers and I are almost identical, physically. But we are very different when it comes to our demeanors and intellectual pursuits."

"I see," Valeria hummed.

Don gave her a sad smile. "So I can relate to what you said about your intelligence making you feel isolated when you were growing up. I went through a similar struggle. It was easy to push aside when we were little, but as we got older I began to feel more and more… different; like my family and I didn't fit in with anyone, and in turn, I didn't really fit in with them. Most of my interests and hobbies just weren't the same as my brothers', and I spent a lot of my time in the lab, apart from them. Now that we've gone out into the world more and more, it's turned out that some of the skills that I've developed are rather useful, and I'm afraid that they think it makes me feel like I'm better than them or something. Honestly, nothing could be further from the truth. I just need to be near them again so they can see that they're the most important thing in the world to me."

Another wave of nausea hit Don, and he took a few bites of toast to head it off. "And what about you?" he asked after he swallowed. "Do you have any remaining family?"

"No one that I'm close too. My mom was a free spirit - an artist. She kind of rebelled against her family when she was younger. They're all pretty uptight. We moved around a lot when I was growing up, and never really set down roots, you know? They're in my life, but I don't visit them often; pretty much only around the holidays. There's just not much of a connection there."

Don nodded. "I get it. What about your dad?"

"He immigrated from Senegal to the US when he was a young man. He always spoke fondly of his homeland, and it really inspired my mother's art. I keep in touch with his family over there, but we've never met in person. I admit that I'd love to go someday. Not just to meet them, but to see where my Dad grew up."

"You should go. Traveling is good for the soul," Donatello advised, before taking another sip of tea.

"What's up with the tea, Don?" Valeria smirked. "I thought you were a coffee drinker."

"Trying to soothe my stomach," Don answered. "But, don't change the subject. Are you going to go?"

"Maybe, if I can get the time off."

"Oh, come on. You're twenty years old and acting like you're forty. Just do it already. No better time than when you're young," Don urged.

"You're probably right. Maybe I'm putting it off because I'm a little scared that it will hurt, seeing everything and everyone my dad told me about, but not being able to share it with him," Valeria reasoned.

Donatello hummed in sympathy. Valeria's eyes had grown sad. It was the first time he'd seen her like that, looking so vulnerable. He dared to reach out and touch her wrist. Much to his surprise and delight, she didn't flinch. She only looked at him and smiled.

"Look at us," Don chuckled. "Couple of misplaced kids taking on the Triceraton empire. So tell me, how did Bishop find you anyway?"

"He recruited me while I was in college. I'd never even heard of EPF, but they seemed like a perfect fit for me, so I said why not? These government agencies like to get you young. I guess you know that, though."

"Yeah," Don chuckled. She didn't know how right she was.

"Thanks for making me feel better. I guess I'm not the youngest person around here after all, and certainly not the smartest."

Don's spirit lifted to hear that she thought of him as a person. Not everyone did. "I wouldn't be so quick to assume that you're not the smartest. Believe me, I do some pretty stupid things."

"Well, maybe you could tell me about them over lunch," Valeria offered. "We've been chit-chatting for a while now, and I have some stuff to catch you up on."

Don's stomach turned at the thought of lunch and the mixed scents of the cafeteria. He grabbed for his tea, but the paper cup was empty. He took a bite of toast and swallowed hard.

"You sure you're okay?" Valeria asked. "You're looking a little pale, I think."

Don put a hand on his belly, hoping to calm it. "Yeah, I'm a little better, at least. Turns out that this is something of a chronic issue, but it's nothing to worry about."

Valeria was obviously not convinced. "You sure?"

"Yeah," Don said before taking a hard swallow. "Let's just try to work past it. So anyway, I was doing some work in the shop a few days ago, and I think that I figured out how to tap into the Triceraton communication system using the same networking glitch that Bishop's spies had taken advantage of. We need to look at the archived SETI data and trace the distress signals back to their points of origin. That should give us some idea of where the ships were a month or two ago. I need to re-jigger the current satellite array to do that, but if all goes well I think that we can begin listening in on their intra-fleet communication as early as next week. I'll need your help with the coding if we are to meet that deadline, though. I have to focus on-"

Don abruptly put a hand over his mouth and made a mad dash for the bathroom.

"This is not how I would define 'feeling okay,'" Valeria yelled in his wake.