Donatello snapped the casing into place over the guts of the ultrasound machine and screwed it securely into position. When he was done, he leaned back in his chair and put a hand on his belly. "What do you say?" he asked his triplets as he tapped the machine with one thick finger. "Shall we give it a test run?"

Don looked down as if awaiting an answer. "Don't worry. It won't hurt you. Anyway, no time like the present, right?"

Don didn't feel the need to lie down, or to use any gel quite yet. He just wanted to see what sort of refinement might be needed. He rolled his shirt up and moved the wand down to his belly. The computer monitor displayed black and a little gray. He played with the settings, then moved the wand some more. A clearer picture was displayed, and Donatello realized that he was looking at his intestines. He chuckled and adjusted the settings again. Upon further movement of the wand, he was able to zero in on one of the babies.

The picture wasn't as clear as Bishop's had been, but Don could hardly expect his homemade creation to rival what was, no doubt, a state of the art machine. "Hello again," Don greeted with a relieved smile. He was looking at the back of a shell, or at least he suspected that he was. "Might be better with gel," he said aloud.

What looked to be a foot appeared on the screen. Given the angle, Don knew that it must belong to one of the other babies. He chuckled. "What are you guys up to in there? Playing some sort of game?"

Just when Don was considering getting up to grab the gel, he heard heavy footsteps approaching. Donatello knew that it had to be Raphael. Leonardo's footsteps were always silent, and Michelangelo's were never this heavy. Heck, Raph's were rarely this heavy. This was what Raphael sounded like when he was trudging off to do a task that he was dreading. Don cringed. Nice to know where he stood. "What's up Raph?" he asked over his shoulder.

"I was thinking we could…" Raphael trailed off. "Those the babies?" he asked after a moment.

"Yes," Don answered. "One or two of them anyway."

"So you're done with the machine?" Raphael assessed.

"More or less. I think that I could still improve the image quality. I'm going to ask April to come down and run an exam," Don explained. "We'll see how it does."

"You know, you're really something, Donatello," Raphael praised. "I don't know how you manage to figure this stuff out."

"Oh, it's nothing really," Don said humbly. "Real ultrasound machines are much more sophisticated. They can see a ton more detail, tell you which way blood is flowing, and even take measurements."

Raphael shrugged. "The picture looks pretty good to me. Besides, no one knows what a baby mutant turtle would look like, so you'd have nothing to compare the measurements to anyway."

"That's true," Don agreed. "All I really need this bad boy to do is look for obvious flaws. I'm not going to be measuring heart chamber size or anything."

Raphael's eyes remained fixed on the image. While it was out of character, Donatello felt the sudden urge to clown around. Maybe it was because things had been so stressful and intense lately. Maybe it was because Raphael had behaved like talking to Donatello was a chore. Maybe he was simply in a good mood.

Regardless of the reason, Don made a goofy voice when he saw how seriously Raphael was watching the babies' movements. He attempted to throw his voice towards the machine. "Heya Uncle Raphie!"

Raphael turned around to stare at his genius brother with a confused look.

"Will you get us a puppy when we come out?" Don continued out of the corner of his mouth. "Dad says it's too much responsibility for newborn babies, but we can handle it!"

Raphael just stared. "What are you doing?" he asked Don, in his usual gruff tone.

Don smiled devilishly as he went on with his weird, fake voice. "Oh, come on. If you don't get us a puppy then Uncle Mikey will. You don't really want Mikey to be our favorite uncle, do you?"

"I think that's inevitable anyway," Raphael confessed. At least he was smiling a little now.

"No puppies, then," Donatello said in his normal voice.

"No puppies," Raphael agreed.

Don removed the wand from his belly and the screen went black. He twirled the wand like a miniature bo staff. "You know, this is good for more than just looking at babies. We can check out all sorts of internal stuff with it. I can take a look at your duodenum if you like."

Raphael shook his head. "No thanks."

"Your jejunum?" Donatello offered. "Your hepatopancreatic ampulla?"

Raphael declined.

Don chuckled. "If you're not into that, we can jam it down your throat and see you from the inside out."

Raphael actually laughed at that. "What's gotten into you?"

"I don't know. I guess I'm just happy to have gotten this thing finished," Donatello answered. "One less thing to worry about."

"Well, that's kind of why I stopped by," Raphael replied.

Donatello leaned back in his chair. "Really?"

"Yeah. I've been thinking that maybe it's time for me to take control of the vehicle maintenance," Raphael explained. "It's going to be pretty hard for you to do it when…" Instead of finishing with words, Raphael grimaced and indicated the shape of a big belly with his hands.

Donatello frowned. He was suddenly keenly aware that he had forgotten to roll his shirt back down, and quickly tugged it into place. He didn't like to think about getting bigger. He also couldn't help but think about the sorry condition of the van when he got back from Area 51. He wasn't sure that he was ready to trust Raphael with his mechanical baby.

"And after the little guys are born, they'll be keeping you busy. It'd be good for me to take this off your plate. I mean, I'm already a pro with the bike, right?" Raphael finished.

"Sure," Donatello admitted. He didn't know what he was agreeing to. This had caught him off guard.

"Well, I don't expect you to start now, but we should probably start soon," Raphael suggested. "You're puffing up faster than a blowfish."

Donatello shook the cobwebs out of his brain. "Start what?"

Raphael chuckled. "Start my lessons, knucklehead."

"Oh. You want lessons? In mechanics?" Donatello finally realized.

"Just because you can instantly figure out how to fix or build anything doesn't mean the rest of us can," Raphael said, sourly. "So yeah, lessons would be helpful."

"No. I mean, of course," Donatello stammered. "I'll teach you whatever you want. Maybe just not right now. I'm kind of tired."

"Okay," Raphael said. "You look like you could use some rest, so I'll just leave you be. Oh, and I'm going grocery shopping tomorrow so write down whatever you want on the list. And for the love of Pete, please write down quantities as well. If you're going to eat three jars of peanut butter a week, tell me now, so that I don't have to keep running back and forth."

Donatello was going to utter a sarcastic "ha-ha," when he realized that he truly had gone through three jars of peanut butter this past week. He had taken a liking to ants on a log, and it had seemed like a cheap way to consume good fat and extra calories. Apparently, it had gotten out of hand.

Donatello apologized and promised to write some stuff down, then he said goodnight to Raphael. He found that he was in a sour mood afterwards. It didn't help that he was hungry, but felt guilty about eating. Instead, he decided to call Valeria - both to keep his mouth busy, and because she never failed to cheer him up.

"Hey Val, it's Don," he said, glumly, even though he was the only one capable of calling the old shell cell.

"Why do you sound so sad?" she asked. "Did you hear that my salon was raided by the police and all of the chemicals were confiscated?"

"Come on. You're not even trying," Don chuckled.

"I didn't expect you to call tonight," Valeria defended. "Excuse me for not having something better prepared."

"Fine, I'll forgive you," Don conceded. "I was just checking in to see what's new at Area 51."

"Let's see," Valeria hummed. "Bishop's team isn't making any better progress than we are, I'm afraid. We're picking up lots of chatter on the ship-to-ship feeds, but most of it isn't of any help to us. Some of the Triceraton have been complaining about 'having to go back,' which seems like a bad sign."

"From what little I've been able to triangulate, it does seem like they are headed in Earth's general direction," Don considered. "They don't seem to be in any hurry, though."

"Maybe there's something political behind it. Like, Zanmaron can't get his generals to agree, or something. I've heard some whispers about a resistance gaining momentum," Valeria told Don.

"Hmmm," Don breathed. He looked down at his belly, which seemed to be getting bigger by the day. He needed to do something to feel like his babies would be born into a safe world, and he suspected that, before long, he we would be having a pretty hard time moving around. He was tired of being so passive about this, and Hun's involvement would only mean trouble.

"Valeria, I think that I might just leave the communication tracking to you guys at the base. I think that it's time for me to focus all of my energy on setting up a defense system. Regardless of the Triceratons' current intentions, it would be a useful thing for earth to have anyway. Heck, I can even set it up to vaporize any threatening asteroids."

"A part of me wants to tease you about how impossible a task that seems," Valeria replied. "But, at this point, I'm beginning to believe that you can do anything you set your mind to."

Don chucked. "Maybe not anything, but I'll never know if I don't try, right?"

In truth, Donatello was fairly confident that he could do it. He'd been drawing up plans in his mind for a while now, and had even begun fiddling around with some prototypes. He just wasn't so sure that he could finish the job before the babies arrived. Fortunately, he only had to worry about designing and programming the system. Bishop's staff at Area 51 would be the ones to build it.

Leonardo opened the pantry and saw that it was practically bare. "Raphael!" he yelled. "Weren't you supposed to go shopping?"

"I went two days ago," Raphael answered from the other room. "If you need something put it on the list."

Leonardo rubbed his eyes. "We need… everything."

"Well, can you talk to Donatello? because I already tried," Raphael complained. "Maybe he'll listen to his fearless leader."

"Fearless leader, yeah right," Leonardo mumbled to himself. He wrote down what he could think of, then went to find Donatello.

Leonardo looked all over for Donatello, and finally found him in the back area of the garage. This was a special place that the family genius reserved for his works in progress. He generally liked his new inventions to be a surprise, but the door was open, so Leo let himself in.

To Leo's utter horror, Donatello was balanced atop a steel beam, about 15 feet above the ground. Leonardo almost didn't recognize him at first. He was wearing a navy blue mechanic's suit and had a tool belt slung across his hips. Currently, he was welding some components together at the top of his latest creation, and had his face shield pulled down. Leonardo had absolutely no idea what this huge machine could be. One thing he did know was that he didn't like seeing his pregnant brother working at heights with a blow torch, and no one watching his back for safety.

Leo wanted to yell at Donatello to get down, but he was afraid of startling him. Instead, he watched quietly and waited for Don to notice him. Between the face shield, the elbow-length welding gloves, and the suit, almost all of Don's features were obscured. The most recognizable parts of him were his bare, olive-green feet and, ironically, the pregnant belly that he usually tried so hard to hide. From Leo's vantage point below, it looked to be getting pretty big. Maybe it was just an optical illusion caused by the baggy suit and the tool belt hanging low on Don's hips. Leo's low viewing angle also might have had something to do with it.

Leonardo watched as Donatello continued his work. He had to admit, Don was as graceful and sure-footed as ever, despite his rapidly changing body. He was hopping from beam to beam and lifting heavy parts with ease. Maybe there was something to be said for his grueling work-out sessions. As Don continued his highwire act, Leo realized that he had concocted a fall-suppression system after all. There was a harness of sorts around Don's upper arms, which was connected to the rafters with a rope.

Eventually, Donatello sat down on the steel beam and let his legs dangle below him. He lifted his visor and removed both gloves, then clutched his belly with a thoughtful expression. Feeling awkward, Leonardo cleared his throat.

Don's head snapped around, and he lowered his hands to rest on the beam. "Oh, hey, Leo. How long have you been there?"

"A little while," Leonardo answered. "What are you working on?"

Donatello rapped on the side of his creation with his knuckles. "This? This is the scale model of my EDS."

"What's an EDS?" Leonardo wondered.

"Earth Defense System," Don explained. "It's just a working name, kind of a play on EPF."

Leonardo smirked. "When you said you were building a scale model, I expected something smaller."

Don cracked a crooked grin. "Scale is a relative term, Leo. This guy is a 1:10 scale model. The build team over at EPF is working on a 1:2 working scale model."

"So, this thing's not going to blow up the Lair or anything." Leo hesitated. "Is it?"

Donatello chuckled. "No. It's not a working model. Bishop would never allow me to purchase all the fancy parts that the EPF version has. This is just something for me to play around with, decide where the internal components will go, how the mechanics will work, stuff like that."

"So how do you know that it will work?" Leonardo asked.

"Calculations, modeling, computer simulations, EPF pilot tests." Don paused, then pet the side of the machine, fondly. "It'll work."

Leonardo smiled. He really had to admire Don's ingenuity and calm disposition. You would think that he was talking about something as commonplace as a toaster, rather than a sophisticated interplanetary war machine. "I'm sure it will," Leonardo commented.

"Thanks, I guess. Anyway, what brings you by?" Donatello asked.

"Just wondering if you were going on patrol with us tonight," Leonardo replied. Seeing how pregnant Don was looking these days made Leo feel too guilty to bring up the depleted kitchen.

Donatello considered it. "I don't know. I'm kind of on a roll here. My time is probably better spent in the workshop. Call me if you run into trouble, though."

Leonardo promised to do just that. Donatello worked for a few more hours. He made dinner with the few items that were left in the pantry, then ate it alone. He took a run through the sewers and wrote some code for EDS. After his brothers safely returned home, he decided to call it a night. His back was aching, and he was feeling lonely and stressed out.

Hours later, Don still hadn't succumbed to his exhaustion, and now he was fighting a headache. He snuck into the bathroom to fetch a warm washcloth for his head. Afterwards, he settled back down into bed. He rested on his back, with one heavily-muscled forearm over his eyes, and a calloused hand on his swollen belly.

As he lay there, he became aware of something that he had first noticed earlier that day while working on the EDS. It was a fluttering, like butterflies in his stomach. Leonardo had interrupted him before, and then he had gotten busy and forgotten about this new sensation. But now, he could really concentrate on it. He took a deep breath and placed both hands on his middle. He couldn't feel anything through his plastron, but inside, in his very core, he felt the quickening.

Donatello gasped, then laughed out loud. He knew the babies were moving. He had seen it on the ultrasound. But now he could feel it. He could feel them, more than just their weight, or their effects on his own body. He could feel them. "How did you know," he whispered to them, "how badly I needed this tonight?"