I don't think I like how this chapter ended, because it's sad, but that's not to say that I don't think it makes sense. I just wasn't expecting it while writing it. I recently rewatched the episode New Girl in Town and I think it had a bit to do with that. Responsibility is a scary thing...

.oOo.

"Are you sure this is a good idea? I mean, she's a lizard. I don't think lizards breastfeed, dude."

Raph looked up at his little brother while he screwed a cap onto the baby bottle. He shook the bottle in his hand to mix the powdered formula with the water, like the instructions read.

"We ate human food along with the algae and worms muck when we were little, and the three of us turned out fine. Donnie has yet to confirm you, though," he smirked, still managing to joke after the rollercoaster that was that day.

Mikey ignored Raph's jab. He didn't want to disregard his concerning thought at that moment by getting into a pointless fight. Raph had mostly said the comment to ground himself a bit anyway. And Mikey knew Raph needed that after the whole "surprise, you're a dad" load that had suddenly been dumped on him and the rest of them, too.

Mikey had been ecstatic about them having a baby in their home while the other three brothers had mostly voiced concerns about what they should do with it. Now, after a good hour and a half the three finally relaxed and softened a bit around the little girl, especially after April arrived and seemed to know a tiny bit more about newborns. But the short amount of time also made Mikey begin to realize that having a baby was going to be work. And having a one of a kind hybrid baby was going to bring up a lot of obstacles and questions they wouldn't be able to look up the answers to on the internet or in books.

The first clue for Mikey had been when they were trying to figure out how to get the baby into a diaper when she had a big tail in the way. They came to the conclusion that reusable cloth diapers that they would adjust for her would be best. Mikey's excited smile waned when he realized what it meant to use reusable diapers. …Washing them!

Now that he was being observant another thought had popped into his head.

"But we're half turtle half human, and if Taraya is half you, Raph, then wouldn't that make her only a quarter human?"

Raphael blinked as he looked up from the instructions on the box of baby formula. "Who taught you math?"

"Raph!" Mikey groaned.

"Fine. What do you want me to do? Let her starve? She needs to eat, Mikey. She'll need to eat, like, every three hours, or something mind-boggling like that. Besides, Donnie would have said something if—"

Donatello walked into the kitchen with a makeshift baby cradle-basket in his hands before Raph could finish speaking. He set the basket down on the table and grinned proudly. "Voila! Record time."

Raph stared at it with a weird haunted look in his eyes as if it was another piece of proof that this, everything, really was happening. He pulled himself out of his thoughts and walked around the table towards Donnie to see it better.

"You look in a good mood…?"

"It's been a while since I've had a real reason to build something. Even if only something as simple as this."

"Mikey, has second thoughts on the milk."

"How so?"

Mikey hurried over. "Baby lizards don't drink milk."

Donnie's eyes widened in sudden realization. "That's true!" The tall brother took the bottle from Raph's hand. "Reptiles can't digest dairy products!"

Raph's eyes were wide as he watched Donnie lean over to grab the baby formula box to read the ingredients. "Wait, what? You didn't think about that? I could have fed the baby poison!"

"It didn't even cross my mind!"

"What?!" Mikey shouted.

"Are you kidding me?!" Raph's shout followed right after. He snatched the bottle from Donnie's grip and loudly set it down on the table. He then turned Donatello around with his shell towards him, and pushed him through the kitchen door. "Lab! Now! The baby's hungry so the faster you figure something out the faster she can eat."

"Raph," Donnie protested, "it's not that simple—"

.

.

.

"What are you guys doing in here? And in the dark?"

The room was dim, with the only light coming from the computer screen obscured by three giant turtle teenagers, and now a more sufficient warmer light from the outside room behind Leonardo.

Leo's long shadow in front of him moved as he stepped inside the laboratory. "Guys?"

"Scratching our heads with the scarce information available online," Donnie muttered quietly.

"You're not drawing any blood from her," Raph hissed back.

Donnie glared at him. "Even alchemists had to work with something!" It earned him an elbow to the side.

"This isn't the right time for anime references, Donnie," Mikey reprimanded and forced Donnie to sigh exasperatedly.

Leonardo didn't make out the hushed bickering so he made his way over. He had a pretty goofy smile on his face. "Guys, I think we're gonna have to keep an eye on April so she doesn't steal Taraya from us. You should have seen her. She couldn't stop smiling when she got her to sleep again after that bottle of formula."

Three pairs of round eyes blinked in his direction.

"She did what!?"

"Fed the baby her bottle? You never brought it to us from the kitchen. What's going on here?"

Raph let out a short breathless scream, like he was just sucker punched into the stomach. He and Mikey stood frozen by the computer, while Donnie sprinted past the oblivious oldest brother like a green blur.

"What's wrong?!"

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.

.

April looked like she was going to start crying together with the baby in her arms.

"We have to pump her stomach, Donnie!" Raph shouted, flailing his arms around and having no clue what to do.

"Are you insane!?" Donnie couldn't even begin to explain how dangerous it would be to do that to a tiny, few-hours-old newborn.

"Guys, calm down!" Leo pleaded. "You're too loud."

It was too late. The baby started crying. It was bad enough Donnie and Raph arguing woke her up but now she looked like she was scared of them, too. Her cries quickly turned into wails and everyone felt like panicking even more.

"No, no, no… Shhh… It's okay," April rocked her in her arms and tried to get her to calm down. "It's going to be okay."

Leo, Donnie and Mikey didn't notice Raph had frozen up and turned completely pale in the mean time, a pained expression on his face. They were too focused on the panic storming around them to bother with focusing on anything but making sure the baby would be okay.

"Is she going to be okay?" Leo asked Donnie who seemed at a loss.

After a long moment, when the baby's wails slowly turned back into little sounds of displeasure, he stated, "I don't want to do anything."

April managed to blink back her tears when she calmed Taraya down a bit. "What do you mean?"

"I don't think I can help her," Donatello sounded completely defeated. "She's a fragile newborn and I'll only hurt her if I do anything. I think we just have to wait it out and hope she's not in any danger."

No one noticed Raph looking like he was going to faint.

.

.

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The tuatara-turtle baby was back asleep in her basket, the other three brothers and April tucked with soft pillows and sheets and a heater positioned nearby at a safe distance. They placed her in the pit of the lair so they could all snuggle under blankets around her.

The lair was frighteningly quiet and no one wanted to break the silence. April and Donnie were snuggled together, both feeling guilty in their own way. Mikey, Leo and Raph were lying together on the other side. All five were watching Taraya, searching for the slightest sign of discomfort on her features. Listening to hear the faintest noise from her.

Raphael was keeping to the side, not in the mood to snuggle with his brothers, with his arms crossed over his plastron and a deep thoughtful frown on his face. He sat there for only fifteen minutes before he couldn't take it anymore and he left.

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Mikey left to find Raph in his room after a while. He found him lying on his bed like in a coffin but when Raph heard his brother come in, he sprang up, eyes wide and ears listening.

"She's still asleep," Mikey said and closed the door behind him.

He walked over and sat down at the end of the bed. "I think she's going to be fine, though. We panicked for nothing. Trust me. I can feel it."

"Your body better make its damn mind because you first had another 'gut feeling' about the milk being a bad idea!"

Mikey ignored the clue to tread carefully. "You okay?"

"Obviously not!"

"Were you crying?"

"No!" Raph denied and crossed his arms stubbornly. He quickly gave up and looked back at his little brother with an expression of complete exhaustion. "Can you blame me? You guys elected me Dad without even doing a DNA test. And when that fact finally started sinking in, I found out that my daughter could die from milk that I mixed for her." He was almost breathless by the time he finished talking.

"She's fine," Mikey tried to reassure his unusually freaked out brother.

"How do you know that?"

"It's been an hour, Raph. She'd show some signs of food poisoning by now if she was lactose intolerant. Donnie said so."

Raphael stared at Mikey for a moment, eyes fearful and searching. "…Okay," he murmured quietly and looked away.

"Sorry for scaring you."

"You did the right thing by telling us, Mikey."

"Yeah, but I was wrong. As usual."

Raphael straightened up in the bed and scooted closer so he was sitting beside his little brother. "We thankfully have two smarter brothers to be right when it comes to stuff like that. But it's important that you and I don't stop thinking because of them.

"You saw that Donnie was too distracted by other things to even consider that milk could be bad for her. Maybe he could have immediately told you that you were wrong and that the milk is fine but—"

"It's the thought that counts?" Mikey finished for him.

Raphael patted his brother's shell affectionately.

Mikey smiled back at him and gave him a quick hug before Raph could protest. Then he leaned back on his hands on the bed.

"So, Dad, why don't you tell me why you're in here and not with your new kid if you were so scared for her?"

Raphael's face fell but before he could even think of how to answer Donnie let himself into his room with a smile on his face and a relaxed posture.

"Hey, Raph."

He stepped further inside. "Taraya's going to be okay. Congrats, she has her father's stomach. – Milk is exactly what she needs right now."

"I knew it!" Mikey chirped. He winked at Raph playfully before jumping to his feet to stand by the door, kind of anxious to get out of Raph's gloomy room.

Raphael looked at his tall brother. "How are you so shure?"

Donnie scratched his head awkwardly. "I swabbed the inside of her cheek when you left." When Raph's eyes lowered he quickly added, "It didn't hurt her at all! She didn't even wake up.

"You have to trust me with this stuff. I think I know when a DNA sample is needed and when we can work around that."

Raphael somehow felt even worse.

Leonardo and April appeared by the door behind Mikey and Donnie and stole everyone's attention from Raph. Leo held an awoken Taraya in his arms and wore a gentle smile.

"Look who's awake," April smiled, too.

The baby girl's small beady green eyes blinked through the room, little jerky hands grabbing at nothing. Raphael stared at the fragile, living, breathing baby and he felt more and more nauseous by the second.

"She's okay, Raph," he heard Leo say and he realized they were all watching him worriedly.

…

"I…" He couldn't speak, mostly because what he wanted to say was horrible. He felt like he was going to turn sick at any moment.

He stood up and moved towards the door, making everyone in his room back out into the hallway. His eyes continued to stay on Taraya and Leo eventually moved forward, thinking his brother wanted to hold her.

Raph stepped back. Why did he feel like he could snap her in half?

"I don't want her."

The words were out of his mouth before he even realized it.

The sudden expression on Leo's face made him feel ashamed.

"Raph-"

He suddenly shut the door, not loudly but definitely urgently, before his brother could come any closer. He pressed his shell to the door and slid down with a shuddering exhale. Covering his head with his arms he hid it between his knees.

I can't do this.