Disclaimer: I don't own any turtles 'cause I need a reptile license to do so. I do own the scientists and Sarah.

Red turtle- Dr Welner was one of those people who felt safer to have a loaded gun around. The scientists knew that Raphael was a dangerous animal, and Dr Welner, as you thought, panicked and went on instinct. The whole incident only took a few minutes, where Dr Yesmal and Aquel were the ones to use the tranquils (that's why they left the room after Raph was shot; to get the tranquils). After that, Raph was left in the room until the scientists figured out what to do with him. Dr Quease then came along and took him away, so now Raph is in Dr Quease's lab, wherever that may be.

Anyway, in other news, I now have a website. It's not complete, but it does have a fanfic FAQ and a page dedicated to the next mutation characters, for people who haven't been introduced to them. Hope you enjoy.

Chapter 8: Behavioural Enrichment.

Donatello continued to stare at the object, wondering why the scientists had given them one. Leo noticed Don's peculiar gaze towards the iron food tray. "What are you looking at?" he asked while finishing his apple. Donatello reached into the tray and pulled the object out, showing it to the others. Leo and Mikey looked at it intently.

"It's a semi-permanent black marker," Donatello said as though the others didn't know what it was. The turtles stared at it like they hadn't seen one in years. Michelangelo tentatively reached out and took the felt-tip from Don's hand. He bent down, uncapped it, and scribbled neatly on the floor.

"It works," Mikey said with childlike charm. Leo nodded in affirmation while Donatello gave Mikey a 'duh' facial expression.

"Why would they give us a pen?" Leo wondered out loud.

"Maybe they want to see how accepting we are of 'foreign' objects," Donatello suggested.

"Or maybe they want us to make them artworks, so they can sell them for heaps of money. Like they do with chimps and elephants," Mikey thought out loud. He stared at the marker still in his hand. Mikey wanted nothing more than to turn around and draw whatever his heart wanted. Not resisting the temptation, Mikey prepared himself to sketch on the steel door. Leo's strong hand enclosed itself around Mikey's, preventing his artistic ambition.

"If we're going to use this, then make sure that none of our plans for escape or otherwise are displayed. Whatever we write the scientists will see. Is that understood?" Leo questioned with authority. The other two nodded in understanding. Leo released his grip, allowing Mikey to draw what he wanted.

*****

Donatello woke up to the sound of the marker squeaking on steel. He opened his eyes to find that the room's lights were already turned on. It wasn't a surprise to him as he could usually sleep through most things. He looked over towards Leonardo. The turtle in blue didn't get much sleep since Raph had passed away, but Don was glad that at least now he was catching up on some of the lost nights. The marker squeaked again as it was pulled over the metallic wall.

Don turned his head towards the sound and found the whole steel door covered in messages. After a closer inspection, most of the sentences were typical phrases and mottoes that Raphael would say. Michelangelo had bags under his eyes, looking like he had stayed up all night to write the messages on the wall. It was as though Michelangelo was building a shrine towards his deceased brother. Donatello showed a look of concern as he knew it was unhealthy for Michelangelo to be expressing his emotions through this way.

Donatello silently stood up and approached Mikey. He outstretched his hand and gently clasped Mikey's, forbidding him from writing. "Mikey you can't do this," Don said softly, looking into Mike's tired tear stained eyes. Michelangelo's eyes swelled up again.

"I have to keep going," Mikey whispered before gently pushing Donny away. The turtle approached the wall and was about to continue writing Raph's words and memories, only to have his psychologically unhealthy obsession intervened again.

Donatello looked his brother sadly in the eyes. "You need to let go," Don whispered. A tear fell from Mikey's face as he stubbornly shook his head.

"I can't," he whispered feafully in response. "He needs to be remembered," he continued, looking Donny straight in the eye. Donatello sighed and gave Mike a hug.

"But he will be. He will live on within our hearts. You don't need to do this. Don't dwell on the past through writing. Raphael wouldn't have wanted that. He would want you to be strong," Don whispered into Mike's ear as his own tears began to fall. Michelangelo didn't answer for a while, but he eventually nodded his head slowly in agreement and dropped the addictive black marker to the floor.

Leonardo watched on from his sleeping position, glad that Donatello was there to help them both get through their dark ages of their lives.

*****

Three days later…

Donatello looked around and observed his glass prison. Writing and drawings filled every inch of space with the ceiling being the only wall spared. Mike no longer wrote to unhealthily exude his emotions. Instead he dealt with it through understanding and allowed his family to help him. He was still in mourning, but at least he was like Leo and was getting enough sleep. The pen though was addictive, and all three of the turtles contributed to writing on the wall, mainly to escape the boredom that they had to deal with everyday.

The scientists entered the outside room and gave their routine observation before examining the control panel. A familiar low rumbling sound echoed through the cell. To their surprise the steel door opened, causing the turtles to look outside with apprehension. When they had built up enough courage, they timidly walked through together, bravely facing the barrage of camera flashes and ignorant comments.

Leonardo looked up at the crowd and realised that there was a lot more spectators than usual. His eyes continued to wander around until they landed on to the new electric fence. The wire was twice as thick and looked strong and sturdy. The viewing glass also looked different as though it was made of the same material as the glass in the cells. Apart from that, there was no or little change in their enclosure.

Half an hour later, the rumbling sound was heard again. The three males curiously turned their heads in time to see Venus enter the enclosure. The turtles were shocked to see each other in the same room. It seemed that years had passed since they had last been together. They just stared at first, not knowing how to react. The cameras kept on clicking and flashing.

All of a sudden, a great big smile spread across Mikey's once tearful face. He was the first to approach her by running up to give her a welcoming cuddle. The other two soon followed suit. Smiles were exchanged between everyone. The boys had been concerned about Venus' health, both mental and physical. Yet now that they were together, things seemed as though everything would be all right. Tears of both happiness and sadness were shared, glad to be a family once again even though they were, and would now always be, one member short.

"We were given a pen," Mike said excitedly, showing Venus the black marker in his hand. Venus smiled in recognition.

"I know you were. I've seen what you've done with the walls," Venus answered with a smile, relieved that she no longer had to look on over at the others in solitude. After a few more minutes of excitable conversation, Venus' face turned serious. The other three noticed it quickly and reflected her facial expression.

"I have to tell you something. It's quite important and it can't really wait," Venus opened with sincerity. She looked down at the ground while the boys waited intently. "I'm pregnant."

The boys were shocked. It didn't take a genius to figure out who the father of the child was. A pang of jealousy stabbed through Leo's heart, but it resided as fast as it had appeared, knowing full well that he couldn't blame Raphael for this. Not after what had happened to him. After a few moments, the boys nodded in admittance, slowly digesting the shocking news.

"How do you know?" Donatello asked softly.

"I can sense another presence within me. I have an unusual amount of chi energy inside my soul," Venus explained, continuing to look at the ground in shame. Although Donatello didn't usually believe any of Venus' Shinobi ways, he decided to give the female the benefit of the doubt and demonstrated by giving a nod in acceptance.

"Don, what does this mean? What will the scientists do to Venus?" Leonardo asked with concern written all over his face.

"I don't know. They might want to separate her from us when the baby's born. Thankfully we still have time as it will take a while for them to discover that she's pregnant, thanks to our shell," Don said, thinking rapidly.

"How much time?" Leo dared to ask.

"A few months. If she's going to be laying eggs, then by that time they would be laid. If she gives birth like a human, then there would be a noticeable increase in the amount of food she eats, which will make the scientists suspect something. Her shell might also change shape, I don't know," Donatello summarised.

"We need to get out of here before then," Leo said while looking at Venus. "Venus. I know that it's hard, but would you like to tell me how Raphael escaped in the first place?" Leo asked, his face softening when he spoke to her. She sighed; tears swelling up with the final memories and moments of Raphael's life. After taking a deep breath, she summed up what had happened on that fateful day.

"He um, snapped a branch off one of the trees and used it to knock out the electric fence. He then smashed through the glass and made his way around to the staff area where he found you," Venus said while trying to hold back the bad memories. It was not in great detail but was helpful nonetheless.

Leo gave a small nod. "Do you know whereabouts we are in the zoo?" he asked softly, looking into her eyes. She gave him a thoughtful expression.

"I'm not sure. But I think I saw a sign pointing towards the alligators," Venus said, still thinking.

"We must be around the reptile house then," Michelangelo surmised. Over the years, the turtles had gone to the zoo at night as a family outing. They didn't come frequently then, but when their old enemies, the dragons, had arrived in New York and wanted rare animal parts, the turtles fought at the zoo on a somewhat regular basis, allowing them to know the area reasonably well.

"That's good. It's near the entrance so we can escape quickly," Leo said simply with optimism. The turtles nodded with agreement. There was an awkward silence after, especially between Venus and Leonardo. Donatello took the hint and grabbed the oblivious Mike's arm to drag him away, giving Leo and Venus some privacy. The awkward silence continued on despite Don's action.

"It's great to have you back," Leo remarked simply but with honesty.

"Same here," Venus replied with the same simplicity. The awkward silence returned.

"I- If you allow me to, I'd like to help you raise Raphael's child. I- It's the least I owe him," Leonardo said, slightly nervous. Venus smiled shyly.

"I'd like that," Venus said softly, nearly whispering.

From the other side of the enclosure, Donatello watched the two and smiled. Mike watched them also, but was annoyed with the large number of people that were around. Out of all of the turtles, Michelangelo was the one who had grown used to the zoo visitors the most. He didn't mind having the attention of hundreds of eyes and had once remarked to Don that it was like being on a reality TV show. At one stage he had even tried to entertain the audience, but Leonardo thought against it as it was drawing more people towards them, and also the spectators laughed more at his physical appearance than anything else. Things had changed now after Raphael's death. He wanted the people to leave them alone; they were a nuisance, an intrusion into their personal world.

Michelangelo twirled the marker around his fingers, trying his best to ignore the watchful humans. Donatello noticed this, before staring at the black felt-tip in Mike's hand. He gently reached over and took the marker off him. Mike was about to protest when Donatello cleverly began to write something on the enclosure wall.

*****

Sarah tried to look at the turtles below, over the heads of other humans. She still held a fear of watching through the viewing window, so instead today she decided to observe their movements from up above on the platform. Although she knew beforehand that a record attendance in zoo visitors was anticipated, she still came because of her assignment, and because she wanted to see the males' reaction when the female was introduced.

Sarah looked on intently as the female and the males stared at each other. The turtles then moved towards each other with big smiles on their faces. She stopped her train of thought. 'Smiles? Was that a form of showing emotion? Or was that just a behavioural way of greeting the opposite sex in the species?' She thought to herself. Sarah ignored it for now and watched as the turtles split into two groups, leaving the blue male alone with the female. She wrote something down into her notebook, before observing the purple-wearing turtle that had acquired a black felt-tip marker. Sarah gasped when she saw the creature write the message, 'SOS. We aren't animals'.

*****

The message raised many questions amongst the media. The turtles had been caught speaking on tape many times, but when they interviewed the scientists, they simply said that the turtles were mimics who liked to copy familiars sounds, much like a parrot. Yet writing an eligible sentence showed both intelligence and education, putting the media into a news frenzy. Though the scientists denied most questions and told the media that the message was the work of vandals and animal rights lovers.

The turtles on the other hand, kept on writing sentences and phrases, not knowing how they expected the audience to react. Anything was worth a try. After trying debatable messages, Mike decided to try famous movie quotes, proving to the media that the turtles entertained themselves the same way humans did. Yet the press found it too hard to explain the reptile's incredible intelligence and resorted to simply using the scientist's story where the messages were the work of vandals, despite the many claims where people had said that they saw the turtles do it themselves.

When the English language didn't seem to have much of an effect, Venus tried to communicate through Chinese. They soon gave up on sentences leaving Donatello to write binary codes, science rules and high level mathematic formulas as a way of showing intelligence.

*****

"We earn thousands of dollars a year and we still have to clean up the enclosure," Dr Yesmal commented. The two scientists scrubbed the daily black messages off, with the setting sun as their failing and only light source. Dr Aquel smiled.

"Well you wanted to know if the turtles knew how to use a human tool. If you ask me, I think that the behavioural enrichment was a success. Just look at their nighttime cell," Dr Aquel said. Dr Yesmal stopping scrubbing to massage the left side of his mouth. "Jaw still hurt?" Dr Aquel asked, knowing where the now deceased turtle had struck him. Dr Yesmal nodded, and opened a closed his mouth a few times to move about his sore mandible. After he felt he was alright, he continued on with the conversation.

"It's amazing what we've learnt about the turtles, I agree. But the media is becoming a problem," Dr Yesmal said.

"It's the purple male turtle that is the problem," Dr Aquel corrected. "He's the one that's writing most of the messages. We need to solve it soon unless we want the media on our backs all the time. The vandalism excuse will only work for so long," Dr Aquel analysed. "We should take away the marker."

"I agree. But the media won't go away." Dr Yesmal dipped his sponge into the bucket of solution and continued to wash the writing off the enclosure wall. He stopped when he saw one of the mathematic formulas. "I think I know the answer to our problem."