Disclaimer: The turtles belong to people who are not me. I mean no harm, and I'm not paid for this, please don't sue.

A/N: Oh dear, look at all the unintroduced OC names in this chapter! Ok, there's just two of them (Gale and Bella), but please bear with me. Who they are isn't exactly important yet, but in time these individuals whose names you don't recognize will be introduced, I promise! This story is complete on my harddrive, and just needs some final editing before being posted. I must be insane to start this now, but Reinbeauchaser requested it, and really it has been sitting long enough.

A Curse and a Gift

Chapter 1 – Story Time

"Hey girl," Mikey greeted the child who had entered the kitchen wearing a frown. He picked her up and tossed her in the air. She giggled as she flew and Mike caught her easily. "How's my little Kitty Kat?" He returned the little girl to the floor.

Catherine, all of five years old, sighed. "Hi, Uncle Mikey." She said sadly, her gloomy demeanor returning.

"Hi, Uncle Mikey." Mike repeated in an exaggeratedly depressed manner. "Come on, baby, it can't be all THAT horrible." He picked her up again, took a chair at the table and placed her on his knee. "Alright, My Little Kitty Kat, I have multiple degrees in cheering people up, so come on now. Tell Dr. Mikey what's wrong."

"I wish I was your little Kitty Kat." The child commented coldly.

Mike hadn't expected that, and he tried to hide his surprise. He had really thought things were pretty good between the kids and their dad, but maybe he was wrong. "Kat, it doesn't matter who shares more genes with you, you are still My Little Kitty Kat. What's wrong?"

"Uncle Mikey, why does Daddy hate me?"

If her last statement had thrown Mike for a loop, it was nothing compared to this one. "Whoa! I think your daddy would be a little surprised to find out that he hates you, baby girl. Whatever made you think that?"

Catherine shrugged. "He hates all of us, except Bella sometimes. He never plays with us like you and Uncle Raph do, even Uncle Leo plays with us sometimes. He reads to us sometimes, but that's it."

"You feel like he's pushing you away?" Mikey asked.

The little turtle nodded. "He doesn't love us. Why does he hate us, Uncle Mikey. Did we do something wrong?"

"No, Catherine, you didn't do anything wrong, and none of your brothers nor your sister did anything wrong. Someone else did, a long time ago. Would you like to hear a story?"

Catherine brightened and nodded.

"I warn you, Kitty Kat, most of it is not a happy story."

The small girl on Mike's lap looked apprehensive.

"But I promise that it does have a happy ending. You, your sister and your brothers are that happy ending. Kitty Kat, your daddy loves you more than you can possibly know, even if it doesn't always seem that way. Trust me on this one." Mike was going to have to have a little chat with his brother about this when he was done with Catherine.

Catherine did not look particularly convinced, but she sat quietly for Mikey's story.

"Alright, it all started just about 6 years ago now, on a dark and stormy night."

"Uncle Mikey!" Kat complained. He always had such cheesy beginnings when he told stories.

"No, really! It was! A thunderstorm rolled in while your daddy and I were out at the junk yard."

"Daddy likes the junk yard." Catherine said with a groan, she didn't like the idea that everything they brought into their home was 'junk'.

"Yes, he does. But what you have to understand, Kat, is that he doesn't see it as junk. He sees what it could be, not what it currently is. You'll learn to see it too."

"Ok. Storm, junk, what happened next?" She bounced a little in her uncle's lap.

"Right. Well, we hadn't brought the Battle Shell with us that day so we were hopping rooftops to get home."

"Will I ever get to hop rooftops with you?" Kat piped up.

"How am I ever going to finish this story if you keep interrupting?" Mike asked. "Someday, Kitty Kat, you will be a master roof hopper, just like us. Maybe even better."

Catherine grinned, she was good at hopping around the lair. Uncle Leo had told her so, and when Uncle Leo said something was good, you could be sure that it was good.

"Anyway," Mikey continued, "we were hopping rooftops and ran into more trouble than we could handle on our own. Everything had been quiet for a long time, and we thought it was safe to go out in pairs. We were wrong that night. Some very bad guys found us and captured your daddy and me. We fought back, but there were too many of them and they had taken us by surprise."

Catherine knew that it was an extremely rare occasion if someone took Uncle Mikey by surprise, and that someone taking Uncle Leo or Daddy by surprise was unheard of. Even Master Splinter couldn't sneak up on them. But they couldn't sneak up on Master Splinter either, so Kat figured it was fair.

"They took us and put us in a cell about the size of the back of the Battle Shell. The room was..." Mikey trailed off briefly before abaondoning the statement all together and continuing around it. Even now he had trouble talking about it. "Remember when I said you didn't do anything wrong?"

Kat nodded.

"Well, the man who did do something wrong was named Bishop. He worked for the government in a very hush-hush manner. If you were to ask, any official would deny Bishop's affiliation with their agency. He did things to your daddy that were unforgivable."

"Bishop is a bad guy?"

"Bishop is most definitely a bad guy." Mike agreed. "What he did is part of the reason your daddy can't play with you kiddos the way the rest of us do."

"He used to play with us like you do." Kat objected.

"True, but you're getting big and you like to play together. One or two of you he can handle, but Bishop hurt your daddy very badly and he did it on purpose. Your daddy would love to be able to play with you guys, but because of what Bishop did to him it hurts."

"He spars with you and the others in the dojo." Catherine objected. "He knocked down Uncle Leo yesterday!" She said proudly, it wasn't very often that she got to see that.

"Yes, yes he did, but sparring hurts him too. Your daddy couldn't move for a long time afterward. He continues to train because he knows that one day he may have to protect you."

Catherine looked down. "Bishop broke Daddy, like Gale broke the lamp last week?"

"In a manner of speaking." Michelangelo agreed, laughing inwardly at the analogy the little girl used. "I was left in the cell, but every day two men came in and took your daddy to Bishop's lab. Some days were worse than others, but none of them were good."

"Is that why Daddy's not as strong as you or Uncle Raph and Uncle Leo?"

"Kitty Kat, your daddy is the strongest individual that I have ever met."

"But..."

"No, wait a minute." Mikey scolded lightly. "Sure, he's not as physically strong as the rest of us are, but that is not all there is to strength. There is other kinds of strength, many of which your daddy has in spades."

"What strengths?" She wasn't sure what 'in spades' meant, but she got the impression.

"Your daddy overcame something that, by all rights, should have finished him. He had no right recovering from it, but he did. He didn't stop. I don't think he knows how to. Donnie is a rare individual. You are lucky to have someone as special as he is for a dad."

Catherine looked at the floor for a long moment, now regretting her earlier statement. "What happened with Bishop, Uncle Mikey?"

"Are you sure, Kitty Kat? It's not a pleasant story."

The child nodded.