A/N: Big shout out to my beta, Ravenshell!

Chapter 54

I fight against the sleep tugging at me, as my family and Mr. O'Neil leave the lab and allow April and I a moment alone.

We sit in silence. So much to say and neither of us really know where to start, but we both know where it will end.

My eyes trace her form as she shifts beside me on the medbay and finally finds her voice. "Donnie, I thought I could stop it. I tried. I tried so hard but I couldn't and now-" The façade of strength that she held in front of the others dissolves as I easily read the fear written across her face like excerpts of a scientific journal. Tears cling to her eyelashes before one finally falls. As carefully as possible, place my clawed hand over her leg. It's so large, it actually covers her entire lap.

"Hey, this isn't your fault. You did everything in your power to help me. Frankly, I'm pretty impressed….and a little bit terrified." My attempt of a joke falls flat when I noticed her shoulders slump.

"But it wasn't enough."

"I don't think anything will be enough."

"You can't just give up!" There's the fiery girl, I know and love. The tears seem to dry in seconds as a flame ignites in her eyes and an unwavering defiance overrides her pity of defeat.

"I'm not giving up." I reassure her, giving her legs a tug so she's facing me. "I'm just being realistic. The wall Sensei helped me put in my mind was cracking. If the wall wasn't purposely destroyed in this planned attack, it would have broken unsuspectedly on its own with disastrous results."

"What part of this wasn't disastrous?" There's a hint of sarcasm in her tone, but its light and sounds more exasperated than angry.

"I came back," I say quietly as I remember the mental struggle with the beast that suffocated me in complete darkness in the spirit realm. "It…he had every intention of eroding my identity until there was nothing left but him. Darkness didn't just cover me, it poured inside of me. I thought I was going to die and I was ready to, but I promised you I would come back. That has to count for something, right?"

April smiles at me and instead of worry and doubt, I see love and hope.

"Yeah, Donnie. It counts for everything." She rubs her hand over mine reaching her other one to tug me downward by the back of my neck. I follow her lead until I'm low enough for her lips to press against my cheek. For a moment we share an intimate smile of warmth, but my smile fades as I hold this precious gem, I finally have the privilege of calling my girlfriend, between my grasp. My thumbs rub over her shoulders as I gather my thoughts. "What's wrong?" Since I woke up from the spirit world, April has been really in tune with my emotions, completely calming me down from a complete meltdown just moments ago in front of everyone.

Come to think of it, I've been picking up on her moods as well. It's not like an observation, but an actual feeling. Her worry and sadness carry the chill of Ammonium Nitrate while her passion and confidence feel warm like the glow of a blowtorch on steel. I wonder if our sudden connection has anything to do with the our auras overlapping while in the spiritual realm? It's highly possible. Nowadays, impossible seems improbable.

We promised each other we would tough this out and fight to the end, but we never talked about what the 'end' could mean for either of us.

"Donnie, don't." Her voice quivers with emotion.

"I wish you hadn't read my mind."

"I didn't have to. Ever since our auras eclipsed one another I just know what you're feeling. Your morbid emotions are giving me heartburn." I look at her curiously. She shrugs. "It's the only way I can describe it." Well, that confirms my theory about our auras.

"We need to talk about this."

"I know." She rubs her hand over her chest.

"I was able to claw my way out of its clutches this time, but it's not over. There's no wall to keep that part of me isolated anymore. When I came back to the physical world, that feral part came back too. It's not just in me, it is me."

"...it feels like sandbags...heavy and painful." April shudders and I pull her close to my side despite my growing aches and sores. I hate that she feels what I'm feeling...that she can feel this monstrosity growing and destroying me from the inside out. It does feel like sandbags; each grain grinding under my skin, in my muscles, threatening to break free of my flesh. I feel waterlogged with its presence, like I could vomit gallons of its thick essence and simply die from suffocation. I reign in my thoughts when I see April's face pale beyond its porcelain white complexion, which I assume is a result of channeling my current emotions.

"I think it's safe to say that this once dormant part of me doesn't want me to die, but want to control me instead...destroy any sentinel part of me. I don't have much time and I think you can feel it too." My words are confirmed when she presses deeper against my side. "I may have two, three more days tops before I fully mutate. I don't know if I can be reasoned with after I change. If I can't, Leo knows what to do." I nuzzle my beak against her hair until she finally looks up at me. "When I change, I don't know if I'll be able to come back to you like I did this time but no matter what happens, know that I love you. I always will."

"I won't give up on you." The fire of her faith burns at the heaviness at my center, but it isn't strong enough to stop the inevitable evil that boils and churns inside of me.

"When I die, you can't stop. You have to move on, keep living." I say it. The topic neither of us wants to discuss, but it had to be said so we can at least enjoy these last few days together. "Promise me." She stares at me with hurt that churns in my chest as if I asked her to give me the fatal blow instead of Leo.

"Promise me, you'll...you'll fight to the end." She stutters, challenging my request with one of her own.

"I promise I'll fight as long as I can." Even now the struggle is wearing away at my strength. I push back my heightened sensations and ignore how tantalizing April smells beside me. The feral sensitives come and go, but it's getting harder to tell myself no as I swallow back saliva. "Promise me, April," I urge her when she purposely doesn't answer.

She looks away with a frown and a sigh. "Fine, I promise." She means to sound angry but comes across as heartbroken instead. "And I love you, too." She whispers as she exhales the tremble in her voice before turning to kiss me on the lips. Her soft lips nearly become my undoing as I close my eyes and wrap my arms around myself, stilling the murderous sensations that are mine and not mine at the same time.

"Donnie, I'm sorry...I didn't mean to...I didn't know..."

My eyes sting with shameful tears as April tries to apologize for her love. I can feel the heaviness intensify, the pull of darkness trying to cloud my mind and suffocate my spirit but I fight against the pull just like I did in the spirit world. I can do this...I have to do this. After several grueling minutes the sensations pass but the fog is still there as I try to piece together my thoughts.

"You're okay, D. Just take it easy, bro." I open my eyes and my blurred vision is filled with orange and green. When things come into focus, the fog over my memory still lingers as I stare at the masked face in front of me.

"Who?..."

The turtle seems disappointed but covers it with a smile. "I'll give you a hint: I'm the cute one."

Mikey….my…my brother. It's coming back to me now. Wait, wasn't April here a minute ago?

"Where…what?.."

"It's cool, dude. April just went to fill her dad in about our spirit world trip."

My thoughts and memories come trickling back, but something is still missing. A moment in time is lost to me. I feel like myself, or as close to myself as I can with my feral side waiting on the sidelines to strike again.

"…Mi-Mikey….what happened?" He stares at me with hesitation. "Please, I don't remember."

His smile sobers as he sucks his bottom lip a moment. "I'm not really sure. I came in to make sure you two were okay, and you kinda went vacant for a while." He taps the side of his head to emphasize my apparent bout of crazy.

"Did I hurt April?"

"No way, bruh. You just freaked out a bit and didn't know where you were." He starts fidgeting with his wrist wrapping. He's not telling me everything. Something else happened. "She's fine, D. I promise." His promise puts me slightly at ease. Whatever happened that he's not telling me about at least didn't result in anyone being hurt. "You should probably lay back and chill."

"I'm okay. I'm just...really tired." I gaze numbly at Mikey with heavy eyes. He stares at me a moment and without another word, he pushes his hands against my plastron. My strength is waning. I haven't been awake long but the confusion and apprehension of the past two hours have taken their toll, so my younger brother's slight handling is enough to persuade me to lie down. I curl into ball, or as close to one as I can, a subconscious effort to contain myself. I blink a few times, each time exposing me to darkness a little long than the last but every time I slowly blink awake, he's still there promising not to leave. Finally, I fall into a weighted sleep.

Michelangelo volunteered to relieve April and sit with Donatello as he rests. There is indeed much to discuss. As April takes a seat beside her father, Leonardo and Raphael inform Mr. O'Neil of Donatello's health decline since Thanksgiving. April and I recount our ordeal in Donatello's spiritual plane. It is a lot to take in but I am grateful for Mr. O'Neil's willingness to help my son.

"So if I am understanding this correctly, the mutagen radiation not only caused physical mutations but also psychological and instinctual mutations as well."

"It is what we have concluded." I confirm his summary.

"So it's quite possible to assume this isn't a parasite or something that can simply be flushed from his system as we previously thought. This radiation has simply awakened what was already dormant within his neural system. This would explain why the treatments did little to stop his mutations."

"Well, if it was 'awakened' can't we just put this mutation back to sleep?" Raphael asks in his usual impatient manner.

"Donatello and I weren't able to recreate a retromutagen that wouldn't revert him back to a normal turtle. The science behind it is a lot more complicated than we thought." Mr. O'Neil clears his throat before continuing. "I'm concerned about Donatello's mental state. I fear the radiation has affected his cognition and memory. Twice he did not recognize us in the lab and it happened during moments of panic. If he were one of my patients, I could easily diagnose his behavior as dissociative identity disorder."

"No, it is not mental illness. There is a presence in his mind that has embedded itself within my son's spirit." I try to explain, but he seems uncertain of this theory.

"Mutating is a very violent and painful ordeal as both you and I know. So painful, Donnie is dissociating himself from the experience because it is too traumatic to assimilate with his conscious self."

"Dad, I don't think it's mental illness either, even though it looks like it is." April offers her psychic perspective. "When I was in the spirit world, Donnie didn't run from that monster, he fought it head on. I think you're right about the radiation mutating his neural system though. Before Mikey came in the lab, Donnie blanked out again. He was disoriented and didn't know who I was or where he was.

"Did he say anything?" Leonardo asks.

April shakes her head. "No. He was terrified. I was afraid he would hurt himself trying to get away from. It was like seeing a wonunded…"

"Animal." Raphael answers gruffly.

"If his body is mutating into something more primal, then his mind probably is too." Leonardo says.

"That's an excellent deduction. If this is not mental illness then this side of Donatello that doesn't recognize us would be part of his mind that is mutating. Let's say this 'darkness' is a spiritual manifestation of Donatello's neurological mutation. April, you said this darkness swallowed Donnie, correct?"

"Yes, then Donnie's aura absorbed it, but he was still struggling to contain it."

"Right, so it's safe to assume that Donatello fused with this darkness. Shortly afterwards, his physical mutations evolved."

"Not to be rude, Mr. O'Neil but what point are you trying to make?"

"His point, Leonardo, is your brother does not have much time before his mutation is complete." I intercede, following the conversation enough to understand the fusion in Donatello's mind has advanced his physical mutations.

"I'm sorry. I can theorize all day, but scientific breakthrough solutions aren't exactly my forte."

"Your friend who made the treatments…perhaps he can offer an additional solution." I am desperately grasping at straws, unwilling to give up hope.

"Unfortunately, Gary is no longer an option. He's missing." Mr. O'Neil closes his eyes before exhaling deeply. "I think we could be in danger."

As Mr. O'Neil unfolds the story of Gary Lawson, who is also familiar with Kraang and their toxic mutagen. The mutagen capsules Mr. O'Neil took from our home were not only to help Donatello but also being traded with the Center for Disease and Control which supplied him with the ingredients needed to make treatments for Donatello. Something happened; possibly a deadly struggle that resulted in Mr. Lawson's disappearance. Now a government organization is involved in his search.

"How do we know you haven't turned us in to these EPF goons?"

"I haven't." Mr. O'Neil defends against Raphael's questioning.

"Then why did you bring that pistol with you?" Raphael's observation of the weapon in Mr. O'Neil's pocket had not gone unnoticed to me either, but I know if Mr. O'Neil planned to use the gun, he would have pulled it out and aimed it nervously at us before he even entered our home. In my time of knowing April's father, I can see he is not a man of violence and would be quite uneasy in acting on such a notion. "How do we know you didn't cut a deal them and lead them straight to us?"

Mr. O'Neil may not be the violent type, but his hesitation to answer gives me doubts concerning strength of his backbone.

"You'll just have to trust me, which is a concept I find extremely difficult to offer to all of you these past few days." He replies to Raphael but turns his pointed stare to me. "I didn't tell the EPF anything, but your family's decision to be dishonest with me about Donatello condition didn't make it an easy choice to make."

"Your honesty is in question as well, Mr. O'Neil." I calmly address his passive aggressiveness. "I entrusted you with mutagen to treatment my son, yet you give it to a third party who could possibly be the cause of your friend's disappearance and subsequently causing the prevention of Donatello's cure." One should not cast stones from a glass house.

My words give him pause. He is a man of intellect and from the look of realization and guilt upon his face, I know he recognizes the error in his decisions over the past month.

"I supposed we could spend the next hour circling blame between us, but it won't change what's happening now. I want to protect my daughter. You want to protect your son. Given the circumstances, I probably would have done worse to protect April. We want to keep them both safe." He looks at April and then to the lab where my son is resting. "Whether Donnie mutates or not, right now, the EPF is a threat to all of us."

"Agreed." We nod at one another, an unspoken truce between us that for the sake of our children, our past decisions are water under the bridge now. "Are you certain you were not followed here? It is imperative that our location remain unknown for obvious reasons but now even more so with Donatello's well-being on the line." I drill Mr. O'Neil as I stand. It is not my intention to be intimidating but the safety of my family leaves little room for courtesies.

"I'm certain. You're not the only one concerned about your family." He looks over to his daughter who is busily typing on her laptop.

"Guys, this Earth Protection Force definitely has some questionable motives. Their mission statement is: 'taking necessary steps to defend Earth's humanity and ensure its preparation and vigilance against preternatural terrorism no matter the cost.' Sounds like a genocide of the unnatural."

Everyone here fits the category of 'unnatural' in some form or another. "This agent you spoke with, what does she know?"

"She already knows about mutagen, so I wouldn't be surprised if she's encountered the Kraang as well. I played dumb when she asked me about Gary and the mutagen we were working with, but I'm also not the best actor."

It is quite possible this mutant-hunting organization has confiscated Donatello's DNA samples from the home of Gary Lawson. We are fighting battles on two fronts and time is not on our side.

"For now, it will be best for you and April to stay here. I will go scout the tunnels to ensure your tracks are not traceable."

"I'll go with you, Sensei."

"No, Leonardo. You will stay here." My eldest looks disappointed and hesitant. He desires to protect but without a clear strategy, does not know how. "They need you here." I whisper to him in passing, placing my hand on his shoulder before sprinting toward the sewers. This outing will also give me time to think for I fear much trouble lies in our future.

TBC

A/N: Three chapters in one week! How's that for making up for lost time? :) I hope to have a new chapter posted next week if RL doesn't get too hectic. Thanks for reading. I'd love to hear from you so leave a review!

See you next chapter!

Poetique