Well, people. Here we are. The final chapter (because the epilogue doesn't really count I don't think) of the story. Here it ends, or at least wraps itself up. I know you guys have been waiting a long time for this, and I want to thank you all so much for sticking with me for this long. You're all fantastic and I adore you all so much!

I want to give an especially wonderful heartfelt Thank You to my wonderful and fantastic beta readers Colonel Pop and GoodSmilesGirl for all your amazing feedback and dedication to me making a great story. You're the best!

Also, quick apology for the late update today. All these things cropped up at once and I had to take care of them before I could get to this. But maybe the quality of the story is worth the wait. I hope you think so!

I don't own TMNT or any characters therein. So please don't sue.

Parts of this chapter are written in a somewhat different way, from Don's POV in third person. I found it to be more dramatic that way. Hopefully you guys agree as you read along. And now, without further ado, I give you…

Chapter Twenty Four

Donatello's arms were shaking, his fingers trembling. He held Irma tightly in his arms, brushing her hair back from her sweating forehead, noting how cold her skin was. She was struggling to keep her eyes open and he shook her a little, saying her name urgently. "Irma! Irma, please, don't go, don't… stay here!"

Raphael had walked over to where Shinobu was laying on the flood, prostrate from the beating he had already received from Raph and Mikey just moments before. Michelangelo was riffling through Irma's jacket like she had just asked. Once more Don's eyes went down to the wound in Irma's stomach. They had pulled out the blade that Shinbu had stabbed into her and he remembered with perfect clarity the look of shock and pain on her face that had replaced the one of joy and overwhelming relief that she had while she was looking at him, and how it changed to one of bewilderment as she looked down to see the inches of metal slide into her body. There was so much blood on her…

He stared down into her face and noticed with horror that her eyes were closed. He put a hand to her pulse. She was so cold… she was so pale…

"No, no, no, no, no, no, no," he whispered over and over pressing his forehead against her own. "Please, please, please Irma, don't leave me, don't go. I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you, please forgive me."

He could faintly hear Raphael weeping softly on the other side of the room, his hands covered in Shinobu's blood. The man was dead, he knew it, but it was no consolation for him. Leonardo sat on the other side of Irma, staring down at her, his hand still on her wound. "This is all my fault," he said quietly. "I suspected him from the start, but I didn't say anything. I should have protected her. I should have done something more. I didn't have any proof, I didn't have… I wasn't brave enough to say something to her. I should have tried to warn her off."

Donatello said nothing, just kept staring down into her face, keeping his fingers against her pulse, noting how her heart was still beating just a little. There was a ringing sound from one of the brothers and Leo pulled out one of Don's phone inventions and put it to his ear.

Leo was quiet for a moment and then said, "April, I'm so sorry. I… we… we didn't make it in time. I'm so, so sorry."

He could hear the sound of April weeping on the other side of the line. He wanted to shout, scream at Leo, tell him that she was going to be fine, that they could do something, that she still had a pulse-

"I FOUND IT!" Michelangelo raised his hand up triumphantly, and the three other brothers stared at the youngest brother's hand and saw a bottle filled with an almost golden liquid. "Irma!" he shouted, "Irma!" She didn't respond, her body still limp and nearly lifeless. Her shirt had been torn to shreds so her entire torso was bare, but it was so covered in blood that you almost couldn't tell. Michelangelo looked at Don's face, his expression deathly serious. "Don, I have to wake her up," he told him. "Please don't freak out on me, okay?"

And then without another word he lifted his hand and slapped Irma's cheek. The sound of skin on skin contact seemed to reverberate in the room, and if Irma hadn't opened her eyes wide with a gasp, Donatello would have tried to strangle him right there. But before he could say anything, Michelangelo had tilted her face in his direction and held up the bottle. "Irma, what is this? What do we do?"

"The bottle?" she whispered, so quietly they could barely hear it.

"Yes, the bottle, it's right here. What is it for?"

Slowly, very slowly, she lifted up one of her blood-stained hands and gestured at her stomach. "Pour," she murmured, and then her eyes closed again.

"Pour? Pour? What does she mean?" Leonardo looked distraught and he still held the phone in his hand and April's voice called out on the other end demanding explanations.

Michelangelo frowned. Donatello just stared at the bottle and then back at Irma and then he shouted, "Someone take her head for me!"

"What?" Leo looked taken aback.

"Hold her head, damn it!" The oldest hurried to comply and Donatello snatched the bottle from Michelangelo's hand and quickly opened the top. Without hesitation he poured the golden liquid onto her wound, rubbing it in as he did so.

"What the fuck are you doing?!" shouted Raphael as he rushed over. Donatello paid him no attention as he continued to rub it into her wound. The scent of the juice suddenly wafted into the air, and instantly everyone fell silent as the liquid mixed with the blood on her chest and the blood in her wound. The smell of the blood suddenly rushed to the surface again, and it mixed with the beautiful scent of the golden liquid. They watched the wound as the two smells seemed to compete for power in the air, and the atmosphere of the entire room changed. They could feel it in their bones, magic fighting for dominance over mortality, and they stared with rapt attention at the gaping hole in Irma's stomach. Nothing happened for a few minutes. The smells seemed to dissipate. Michelangelo sat back slowly, his face filled with crushing disappointment, and Leo closed his eyes, covering his mouth with his palm. Raphael said nothing but slowly turned away from the sight. But Donatello kept starting. Ever so gently, he cradled her upper body in his arms, still staring at the wound. Still, nothing. And then…

"Look!" he exclaimed.

The other three all turned to look and gasped in surprise as they saw the skin, the red, cut, bleeding skin suddenly start to pull itself back together, slowly, slowly. They kept watching and then Irma gave a small moan and the turtle holding her stared at her face. Her eyes sluggishly opened and looked into his, confused. She was covered in blood, her shirt was all ripped up, she looked like she was almost anemic; "You are the most wonderful, beautiful woman in the entire world, Irma Langinstein," Donatello said finally, his fingers slowly tracing where only moments before had been a huge gash in her body. Then without another word, Donatello tightened his arms around her and kissed her so hard it took her breath away. She managed to wrap her arms around his shoulders and kissed him back as much as she could. Her skin looked as though it was glowing with the magic of the peach, and before their eyes her face grew flush as she lost the pale appearance that she had just moments before.

The two pulled away after a moment and then Michelangelo threw his arms around her holding her tight and laughing, and soon he was joined by Leo. Raphael knelt by her side and slowly placed a hand against her skin. It was nearly healed but she winced just the same. "Sorry," he murmured. "I'm so sorry." Irma looked baffled for a moment and then she smiled and took his hand, squeezing it tightly. "You came for me." She looked back at Donatello. "You came for me. Apologies are not needed."

Donatello opened his mouth to say something, but Leonardo held up a hand to stop him. "I hate to interrupt, but we need to leave. Like, right now." He gestured with the phone he held in his hand and the other three looked at each other worriedly.

"What?" asked Irma. Donatello just looked at her. "Irma," he asked, "do you think you can walk? You lost a lot of blood."

"Um… let me try." Irma tried to sit up with an expression of pain before sitting back. "Nope. Don't think so." Donatello chuckled and then carefully picked her up bridal style. She gave a small 'eep' of surprise and then wrapped her arms around his shoulders as the four of them began to run. "Hey, Irma," Donatello said softly to her.

She looked up at him. "What?"

"Just so you know, I'm never going to let you go again. Ever."

"Hmm… I think I can live with that."

They continued running through the hallways, as though they knew exactly where they were going. Irma frowned. "How do you know where to go?"

"We got the blueprints to the place."

"What?! How?!"

"I'll explain later."

They took several turns before they got to a large door that had been blown off its hinges and Irma felt her jaw drop. "The heck is this?!"

"I told you I'd explain later."

They rushed through the door to find a vehicle that looked like a tank without a gun sitting in the midst of a large, empty garage. A man wearing a hockey mask was knocking out a few guys rushing at him, and though his expression was hidden behind his mask, it was apparent that he was going after his assailants with great gusto.

"Casey!" shouted Raphael, and the red brother rushed over to his friend and began smashing the faces of the attackers. Donatello started to rush over, but Irma's gasp of pain made him look down at her face. She was still pale, so pale. He hadn't really noticed before that although she looked much better than she had a few minutes ago, she was still far from healthy. Her skin was still somewhat cold. He mentally berated himself for not realizing sooner that her face was pinched form trying to hold back the pain she felt as they ran. She had lost so much blood, and no matter how quickly she had healed up, the wound and the damaged innards were bound to still be remarkably tender. He rethought his plan of joining his three brothers in the fight, and instead went behind them towards the vehicle. He carefully shifted Irma's weight onto one arm as he opened the door and crawled inside, gently placing her on one of the bench seats in the back. "Stay here," he said firmly.

"Where else would I go?"

He paid her no mind and instead went back outside with the other four. Irma wanted to stay awake, but he had laid her on the seat, and she was so tired still, and she felt so safe… her eyes drifted closed and all of the tension and worry and misery of the last couple of months seemed to fade away along with her consciousness…

"… told you to stay with the truck!"

"I did stay with the truck! They came after me!"

"Self defense, Leo."

"Oh, shut up, Raph!"

My eyes opened gradually, taking in the rocking of the vehicle, the sounds of the voices around me, and I became aware of the fact that my head was in someone's lap and one hand was holding me steady and the other was stroking my hair. I turned my eyes upwards and met the gaze of-

"Donatello," I breathed softly. He smiled down at me, like I was the most valuable, wonderful thing in all of creation, and I could feel a faint blush work its way onto my cheeks.

"IRMA!" I gasped in surprised and my body jerked of its own accord, sending a huge and sharp stab of pain through my abdomen and stomach.

"Mickey!" shouted Don in aggravation at his younger brother. "Now look what you did!"

Michelangelo's face was peeking over the seat in front of us, looking properly abashed at having caused me discomfort. "I was just excited she was okay," he said sullenly. "I thought you had died or something when we got back in and you were asleep," he told me.

I gave him what I hoped was a stunning smile, and then I shivered. "I'm cold," I said to Don.

"Well, that's because you're drenched in blood and we haven't washed you off."

I looked down at myself and saw that someone had kindly zipped up my jacket so that I wasn't displaying my bra to everyone now, but the blood had seeped through the material. I made a face and then reached down to unzip it, realizing with a small tinge of sadness that it was likely that I'd carry a scar for the rest of my life. I could feel it there, an unfamiliar sensation of rough skin against the fabric of my jacket, and I wanted to see how bad it was. Don put his hand over mine right as I wrapped my fingers around my zipper and squeezed gently, moving my hand away. "Please," he said quietly. "Not yet. I can't see… I don't want to break down in front of you while you're conscious."

Mikey reached over and lightly tugged on a strand of my hair. "You're still real pretty, even if you have a scar."

I grinned at him. "One on my shoulder, one on my stomach… I'm going to be able to pass for a mercenary or something now."

"You don't have the muscles for that," came a familiar accented voice from towards the front. "You're as soft as cookie dough."

"I'm sticking my tongue out at you, Raphael!" I called up towards him.

"Throwing insults already. Now I know you're fine," came a serious but slightly teasing voice.

"Don," I said, "please smack Leo for me when you have a chance."

There was the sound of a hand hitting someone's head from the front and Raph called back to me, "Already did it."

And then I heard Casey calling back to me from the very front, so I knew he must be shouting from the way his voice carried. The good thing was that although the vehicle was large, it was made in such a way that we could hear each other easily. There were no windows where I lay in Don's lap, and so I knew we must have been in the back of the van from how there was so little light and mostly darkness where we were, but I didn't mind so much.

"I'm real glad you're okay, Irms," Casey said. "Thought I was gonna have heart failure for a few seconds when I saw them runnin' in with you all bleedin' an' stuff."

"I'm going to have to apologize to April for scaring her like I did when we thought Irma was dead," I heard Leo mention to Casey.

"Yeah, you are."

Then there was the sound of something ringing. "Oh, ho… Guess who it is," said Leo loudly.

"Put her on speaker," Don said.

I assumed it was going to be April on the phone and I was preparing to hear her shouting out to me, but instead I was shocked to hear, not the voice of my best friend, but instead the voice of one of the turtle's worst enemies.

"I am assuming from all of the corpses we discovered here that you succeeded in your mission."

The smooth, cool voice of Oroku Karai was filtered into the air, slightly tinny from the speakers on the phone.

"Indeed we did," Leonardo replied calmly.

I stared up at Don, my mouth open. "Um… What is this?"

Don opened his mouth to respond but Karai did instead. "We exchanged knowledge for a favor from the turtles. They were given information concerning your location and in return they cleared out the base for me. Excellent work on Shinobu, by the way. I almost didn't recognize his body."

"Couldn't help myself," grumbled Raphael.

"I'm sure he would have thanked you, actually, since he would have known what I would have done to him had you not killed him for me." There was a moment of silence when we could hear the faint sound of someone calling for Karai on her end of the phone and she gave a sharp command that I didn't catch. "Unfortunately, it is time to end this conversation. Our brief alliance has ended and it is time for us to return to our former activities. I doubt that we will speak again on terms as good as this. I bid you a good day."

Leo's voice rang out clearly before she could hang up. "Karai!"

"… Yes?"

"Thank you, Karai."

"I… You… You're welcome." Her voice was uncertain; perhaps shocked? No doubt she hadn't expected any thanks, least of all from the turtles. Either way, her earlier confidence seemed to have disappeared, and her response was in a tone I had never heard from her before. There was quiet again, and I almost expected her to say something, heard a small breath, and then she disconnected.

There was quiet on my end of the line, and then I said "That was rather unexpected." And then Mikey and Casey laughed, with Leo and Raph starting to talk to each other about everything they had done in the base. I tuned out their voices and instead found myself turning back to Donatello. As if sensing my gaze on him, he looked down at my face and traced my jaw with his fingers. I could see the faint outline of a smile on his face from the dim lighting, and for some reason it made the light spots in his eyes even brighter. "Like stars," I murmured to myself.

"Hmm?"

And then suddenly the words were rushing to my mouth as though I had no control over them, as though my entire being demanded that I speak those words, as though my very soul needed to scream out, even though they came in a whisper, and I felt an invisible hand reach in and squeeze my heart within my chest until I could say them.

"Don, I think I'm in love with you."

His gaze didn't leave mine and the outline of the smile faded away into an intense expression that bored through my eyes and into my soul. "You think?"

I swallowed. "I love you, Donatello," I whispered. "I mean I really, really, really love you."

He was completely silent as he bent towards me until he was only a hair's breadth away from me and said "And I love you."

After he said that, it was as though the entire universe expanded again and the weight on my chest disappeared. I felt tears prick at the corner of my eyes and as if he knew they were forming, he kissed them away before his lips met mine, his fingers tangling in my short hair. My arms went around his shoulders of his own accord, and I couldn't help but dig my nails into his skin ever so slightly as the kiss deepened. He pulled back a little so that we could see each other's faces and I briefly thought to myself that my heart had never felt so full in my entire life.

The most beautiful smile had spread across her face, her eyes softening in a way that he had never thought they would again. "I love you, Don," she said again, her voice deathly quiet and rough, as though she could barely handle the depth of what she felt, but she never turned from him, refusing to hide anything. It was, he knew, an unconscious offering to him of everything that she had and was, and he held her to him tightly like he wanted her to become a part of him in every sense. He didn't draw away until she gave a small sound of discomfort from his plastron pressing against her injury, and even then he kept his arms around her tightly.

They held each other like that all the way home, and the others in the front seats tried to politely pretend like they didn't know they were having a passionate make out session in the back seat. Even so, they couldn't help but give each other smirks and eye rolls, as though to say "It took them enough damn time." They continued on their way, and as they went, the youngest brother started to hum to himself an old, familiar tune that echoed softly throughout the large vehicle, almost like an ending song. It felt oddly fitting for the moment, and no one tried to stop him as they drove home, a sense of peace falling over all of them. They were all together again, and the two in the very back wondered how such an unlikely pair as themselves should find in each other a person that they couldn't live without- an entirely different, but equally wonderful and amazing kind of family.

The End

Well, my friends… This is it. It's taken me a long, long time and lots of patience on your parts, but this story is now complete.

Except for the epilogue. But who's interested in THAT?

I hope that this ending was everything you expected and more. I'm so thankful that you've all stayed with me this long, right until the end, and I can only pray that I managed to please you all and do justice to this story which I truly love. Thank you all, so, so very much for your continued support, and hopefully, should such a time come, I hope to see you all for any future stories concerning the Hamato Family, including the newest member.