A/N: Sincerest thanks to all my readers for providing such motivating feedback. Also to Renaroo: for being there when I needed someone to share my ideas with. I thoroughly enjoyed our discussions the other night.

Chapter 3
The Conscious Conception

"This blows," said Raph, tugging the blanket towards his side of the old mattress he was sharing with his brothers. "And it's your fault, Don."

"Now how is this entirely my fault?" Don tugged back.

"We were supposed to leave together and go back together. That had always been the plan." Raph turned to face Mike who was lying half-asleep between them. "Or what reason do we have to attend training while one of us is missing and playing scientist with his imaginary girlfriend."

"She is not imaginary!" Don sat up. "In fact I think you should apologise for brushing her off like that."

Raph blinked in disbelief. "What? Mikey, help me out here."

Mike grunted and let out a tired sigh. "Don. I can totally understand the whole imaginary friend thing but this is getting a little out of hand. It's not a time machine and it never will be a time machine. There I said it. Now can you guys shut up and let me sleep?"

"You've been so preoccupied that you've been skipping training and lessons in the evenings," Leo added as he lay at the other side of the mattress. "We can't keep covering for you like this."

"Hmph." Don crossed his arms. "At least I'm not taking advantage of our father's leniency for some TV time on the surface."

"Our TV doesn't work, remember?" said Mike while keeping his gaze on the sewer pipes above.

"If you hadn't been busy with that stupid metal box on the tracks, you could have it fixed and save us the trouble of having to watch wrestling from someone else's apartment window."

"You know what I think, Raph? Ever since that TV's been around, you've been reduced to some foul-mouthed poseur and what's worse is that you think it's cool to act that way."

"Well excuse me, Genius. At least I'm not acting like I'm better than everyone else!"

Mike reached for a pillow, covered his face and sank deeper beneath their blanket.

"If it wasn't for me," argued Don, "We wouldn't even have a TV. And electricity. And food. And water."

"Yeah you're right, Donnie. You're too good for us. We're just a bunch of dumbfucks who can't take care of ourselves." Raph sat up and leaned over Mike to face Don. "For your information, I would rather die than live like this. But thanks for everything. Thank you very much for making this shithole bearable for as long as we live!"

"It is my absolute pleasure!"

Leo finally slammed his fist down. "Stop it! The both of you! I've had enough of this!" Don and Raph turned away from each other. "We're all in the wrong here so suck it up! Splinter's giving us nine days to reflect on what we've done so I suggest we use this opportunity to do what he says to regain his trust." Leo took the blanket to spread it out evenly over his brothers. "Now go to sleep. We've got a long week of punishment ahead of us."

.

.

Raph remembered his father once said that it takes nine days of meditation to reveal a purpose in life, to lay bare the hopes and dreams and be freed of any unnecessary burden, or "blubber" as he recalled the old rat calling it, that might be keeping one from achieving them.

Sometimes it isn't your "blubber" you're carrying but of the ones you care for. The ones you fear of losing but couldn't protect because of fate. Throughout the stages of ignorance, you become the keeper of their secrets. You leave them in the dark and say nothing until your own purpose is fulfilled.

Before the Time Machine was built, Raph realised that he was the ignorant one. Now he understood what Don had meant when he made it clear to everyone six years ago, (after those nine, torturous days of intense meditative exercises), that his purpose in life was, "To make everything come full circle."

As always, Splinter was intrigued. Raph on the other hand, was certain that Don was losing his mind.

"He's building a time machine," Raph told his father shortly after their evening training.

"And what makes you think that he cannot fulfill this ambition?" Splinter asked.

After that, the Time Machine and Don's imaginary friend was never spoken of again. What Raph remembered was that as time went on, their lives took on different paths. They were no longer inseparable, never going on post-curfew expeditions and nightly treasure hunts again. When the family relocated to a bigger home and each brother had their separate spaces, Don turned his into a laboratory where he spent the years conversing with himself more than with anyone else.

It wasn't only with Don. Raph once shared a unique bond with Mike and Leo. In some way, he would like to think that he cared more. He would like to think that his passion and concern for others was so brash that it drove them away to seek their own paths. He would like to think that he was carrying so much psychological fat that he was keeping his family together.

In some way.

For the past three years, since his brothers started depending on him for food, shelter and warmth, he had been fulfilling his purpose as the Protector.

Maybe, he thought aloud, "It's about time we come full circle."

The lights flickered back to life, the mechanical walls shifted and expanded, the engines whirred.

Raph stood up immediately and looked around.

"WELCOME TO THE OMEGA STATE," greeted the Time Machine.

He seemed to have triggered something.

.

.

By the twenty-eighth week, her eyestalks were fully developed and functional; 360-degree vision focused on free-floating particles in the void that was her mother's womb. As more light penetrated through the tissues, the foetus responded by reflex and gravitated towards it, brushing her tentacles against the wall of the amniotic sac. Her mother screamed as she felt her. The woman's heartbeat began to increase, her breathing rapid and shallow, the intensity of her external cries, so fearful and overwhelmed by regret. Still the cord connecting mother and child insisted on feeding, nourishing her with oxygen and nutrients needed to make her grow.

So she grew, waited and listened.

Her mother cried week after week, month after month, while her father anticipated the day of her birth. But it was not because he loved her. He was a scientist, a man hopelessly enslaved by his work. His baby was not a child, but an experiment in progress.

Still she kept growing, waited and listened.

Her father kept going on and on, telling his son and wife how they would soon be freed of their financial struggles.

Then came the day: October 21st, 1990. The day the scientist would instruct his son to cut open his mother's abdomen and reach in with his delicate fingers for his newborn sister. The mutant, slimed with blood and fluid, wrapped her tentacles around her brother's forearm. As he lifted her in the light, she turned her eyestalks to the half-conscious, horrified woman on the operating table, as if thanking her for being so brave and patient.

"Good job, Emmett!" said the scientist to his son with a congratulatory pat on the back. "Well aren't you gonna say something to your baby sister?"

The boy could not speak. He turned to look at his father instead, his face growing pale with shock and disbelief.

"You bastard." His mother had had enough. The woman's hand trembled as she reached for something hard and metallic beside her. "You sick bastard!" the woman cried vehemently and kept hitting her husband with the surgical tray. "Look what you did to my baby! My baby!"