Zoe

"Uncle Mikey! Uncle Mikey! Something's wrong with Mommy! Help!" Anton is dragging his uncle toward me and I can't lift my head for the knife in my side, my trembling body, and my racing heart.

"Unca Mikey! You help Mommy?" Andrea's little voice squeaks between her sobs.

"Mike I don't understand what's wrong with her?" April tries to shove herself off from the floor beside me and Mike helps her up.

"I know April. Can you watch the Little's? I need to talk to Zoe." Mike's usually playful face is dead serious and a deep sense of foreboding joins my physical torment. It's bad, I know it's bad. Please let him be alright, please. Please.

April reaches out a hand to Mike's arm, "Is Donnie okay?"

Mike gives her a small smile, "Yes. He's fine. He's busy right now, he'll call you as soon as he can."

April nods as she glances at the ball of me, crumpled on the floor. "Is Raph okay?" she whispers.

Mike frowns, "I need to talk to Zoe. I'm going to take her upstairs, away from the Littles. Can you watch them?"

"Yes of course." She took a last look at me before ushering my kids into the play area.

"Zoe, hey Babe, come on. Can you walk?" Mike touches my shoulder gently.

The tears are flowing when I open my eyes to look into his baby blues. "It hurts. It's bad. It's bad Mikey. I-"

He takes one look at my face, nods and scoops me up. I'm sobbing into his plastron, worried for Raph, fearing for our baby, still shivering with pain as he carries me upstairs. He flips on the light to mine and Raph's bedroom and lays me on the bed. I'm still clutching my ringing phone in my hand while it rings over and over, but he's not answering. No one is answering, my side is splitting, and I want to turn back the clock to when I got his text, to tell him I love him, not to go out tonight, to please just come home, to take back the, why aren't you coming home, what aren't you telling me, what's really going on, to trade my bitchiness in, to tell him how I really feel instead. I choke back a whimper of Raph's physical pain dipped in a coating of regret, look in my orange clad brothers melancholy blue eyes, know what I need to ask, but am afraid to.

Mike sits beside me, rubbing my arm, "Is there anything I can do to help? Anything?"

I'm clutching my ringing phone to my breast. I know with a sinking heart, no one is going to answer. We promised, we'd always answer if we could. It's not like its everyday that someone is so in tune with someone that they can feel them when they're hours away. As my gut wrenches and twists, my abdomen tightening, my heart is breaking, this can't be happening. The one time, we actually plan a baby and this? He never gets hurt this badly. What happened? Damn the tears that won't stop flowing. This kind of pain, this level of hurt… I look at Mike through a blur of tears, and I have to know, no matter what the answer, "Is it a mortal wound?"

Mike frowns, looks at the floor, gives a slight nod, "It could be."

I grunt under the pains of a cramping abdomen amid the sensation of someone carving into my side as if it's a slab of roast and manage to tell Michelangelo, why this is not the best time for Raph not only to die, but to be hurt at all, not as if anytime would be, but especially not now. "I'm pregnant."

Mike stiffens and gawks at me. This is not what we had in mind when we were going to tell this news to our family. It's the first time we've actually made the decision to have a baby on purpose, and we thought we'd talk to them about why we were making another addition to our wild and crazy lot. Anton and Andrea were two wonderful surprises, but Anton is lonely and a little lost being the only one like him. He needs this sibling, and he needs it to be a boy just like him, so we decided to try and give it to him. We had hope when April and Donnie announced they were expecting, and we're still excited for them, but they're having a girl. So we took matters into our own hands. But this level of injury, and the way my body reacts to his pain… I don't know what this means for our little one.

I'm holding my phone as if a miracle will happen and he'll answer, all the while the pain is still burning a hole in my side, and I'm terrified for all that is at stake.

There's one thing I might be able to do…

"I can try to see if I can-" I don't want this. No I don't. But this is what Raph would want me to do. I don't want this, but it's what he would do. I control my connection to him, but he can close it off if he wants. But he'd have to close his heart to me and in this state of pain, I don't know if he could. I should do it. I just don't know if I can. He needs me. He needs this connection. But he would want me to. I don't doubt that for a second. He'd probably be pissed I'd debated it this long. "I can try to separate us as much as possible. It may buffer the pain enough to save the baby." I lick my lips, tasting the salt of my tears.

Mike nods and moves to stand.

"Mike, please don't leave. Please." I take a deep breath, grunting beneath the pain.

He nods, "I'm going to sit here, right here on the floor next to you."

He's grown up so much over the past few years. He still gets to be a big kid around my babies but he's so much more dependable in times like this.

I take a deep breath and exhale slowly. The pain is jolting me in the side. It feels like my flesh has been torn open and my guts might spill out. Oh my dear soul-mate. What has happened to you to bring us here? Deep breath. Breathe Zoe. Focus and breathe. I love you Raph. I know this is what you'd want me to do. Oh Love, please forgive me. Deep breath. My loves crooked grin flashes before my eyes, oh how it still makes my heart leap. Inhale. Slow exhale. Release him. I can't do this. No. I can. I have to. Inhale. My oldest babies smirk, not unlike his fathers. Inhale. Exhale. My sweet daughters face, similar to my own. Inhale. Exhale.

Shut it off Zoe. Shut me out.

Scorching hot pain.

I'm falling into an abyss.

Donatello

"Hold him down Leo!" I merge the two halves of the jagged wound by melting the flesh back together, the scent of burning flesh taints the air, and my stomach turns. The bleeding stops while my brother screams at the top of his lungs, his shoulders bucking up from the table as Leo struggles to force him down. It's as if time is stuck in slow motion, the ache in the back of my throat, one brother writhing, the other keeping him on the table, but I know it's only a matter of seconds, before he passes out from the pain.

With that horrible task complete, I set to work cleaning the area again. Next I've got to inject him with an antibiotic, then I've got to- the phone stopped ringing.

The room has fallen silent, the kind of unsettling quiet that somehow alerts all of my senses, sending a chill straight through me until it reaches my fingertips, leaving them cold and stiff. My heart thuds in a slow thumping pace and I try to wrap my mind around what's happening. How did that hybrid get the drop on Raph? It happened so fast. And really, Zoe is pregnant again? Just how many kids are these two thinking about having anyway? What's he thinking? They have that bond, he knows he's emotionally connected to her, that she feels what he does. Why, if she's pregnant, would he think it's okay to put himself on the line like that? Don't be stupid Donatello, its Raph. He's changed in a lot of ways since Zoe's come into our lives, but rushing to the front in a fight, is not one of them. Of course Leo wouldn't have let him if he'd known beforehand. That's probably exactly why he didn't say anything. The question now is… what did that decision just cost him?

Leo wipes sweat from the apples of his cheeks, looks over my wounded brother, releases his unconscious form, then turns to me. "I'll call her. Is he stable?"

I sigh and look at Leo, "He's stable…. Leo, she's probably not conscious right now. They're pretty much one being these days-"

Leo nods, "I know. I'll talk to Mike or April. They'll answer."

Michelangelo

Her phone slides from her hand to the floor, she jerks as she screams out, then she stops moving. I leap from my spot on the floor to check her for a pulse. Alive, but what was that? It's been five years with Zoe in our lives and I swear sometimes she still freaks me out.

Her phone is ringing.

"Just one more moment that's all that's needed-"

That's Raphs ringtone for her and hers for him, but I know it's not him. I pick up the phone, staring at the picture of my brother, his soul mate and their two kids smiling back at me. I'm scared when I accept the call.

"Hello?" I croak.

"Mike? It's Leo. How's she doing?"

"I don't know. She's out cold. She seems to be sleeping or something. What happens to an empath in this kind of situation?"

"I'm not sure. Raph's out too. He's stable though. Mike-" Leo hesitates, "did she tell you?"

"Yeah," What am I supposed to say? What's happening to them is awful and so unfair.

"I'm coming up tonight. I'm leaving now. He made me promise. He's not in any condition to be moved… If she wakes up tell her I'll be there soon."

"Leo she's going to want to see him," I watch her chest rise and fall under the blankets. Steady. Good.

"I know. Tell April that Don won't be home tonight. He and Master Splinter are staying with Raph. I would too, if he didn't make me promise. Just don't let her out of your sight Mike. Who knows what she'll get in her head."

"Sure thing, Leo," he's right about that, when Zoe gets upset she's liable to do the first thing that pops in her head. In some ways she and Raph are a lot alike.

After disconnecting the call I hear April in the hallway and I can't help but smile a little. Even a kunoichi still makes a shuffle when she's nine months pregnant.

April shoves the bedroom door open with some force and one look in her wide blue eyes tells me this night just got busier. "Call him back Mike. We're coming to them."

Knowing better than to question April when she's this serious, I Immediately call Raph's phone back.

"Leonardo." Leo answers.

"Uh, Leo, April says we're coming to you instead."

"No Mike. Raph doesn't want Zoe or his kids in New York right now."

"You tell April that."

April is standing over me with a strange look on her face. Her red eyebrows are drawn together, her lips are pressed flat. She makes a small grunting sound. I know that pinched expression, I've seen it before. That's the face Zoe made when she was… "Oh… oh boy. Now April, really?"

"Now Mike. Get the van. Load Zoe and the kids and let's go." April points to Zoe, jabs a finger in my plastron and snatches the phone from my hand. "And give me the phone."

"Leonardo. It's April. Zoe and Raph will get better faster if they're together. Raph will get over it. I'm in labor and last time I checked hospitals don't deliver turtles and my midwife is passed out. So I need Donatello because there's no way in hell Mike is helping me deliver this baby. Don't argue with me just turn around, get back to the lair and tell the love of my life to get ready!"

"Uh- sure- okay April."

April doesn't answer him she just hangs up, glares at me, then snaps, "Why, are you still standing there?! MOVE IT NINJA!"

Whoa. I'm moving. I'm moving.