Michelangelo

"Dddddonnie, I don't think Zoe's breathing," I choke. I'm holding her up and feel her body go limp in my arms.

At the same time the baby coughs and starts crying.

Raph snatches up the tiny green bundle, handing him off to Leo before pressing the side of his head to Zoe's chest, "No, she's breathing, she's just out." My red clad brother looks at Donatello, "Can you even give her a general when she's lost this much blood?"

Donatello nods, "I already did that's why she's out. Now wash up and get back in here, we've got two more to go."

Raph agrees, disappears and returns as covered as the rest of us. In the next five minutes Donnie cut my sister open, moved her organs to the side and pulled out a baby. It was the wildest, most terrifying thing I've ever seen and I've seen some crazy shit.

He hands the second baby to Raph then somehow pulls yet another green blob from Zoe's body and hands it to me. Holding the tiny squirming infant I step alongside Raph and Leo and do everything I've been told to. I use the big blue bulb to clear his tiny nostrils and mouth while he smacks at my hands with his tiny three fingers, screaming and flailing in protest.

"Hey, little guy, chill out. It's all good. You're here now." I tell the infant. Then he stops crying, opens his eyes and I about fall over. They are a deep gray like his mothers. He's looking right at me but all I can see are memories of her, from the moment she laid eyes on my brother and I knew he'd bring her home, right up to the day I met Exodus and had her to thank for it.

My heart swells and my eyes fill but I have to keep it together, "Let's get you a bath little dude."

"How are the babies?" Donatello demands an update and I can hear frantic movements going on behind me. I glance over my shoulder and a lump rises in my throat. Donnie is pointing to April whose fingers are in my sister's abdomen and sewing, Karai's hanging a third bag of blood and Zoe is a deathly shade of white.

"Baby A is good," Leo replies, efficiently.

"Mines good," Raph says numbly, glancing over his shoulder at Zoe and taking a shuddering breath.

He needs a distraction.

"Well they're all yours Raph," I quip.

His eyes slide over to me, then down to the gray eyed baby I am gently drying with a towel and the corners of his mouth turn up slightly, "Yea, they are."

"Baby C is good too Donnie." I answer dutifully.

"How's their Mother?" Raph asks before he holds Baby B against his plastron and makes his way over to Zoe's side, stroking her cheek and whispering something in her ear.

"Just finishing up, we've got the bleeding to stop and I'm going to go ahead and start her on an antibiotic just in case." Donnie lowers a clean blanket over Zoe, and April hands him a syringe of something he injects into the tube hanging from her arm.

Raph uncovers the baby he holds, then lifts up the blanket covering Zoe and lays the infant on her chest, "Leo, bring me the baby." He says reaching for the tiny bundle in my blue clad brothers arms. Leo hands the biggest of the three babies over to Raph, who places him alongside his brother, "Mike." He motions for me and I un-wrap the gray eyed baby and hand him over. The infant squawks in protest until his plastron meets his mom's skin.

The three babies sleep nestled up to her and Raph leans against the wall looking down at them.

"We need to keep a close eye on all four of them for at least the next twenty four hours. Raph, I'm going to give Zoe something to wake her up, she needs to rest, but she'll need to feed the babies too."

Raph nods, never taking his eyes off them.

"You guys did well," Donnie says as he looks over us. Karai and April are leaning on each other crying what I think were tears of relief. Leo looks like he's just defeated the Shredder and I feel like I've gone a round or two with him myself. Raph looks like he's just climbed from the pit of hell and Donnie looks like he's the one who led him out of it. And in a way, he did.

Raphael

Donnie injects something into her line that brings her around and I'm almost sorry, because her face crumbles in pain and tears roll down her cheeks.

"All I can give her is Percocet and Ibuprofen," he says checking the incision on her abdomen and covering her back up.

I reach to pull the sleeping babies from her chest but she blocks my arm, at the same time grabbing my hand and lowering it just below where their tiny bodies end.

"Hey," I whisper, peering into her sleepy gray eyes.

"Hey yourself," she croaks, licks her lips and rolls her eyes.

"You can have some ice-chips Zoe, Mikey just brought them for you." Donnie leans over her and I take the cup from his hand, slipping one in her mouth.

The smallest baby writhes and squeaks before stretching out a tiny hand and smacking his big brother. The firstborn and largest of the three scrunches up his face and lets out a scream, and the middle babe ignores them both.

Zoe gazes at them adoringly and I can't help myself. Our entire lives together raced through my brain in the past two hours and it's been all I can do to keep it together. Now, with her stroking the tops of their round little heads, victorious yet again, when she'd been so close to death not an hour ago, tears threaten me and I press my mouth against hers, determined to fend them off.

The largest of the three shrieks in protest against my invasion of his space and smacks at my neck. "Already? You just got here." I tell him, standing up and sticking my finger in his hand, where he grabs on, yet continues to scream.

"I think he's hungry. Can you take the other two," she starts to laugh but winces and opts for a feeble smile, "Just move them and help me to sit up so I can nurse them."

Loading my arms with babes I stick my head in the hall, "Anybody wanna hold two babies?"

Karai, Exodus and April each stand up from the couch but Mikey and Leo beat them.

"Really?" I can't hide my surprise. They've always wanted to hold any of the babies that we already have, but there's something different about this and I realize that Mikey reaches for Baby C and Leo frowns when he doesn't see Baby A. I nod, "I'll bring him to you in a few. Can you take B for now?"

Leo pops up an eye ridge, "B?"

"Yea, they don't have names yet. We never picked any out, we were to worried something would happen."

Leo nods, taking Baby B, "I get it. But can I get Baby A as soon as you guys are done with him?"

I snort, "Sure Leo, and you get your own baby altogether in like eight more weeks."

"That's true and I love her already, but he wasn't alive and-" My brothers blue eyes fill, he looks away, blinks, then swallows, "Zoe's amazing Raph."

"Tell me about it." I clap him on the arm and turn to go back in the lab.