Mike emerged from Splinter's quarters with a shaky sigh. The testing was finally over with. As he trotted into the den, he saw Leo and Raph glued to the television set, and then noticed a light flashing repetitively near the ceiling. Brow furrowed, he walked in front of them to get their attention.
"Guys? Is Donnie around?"
"He stormed out of here earlier. " Raph looked irritated that he was blocking their view.
"When?" Mike asked sharply.
Leo looked down at his watch. "Uh...wow. I guess it was around 5."
"How long has that light been flashing?" he demanded.
"I wasn't paying a lot of attention," Raph admitted honestly.
"I think I saw it...about half an hour ago?" Leo guessed.
"Half an hour?" Mike was incredulous, fear causing his tone to get flatten. "Thirty minutes, and you just sat there?"
He turned angrily away from them, and tried to dial Don's cell. Mike flipped his phone shut a moment later in utter frustration.
"His phone is off! How could you guys be so STUPID?" he accused, voice growing louder just as Splinter walked into the room.
"I'm sorry, Sensei," he apologized instantly. "I think something's wrong with Donnie!"
"Slow down, my son. What is this about?" Splinter calmly glanced at Leo and Raph for an explanation.
Leonardo stood up somewhat sheepishly. "We um...might have pushed Don a little too far. He got mad and walked out almost three hours ago. We hadn't heard from him, but I didn't think..."
"No, you didn't think! You honestly never listen to a word he says, do you?" Mike interjected. "Those watches he made us last month, they don't just tell time. They have an emergency setting - when you turn it on, THAT light starts flashing! " Mike paused to take a breath. "Sensei, I have to go look for him."
"You all need to go - and make haste."
Mike stopped by Donnie's lab to pick a tracker, and got strange looks from his brothers. "Yes, I can use it," he said quietly. "Donnie forced me to learn in case he ever..."
It was impossible to forget his purple-masked brother's disastrous electrocution three months beforehand.* The mere thought of the night forced Michelangelo to pause.
"We had several practice runs with it," he finally continued. "It should lead us directly to him."
They stepped out into the tunnel to pick up the largest of the sewer sliders, and Mike clipped the tracker directly into the computer the way Donnie had showed him.
Michelangelo drove the slider for several minutes without speaking, following the signal emitting from the onboard computer.
As they traveled further from their home, Mike's nerves continued increasing. He focused on the beacon more than he watched where they were going, only looking up for brief moments in time.
Michelangelo felt some relief when the signal got significantly stronger. He had to be getting close.
They were almost on top of the signal when the tunnel started narrowing out.
"Let's leave it," Mike suggested. "I think he's nearby."
As Mike started around the corner, he stopped abruptly. The sound of quiet sobbing was echoing across the tunnel. He held up a hand for the others to be quiet, as he carefully edged toward the wall for a closer look.
Mike's breath caught at the sight of his brother sprawled against the tunnel, unmoving. More shocking, Donatello wasn't alone.
An overcome girl was on the ground beside him, pressing both hands desperately to his shoulder. "Please. Please you have to wake up!"
Mike pulled back sharply towards his brothers. He'd been accepting the slight empowerment of leading his older brothers around for a change, but this was another matter entirely.
"Can you see him?" Raph hissed.
"Not very well, but what I can see doesn't look good. It seems like whoever she is might need help too. What do you think, Leo?"
"She already knows about Donnie. There seems little point in the rest of us hiding anymore. We have to get him back to the den, and I don't see how we can abandon her either," Leonardo replied decisively.
"Let's try not to scare her worse," Mike said.

The orange-masked turtle moved slowly around the corner, and raised his voice as he did. "Hey - it's okay. We're just looking for our brother. We won't hurt you."

The woman jerked upright against the wall as his shadow took form.
"It's okay," he reassured again, holding out his hands in front of him. Walking into the beam of Donnie's powerful flashlight, he let her examine him closely for a few seconds.

"Brother," she repeated, her accent delighting him. "He said you'd come."
Leo and Raph emerged then as Mike dropped to the ground beside Don. He sucked in a sharp gasp of alarm when he saw evidence of the blood his brother had lost.
"He was shot...saving me," the girl wavered. "He saved my life. I'm sorry."
"Mike is he–" Raph started anxiously, and the younger turtle quickly cut him off.
"He's alive," Michelangelo confirmed."We've got to get him back to Sensei."
Leo slowly approached the young woman, trying to appear non-threatening. "Miss...how did you get down here?"
"I...he brought me. I was kidnapped. The bastards drove me to Central Park; they were arguing over whether to kill me there or later. Your brother intervened. He protected me, and brought me down here to keep them from finding me. He was shot in the shoulder...and he got hit by a tranquilizer too," she finished, showing the tip of the needle to Mike.
"Human drugs?" the orange-masked turtle said tightly. "That's not good."
Leo shouldered in beside him for a look of the tranq. "What do you mean?"
"I don't know why. He just...he's told me they're not our friend." Mike gazed at his oldest brother pointedly. "Call Sensei will you? Ask him what we should do?"
Leo caught his concern about the girl without him being forced to voice it. "Okay. I'll be right back."
He returned to the slider and had quiet, brief conversation with their Master before returning. When he came back, everyone looked him expectantly.
"We need to get Donnie home now. Miss, I don't know if you need our help, or if you're willing to trust us, but I need you to make a decision pretty quick. You can come with us...if you want to."
"Donnie." Her expression was wistful. "He would have given his life to save me, and I didn't even know his name. If I can't trust that, what can I trust?"
"Okay then." Leo nodded. "We've got a ways to go, but we have transportation. It might not be the best way to move him, but there's no other choice."
"I think the best way is to get 'im to Master Splinter as fast as we can," Raphael countered. "That's why I'm driving this time."
"Raph, he was shot," Leonardo returned through gritted teeth.
"Yeah, and he's been bleeding for over an hour! What's your point, Fearless?"
"That we could accidentally make it worse!"
"You know what would really be worse?" Mike inserted angrily. "If he had to keep lying here bleeding while the two of you fight about it."
The older turtles exchanged a hard look.
"I'm driving," Raph insisted, heading for the slider. "I ain't gonna kill him."
Leo wanted to argue, but he shut his mouth. The blue-masked turtle retrieved their prone brother from the ground as Michelangelo tentatively approached the girl again.
"You'll be okay," he said under his breath to her.
"Will he be okay?" she asked louder.
"Oh, yeah. My Sensei will fix this. All we gotta do is get him home."

Raphael drove nowhere near as fast as Michelangelo expected. Even with the urgency in the air, it still took longer to get back to their lair than it had to find Donnie in the first place. He guessed Raph was more worried about hurting Don than he let on.
As they pulled up near the entrance and dropped off the slider, Leo turned to face the young woman.
"Before you go in there, you should know that our Sensei is just as different as we are, all right?"
"Okay. I'm ready," she replied bravely.
Leonardo led her to the door wordlessly, while Mike and Raph followed carefully with Donnie in-between them.
Splinter met them downstairs, bowing lightly as she stopped dead in her tracks.
"Welcome to our home. Were you harmed, young one?"
She shook her head slowly. "Not really. I'm very sorry about Donnie...and now I'm putting all of you at risk, aren't I?"
"I do not want you to worry for the moment. You should call your parents - we have secure lines that you can use, but please do not tell them where you are. Do you carry anything which could lead them here?"
"No. My phone had G.P.S...but the men who kidnapped me took it. I won't tell them where I am. I don't actually know, to be honest."
"Just assure them you are all right, and we will make arrangements concerning your return. I must now attend to my son, but you ought to at least know that I am Splinter. Please make yourself as comfortable as you can."
"I'm Jenna. Thank you."
Leo gave her a cell-phone as Splinter motioned the other two into another adjacent room with Donatello.
"The number is blocked and untraceable. You only need to dial normally."
"Stay and be my witness if you want - I won't say a word about you," Jenna promised, and dialed a number.
Leo sat down across from her, watching in silence as she waited for someone to answer.
"Mom! " she said suddenly. "It's me. Yes...I'm all right. No, no that isn't...five men abducted me, in broad daylight! Somebody saved me, and now he's...Dad! Dad calm down, I can't understand you. I'm alive, in one piece, that's all I can tell you for now. I'm safe. That's right. Those men wanted me dead!" She paused for a long moment. "I can't tell you that. I don't have my phone anymore either, so I will have to call you. I love you. I have to go, I'm sorry."

Splinter was visibly troubled as he probed Donatello for several minutes.
"Sensei?" Mike finally said softly. "Um...you should know..."
"What is it, Michelangelo?"
"Don had this theory that sedatives and our bodies don't mix very well."
"He has told me the same. His current condition is not a result of the bullet in his shoulder, though I fear it will have to be removed. I have been searching his spirit out, and found him completely unresponsive."
"What does that mean?" Raph asked anxiously.
"He has slipped into a coma. Donatello thought something like this could happen, if the wrong sort of drug was introduced into your blood stream," Splinter replied simply.
"He'll wake up, right?" Raph followed.
"We need help," their Sensei said, sounding unsure and suddenly very weary. "I cannot fight this. I have to reach April."

*The event Mike is referring to goes back to a current project on my prequel account, Meraki164. Cost of Honor is currently a teaser, which will be released...um...when I get to it.