OOOOOOooo – Happy New Year! 2017 has GOT to be better than 2016. Right? Please? So sorry to take eons to update. Thanks for sticking with. It means a tonne. Peace, love and happy readings to you all. This community is lovely.

Chapter 17 – Medications

"No plan ever survives contact with the enemy.
It is how you react to the unexpected that will determine if you and brothers succeed"
Splinter, Rise of the Turtles
.

The journey through the sewer tunnels was interminable. The passage was stifling, the stench overwhelming, and the panic omnipresent. Leatherhead snapped his jaws for the tenth time. The taste of Donnatello's blood refused to wash away. If Michelangelo also read Shakespeare, thought Leatherhead, I would reference Lady Macbeth in this moment.

Instead, as they neared the Lair, Leatherhead continued to post-mortem recent events.

"My friend, I cannot apologize enough for failing to stop Fishface where he landed. In that split second that I turned, he attacked your brother. My deepest regret is that I was unable to protect Donatello."

Beyond exhausted, his adrenaline spike flattening, Mikey yelped: "Dude, YOU. BIT. OFF. HIS. ARM!" His shout rang through the tunnels. "How is that protecting him?"

The croc grew morose. "It was only his lower arm: Donatello would have died. If the poison had entered his system, we would be carrying a corpse back to your father."

"What's to say we're not already?" Mikey screamed, turning to look at the morbid bundle Leatherhead cradled in his arms. Raph's trenchcoats were soaked through with blood, the fabric grown more brown than tan. "LH, I want to check on him. I don't think he's gonna make it to the Lair. I don't know what but, we gotta do something now, to stop all the bleeding. I haven't actually seen him since…."

Leatherhead nodded and knelt down on the tunnel floor so that Mikey could gently peel back the blood-soaked nest of trenchcoats and look on his brother.

"Michelangelo, what is that on your back?"

"What?"

"The, ah, Kraang tech that is slung across your shell."

Mikey blinked in surprise, having forgot all about the shiny mega-gun thingy he lifted from the Foot's warehouse. "I dunno. It just looked – important. And fast. So I teefed it."

Leatherhead shuddered. "It may come in handy. But not at this time." The Croc bundled Donnie back up, rose to his feet, and began walking at a clip. Mikey trotted to catch up, and the two mutants resumed their rapid journey Lair-ward. "Now we must get your brother home. Does your family expect us?"

Mikey almost laughed at Leatherhead's demure question, as if they were unexpectedly dropping in for tea. "Yeah, LH. I think they know what's coming down the tunnel at them."

"They think they do. They will find out soon enough. As long as they have begun the medical preparations."

"Splinter's all Action Stations. He and Leo are setting up the infirmary in Donnie's lab. Raph's on his way back from….somewhere?"

Both fell silent, walking as quickly as possible while keeping Donnie steady.

...

The turnstiles were never so welcome a sight to Michelangelo. Leatherhead stepped over them as if they were tiny LEGO pieces, never breaking his stride. Mickey and LH could hear frantic bangs and thuds from Donatello's lab: Splinter and Leo, busying themselves, doing their best to feel in control of some aspect of Don's life.

"WE'RE HERE!" Mikey veritably screeched in a strange mix of panic and relief. NOW things would be OK. NOW his brother would be saved.

Splinter emerged from the lab to see Leatherhead holding the wretched bundle that was the Rat's son. In this moment the ninja was business only. His mission was to save Donatello. Emotions had no place.

Leonardo appeared at the door of the lab with a gurney. He stood silent and grim, his blue eyes sunken pools of grief. Faint clanking noises in the lab indicated Raphael's presence, back from visiting April's apartment. Hearing the conversation, Raph quickly emerged from the lab to join the group and see his brother's state.

Splinter spoke briskly, "Please. Leatherhead. Place him here. What can you tell us of his injuries that will help?"

"I am unsure how to even place Donatello on this bed. Splinter: his shell. It is cracked. He must be positioned on his stomach, or side. This injury to his back is perhaps his most dire. However, his arm…."

Leatherhead paused. There were no words. He simply unwrapped Donatello's form to show the detached lower arm. Splinter barely missed a beat. He picked up the arm and placed it on a large metal dissecting tray, then from the gurney detached the tray and held it out to Raphael, who accepted it without thinking.

"Raphael. Michelangelo. You will preserve your brother's arm while Leonardo and I stop the bleeding and treat his injuries with the Healing Hands."

With that command, Splinter turned and wheeled Donatello into his own lab, this time as patient, and guinea pig.

Raph and Mikey stared down at Don's arm, then blinked at each other. Without warning, with his free hand, Raph punched his younger bro in the plastron. "You better hope Don survives, or you're the only one Leo and me are gonna pick on for all of dark eternity."

"Stop stalling", retorted Mikey. "We have a bro's arm to save."

...

Seated at the kitchen table, with Don's lower arm on the tray, Raphael huffed. "OK. Transplant organs are carried on ice to keep the tissue alive. Can't imagine it's much different for an arm."

Mikey pressed a finger to his chin. "Hmmmm. Ice. IIIIIIce. How abouts the freezer?!" Triumphantly, he swung the freezer door wide open. Water vapour streamed out as Ice Cream Kitty joyfully popped her head through the doorway. Seeing a disembodied Turtle half-arm sitting on the counter, she mewled loudly, grabbed the ice cube shelf, and with a slam, pulled the door shut again.

Raph growled. "It wouldn't work anyway, twerp. A food freezer is too cold for live tissue – ever heard of freezer burn? Ever wondered why people wear winter gloves?"

"Ever wondered why you're such a jackass?", Mikey muttered under his breath. "Then what about D's science freezer? He keeps special samples in there 'cos it's super cold. Too cold for things to go off."

"Nah, that's solutions and the like. Or dead things. Not a whole, live organ. The temp's gotta be cold, but not too cold. And not directly touching the tissue, either, or it'll be damaged, or die."

Mind-melding, the two brothers had the same thought at the same time: THE BATHTUB!

It took Mikey about ten minutes to convince Ice Cream Kitty to open the freezer door again, but once she did, her owner set about making the most, and largest, ice cubes he could manage. In the meantime, Raph poured the coldest bath he could manage in summertime sewers, adding as many of Don's ice packs as he could scavenge from the super-cold lab freezer. Each time he entered or walked near the lab he could hear Splinter chanting,

Rin. Pyo. Toh. Sha. …
Mu. Ryo. Ju. Son. …
E. Sai. Nyu. Rai….

Leo was busy either cleaning Don's wounds or researching online. Leatherhead lay with his snout poking inside the lab, watching attentively, giving advice where he could.

Raph gathered as many towels and rags as possible, and returning to the kitchen, began to wrap them around Donnie's arm.

"Won't it get all wrinkly?", Mikey asked Raphael.

"Whaddya mean, "wrinkly"?

"I mean like when you're in the bath too long. You know, prune hands?"

Raph snorted and raised his voice, "That's about the dumbest thing I've ever…" He trailed off.

"Prune hands", asserted Mikey.

Raph clenched his jaw, and his fists. "Fine. Then we wrap the arm in just-moist towels, then wrap the whole thing in plastic bags, then put it all in the ice bath. It'll stay cold and hydrated but dry enough to avoid…pruning."

Mikey brightened noticeably. After they slid Don's bundle into the chill bathwater, Mikey sprinkled some creatine powder and multivitamins into the tub, just to be sure.

...

Again, Splinter checked Donatello's faint life signs on the monitor. He and Leonardo had hooked Donnie up as soon as they could, infusing him with saline and antibiotics stockpiled whenever Donatello, or April, could finagle the drugs. Medical pads were draped over Don's broken shell, below which pinkish liquids shifted over pulsing soft flesh. The lab smelled faintly of burned tissue where they had cauterized Donatello's elbow stump. Donnie couldn't have smelled it, though, as he was hooked up to oxygen via a breathing mask.

"Leonardo, your brother's bleeding has stopped and his pulse is stable, but very weak. His breath, still very shallow. He is not responding to the Healing Hands as I had hoped. We must try something else. But I simply do not know what."

Leatherhead spoke. "Splinter, this poison: I do not know what it is, but I know that my blood is hostile to most - Anything. Perhaps a transfusion of my blood to Donatello would eradicate any traces of the poison, and help combat infection?"

Splinter blinked, and fell into silent thought for several moments. Then: "Yes. It could work. Leonardo, check that the centrifuge is on, please. And see if we have more syringes and some blood collection tubes."

"Hai, Sensei." Beginning to catch on, Leo did as his Father requested and collected the appropriate lab gear.

"Leatherhead, how would you suggest that we draw blood from you?"

"My hide is too tough to pierce with a needle. One of you will have to crawl into my mouth and draw blood from beneath my tongue."

Splinter and Leo looked at each other. "Michelangelo will do this task", decreed Splinter.

...

Mikey was overjoyed to have something else to do to help his brother. Akin to a symbiotic "crocodile bird", Mikey seemed entirely relaxed navigating Leatherhead's rack of brutally sharp teeth. The Croc barely flinched when the needle pierced his vein. This voluntary procedure was nothing compared to suffering the Kraang's invasive experimental torments.

Taking full ownership of his job, Mikey insisted on centrifuging the blood samples and extracting the plasma himself. In the face of Leo's protests, he simply replied, "WHO saved everyone from the parasitic wasps with his mad science skillz? WHO made the poison antidote with the centrifuge?"

Leatherhead was supportive: "My friend, simply treat this like making a meringue. Think of separating an egg white from its yolk. My blood is spun down to three layers. At the bottom, my red blood cells. At the top, my plasma, containing the proteins and the acidic pH to disintegrate the Foot's toxin. But in between is the very thin layer of white blood cells that would trigger an immune reaction in Donatello. This reaction would surely kill him. Remember: the plasma is the egg white. The middle layer is the yolk."

"The middle layer…is the yolk", repeated Michelangelo as, tongue to the corner of his mouth, he carefully pipetted up the top layer, stopping before he risked sucking up any of the middle 'buffy coat'. He gently expelled the plasma into a sterile plastic tube.

"Booyakasha. PWND IT! Science is just like cooking, with biohazards."

Leo promptly whisked the tube from its rack and handed it to Splinter, who was waiting with a fresh syringe.

Splinter loaded the syringe with the pure plasma, and docked the needle with the tube taped to the back of Don's remaining, left hand. Slowly, the anxious father injected the plasma into the tube, itself a conduit to the needle placed in Donnie's vein. The plasma entered his bloodstream, snaking its way through his body.

Everyone in the Lair held their breath, and willed Donatello to live.

Thanks to springfieldspringfield dot co dot uk for posting the TMNT episode script with the Healing Hands chant. And thanks to you for reading this far! All the best for 2017, and many thanks in advance for any comments you might offer. It's feedback from you guys that really keeps me at this fic! XD More updates before 2018 ;0