Don drew a deep breath. "All right, we'll see if it works."
"Don, is there a reason you're doing this on me and not April?" Mikey said. At Don's insistence, he was lying flat on his shell on a wooden table, his legs hanging off the edge. He watched uncomfortably as Don smeared a clear, cold gel across his lower plastron.
"Because I cobbled this together from parts from different ultrasound machines, plus some parts of my own," Don said firmly, "and I don't know if I did it right just yet. I need to test it, and if it works on you, it'll definitely work on April."
"So I'm a guinea pig?"
"You're much stronger than a fetus, Mikey."
Mikey started to sit up, but Leo's strong hand clamped on his shoulder and pushed him back down. "You said this was totally harmless!"
"It is. Ultrasounds pose no risk at all."
"Then why—"
"Look on the bright side, bro," Raph said with a grin. "We'll know if you're pregnant after this."
"Not funny, Raph," Mikey announced. "This goop is really cold."
"Lie still," Don said, glancing back at where Leatherhead was typing furiously at the interface they had cobbled together. The screen was starting to glow, but it showed nothing just yet, and it wouldn't until it was applied to a body.
He could feel his brothers all staring at him as he placed the transducer on Mikey's stomach, and began moving it across his plastron. They had seen him working furiously over the few hours since Leatherhead's arrival, fitting together the last pieces of the ultrasound machine, and finally drafting Mikey for the first test run.
And April… April had been beside him the whole time, her delicate fingers dancing over the keyboard as she reprogrammed the necessary parts of the machine. Her face had been locked in a frown as she worked, code reflecting in her eyes as she typed. Now she was hovering near Mikey's head, chewing on her lip as she waited for Don to begin his work.
"It doesn't look like much," Leo said critically, looking at the white and gray murk on the screen.
"Give it a moment," Leatherhead said.
Shapes began to form on the screen at last, as Don moved the transducer across Mikey's stomach and Mikey tried hard not to squirm. The fuzzy mass of gray and white was slowly becoming clearer, and Don felt a surge of excitement as some of his brother's internal organs began to form on the screen. This was what he had been working towards for days — and it seemed like it was working pretty well.
"Is that my stomach? That looks like a stomach," Mikey said.
"Actually I think that might be a kidney," Don said, moving the transducer lower. "You can get up now, Mikey."
"Does that mean I can wash off this goop?" Mikey asked, sitting up on the table.
"Yes, you can." Don tossed him a towel. "Okay, April. It's time."
Her eyes rose to meet his as she moved towards the table. Raph quickly moved to the other side and took her arm, while Leo gently placed his hands on her other arm. The two of them boosted her up onto the tabletop, muttering assurances that it was going to be okay as April lay back, her legs hanging off the edge. Her hands fluttered across her stomach like a bird's wings, rolling her shirt up to just underneath her breasts.
She winced a little as Don slathered the gel across her bare skin, and he wished there was some way to make the process less uncomfortable for her. There was just no helping it, if they wanted to see their baby.
But as he prepared her, Raph and Leo moved to either side of the table, and silently took her hands in their own, letting her grip their wrists tightly. Leo raised his head and nodded slightly, his dark eyes solemn and serious. It was something that Don understood without words — Raph and Leo were taking the place that Don would normally have been in, standing by the mother-to-be and watching as the child was revealed. Don felt a surge of gratitude for his brothers' presence, and how they knew how to help without words, without the need for him to ask.
But then fear surged in him as he picked up the transducer. This was it. This was when they would find out what he and April had conceived, and whether the two of them would raise a child together, or whether they would lose something — someone — destined never to draw breath. It all depended on the catalysis of the mutagen, and whether the mutagenic conception had somehow, miraculously, made two very different creatures compatible.
And if they did lose it — if the baby was horribly malformed, or only kept alive through its connection to April — Don didn't know what they would do. He had never felt that kind of pain in his life before. And he didn't know if April would be able to ever even look at him again without being reminded of what they had made, and what they had lost.
"You can do this, Don," April said softly.
He looked down at her on the tabletop, her green eyes pleading with him. For the first time, she looked as frightened as he felt. He nodded slowly. Then, with his heart racing, he placed the transducer on her belly and began moving it across her skin.
It took a moment for the image on the screen to resolve itself into something solid, but it was the longest moment of Don's life. "Leatherhead, enhance and enlarge the image," he said faintly, wishing his mouth weren't so dry.
And then he saw it — a smooth digital shape that moved slightly as the transducer did. For one heart-stopping moment, he tried to see what the shape was, and what it looked like. All eyes in the room were on the shape on the screen, watching anxiously for answers. He saw a spindly arm — a long thick cord — a slightly rounded abdomen —
"It looks…. normal," he said faintly.
"You should probably define 'normal,' dude," Mikey said.
"Normal for — for one of us," Don said faintly, his eyes moving across the readouts at the bottom of the screen. "It's — about the size of a three-month human fetus, about as long as a human's thumb. Maybe a little smaller, but we tend to be shorter than humans are." He squinted at the image, his eyes moving towards the child's head. "Leatherhead, can you make the image just a little clearer?"
He glanced at April and his brothers, and found them transfixed by the small, smooth shape on the screen. Raph and Leo were openly gawking at it, Mikey was glancing between the image and April's stomach, and Master Splinter's black eyes were dewy as he clutched his cane to himself. And April… April was gazing at the image with tears in her eyes, but her lips were curved into a faint smile. She looked to Don and her smile deepened, as if she were thanking him for what he was showing her.
Leatherhead's hands moved swiftly across the interface's keyboard, and the digital image became even clearer.
Now Don could see the baby even more clearly, and what he saw nearly stopped his heart. He could see tiny fingers and toes, at the end of spindly limbs that floated freely, slightly curled in the cramped space. He could see the baby's torso, and the tiny delicate ribs that could be seen just under the baby's fragile skin. Skin that might be green, when it was born. But what really caught Don's attention was the head.
It wasn't shaped like a human's head. It was more like the heads he and his brothers had — though of course, at this stage it was larger proportionately. A domed forehead, a broader lower face, a wider mouth than any human had. It looked… like a mutant turtle.
"What's that?" Mikey said suddenly, poking a finger at the screen.
Don jumped, startled out of his reverie. His eyes moved to the spot where Mikey was pointing, an odd dark rim around the baby's back that was barely visible from this angle.
"That — looks like a carapace," Don said faintly, his fingers clutching the transducer tighter. "The baby might have a shell."
"Cool," Mikey said, grinning. "Guess it takes after you, Don."
"In development, it does," Don said. "It seems to be maturing at a similar rate to a human fetus, and that might continue after it's born."
"Can you tell if it's a boy or girl?" April asked.
"No, I can't," Don said, shaking his head slightly. "Male turtle genitalia are kept inside the body when not in use, so the baby could be either. We'll have to wait until it's born to know."
April seemed satisfied by this answer, settling back on the table.
"What do you mean, it might continue after it's born?" Leo said.
"I'm just guessing at this point, since something like this has never happened before. But turtles are hatched more or less ready to survive on their own — when we were mutated, we were only infants, but we were able to walk, speak and do most things that a human child of a few years could have done." Don sighed. "But this baby, if it follows a more human developmental path, might be helpless when it's born."
The baby chose that moment to move slightly, its small limbs twitching as if in greeting to the people watching it. Don could almost imagine it aware that its parents were checking on it, and for a split second his mind provided him with the sensation of a tiny hand clutching one of his fingers. He had never been near a baby in his life, but suddenly he wanted to be holding his own child — wanted to see its eyes, feel it move.
A life. A whole mind, ready to blossom as it learned about the world around it. He had never even thought about what a wonder that was before.
As if reading Don's mind, Leatherhead's hand moved across a knob, and a sound began to emanate from the speakers — a pounding noise, fast enough that it took a moment for Don to recognize that it was a heartbeat. His own heart felt like it was speeding up to match his child's, and his hand clutched tightly around the transducer.
"That's—" April whispered, looking at the screen.
"I — don't know what's normal for that," Don said quietly. "But it sounds — healthy."
He tore his eyes away from the screen to look at April. Her wide green eyes were shining with tears, and her hands were tightly clutching Raph and Leo's.
"Should we save some images?" Leatherhead interjected.
"Yes, absolutely," April said immediately.
Don waited until Leatherhead had finished working on the computer interface, and then removed the transducer from April's stomach. He saw the tiny huddled figure blink out of sight, heard the heartbeat vanish. It tugged at his heart, but he reminded himself sternly that he and April could see the baby again whenever they wanted to — and if she was willing, he would see it many times in the months before it was born.
He seized a nearby cloth and gently wiped the gel from April's stomach, even as Raph helped her sit back up. One of her hands brushed his face, turning him towards her, and he found himself looking into green eyes filled with relief and a kind of simmering happiness. Her hands cupped his face, and drew him close enough for a brief kiss. A celebration of the fact that their baby — as far as they could tell — was going to live, and showed no signs of anything wrong with it.