Leo paced the den.
"Dude, you're going to wear a whole in the floor," Raph said.
Leo wheeled around to face Raph, who sat on the couch. "It's been almost eight hours, Raph, and we still haven't heard how Xever reacted to the serum."
"But you said he looked totally fine," Mikey said, playing the arcade game that didn't get smashed when Shredder had broken into the lair.
"Yeah, he looked fine, but Karai had to get him to Dexter Stockboy so that he wouldn't suffocate without his water tanks. She said she was gonna call as soon as she knew that – "
"Well, I've got good news and bad news," Karai said, as she walked through the turnstiles. She wore a smile. "The good news is, it worked. The bad news is, Stockman successfully reattached Xever's robotic legs."
"It really worked?" Raph said, his mouth open.
"Yeah. I don't know what the Kraang were talking about when they said they couldn't reduplicate the mutation. He looks exactly the same, acts exactly the same…I even asked him a bunch of questions. He's completely indistinguishable from the mutant he used to be. Maybe there's something different on a molecular level, but as far as I can tell, he's exactly the same."
"Is it true?" A shaky voice came from the dojo doorway. Splinter hurried down the steps. "The serum truly reproduced his mutation?"
Karai smiled proudly. "Right down to the length of his hideous teeth."
Leo didn't know what to say. He ran over to Karai and threw his arms around her. So what if she'd lied to them a couple weeks ago? So what if the mission was a risk? It was a success. They were going to get Donnie back.
As far as Leo was concerned, she was forgiven.
Well, maybe he didn't completely trust her, but he certainly forgave her. Trust…she'd have to earn that. But at least he knew now that she really did have their best interests at heart, even if she was a bit of a loose cannon.
She awkwardly pulled back from his embrace. He realized that it was the first time they had ever hugged – or sort of hugged. His face got hot and he stepped back too.
"Then what are we waiting for?" Mikey said. He looked like he was about to detonate. "Let's give him the stuff and get Donnie back!"
"No," Splinter said. "We should wait for Kirby. He may only be a psychologist, but he seems to be fairly knowledgeable in medical things as well. I would feel more comfortable if he were here to help with this."
"Then let's call him!" Mikey bounced on the balls of his feet.
"I'm on it," Leo said. His hands were shaking with excitement as he pulled out the phone to dial Kirby.
Splinter's heart raced as he watched Leonardo call Kirby. Soon, he would hear his Donatello's voice again.
Donatello. His little Donnie-bo. So many years ago, when Splinter had been on the brink of despair – not even aware that the turtles were sentient beings – Donatello's first words had brought him back from the edge.
That voice had saved him from despair, and he could not wait to hear it again.
"All right," Leonardo said. "Mr. O'Neil said that he doesn't have to work today, and that he'll be here in a couple of hours."
"Hours?" whined Michelangelo.
"Yeah, hours. He and April and a taking Mei to another doctor's appointment."
Splinter was jolted from his private thoughts. Another appointment? He knew that she had been seeing the doctor once a week or so, but she had just been to the doctor the day before last. Oroku Saki truly had devastated Mei's body.
Splinter drew a deep breath, forcing down the anger that rose in his throat, choking him like bile. The Shredder was dead, no longer a threat. He would never hurt Splinter's loved ones again.
Ever.
He focused on the task at hand. "Let us prepare things, then. Raphael, Michelangelo. You clean Donatello's room for him. As I recall, it was a mess. You know how much he appreciates order in his lab – an orderly room will be a pleasant place for him to recover."
"Really, Sensei?" Raphael said. "We'll totally mess up his organization system."
"He explained it to me once," Leonardo said.
Everyone looked at Leonardo.
"What? We made a bet. Loser cleans the winner's bedroom. I lost."
"Besides, I wanna help get the lab ready," Michelangelo said.
Splinter was about to re-assign Leonardo to help Raphael, when he remembered that if Raphael was tense with anticipation – which clearly he was – he would mask it with anger. Doubtless, a fight would ensue. Miwa seemed to be more comfortable around Leonardo than anyone else. "Leonardo, Mi – " He shook his head. "Forgive me. Karai. You go clean Donatello's room. Michelangelo and Raphael will help me prepare the lab."
With a quick bow, Leonardo and Karai went to work on their task.
"My sons," Splinter said, gesturing to Michelangelo and Raphael. He headed into the lab and flipped on the lights. The hum of the fluorescent tubes seemed like a joyful song, a welcome-home melody being played just for Donatello. The lab was already quite orderly, but such a procedure would probably be best if the room was as sterile as possible. He assigned various tasks – swabbing the exam table with alcohol, dusting off all of the electronics, mopping the floor with a strong bleach solution, and so forth. Splinter checked the bookcase to make sure that everything was in perfect alphabetical order, arranged by Library of Congress standards. Donatello would stand for no less.
Splinter smiled. Oh, Donnie-bo. Your idiosyncrasies bring me as much joy as they do baffle me.
Once the lab was what Donatello might call "spic 'n span," Splinter called Raphael and Michelangelo to prepare a welcome-home banner to hang in the kitchen. Michelangelo was nearly ready to detonate with excitement, and though he tried to disguise it, so was Raphael.
Splinter had to admit that he was every bit as excited as his sons, though a small voice nagged at him, this might go horribly wrong. If that happened, he wasn't sure how his family would react.
He wasn't sure how he would react.
So he hoped for the best and forged on, letting the future worry about itself.
"If Donatello's so organized, why does it look like a bomb went off in here?"
Leonardo looked up from the stack of papers that he was gathering up from the floor. Karai was holding what looked like a piece of a broken bo-staff. "Because he spends most of his time organizing in his lab instead of in here. Why don't you make the bed? Be sure to do it hospital style, and fold back the blanket exactly ten inches from the head of the bed."
Karai shook her head. "Ridiculous." She tossed the piece of bo-staff into the trash bag and started making the bed.
"So, um…"
"What?"
"You were asking me all those questions earlier, about my favorite color and stuff. I was just wondering why."
Karai sighed. "I guess…I know I hurt you, Leo, and I'm trying to make it right."
Leo smiled. "You've gone a long way, just by getting the retro-retro-mutagen." He hesitated. "Can I ask you some questions?"
Karai shrugged by way of assent.
"So, what's your favorite animal?"
Karai was silent for a few moments while they worked. Then she scowled. "You'll laugh."
"No, I won't."
"Well, one of my favorite nannies had turtles. She always let me play with them."
Leo's heart practically skipped a beat. "Turtles are your favorite animal?"
"The closest thing, maybe. I never gave it much thought. Though I do think that koi are beautiful."
Something about the way that Karai said the word 'beautiful' made Leo's face get hot. Stop it, Leo. You can't trust her, and she's your sister, so just stop it…
"What's your favorite animal?"
"Huh?" Leo realized that he had stopped working for a minute. "Oh. I always thought that cats were cool – they're graceful and balanced. But Splinter wouldn't let us get one."
"Maybe because he is a rat?" Karai smiled wryly.
Leo chuckled. "Probably. The only pet we ever had was Spike – Raph's turtle – who got mutated."
"That must have been hard." Karai carefully pulled back the blanket. "I can't believe there's a ruler on the nightstand just for this purpose."
Leo raised an eyebrow at the abrupt subject change. "Oh, that's for a lot of things. He spaces his perpetual motion thingies exactly four inches apart."
Karai smoothed out the blanket and arranged the pillow dead-center. "It's hard to lose somebody you care about – the first time it happens. After a while, it gets easier."
"What do you mean?"
"That nanny with the turtles – she was the one whose family crossed the Shredder. It gets easier because you stop caring about people as much. By the time I stopped needing a caretaker, I didn't even care about my last one. I thought I'd never care about people again. That's what makes all of this so weird."
"All of what?"
"Caring about you. About your brothers. I really didn't want to hurt you, Leo. I'm not sorry for what I did – I had to do it – but I am sorry that it ruined things between us."
Leo's heart raced a little faster. Things? Like what things?
She's your sister, get over it…
Leo cleared his throat. "Well, once we have Donnie back and the Ronin's project is destroyed, I think that – things – will probably start getting back to normal."
"Leo, I – there are things I've done – things that you'll hate me for."
"Hey – whatever you did in the past is in the past. Whatever Shredder told you to do is his fault, not yours."
Karai hung her head. "Yeah."
Leo placed the stack of papers he had been collecting on the small desk that Donnie had in his room. He already felt himself starting to trust Karai again, which he was sure wasn't a good thing. Still, she had delivered on the retro-retro-mutagen thing.
They continued working on organizing Donnie's room in silence.