I do not own TMNT. This story is for fun, rather than profit.

Donatello whistled happily as he strolled through the sewer tunnel. He wore glasses outfitted with magnifying lenses, and his cable splicing tools were tucked securely into his trusty brown duffel. Despite his carefree demeanor, he was a turtle on a mission.

The shell cells had been glitchy lately. One minute the signals would be perfectly fine, the next they'd be gone entirely. Don suspected that a faulty cable in his signal booster system was to blame. Corrosion had a tendency to wreak havoc down here, but unlike a lot of problems he'd been dealing with lately, this one was easily fixed.

While Donatello normally would have considered the task of locating and repairing the damage to be tedious, it felt really good to be out of the Lair. He had missed these serpentine tunnels, and couldn't resist kicking water around just to watch the resulting ripples dance, sparkling beneath the light cast by his headlamp.

The turtles had been cooped up for a while due to a particularly ferocious blizzard. They'd all been going a bit stir crazy, and it was only complicated by the fact that they were still hurting from Splinter's death several months before. Leonardo and Raphael's squabbling had been worse than ever, as Leo struggled to lead the family, and Raphael continuously defied him. Michelangelo's solution to all of the tension and hostility was to take his pranking to the next level in a misguided attempt to lighten things up. Naturally, this only made things worse. Always the quietest brother, Don was dealing with the stress and turmoil by repairing what little he could, and isolating himself more and more.

Under normal circumstances, Donatello would have asked someone to come with him to check the cables. It was one of Leo's rules that if you needed to leave the Lair, someone always had to come along to watch your back. Raphael had originally agreed to help out, but when Don emerged from his lab, he saw that his three brothers were at each other's throats yet again. Don decided to stealth his way past them, leaving a note on the fridge on his way out the door. Despite the foolishness, and perhaps even selfishness, that was inherent in sneaking away, it felt so good to leave the sounds of yelling in his wake.

So, even though he was lonely, and even though it was a dirty, tedious job, Donatello was happy. There was a certain air of guilt about being happy while in the midst of grief, but he had learned to steal these little moments whenever he could. They were necessary for the purpose of self-preservation. And really, little moments were all that they were. All too quickly they would be gone, pushed away by the task at hand, another fight to referee, or another sad memory to dwell upon.

As expected, the light from Don's headlamp fell upon a damaged cable, and he set to work. He was lost in concentration and still whistling absentmindedly when suddenly he was stung by something that his brain registered as a bee. But bees don't belong in the sewers in March. Don's mind processed this information. It was a dart! Before he had time to grasp the implications of this unexpected turn of events, his vision went blurry and his body grew heavy. Then he was gone.

I hope that you enjoyed the prologue. This story is already written, and will be updated regularly between now and the end of the year. It takes place after the close of the 2003 series, and the turtles are 19.

I know that mpregs aren't for everyone, but Donatello-based ones are a guilty pleasure of mine. One thing that I've noticed in many of the existing stories is that after an initial shock, the turtles tend to adjust pretty well and embrace the changes within their family. You should know up front that this is not the case in this story.

I've got kids myself, as do most of my family and friends. Watching a loved one go through a pregnancy, even a happy and welcomed one, is a weird experience. Not everyone handles it well, and I think that it would really mess with the turtles' heads. They're testosterone laden adolescent males, who never would have imagined going through something like this, and would probably have a hard time coping. In the 2003 series, Don was the calm and gentle one, but I'm not sure that he would always maintain those qualities when he is freaking out himself. Without Splinter being around to guide them, the family dynamic would be difficult enough already.

That being said, the guys love each other, and ultimately they will fight for their family and one another. It might be clumsy and poorly communicated, but they'll be doing what they think is best for Don, no matter how backwards it may seem at times. Please keep that in mind as the story progresses, and they seem to be acting out of character. I promise that it will all come together in the end!