Title: Dreams and Nightmares
Summary: Was their origin a gift or a curse? Donatello ponders the beginnings of his life.
Author's Notes: These stories are for the 2003 cartoon, but there will be some heavy influence from the original Eastman and Laird comic books.
Author's Note 2: References are made to the 2003 series episode Same As It Never Was. No spoilers, just a vague reference.
Disclaimer: This is a work of Fanfiction. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and all characters are property of Mirage Studios, and are licensed to Imagi Entertainment and Warner Brothers. I do claim ownership of my Original Characters, and any similarity between their names and those of existing characters in Fanfiction or Canon is purely coincidental. I make no profit from this work.
None of us truly remember the beginning. To be sure, we have memories of being told what happened and that knowledge has coloured our thoughts. We have created false memories of those days in the pet store, of the boy who purchased us, of the accident, the fall, the change. But truly, none of us really remember anything before our first 'birthday'.
But there is something in us, something deep and primal and illogical. It remembers. It knows what happened and it provides us with bits of knowledge, handed out like bits of ticker tape at a parade. Never enough to get the full story, but just enough to whet the appetite, to make us realize that we are missing something keenly important.
At night, when my father and brothers are all asleep, as I sit with only my computer for company, with only the monitor for light, I find myself beginning to drift. On those nights I try to fight sleep because I know that whatever it is in me that can remember will, and I will be plagued with dreams and nightmares, with images of a past I have never known and a future I can never have. It's on those nights that I begin to wonder if we really were granted a gift on that afternoon, or if we are just some kind of cosmic joke.
If we had never mutated, I never would have had to fight, never had to kill, never had see my brothers fall one by one. I would not need to worry about my father's ailing health or the woman who will never see me as more than a brother. Of course, if we had never mutated I would never have had my brothers, father, or the woman I secretly love. Would I truly be able to give all that up for a life of peace in a terrarium? Would I really want to change that long forgotten beginning?
I can't say that I know …