"Sarina! Sarina!"

Donatello shakes Sarina's shoulders desperately. She doesn't respond, her body limp. He gulps and lifts her into his arms, leaning down to listen for a heartbeat. When he hears one, he relaxes.

There's the telltale ringing of a metal weapon being unsheathed and Donatello looks up to find Raphael aiming a sai at Sarina. The purple-masked turtle's eyes widen and he makes a short, gasping noise as he clutches the unconscious girl closer to his chest.

"Raph! What are you doing?!" he nearly shrieks.

"You don't think that it's a little bit suspicious that the Kraang only showed up once she went topside?" Raphael asks. His chest heaves and his nostrils flare slightly, making him looking like a raging bull.

Donatello bats his brother's weapon away. "Put that away, Raph."

"She knew the Kraang were coming after her! She could've been a spy all along. Look at what she was capable of!" Raphael insists, gesturing to the destroyed Kraang. April's pupils dilate and she takes a hesitant step away from Sarina. "She said she was 'afraid of this'. What else could she have meant?"

"Stop it, Raph," Casey butts in. "You're scaring April, dude."

April opens her mouth, as if to defend the statement or refute it, but nothing comes out. She closes her eyes and grips her head, wincing as she brushes the cut that's still present. Leonardo moves closer to his family, face grave.

"We need to get out of here," he says. "The police and who knows what else will be here soon."

"Leo, we can't bring Sarina back to the lair. The Kraang had some way of tracking her and we all know it now. Don't pretend you don't know," Raphael says.

Leonardo looks down at Donatello and the purple-masked turtle immediately sees the doubt in his dark eyes. "No," Donatello says. "No, I'm not leaving her here. The Kraang will just come back."

The leader in blue releases a heavy sigh. "Whatever it is, we'll figure it out. Right now, Destiny and Mikey are injured and we're way too out in the open," he says. "We'll bring her back, but you deal with Splinter, Donnie."

Donatello stands, bringing Sarina with him. "Maybe...maybe the sewers blocked out the signal before," he suggests. "Maybe that's why they only attacked now."

Leonardo stares at him, sympathetic. "Whatever helps you sleep at night," he murmurs. He looks to the humans. "April, Casey, I think you should come with us. You two need patching up too."

April absentmindedly touches the blood on her face, then nods. Casey gives another quiet agreement as he wraps his arm around April's shoulders and leads her to the nearest manhole.

As Raphael retrieves Michelangelo, Leonardo hurries to the pile of bricks where Destiny is. She's curled into a tight ball, a grimace frozen on her face as she grips her bloody shoulder. Leonardo shoves a few bricks aside and kneels next to her, offering his hand.

"Come on, I've got you," he says.

She takes his hand with her good arm, but when he pulls her back to her feet, she immediately tips into his arms. She winces and blinks rapidly. Leonardo doesn't wait for her to say anything before he scoops her into his arms.

"Damn it," she mutters.

"Just hold on for a little longer," he says. "We'll get you fixed up."

The battered team disappears into the sewers, leaving behind only smoking remnants of a battle won.

-----------

Splinter isn't pleased in the slightest when he hears about the events of the evening. As he settles everyone in to be bandaged and cared for, he hardly takes his eyes off of Sarina. He says nothing yet, waiting for a better time. Until then, he busies himself with cleaning April's wound.

Leonardo pulls the sleeve of Destiny's t-shirt down, revealing a severe burn wound. He dabs a cloth on it, trying to clean up the blood, and she lets out a whimper every time the cloth touches her skin.

"I'm sorry, this is really bad," he apologizes. He purses his lips. "Not like I didn't warn you..."

She almost smiles. "Aw, you scolding me...it feels like old times," she teases. He smiles lightly and she reaches over, brushing his cheek as she notices a cut just beneath his eye. "Let me clean you up too. You aren't invincible."

He nods. "If you insist."

Near them, Splinter has moved to check both Raphael and Michelangelo. Neither of them are seriously injured, just bumps and bruises, plus Michelangelo got a nasty smack on the head. Once the rat mutant has completed his checks, he stands and turns to his remaining son.

"Donatello," he utters. His tone alone is enough to make Donatello cringe. "What happened out there?"

He takes a deep breath. "Well...uh, we were doing okay, but the Kraang kept sending in reinforcements. Destiny got shot by one of the scout ships, Mikey got smacked into a wall—"

"It was crazy, yo!" Casey adds. "We could hardly keep up!"

"Right," Donatello agrees, too exhausted to waste energy being annoyed. "Then, April and Casey got cornered. Sarina had been staying out of the way the entire fight, but that was when she intervened. She got between Casey and April and attacked the Kraang using some kind of...energy. She shot it from her palms."

"And she took down the Kraang with little fingertip rocket lasers," Casey adds. "Totally badass."

Splinter's ears perk with alarm. "She can fight?"

"Yes," Leonardo says as he starts wrapping a bandage around Destiny's shoulder. "And that's where another problem comes in. Sarina told Raph and Mikey that she can sense when the Kraang are nearby, and the Kraang only showed up when Sarina went to the surface."

"The Kraang also said something about finally tracking her down," Destiny adds.

Splinter's face hardens. "They can track her?" he repeats.

"It's a theory, Sensei!" Donatello says. "We don't know for sure, since it's definitely nothing I could find and get rid of when I first examined her."

Splinter's expression doesn't change. "This is far too risky," he says. "There is much here that we cannot explain and I will not take that chance." His gaze flickers to Sarina and, for a split second, he softens. "We have to do something about her, even if it means restraints."

Donatello gasps. "R-Restraints? She isn't a criminal, she's..." he starts, but his words die. "Sensei, please, reconsider."

"Until we know more about what has transpired here this evening, we must do what we can to remain safe," Splinter says. "My family's safety is more important than our alliance with Sarina. I am sorry, Donatello, but you must find a place to keep her until further notice."

Donatello can't get his mouth to work. He looks desperately to his remaining family members, but none of them speak up. They are silent, unsure, and perhaps scared. Donatello bows his head, tears welling in his eyes.

"H-Hai...Sensei," he says.

After that, Donatello doesn't hear much of the conversations going on around him. He hears Splinter offer to set up some beds for April and Casey to stay the night, alongside something about it being Saturday tomorrow. Raphael and Leonardo speak to one another about Michelangelo, then Raphael offers to bring him to bed. Leonardo does the same for Destiny.

Donatello sits and stares at Sarina's body. The last time she went into sleep mode, it was because she had been awake for too long and her power supply had run low, and for the most part she looked peaceful when she slept. Now, she looks more like a corpse.

"Donnie?"

He jumps and turns to see his brothers looking at him. Raphael crosses his arms over his plastron, his mouth set in a slightly annoyed frown.

"You have any idea why she passed out?" he asks.

"I think it's those...upgrades. She must've used up any energy she had left and her body physically gave up," Donatello answers. He sighs heavily and reaches out, brushing Sarina's arm. "I could plug her in, but she might just want to be left to recharge."

Leonardo arches an eye-ridge. "She can be plugged in?"

"Yeah, I think. She said that sometimes she uses that method instead of sleeping."

They go silent. After a bit, Leonardo reaches out and gives Donatello's shoulder a gentle, reassuring squeeze. "It'll be okay, Donnie. We'll fix this. I know I've been saying it a lot, but...it's true."

His fingers curl into his palm. "I have to restrain her...like she's some kind of...animal," he whispers.

"It's for our own good," Raphael says. "Try to get some sleep."

Donatello nods weakly and listens as his brothers walk away. He keeps looking at Sarina, his entire body trembling. He wants to believe that she's exactly who she says she is. He wants to believe that she saved April and Casey because she wanted to, not as a ruse to keep them on her side.

There's so much that he wants to be true and the only person who can give him his answers is lying unconscious before him.

He leans really close to her ear, and he again notices the silvery circuit patterns tracing her skin and the soft tufts of blonde hair parted in three ways down her forehead.

"Sarina...please, don't be a double agent for the Kraang," he pleads into her ear. His hand unconsciously moves to rest against the smooth, bald skin of her head. "Please be someone that I can trust, and...please...don't give me another thing to regret."