Love's Causality Ch 9 -The Seed of the Irrevocable

"Bitterness: anger that forgot where it came from." -Alain De Botton

Chapter 9 – The Seed of the Irrevocable

He swam, taking wide sweeps of his arms through the glinting water, towards a surface that shimmered somewhere above him. Not far. Not far at all. His chest pinched from the effort of holding his breath and exerting his body; muscles burning with their need of oxygen. His cheeks bulged as the pressure behind his eyes grew more intense. A little further. Don't stop. If you stop you'll sink. The surface remained above; out of reach; no matter how hard he swam. He drew no closer. Panic blossomed in his chest. He swam harder. Eyes locked on that glimmering goal, just beyond his gaze, painfully near. His face twisted in fear and frustration.

I'm going to die.

His legs kicked and pumped. His attempts became more frenzied and desperate as the water grew thicker; denser all around him. His vision blurred. The lights above swayed right to left and back again. Something bit into his left arm and he started and gasped, dragging the gel-like liquid into his mouth and lungs. The pain zipped up through his bicep, around his shoulder and into his back. Crimping and cramping. Electric and terrible. Making his left hand curl into a claw-like hook. Fingers bent and elbow stiff. He brought his arm to his chest. He choked and struggled against the terrible pain, spinning in place; his legs thrashing and flailing uselessly; suspended and helpless in the murky depths.

A voice, clear and sweet, called to him; ringing sharp and real in his ears. His name being called. His face turned towards that voice. His body wheeled about, in the general direction of it and the promise of help it brought.

"Donnie?"

His eyes opened. Pupils shrank and burned from the light. He blinked rapidly against the onslaught.

"There you are," Mikey said as their eyes locked. He smiled but the light in his eyes was dimmed; opaque from worry.

Where? Donatello's eyes darted around and though he recognized his brother, he started and began to shake. He felt Mikey's hands steady him. He was eased back without ever realizing that he'd sat upright. He blinked as the back of his head touched the pillow. He felt the room tip as his head swam. His legs struggled weakly beneath a cotton blanket.

"M-" he started and broke into a coughing fit. Suddenly his throat felt packed by damp wool and a tang of something bitter coated his tongue. Vomit.

A cup was brought to his mouth and water, tasting sweet and cool, washed over his parched tongue, sweeping the awful taste away; melting the wool in the back of his throat like cotton candy dissolving in the rain. He drank and moaned as the cup emptied and left his lips.

"Not too much, too fast," Mikey chided gently. "I'm sorry about you being so thirsty. I remembered you said to always watch for dehybration. And . . . I would've put in another IV, but, we sort of ran out. But now that you're awake, that shouldn't be a problem."

His body fired frantic messages of pain from different places. His stomach gurgled as it accepted the water. His head felt tight and under pressure as though something were steadily screwing bolts into his skull from either temple. The light made his eyes water. And his left arm felt as if someone had laid cinder blocks on top of it.

He grimaced and reached for his left hand which suddenly flared with pins and needles; sharp and acute, from his fingertips through his wrist. He grasped at air and froze. Eyes forward, staring up at the ceiling, his fingers inched forward searching for their partners until they pressed upon the cotton surface of the mattress. His eyelids lowered as his fingertips roved upwards, mentally measuring the loss of flesh and bone in millimeters, centimeters, inches; feeling his heart beat faster with each additional number he added until he reached the very edge of the large bandage. His hand . . . his forearm . . . his elbow. His heart sank.

Oh god, no. What have they done to me? I can't make a prosthetic for this!

It was only his hand that had been injured. Not his entire arm! He could deal with missing his hand, it wasn't going to be fun or easy, but he had come to terms with the fact that an amputation was inevitable, but this!? How could they have mutilated him this way? How was he going to work . . . to fight . . . to live without his arm? He'd be nothing but a dependent . . . a burden to them all. Despair drowned him, pulling him under swiftly before he could fight it.

He must have made a sound, because Mikey was next to him again, babbling frantically for him to relax. Maybe more than a sound issued from his collapsing throat. He became aware that he was crying out in a hoarse, high voice, "M-My hand . . . M-My arm! My arm! Wh-Why'd they take so much!? Mikey! M-Mikey!" He reached out and snatched at his brother's shoulder until his clawing fingers found the back of his head and he dragged at his brother until Mikey pitched forward. "H-Help me! Mikey, why!?"

He felt his brother's arms wrap around his chest. His cheek pressed hard into his plastron. "It's okay, D! Calm down! It's okay!"

"N-No! It isn't, oh god, it isn't!"

His heels dug into the mattress as his body bucked. Mikey held him against the cot, still trying to soothe and calm him with comforting sounds and reassurances that made no sense. Slowly, exhaustion and pain won out over the sense of panic and he eased back, surrendering to his brother's ministrations. And comprehension of what Mikey was saying cleared the remaining fog from his mind.

"Please, Donnie! Listen! You had a bad infection! We . . . We thought you might die! B-But Master Splinter knew what to do, Donnie! He listened to me the second time! He did everything right. And now you're better! You don't even have a fever!" he cried out in a laughing voice, mixed with fright and feeble reassurance.

The second time. The second time!?

"Ohho god!"

He choked as a flash of brittle rage rushed through him. His eyes rolled. He couldn't breathe. He needed to get away from his brother, from all of them. A scream was working its way up through his chest. Made up of anguish and fury, frustration and terror, boiling up and over. His head snapped from side to side. This couldn't be happening. If Splinter had only given him a chance to explain what he needed to do the very first time instead of rushing out of fear.

And ignorance! And hubris! He always has to be right! Even when he's wrong! Now I'm a mangled freak! I'll be useless to them! Useless!

"Take it easy, D! You're going to hurt yourself again! Listen to me! You're gonna be okay! I promised April I'd take care of you!"

At the sound of her name Donatello groaned loudly, remembered with painful vividness her witnessing his shame; when he was in a drunken, sloppy state, crying and thrashing on the operating table like a dog. Humiliation twisted his stomach. Adrenaline coursed through his system. His left arm raised to shove Mikey from him. He had to get out of here before they killed him! He had to . . . run . . . to escape. As he moved the stub of what remained of his upper arm, it bumped Mikey's shoulder, sending wave after wave of nauseating pain through him. His back arched against his shell. His teeth snapped together and ground until his molars creaked. Bright lights of agony bubbled up and danced across his vision. He gasped and gurgled against the rising bile.

Mikey lurched back. "Oh no, not again! Let me get the bucket, Donnie!"

Trembling violently, he shook his head and wrestled to compose himself as he dry-sobbed against the emotions storming through him. The pain had effectively doused the panic and all he could do was lay in helpless misery. Blinking like a lab animal against the unfairness, the inadvertent cruelty done to him by those who supposedly loved him. The pain was now a throbbing tide; surging less and less with each passing second to draw back into a low heavy drumbeat laced with stinging barbs. And instead of his stomach contents, a strained sound, a terrible acknowledgement of the ridiculous situation, a broken chuckle burst from between his lips.

Mikey twisted quickly, a confused frown on his face. He brought the rim of the bucket up to his brother's mouth. Donatello shook his head. Mikey stood there a moment longer, unsure if he trusted his brother's assurance that he didn't need it. At the repeated sound of dark laughter from his brother, Mikey relented and eased back, never taking his eyes off Donatello. He swallowed loudly.

"Donnie," he whispered.

Donatello sniffed and settled with a wince and a half-hearted shrug. His smile was crooked and drooping at the ends. "What did I expect?" he murmured and choked out a laugh again, bringing his right hand to cover his face in a light grip. He had to stop or he wouldn't be able to control it. Hysteria. Wasn't that a sign of shock? He wasn't sure. He didn't care. He peered through his fingers at Mikey staring at him with an expression of fear and concern.

"Sorry," he murmured and bit back another bout of giggling. The last thing he needed was to make his brother think he lost his mind. Who knows what they'd do to him then.

Stop. Stop it, Donnie-boy. Mikey doesn't deserve to be scared like this.

But it was all so sadly hysterical. Wasn't it? He dropped his hand limply to his side and sighed. Yes and no - as Master Splinter would say. He fought the urge to laugh again and felt his eyes brimming. Dammit. What would be worse? More laughter or a total melt down? What would be more appropriate for the situation? Donatello made a soft sound through his nose.

When the Skipper hit him, he knew what was to come. He knew as he tried doing a field dressing at the location. There was no way he'd be able to keep the hand. The damage was complete. Devastating and exact. What hurt him more than the loss of his appendage was that his father hadn't given him the chance to prepare himself. Not really. No chance to prepare any of them on how to amputate his limb properly. And when he fought against the vile alcohol that his father forced him to drink; the pathetic amateurish way of getting him unconscious . . . most likely what led to the secondary infection. His breath hitched.

His mind worked, giving him something to focus on instead of the pounding between his eyes, the throbbing insistence of his aching missing hand and the threat of tears growing stronger by the second.

Yes, a secondary infection must have set in after the first attempt. No doubt perpetuated by the weakening of his immune system due to the influx of so much hard liquor, the blood loss and general unsanitary conditions of the lab. The tissue probably swelled and discolored and his fever probably spiked dangerously high. What choice was there?

He thought of something, then. He needed to thank Mikey for keeping his head. For paying attention in the lab all those times. But Donatello found himself unable to voice his gratitude as it stuck in his throat, lodging there like something resembling resentment and disgust, instead. He ground his teeth together and struggled against the fury building in his chest. He realized with a start that Mikey had been talking to him.

". . . spewed pretty bad earlier, but I managed to clean you up." He looked sheepish as he glanced around before he took the chance to meet Donatello's eyes again. "Got me right in the face, heh." He made an exploding motion towards his face with both hands and laughed weakly. He sobered as Donatello continued to stare at him; face pale and eyes pinched with something like wild disbelief and . . . anger? Mikey gulped and then reassured him, thinking he discovered the source of his brother's animosity, "D-Don't worry, though, I made sure to keep the wound clean. I swear. I didn't . . . I didn't mess it up."

A tremor went through Donatello and his eyes shot from the large bandage covering what was left of his arm, which was frightening less than he expected to lose, then back to Mikey. He scowled and Mikey blanched and shrank back.

"I did a good job on it, D, I promise," he breathed again, sounding more frightful than confident.

"Where is it?" Donatello snapped and surprised himself with the question. That was the least of his concerns and why he asked such an irrelevant question, he couldn't guess. But something spurred him to ask and now that he had, he was possessed by a grotesque curiosity. He had to know.

Mikey's face grew ashen and slightly mottled around his neck and cheeks. "I-I don't . . ." he stammered.

"Tell me what you did with my arm," Donatello said between clenched teeth.

"I b-burned it in the furnace," he replied quietly.

Donatello nodded and the motion renewed his stomach's attempts to empty itself. He held his breath and blew it out in a hitched exhale as the urge fled. "Good," he croaked. It was probably too damaged between the burned flesh and the infection to even consider salvaging any of it. He glanced again at the stub that extended down from his shoulder, what was actually left was most likely much smaller beneath the wrapping, he grimaced.

"I was able to stitch everything," Mikey started softly, "and the-the stump is really, well, I think, you'd think I did okay, with the stitching. I didn't have to do a skin graph," he said brightly and then withered at Donatello's glare. His wide eyes searched the room, looking everywhere but at him, then, as if just realizing, "Oh, are you in pain?" He glanced at the clock. When he glanced back his face was a picture of relief. "So that's why you're so, er, I mean, y-you're due for more. I'll be right back!"

"Wait," Donatello called, reaching out to his brother and the effort of raising his voice and moving quickly brought another series of cramping pain through his chest and shoulder, followed by a fresh surge of frustration and anger. He panted and his face twisted. Don't cry. His chest heaved as he gathered his strength. He grew more and more exhausted with each passing moment, keeping hold of his composure became a losing battle. "How long have I been . . . out, exactly?"

"Well," Mikey's forehead wrinkled in a deep frown. His arms crossed and then he dropped them. Hesitantly, he said, "You've been awake, before this. So, it's kinda hard to say, exactly."

Donatello blinked at that bit of information. "What?"

He nodded and looked uncomfortable. "Um, you were, uh, just awake last night, actually . . . uh, screaming at Master Splinter about, uh, um, what happened." He squirmed under Donatello's intense scrutiny. "A-And, then, the other day, I think it was, three, uh, days ago . . . when Leo was in here, I think you must of said something pretty bad to him, because you, uh, sort of made him run out of here . . . and he was, sort of . . . crying. But he wouldn't tell us what happened."

His stomach sank. He had no recollection of any earlier bouts of consciousness or interactions with his family before this. He certainly didn't remember yelling at anyone or saying anything so horrible that would cause their leader to break down. It must have been awful. He hoped that he'd be able to apologize to Leo, soon, for whatever he'd said, if this was true. And yet, when he tried to, when he concentrated, there was a glimmer of something like recognition. He knew Mikey wasn't making any of this up. Patients often spoke out of their minds when under the influence of heavy medication and extreme pain. Could they blame him? he thought angrily.

And there was also, shamefully, but undeniably, the curl of some dark emotion stirring in the lowest part of his psyche, something like satisfaction, as he listened to the scenes Mikey recalled. He brushed aside the guilt for his pleasure, however small, at his being the cause of hurt for his family. It made sense. He was angry. For so many reasons. And if he were to be completely honest with himself, he felt justified for this feeling. More than justified. He huffed and Mikey seemed to think it was out of regret.

"Don't worry about it, D! I think the pain meds and just getting through everything has probably made you a little out of it." He offered after a beat, "Everyone understands. No one's mad."

The swirling anger spiked despite the pull of exhaustion. Donatello ignored Mikey's suggestion that there was nothing to worry about. As far as his family's feelings were concerned, he didn't care if they were mad at him or not for ranting when he was out of his head. Especially after what they did. Giving him no chance to explain how to go about an amputation correctly in the first place. After poisoning him with alcohol instead of listening to him or waiting for Mikey, the only one out of the lot of them that actually knew anything medically related from hanging around with him in his lab so often. And after all that . . . pain and humiliation, despite April standing right there to witness the entire god-awful mess, Splinter still had Leo mutilate him. And even then, it all went wrong. What else did he expect? If he wasn't so angry right then he would have resumed laughing at the situation like a loon.

Right now, he wanted nothing but to surrender to his need to sleep, but not before he learned how much time had passed. "Just tell me how long," he ground out, making Mikey jump.

"I guess, you've been out, well, in and out, for about," he counted on his hand, and nodding miserably, he finished with, "nine days."

Donatello closed his eyes and felt the enormity of his emotions sweep him and tumble him and through it all his fingers of his missing appendage tingled and ached. He must have just started to doze because Mikey was suddenly looming over him again with a dripping syringe and a smile. He blinked warily up at his younger brother.

"What?" he asked weakly and the pounding in his head returned. God, he just wanted to sleep. Why wouldn't Mikey leave him alone for five minutes?

"Hey! I know something that'll cheer you up, bro!" He said from around the corner of an alcohol package. He tore it open and pulled the small square free.

Donatello winced at his brother's enthusiastic tone. He wanted to bite out that the only thing that would cheer him up would be for him to stop talking so loudly. But he closed his eyes and decided to just ignore his brother until he went away. Hopefully, soon.

"April's here! She just got here and she's brought a bunch of supplies."

His eyes snapped open. His body turned to ice.

Mikey carefully swabbed his arm with the alcohol pad and the pinch of the needle biting into his flesh snapped him from his stupor. "April? Here?"

"It's great, I know," he said cheerfully and Donatello caught sight of the glassy sheen to his brother's eyes, the red veins tinging the whites pink as if he'd just been fighting tears. Remorse for his earlier behavior swept through him but was quickly extinguished by what Mikey added next. "She wanted to help you. And," he chuckled, "we all think having her around will be just the thing to make you feel better! Am I right?" he asked cheekily.

Automatically, "No."

Mikey's grin dropped. He blinked twice in rapid succession. "Wh-What?"

"Tell her to go home."

"B-But . . ."

The pain killer began to set in and the room behind Mikey's head suddenly blurred and spun. Donatello frowned, thinking he'd have to talk to Mikey about proper dosage the next time he could speak coherently. If this dose didn't, in fact, put him permanently out of his misery, that is. His tongue felt clumsy and heavy in his mouth. He worked his numbing lips open and closed and forced out, "Don't need help. Don't wan' her a see me. Tell . . . go home. April. Go."

Mikey's face ran through several emotions before settling on dismissive relief. He laughed loudly and there was a brittle note to the edges. His fingers tapped along the empty syringe as he shifted it from one hand to the other. "Oh, bro, don't worry! It's all good! Casey is taking care of her dad while she stays with us. Isn't that great of him?"

He managed a groan as his head rolled towards the wall and darkness crept over his vision, smothering any further protests.