"Time's Prisoners"

By Donny's Boy

Disclaimer: I own neither the characters nor the plot relating to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and I am making no money from this story. I mean no harm.

Warnings: None, actually.

Chapter 1

Something was wrong.

One couldn't tell just by watching the current domestic scene, though. While Cody Jones happily nattered on about a newly-invented video game controller to an enthralled Michelangelo, Raphael followed Serling around and tried to convince the robot to fix a sandwich for him. While Raphael bothered the beleaguered butler, Leonardo practiced a few new aerial moves with Master Splinter. And while Leonardo and Splinter sparred, Donatello stared worriedly out the living room's large pane window, thinking about just how wrong everything was.

He'd been unable to think of much of anything else since the day Cody had so casually mentioned that Donatello himself had been a cofounder of O'Neil Tech. That made sense enough. Don and April had been friends, and their friendship had been born from a mutual love of computers. But what didn't make sense was the timeline. For O'Neil Tech to exist in the current time period—the "future," as the turtles still often called it—Donatello couldn't have been ripped from the past before founding the company. Yet, that's exactly what had occurred.

The possibilities were several. Perhaps Cody was simply lying about Don being a cofounder. His lionization of the turtles could potentially have led him to exaggerate a few details, to "butter up" his new reptilian friends. But the intelligent, wide-eyed boy seemed too guileless for even the whitest of lies. Perhaps the history of O'Neil Tech became confused throughout time, and the cofounder status had been mistakenly attributed to Don. Maybe. A more probable scenario was that he was destined, in this time period, to find his way back to his original time.

But what changes would then result? Certainly knowledge of this future would shape his actions in the past, inevitably altering the timeline and, somewhat paradoxically, creating an alternate future. All of it made Don's head throb with a dull ache.

A loud whoop came from behind, and Don turned to see Mikey kissing the new controller. Beside him, Cody grinned proudly. Don frowned. He wondered briefly if Cody had figured out the conundrum then decided the boy must have. If Cody was smart enough to rip them out of time, which he demonstrably was, then certainly he must be smart enough to realize all the implications of such an action. Right?

Setting his jaw in determination, Don headed towards his younger brother and the redhead. When he reached them, Mike shot him a puzzled look. "Everything okay, bro?"

"Yes," Don replied, "I'd just like to talk with Cody for a minute." When Mike didn't budge, he added, somewhat apologetically, "Alone, please."

Mikey feigned hurt. "Sure, sure. No problem. I see that good old Michelangelo isn't wanted here." Sniffling dramatically for effect, he picked up his new game controller and bounded off in Raph's direction. As Don watched the other turtle reluctantly leave, he fought back a smile at Mike's antics.

Meanwhile Cody was cocking his head, a puzzled smile on his painfully young face. "What's up, Donatello?"

Don studied the younger boy's face. Cody's deep blue eyes looked oddly bright and shiny. "I'd like to discuss a temporal conundrum with you," Don began.

"Oh? What conundrum?"

The boy's eyelids fluttered for just a brief moment, and once again Don had the unmistakable feeling that something was wrong.

"Here's the conundrum," Don stated, carefully watching the boy's face for any reaction. "I'm here. But I never helped April and Casey found this company before I left."

Looking away, Cody scratched his chin thoughtfully. His brow furrowed as he pondered the implications of what Don had just said, and Don's eyes narrowed. It didn't seem possible, but right now it really looked like Cody was the somewhat dopey Marty McFly to Don's more knowledge Doc Brown. Which, if true, was the exact reverse of the way things should be.

Something was wrong.

The silence finally got to him, so Don suggested, "Maybe it means we'll find a way to go back to our own time? Or at least to a time before O'Neil Tech's founding?"

"Well," drawled Cody, still rubbing his chin, "I guess that's a possibility. Though with the time portal busted, I don't see how."

For some reason, Don felt a spike of annoyance at Cody's dismissive casualness. This was his life that Cody was talking about. A life that had had much-beloved friends: the Professor, Leatherhead, Angel. And Cody's own ancestors, April O'Neil and Casey Jones. A small twinge of grief gripped Don's chest as he remembered April, especially. His first human friend. It was both unreal and heartbreaking to think that she'd been dead for decades.

Don shook himself a little, and his focus snapped back into place. Crossing his arms over his plastron, he locked eyes with Cody and said, "So, what theory do you have on all this?"

It ended up coming out a little more hostile than Don had intended, but Cody just smiled. "This is just off the cuff," the boy began, seemingly modest, "but I think it's possible that when the time portal went haywire, it created overlapping alternative timelines. In the other timeline, you go on to found O'Neil Tech with my great-grandparents, and in this one, you come to the future."

Hmm. Possible, but not likely. The astonishing series of coincident circumstances needed for the creation of divergent timelines … Abruptly Don's thoughts slammed to a halt when he looked up to see that Cody was still smiling. Everything suddenly made sense. That was what had been wrong. Cody's smile. It was oddly … predatory. Don felt a shiver go down his spine.

"Thanks, Cody," he said, swallowing his sudden fear and forcing himself to smile in return. "Definitely gives me something to think about."

"Sure thing, Don." And with that Cody wandered away, presumably to find Michelangelo again.

Oh, yes, things definitely made sense now. Cody's obsession with all things turtle … the time accident that conveniently landed those aforementioned turtles right in Cody's lap … the even more convenient irreversibility of the time travel … Accident? No. No way was all of this an "accident." No way was any of this an accident.

Mind racing, blood pumping, Donatello slowly walked back over to the window and rested his forehead against its pane. The glass—or whatever chemically-created substitute they used in this century—felt nice and cool against his forehead. It helped calm him down a little. Just a little.

He looked down at the street, filled with hover-cars and, even farther below, people that looked the size of ants. Cody's New York City was a dazzling world, truly. Everything Don had ever dreamed of: technologically advanced, diverse, a place where four mutated turtles could freely roam the topside world without so much as a second glance. And the O'Neil building itself was beautiful beyond words. High vaulted ceiling, plenty of natural sunlight, bright white stucco walls. But at the moment, Don's chest ached with the raw desire to be back home in his cobbled-together, cluttered lab down in the stinking sewers.

Because even a gilded birdcage is still, at its core essence, a prison.

---

Author's Notes: Thought I'd write a "Fast Forward" piece since there's so few of them. Also, because the obvious plot-hole problem with Don as a cofounder of O'Neil Tech has been bugging the heck out of me.

And I must say, I despise the character Cody Jones. So much hate. (That episode where he steps in to almost single-handedly save the day when the turtles are getting their butts whooped? No. Just … no.) He is to cartoons what Mary Sue is to fan fiction.