Title: Calm

Author: kathleenrose747

Pairing: Donatello/OC

Rating: T (Language and Situations)

Disclaimer: I have not, nor will ever, own anything relating to the TMNT franchise. I also do not own anything or references to the TMNT 2014 film by Michael Bay et. al. My sole property is my original characters, Pyra Kane and Johnny. And, in case no one already knew this, THIS FANFIC IS AU.

Ch 1- Fear Above, Protection Below

Donnie had pulled the short stick, yet again. As a result, he was on guard duty, prowling the sewers for any strays; cat, human, or other. He sighed and pushed his glasses up, taking a glance up at the storm drain over his head. As usual, human feet walked past and wheels rolled by, ignorant to the happenings below their city. 'As it should be.' Donnie thought as he turned towards Eighth Streets' 'Alley District', so named because of the interconnected back alleys and rear store entrances. This was where many robberies, stabbings, and other nefarious activities tended to take place. But he was not allowed to intercede unless someone's life was in jeopardy. Many times, the brothers were not near the area when the acts would go down, so the guilt was great whenever they saw something on the news. But tonight was different.

As he ducked under a low hanging sewage pipe, Donnie heard the squeal of tires above. 'Hello. What's this?' He pulled his bo-staff off his shell and held it in front of him as he jogged forward, following the car's sounds. Normally, he would not go chasing trouble like this, but he was bored. And with boredom, trouble tended to follow close behind.

"Where the fuck did that bitch go?" Donnie heard the voice over the squealing brakes and car doors slamming open and closed. He slowed down and crept forward to the nearest sewer drain. He then pulled out a mirror with a clamp attachment on the bottom that could be clipped onto his staff to look above and around corners. As he clipped the mirror in place, he briefly wondered if he should send out a signal to his brothers. 'Naw. Not until things start getting dicey.' He knew his brothers would get there in seconds if he did call. With the mirror in place, he leaned closer to the drain and angled the mirror to get a good look above. A man with greased black hair and motorcycle leathers was the first in view and he was speaking to someone out of Donnie's view.

"How hard did she hit you, man? Are we sure this is worth your battered pride?"

"You asshole! This isn't about her lashing out at me. She needs to learn her damn place like any other whore." A younger man with blond highlights in his already light brown hair walked into view to talk to the black haired man. "Besides, she can't go far. Everything she owns is back at the House. Let's go. She'll come crawling back eventually."

"Right, Johnny. You heard the boss, boys. Back to base!" The brunette walked out of sight and Donnie heard the rev of a motorcycle engine as five other men clamored into a white van and followed behind him. Donnie moved the mirror from the drain and mulled over the information. Clearly there was a young lady who was currently in trouble. It sounded like she was able to get away from the maniacs, however, so Donnie wasn't too concerned. 'But why did they call the base of operations The House? I'll have to do a run down on it through the database.' He pocketed the mirror and put the staff back over his shell.

Donnie continued down the sewer, keeping an ear out for any errant sounds. After an hour and a half of wandering around, he stopped beneath Bellevue Hospital Center's main drainage pipe before paging back to the lair.

"Hey Donnie. What's up?" Mikey answered on the first ring.

"Are you still watching cat videos on my monitors?"

"Uh… noooo." Donnie heard clattering in the background before Michelangelo cleared his voice, trying to sound more professional. "Where you at, bro?"

"Under Bellevue, currently. I was going to start making my way back. Are the others there?"

"Yep. What happened?" Donnie heard Leo say in the background.

"It may be nothing, but I figured I would let you in on what I came across." Donnie filled his brothers in on the whole situation he had heard and seen earlier that evening. After Raph promised he would start the search, Donnie closed the connection and started heading back. Before he had taken ten steps, however, he heard a groan of pain to his left. The staff was off his back and in his hands in a second as he stepped towards the sound. He soon realized that the problem was bigger than he originally thought.

Directly in front of him, a young lady was sprawled out on the ground. Her red hair fanned out around her, blending in with the blood that seeped from an open head wound. He looked up to confirm that there was a manhole cover right above where the young woman had fallen. Or had she been dumped there to die? It was fortunate that he had found her by Bellevue, as he could just pop her back out in front of the ER where someone could find her. But as he turned her over, the girl's eyes opened a fraction of an inch. Donnie froze, terrified that he had been seen.

"Please… don't… leave me." the girl reached out for Donnie, fear cracking her voice. Donnie hesitated before he reached out and took the girl's hand. She relaxed considerably. "Thank you…" She closed her eyes again and let her head fall back. "Took a fall… need help…"

"We're by Bellevue. Can I get you back up there?" Donnie asked.

"No… they'll call my next of kin…" The girl coughed and blood splattered on Donnie's leg. "He did this… can't go back…" The girl's energy was spent and she passed out, still clutching Donnie's hand.

'Great. Now we got a bad guy out there beating women up and I get stuck with one who refuses medical attention.' Donnie groaned as he looked down at the girl. 'Well, Don. You always wanted to be the hero. Here's your chance.' He scooped her up as he paged back to the lair. While he knew Father would be displeased that another human would know of their existence, he knew it was against his and his brothers personal code of honor to leave a person behind who asked for help. 'Don't let me regret this.' he thought as he took the shortcut to the family's lair.

Later

The girl began to wake up, alerting the brothers with her slight movements. Donnie turned from the monitors, holding his breath.

"Well. Let's hope she doesn't pass out like April did." Mikey joked from the med-bay.

"This isn't a time to joke, numb nuts." Raph shot back. "We are taking a huge risk here to let another human see us. Why couldn't you drop her at the hospital again?"

"Like he told you a thousand times," Leo cut in "They would have called her next of kin who, according to Donnie, was the one that who hurt her. We swore we would never harm an innocent through our actions or inactions." Leo patted Donnie on his shell. "I feel he made a good call in a difficult situation."

"Thanks Leo." Donnie nodded to his brother. He then stood to stand by Mikey. The brothers formed a loose U shape around the girl leaving and open spot for their father, whenever he decided to come back with the soup.

"Ugh…" The girl groaned and tried to sit up.

"Not so fast." Donnie put a hand on the girl and eased her back down on the mattress. "You have a concussion. You can't sit up quite yet."

"Where… where am I?" The girl tried to open her eyes, but promptly squeezed them shut against the glare of the medical lamp shining in her eyes. "Could we turn off the mood lighting? Got a headache over here."

"Quick wit. Sounds like she isn't too messed up." Leo laughed as he reached over and turned the switch off.

"Sorry, sweet cheeks. We had to make sure you didn't have any permanent brain damage." Mikey joked. "But something tells me we may have just made that worse."

"What medical school did you all go to? Didn't they teach you to have low lights around concussed people?" The girl was still rubbing her eyes, only prolonging the inevitable reveal.

"Sadly, only one of us has any medical training beyond basic first aid. But I think he did a very good job considering our limited resources." Raph grunted out.

"Wait…" The girl sniffed the air, nose wrinkling in disgust. "Am I still in the sewers?"

"Yes. You told me not to drop you off at a hospital." Donnie looked over at the girls vitals running on one of the monitors. "This was the best we could do in this circumstance." He reached over for a vial of morphine and a syringe. As he turned back, he looked down to see the girl looking up at him. 'Aw crap. Here we go.'

"I know your voice…" The girl blinked a few times, trying to focus her vision. "You found me, didn't you?"

"Um… yes." Donnie mumbled, trying to avoid the girl's gaze. When he looked back, her eyes were closed but she had a soft smile on her face.

"Well, thank you. Really. I was worried my… partner would find me if you left me at the hospital. I'm really grateful for your help." Her hand reached out towards Donnie's direction.

"It was nothing." Donnie met the girl's hand with his own and squeezed it. "How's your pain level?"

"Nothing a hangover cure couldn't fix." The girl chuckled. "On a pain scale, it's about a five. On the annoying scale, it's a ten."

"So a headache that hits in waves, huh?" Donnie tilted his head, pushing his glasses up in the process.

"Yep. Apt description, that." The girl tried opening her eyes again and winced. "Does anyone have a pair of sunglasses I could borrow? The television glare is still killing me."

"Hang on a sec, girl." Mikey plucked a pair of sunglasses off his necklace to hand the girl. "Here you are, m'lady."

"I thank you, good sir." the girl joked back, adding a slight nod of her head. As she slipped the glasses on, the brothers held their breaths, waiting for the inevitable.

"That's better." She tilted her head back and the guys could tell the second she had opened her eyes, despite the dark tint on the glasses. Her head tilted and she got very quiet. After a tense few seconds and a few glances around the room, she cleared her throat. "Um… how hard did I hit my head?"

"Hard enough to need stitches." Donnie answered. "But not hard enough to elicit hallucinations." He sighed as he turned back to the monitor. Yep. This had been a bad idea.

"So… wait. Before my brain explodes in another pain wave, I need answers."

"We'll do our best." Leo answered. "But don't expect to get too much out of us. After all, we don't know if we can trust you."

"Fair enough. Can I be blunt with my questions?"

"It'd be preferable to beating around the proverbial bush." Raph said before Mikey elbowed him.

"Okay. Science experiment gone wrong or aliens?" the girl asked. Donnie rolled his eyes, wondering why aliens always topped this list.

"Science experiment. Though I wouldn't say it went wrong." Leo smiled. "Gotta say, I'm at least happy with the life I've been given, but I can't speak for my brothers."

"Alright. So you're siblings?" The teens nodded in reply. "Do you have parents?"

"They only have one, but by no means of a biological nature." The girl slowly sat up to look at who had spoken. Splinter stood at the edge of the mattress with a bowl of soup in his hands. "I did not mean to intrude on your discussion, but I thought some food might be in order, my dear."

"Thank you very much...uh...sir." The girl held out her hands and accepted the food with a small bow of her head. "I didn't realise how hungry I was until I smelled food."

"That's always the case with concussions, my dear." Splinter turned to his sons and motioned behind him. "I also brought pizza, if anyone else is hungry. I felt we may want to eat in here to get to know our guest."

"Woohoo! I call dibs!" Mikey whooped as he jumped over some medical equipment towards the food, brothers closely behind him. Splinter chuckled.

"Boys will be boys." He said as he took a seat to the left of the girl.

"They remind me of my cousins. They always used to fight over food that way as well." The girl smiled as she took a sip of her soup.

"Hey, babe. I got you a piece, if you feel like you can handle it." Mikey came back and set a piece of pizza on a plate next to the girl as he plopped down to her right.

"Thank you. I can't turn down good Italian food." the girl smiled as she ripped off a piece of crust and dipped it in her soup.

"Aw. That's almost criminal, what you just did." Donnie groaned, taking a seat next to his father, Raph sitting on his right. Leo remained standing, leaning on the cardiac monitor to eat his food. "You know you can take off the glasses now. I'm sure your pupils have dilated enough to handle the light." Donnie remarked.

"I… um… I would rather leave them on, thank you." The girl fiddled with her spoon, trying to avoid looking up.

"Wait. Before we get any further in this conversation, do you have a name?" Leo spoke through a mouthful of food, earning him a glare from Master Splinter.

"Pyra. Greek for fire." she smiled as she pointed her lineage out. "May I throw the question back at you?"

"You can." Leo nodded. "I'm Leonardo. The orange one to your right is Michelangelo, red is Raphael, your rescuer in purple in Donatello, and our sensei rat father is Splinter."

"Nice to meet you all." Pyra nodded to each in turn. "Renaissance painters, huh?"

"Not our choice." Raph grunted. "Now, about the glasses…"

"Dude, if she isn't comfortable, don't push it." Donnie elbowed his brother, eliciting a giggle out of Pyra.

"You guys really are brothers." She spoke through her giggles. After her laughter subsided, she sighed. "I guess this is the least judgemental place to bring up my… issue."

"You don't have to if you don't want to." Donnie reiterated.

"If we're going to remain friends, I don't want to strike you as someone who runs and hides from issues like this." she sighed and took off the glasses, blinking in the dim light. It took the brothers a couple seconds to see what she was talking about, but when they did it stunned them to silence.

"What is that?" Leo whispered.

"Sectoral heterochromia iridium compounded by incomplete albinism." Pyra chuckled. "By the way, the red hair is dyed. I'm naturally silver, thanks to the albinism."

"Chédiak-Higashi syndrome." Donnie whispered. The girl nodded.

"Okay, now that you two are done talking nerdy to each other, what is with the two colored eyes?" Mikey piped up.

"Normally, I wear brown contacts. But I had to get away from a… sticky situation and left them back at my place. I was just born with this issue." The girl tugged at the blanket trying to avoid direct eye contact with anyone.

"Would you mind if I took a closer look?" Donnie reached up for a retina scope. Pyra placed her bowl of soup to the side and scooted closer to get examined. Her right eye was uniformly green while the left appeared to be split in two; half sapphire, half violet. The violet was the external factor of the incomplete albinism she had spoken of while the split was the result of the sectoral heterochromia. "This is amazing. I can tell you got surgery. Cataracts?"

"Indeed. At two years old. I'm impressed you can tell." Pyra leaned back to look at Donnie. "Most doctors have to ask me about my full medical history to get that information." She smiled at him, causing the turtle to look away and blush.

"It's nothing, really." He mumbled as he pushed his glasses up. Pyra noticed his bashfulness and decided to turn back to her food. Once she finished it up, she brushed crumbs off her shirt and sighed.

"Well, sadly, I think I have to head back to Hell." she sighed and pulled her knees under her.

"Why would you call it that, sweet cheeks?" Mikey held out a hand to help her up.

"Because that's what it is. Plain and simple. If you're any kind of woman, you get used. Any type of man, you get played."

"What kind of place is this?" Donnie looked up from the map on his computer.

"No. I'm not telling you where it is. This place is too fucked up for nice guys like you." she turned to try and head out, only to realise she had no idea where she was going. She sighed and turned around. "Fine. One of you can help. Only one."

"Donnie. You go with her." Leo threw his brothers bo-staff at him, which Donnie caught easily. "She seems to get along with you."

"Nerds should stick together." Pyra stuck the tip of her tongue out in a joking manner. She then turned seriously and bowed towards Splinter. "Thank you again for letting me come here. Your secret is safe with me."

"If that is the case Ms. Pyra," Splinter smiled, "I would like to extend an open invitation for you to visit whenever you wish."

"I would like that." Pyra smiled as she turned to Donnie. "Well. Shall we?" Donnie nodded and pointed to the left sewer pipe, letting her lead the way.

"Why'd you send Donnie with my dream girl, man!" Mikey playfully shoved Leo to make a point.

"Did you see how Donnie looked at her, man?" Leo laughed. "About time he got a shot at some happiness. He's earned it." Mikey groaned and whined, but Splinter knew it was an act. As he shook his head at Michelangelo's antics, he had to wonder how the wandering pair were getting along.

Meanwhile

"... So I'm a good representative of why genetic manipulation is a horrible idea." Pyra kicked a can ahead of her. "My dad wanted a blue eyed child and my mom wanted green eyes. The geneticist who said he could create their dream child brought all this about."

"Not much of a geneticist, if you want my professional opinion." Donnie facepalmed himself once the comment slipped out. "I mean… you turned out… well… he didn't screw up... in a horrible manner of speaking…" Pyra laughed and rested her hand on Donnie's arm to calm his stuttering.

"I get what you're trying to say and it's sweet of you to say so." Pyra pulled her hand away and looked up ahead. "Did you say this was Third and Twenty-Sixth?"

"Yep. Just below Mad Hatter Saloon, like you asked." Donnie stopped below the manhole cover. "Do you need a boost?"

"Probably will. Don't want to risk straining myself." Pyra turned back to look at Donnie. "Thanks again."

"For what?"

"Being more human than some people. Most people would have left me to die. You saved me from a bad situation and trusted me to keep you all 'out of sight, out of mind', as it were."

"And here I am, throwing you back to the wolves." Donnie mumbled. Pyra shook her head.

"I'm a big girl. I've been able to take care of myself so far. But I may ask for help later."

"I'm on patrol tomorrow evening. I'll make sure to pass by the storm drain in front of Tonic East at 23:35. Er… 11:35 at night. If you want to talk." Donatello then knelt down and cupped his hands to give Pyra a boost up.

Pyra put her right foot in Donnie's hand. "Before you boost me up…" She leaned down and gave him a quick kiss on top of his head. "Just my small way of saying thanks." Donnie worked through his shock to get her up and out of the sewers. With a quick wave she shut the cover behind her.

'Did she just…?' Donnie shook off the fog to follow the sound of her footsteps to make sure she got to her location alright. She had refused to let him drop her off at her actual location, but she had agreed to a two block radius drop off. After a quick jaunt two blocks north, Donnie looked out the storm drain to see Pyra shimmy up a gutter spout and swing into a window near the top. It was an apartment above a notorious night/strip club that had a hand in 'backroom dealings'. 'That's why she didn't want us to know where she lived. Shit. She could be two timing us.' Donnie brought up his vocal radar to see if Pyra was speaking to anyone. As he tuned into the right frequency, things got bad, fast.

"Where the fuck were you, bitch?" Donnie recognized the voice as that of the brunette male he had seen earlier.

"I didn't know I had to tell you my whereabouts, Johnny." Pyra shot back. A sharp noise that sounded like a slap rang through Donnie's ears.

"Watch your tongue, whore!"

"You better watch yourself, Johnny. Don't want to bruise the merchandise now, do we?" Pyra said, ruefully.

"Grr… so where the hell were you?"

"Got stitches at Bellevue. Check my head if you don't believe me. Oh wait. You would know where you kicked me, wouldn't you?"

"Funny. I didn't get a call from them."

"I'm eighteen, asshole. They don't need to call my damn guardians anymore. I was able to walk out on my own, granted that the doctor didn't want me to. At least someone cared about my well being outside of earning money."

"Enough. You're past your hours anyways. Time for the naughty girl to go to bed without dinner." Pounding footsteps and the slamming of a door followed the statement, closely followed by the scrape of a key in the lock. A minute later, Donnie watched a bodyguard come out the front entrance and go to stand under the fire escape below Pyra's window.

'Well, damn it. Guess we have to leave her to her own devices.' Donnie reluctantly turned off the vocal radar and jogged back towards the lair to let his brothers and Sensei in on the new information.

End Ch. 1