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There was no family meeting called.
Someone just made the mistake of asking Donnie why he was so wound up lately.
Who was it? Doesn't matter anymore, he's already broken out the Ninpo PowerPoint.
"Okay, so- you all remember the photo Casey got thrown back in time with, right?" Donnie starts, creating a giant recreation of said photograph in the middle of their kitchen table.
Noises of agreement sound from around the room, some more concerned than others.
Mikey is more confused than anything, "Wait- I thought you said it wasn't time travel?"
Donnie's eye is noticeably twitching. Not in frustration, but in barely contained kinetic energy.
"It's not, but I don't have the brain power to re-explain parallel timelines right now. 'Time travel' works for what I'm trying to convey."
Raph huffs, crossing his arms in front of his chest. "Raph understands it when you explain it, it just... goes somewhere else once you stop talking."
Donnie waves his hand in the air as if clearing fog from his mind, "We're getting sidetracked- the point is: when was this photo taken?"
"Uhh, like- at least 20 years ago in that Kraang invasion timeline?" Leo says, silently analyzing Donnie for signs of burnout.
"No-" Donnie snaps before catching himself, "No, I mean when was it taken the day of the invasion?"
The room is silent for a beat.
"Exactly." Donnie grins, triumphant, waving his hand to project a simple diagram. One line splits and becomes two, and a dotted line intersects both slightly after this divergence, "It was only taken in the apocalyptic timeline!"
"Donnie, why is this something you've been obsessing over?" says April, currently looking through the fridge for a snack, "Seems like you already know when it was taken, just saying."
"Oh, but that is where you are incorrect, dearest April!" With a flourish, a dot appears at the point the lines diverge, "At this point, Casey arrives in our timeline. Let's call it the 'Hope Timeline' to parallel the 'Apocalypse Timeline.'"
"Hope, a ninja's greatest weapon!" Mikey chirps, half-listening while paging through his recipe book.
"I- yes, 'Angelo. However there is only a short period of time between when Casey arrived and the world would have ended in the Apocalypse Timeline. That's what this dotted line indicates." Donnie says, tapping the spot on his projection.
"Wait wait wait. Didn't things get sorted out like- many hours after I got here? I wouldn't call that short," Casey trails off, "unless you're planning on attempting to rewrite the Geneva Convention again, that'd take even longer."
"I'm sorry, again?" Raph raises a nonexistent eyebrow at Donnie across the table.
"Irrelevant!" he responds, quickly adding another dotted line further down the timeline, "Back to the invasion timing, you are correct, Casey. We did finally seal Prime away again and get Leo back from the prison dimension 'many hours' after the divergence point."
"I'm sensing a but," Casey, copying Raph's pose from just moments before, raises an eyebrow at Donnie, crossing his arms.
"But your arrival in the Hope Timeline gave us advanced warning that the Apocalypse Timeline didn't have. Their version of the invasion happened during the Foot's first attempt to open the portal, which we managed to interrupt, pushing the actual invasion back by several hours!" Donnie realizes several seconds too late that he has forgotten to breathe, taking a moment to collect himself.
"Huh, fair. That'd give... maybe four hours between me coming here and when their invasion happened, and that's being generous." Casey muses.
Donnie is about to continue, having caught his breath, before Casey cuts him off.
"Hold on- Master Michelangelo sent me back in time with the hopes of stopping an apocalypse, but only gave me a few hours before it started? D*mn, he had a lot of faith in me..."
"Nope! He just knew you'd somehow manage to do something amazing, like always!" Mikey tackles Casey in a side-hug, nearly toppling both of them over onto the floor. He continues, giggling, "Also, he probably couldn't put you back any farther. It was already unlikely that another timeline was that far behind where you all were, so I doubt he had the chance to be picky."
"Sweet, but you're derailing me!" Donnie huffs, playfully shoving Mikey off Casey and back to his cookbook, "What we've just established is that there are maybe a few hours between the timeline divergence and the end of the world. Is everyone with me on that?"
"Raph doesn't understand the 'delaying the invasion' part, but the 'only a few hours' part makes sense," Raph mutters, taking great interest in the wood grain on their table.
"How in the- never mind, that's all I need you to understand," Donnie shakes his head, clearing it, before zooming in on the divergence point and the hours after it on his visual aid, pointing at the Apocalypse Timeline, "Somewhere in here, the photo was taken and printed, despite it being too late in the day for any places that print photos to be open."
Donnie lets that sit for just a moment.
Then, with visible glee, he zooms in further.
“Which brings us to Problem Number One.”
A red circle appears around the photo itself, still superimposed on their table.
“This is not a digital file, well- this is, but the original is not. The one that Casey had was not."
He points harder.
“This is a printed, full-color photograph.”
April shuts the fridge, snackless. “…Okay, yeah, that does seem inconvenient for an alien invasion.”
“Inconvenient?” Donnie echoes. “April, once the invasion starts in the Apocalypse Timeline, infrastructure would collapse almost immediately. Power fluctuations, emergency broadcasts, mass evacuations. You don’t just casually swing by a photo lab while alien goo is melting buildings and the sky is red.”
Leo tilts his head. “Could someone have printed it earlier? Like… right after it was taken?”
Donnie’s grin returns, sharp and delighted.
“Ah. Excellent question, brother of mine!”
The projection shifts. The video feed from Casey's hockey mask appears, clearly showing the orangey-red sky.
“Sunset. It wasn't winter, so the sun wasn't setting at like- 4 pm. Which means most businesses were closing or already closed. Photo printing is not a ‘we stay open late just in case the apocalypse starts’ industry.”
Raph squints. “You don’t know that.”
“I absolutely do. No one is rushing to print photos at 8 pm on a Tuesday.”
Donnie swipes again.
“Problem Number Two: Resources.”
The photo desaturates to black and white on the table, then snaps back to full color.
“This required color ink. Pigment. Paper. Chemicals. All of which become high-value, low-availability resources the moment society starts falling apart.”
He stops himself. Corrects.
“Well- it does the moment Donatello Hamato starts anticipating societal collapse.”
Mikey hums. “Full name? He’s on a roll.”
“I'm talking about Apocalypse Timeline me. Even if he could print photos by himself in the Apocalypse Timeline after the world went to hell,” Donnie continues, “He would not waste pigment on a keepsake. Color would be rationed. Prioritized.”
He gestures vaguely toward Mikey.
“For things like morale projects. Art. Psychological stabilization.”
Mikey salutes with a wooden spoon. “For the people and their sanity.”
“So,” Donnie says, clapping once, “either this photo was printed before anyone realized the end was imminent… or someone made an objectively terrible decision when rationing resources.”
Casey frowns. “Couldn’t someone have just… printed it earlier in the day? Like, before everything went bad?”
Donnie’s eye twitches again, this time happily.
“Nope! That brings us to Problem Number Three.”
The picture zooms in on Leo’s face.
“Leonardo Hamato,” Donnie says, gesturing at the screen, “asked who took the photo.”
Leo shrugs. “Still a valid question.”
“If this photo had already been taken in the Hope Timeline,” Donnie continues, “you would have known who took it. Which means this photo did not exist at the divergence point and could not have been printed earlier in the day.”
He lets that sink in.
“So... the photograph was only taken in the Apocalypse Timeline?” Leo mutters, confused.
April crosses her arms. “And that means?”
“It means,” Donnie says, pacing, “someone in that timeline decided, completely unprompted, to gather everyone together, take a nice, calm, posed celebratory photo, and then have it printed. In color. That day. With no known urgency.”
He gestures at April in the image that has zoomed out to show everyone once again.
“College paperwork. Smiles. Casual body language. No weapons. No defensive posture.”
He throws his hands up.
“That is not ‘we have minutes before everything explodes’ behavior!”
Silence.
Then Leo, carefully: “So… what are you saying?”
Donnie stops pacing. Turns back to the projection.
“I’m saying,” he replies, “that in the Apocalypse Timeline, there was a window. A grace period. A stretch of time where everything was still normal enough that this felt reasonable.”
Raph frowns. “But the invasion started the same day.”
“Yes,” Donnie agrees. “But not immediately.”
He taps the dotted line again.
“There were hours. And during those hours, no one knew they were about to lose everything.”
Mikey blinks. “Wow. That’s… actually kind of heavy.”
Donnie points at him without looking. “Do not make it emotional.”
Mikey zips his lips.
Donnie exhales, steadying himself, then smiles again. Way too sharp to be reassuring.
"What I want to know, is when was this photo taken? Forget the why, I want someone to tell me what I am missing that gives me the when!"
No one has an answer for him.
So, he continues.
"April was off doing something for her college when Casey appeared here, so- how long did it take you to find her?" Donnie pauses, looking expectantly at Casey.
He winces, as if he's trying and failing to calm down a rabid animal, "Uh, maybe thirty minutes?"
Donnie pounces on it, maybe they are dealing with a rabid animal, "Okay, thirty minutes. Thirty minutes after the divergence point, April was still at her college, so the photo couldn't have been taken with anyone. Anyone have something else? Something that wouldn't have been changed by Casey being here?" As he speaks, the area between the branching point and the invasion glows, a bit of the front end fading as Donnie writes it off.
Leo hums, thinking, "Well, April would still have had to get here from her school. That walk takes- what? Another 30?"
April squints at the turtle actively unravelling in front of them, unable to think of a way to stop it, "20 if I'm in a rush, but I had those vials of herbicide, so I'd say the 30's accurate."
"Perfect! Another 30 minutes gone! Keep it coming!" Another section of the timeline fades, and Donnie starts wringing his hands with enough force to leave inflamed scales in his wake as he resumes pacing.
He doesn't notice the concerned looks. Continues rubbing his flesh raw. Waits for another scrap of information to shove into the incomplete puzzle.
Raph takes on the challenge, "Uhh, they'd have to have printed it in that time too, right? How long'd that take?"
"Excellent Raphala!" Donnie finally gives his hands a break, instead staring off into space as he does calculations in his head, "Taking into consideration the time it would take to find a place to print it that was still open, April going there, and any customer-service shenanigans..." He trails off, staring at numbers only he can see.
Meanwhile, everyone else is exchanging worried glances across the table.
"One hour!" As it's announced, the back half of the remaining time vanishes in a purple glow, "Okay, it's down to maybe an hour of time. Who else has something?"
Glancing around the table, Donnie is met with nothing but concerned faces.
Naturally, he disregards them, pulling up security footage from the lair on that day, fast-forwarding and rewinding, trying to find anything they missed. All the while, muttering to himself under his breath.
Leo is the one to break the relative silence, "Uh, Dontron? Wasn't the whole point of your earlier rant that there wouldn't be anywhere that was open?"
"Yes! But-" Donnie seems prepared to start another rant before stopping himself. He continues, eventually, but much quieter, "But, that wouldn't leave any time to take and print the picture..."
April lets out a breath she didn't remember holding. “So… what does that mean?”
Donnie stares at the empty timeline like it personally betrayed him.
“It means,” he says slowly, “that there is no precise ‘when.’”
The words clearly pain him.
“The data set is incomplete. Or inconsistent. Or-" he grimaces, “...non-deterministic.”
Raph tilts his head. “In English? Or turtle?”
Donnie clenches his jaw.
“There is no answer,” he snaps. Then, softer, annoyed at himself, “There should be one. But there isn’t.”
The kitchen is quiet. Too quiet.
Mikey is the one who fixes it.
“So,” he says carefully, setting his cookbook down, “this is one of those times where your brain is gonna keep chewing on this forever unless we give it something else to chew on.”
Donnie opens his mouth. Closes it.
They all know that tone, Dr. Feelings is in the building.
“That is not how cognition works,” he mutters, rubbing his temples.
Mikey grins and hops off his stool anyway. “Cool! Still gonna try.”
Before Donnie can react, Mikey grabs him by the wrist and gently but firmly pulls him away from the table and his projections.
“C’mon, Don. You’re helping me cook.”
“I am absolutely not-”
“Too late,” Mikey says cheerfully. “You’re already here.”
He plops a cutting board in front of Donnie and hands him a knife.
“Chop these.”
Donnie looks down at the vegetables. Then back at Mikey.
“…This does not solve the temporal inconsistency.”
“Nope,” Mikey agrees. “But it gives your hands something to do while your brain screams quietly in the background.”
Donnie hesitates, glances back to Mikey.
Whatever he sees on that face, it makes him quickly start chopping with no complaints.
The rhythm is sharp. Controlled. Precise.
Leo watches from the table, relieved. April leans against the counter, smiling faintly. Raph relaxes, just a little.
Mikey hums as he cooks.
After a minute, Donnie mutters, “I still hate that there’s no answer.”
Mikey bumps his shoulder gently. “That’s okay. Some questions don’t get one.”
Donnie pauses.
“…I dislike that immensely.”
Mikey grins. “Yeah. I know.”
The kitchen fills with the sound of chopping instead of spiraling.
And for now, that’s enough.