Other People
Chapter 1 – The One She Broke

It was the first time she noticed he wasn't next to her.

She'd been waiting for Donatello to come sit beside her, watch the movie, point out the scientific inaccuracies, pick apart the plot, all while giving her that bashful grin…

…and he didn't.

He sat cross-legged on the floor well behind the pit, pecking away at his laptop on some project or other. Normally, he would simply continue to work on whatever it was in the presence of his brothers, next to her.

She just wanted to check on him, especially after…

"Don? You okay?"

It was only there for a second, but she felt it from him, clear as day. He flinched when she spoke, a bolt of fear running up his spine.

"Oh, yes… I'm fine…" he said, pulling on a facade she could see right through. "I just… need some more concentration for this. I'll be in my lab."

He rose and left faster than the casualness he was trying to portray allowed, failing to meet her searching eyes.

x-x-x-x-x

He'd stopped seeking her out, she noticed as the weeks rolled by. He'd become distant, disengaged. More often than not, he found some reason to cower in his lab, or be—pretend to be—working on a project that was too dangerous for her to be nearby. She nearly bumped into him once, coming around a blind corner in the sewers on her way to the lair. "Don!" she'd shouted, partly out of joy and partly out of shock and trying not to crash into him with an armload of groceries. She saw him so infrequently, and was so happy to see him. Clearly, though, the feeling was not mutual, as the genius's aura shot with intense anxiety and he backpedaled from her.

Her incredulous look demanded some explanation. "P-Pavlovian response… heh… Nothing to worry about. It'll extinctify… eventually…"

She frowned at him. "I know who Pavlov is, Don. We need to talk."

He nodded, taking two of the bags from her as they walked. "You're right, we do."

But neither of them knew where to start for several long moments. They simply continued walking until they reached the lair, where Don took the rest of the food from her. "Well… I'm glad we had this talk! Now, if you'll excuse me…" he stated pertly and made to scarper off to his lab.

"Donnie!" she snapped at him and felt that chill run through him again through her empathic link, then dread as he turned back around. And fright. "I never figured you for a coward," she said tartly.

"I'm sorry, April… I just… I can't."

"Come on, Don. Talk to me," she coaxed. "You said you were fine. You're not fine."

"I was at the time… I could just brush it off. But the more I think about it… the more nightmares…" He shook his head. "I know it's irrational, that Zan'ramon's power is out of you now, but I can't help feeling like…"

"…like I'll do it again," she finished for him. He winced, and she knew she was correct. "I'm so sorry, Donnie. I promise, I'll never—"

"But you did," he cut her off in a sad whisper. "Despite all my pleading to let me take the crystal… You let her take you over, and when my life was hanging in the balance, seventy-four feet in the air, you wouldn't even fight for me. You let her tear me molecule from molecule," he said so low she could barely hear. "Nerve from nerve. And it HURT, April… a brief agony before nothingness, but that… that was the most pain I've experienced in my life… before she scattered me across the city…"

Tears rimmed her eyes. "I put it back…. I put it all back, I put you back together!"

He stared at the floor. "Not all of it."

April's heart flew into her throat. "What? What did I miss?!" she gawped. "Tell me, maybe I can still fix it!"

The lanky turtle shook his head. "You can't fix this. You can't fix broken trust. You can't put the faith you had in someone back the way it was."

She felt her heart fall into the pit of her stomach and sit there like a leaden lump. "Donnie…" she tried, but a word beyond 'sorry' that expressed the regret and heartache she felt didn't come to her, and she stood there gawping, still searching for one.

"I can't be around you right now, April. I can't keep living with this, can't work with it hanging over my head. So I keep thinking… maybe…" His eye caught hers for a bare second. "…maybe we should see other people." He glanced away again with a faked laugh. "Well… prospects are pretty slim for me… you should see other people."

Shock nailed her to the floor, and the dejection she felt flowing off him in waves pierced straight through her. She knew all he'd gone through to get her attention, to get her to see past the mutant exterior. He'd been clumsy and awkward and had a few missteps, but she'd come around, encouraged his advances. His discovery that she was a mutant gave them something closely in common, and brought her hope that maybe this was the right path for them. Their relationship developed from a tiny bud to a nearly open bloom…

And then she'd snapped it off at the stem and trampled it. For her to hurt him so deeply that that pipe dream was now cast to the wind… it broke her heart, utterly. Tears streamed down her cheeks unchecked, and her voice was unsteady when she tried to speak again. "Donnie… I…"

Don's posture slumped so low he was nearly shorter than her, the emotions killing him as well. "I hope you find someone that suits you." He flexed his fists as if steeling his resolve, then took a breath and marched stalwartly into his lab without so much as a backward glance at her.

She tried to say something to stop him, but all that came out was an ugly croak, and when the lab door closed behind him, she turned and bolted from the lair, blinded by her tears. None of his brothers tried to stop her, meaning either they were just as shocked as she, or they'd already known this had been coming down the pike. Either way, she was left alone in her heartbreak, and for that, she was grateful. If she was going to ugly cry, no one needed to see it.