It was the end of the movie, and she was crying.
She shouldn't have been, really. It was a monster movie, her favorite genre. It'd had a happy ending.
But not for the monster.
Again.
As always.
April found herself relating to the semi-sapient title creature, was horrified as humanity hunted it down just because it was different and deemed dangerous, for what she thought were fairly shallow reasons.
Lately, the whole creature-feature genre was big time letting her down.
Mikey, Raph, and Leo had cheered, not drawing a connection between the movie and their own existence, and started roughhousing and trash-talking each other about who could beat the high score on Virtual Hockey. Donnie, on the other hand, was watching her. They'd spent the film comfortably nestled together on the bench in the entertainment pit, with his arm draped over her shoulder.
"You alright?" he asked, concerned at her tears.
She hastily wiped her cheeks. "Oh… uh… fine. I always cry at happy endings."
"Not so happy for the kaiju though, huh?" he said, seeming to read her mind.
"Why did they have to kill it? Why is that all humans even do: shoot it down, or take it apart to see what makes it tick? I mean, what, do they think the monster is a fortune cookie, and inside there's going to be a little paper that tells them why it's attacking? 'Heart, lungs, kidney… Oh, here it is, the existential quandary organ! That'll tell us everything!' 'Let's cut everything open because trying to communicate with it would be too hard!' It was scared! They took away its home, and cornered it, and it was scared!"
The turtle quirked a brow at her. "You're fairly bitter about this."
She stood and paced back and forth with clenched fists. "Should I not be? Media gives people an idea of how to act… how to react toward something like you guys, and it's not… not…"
"…Fair?" he finished for her.
"Yes!"
He motioned for her to come sit with him again and took her hand in his when she did. "We know the world won't be fair to us if they know about us. That's why Master Splinter taught us how to defend ourselves, how to hide in the shadows, how to stay away from humanity as much as possible."
April rolled her eyes. "Good job on that front…"
"Yeah… well…" he snorted, "we wanted to see our world, experience it for ourselves. But Splinter also taught us to be honorable, dutiful, responsible, and compassionate… and when we saw wrong being done, we had to do something about it. And that sometimes meant sacrificing some secrets."
"You guys do take the world head-on as it comes at you."
Don reached across his body to tap on the edge of his carapace. "We manage. We're built for some hard knocks."
"But just as vulnerable as a humans on the inside, with all the squishy human emotions." She sighed. "You guys have really had to overcome a lot."
The lights around them dimmed, indicating that the other turtles were heading to bed, leaving them to themselves.
"We overcame a lot," he restated, wrapping his arms around her to include her in that statement. "I know for a fact we couldn't have done it all without you."
She gave him a skeptical, flat look. "I was the reason you got into trouble most of the time. Remember when we first met?"
He looked up, giving her a wan smile. "Of course I do. You screamed. And then I screamed because you screamed. And then you got grabbed by a Kraang…"
"Well… It was my first contact with a mutant… I hadn't learned yet."
He snorted. "How do you think I felt? It was my first contact with a girl! And then I insisted on going to rescue you once we regrouped… My brothers thought I was crazy, but I couldn't let you go…"
"It took a little getting used to the idea or a giant talking turtle at first, I'll admit… But your voice was so calming and gentle when you came to rescue us. It made me realize you were a person, not just a weird… creature. And you came back for us, you were trying to help us. Then they loaded us on the helicopter and you caught the rail as we were taking off…"
"What can I say? I'm stubborn."
She laughed. "I'd call it loyal. Or determined. And I'm glad you were. You caught me when I fell out and saved me from a horrible splatter-death, which was totally amazing. Even if Dad still got taken."
"Yeah, well… The mission was only fifty percent successful. But at least you were safe." He quickly amended, "Not that I mind your dad, that is… but things could have gone that much worse if they'd gotten you instead, since it was you they were actually looking for."
She giggled. "Always the pessimist. You're a real glass-half-empty kind of guy, Don…"
Looking insulted, he crossed his arms against his plastron. "I am not; I'm a realist. The glass is full; half with liquid, half with air. If anything, I've had to be crazy optimistic just to keep pursuing this relationship," he continued musing.
"Oh?" April said, placing her hands on her hips and giving him a dangerous look.
"The failed flirting, the really not cool stalking, accidentally mutating your father..."
"...which was a misunderstanding, and you fixed him..."
"...the shell-handed attempts to win your attention…" he continued. "Raph was the most vocal about it… he outright said I didn't have a chance with you. The others more or less thought the same, but they weren't as cruel about it. Master Splinter told me not to force it, and to always have hope. "
"And did you?"
He sighed but gave a weak smile. "Mostly. It wasn't always easy… but I'm stubborn."
"Persistent," she corrected, with a returned grin.
"You say potato, I say solanum tuberosum." She giggled lightly as he continued his train of thought. "I suppose it's part of my nature as a scientist… when one attempt fails, you revise and review and try another approach." He uttered a small sigh. "And then there's the logical aspect of things… Why would you ever choose me?"
"Why wouldn't I choose you? You're kind, and sweet, and brilliant…"
"And a mutant."
She lifted his head to look straight into his mahogany eyes with her deep blue ones, and pointed a finger at herself. "Also a mutant, remember?" She stared vaguely off across the room. "If the wrong people found out I'm a mutant, it'd be me strapped to the dissection table…"
"Yes, but you're still human-looking. You can go out in public, in the daytime, buy things instead of raiding the place at night and hiding cash under the register. What do I have to offer you when even Casey can give you so much more? …Much as I hate to say that… "
April pulled an eegh face. "Casey is… He means well, but he's just so pretentious. Like everyone should be honored to bask in his presence. He's got a good heart, but…" She put a hand across her face. "…he's such a troglodyte sometimes…"
Don had to snicker at that. "Yes… yes, he is… Even so, if not Casey, you could be with any normal human guy… "
"You trying to talk me out of you?"
"No!" he yelped, waving his hands in sudden panic. "No, no… just curious. I mean, even bringing us extra food every week is more trouble for you… entering into a relationship with someone who can't even go above ground in normal circumstances is taking the hard road…"
"Don… You're you! There's no one else remotely like you… you're unique, and I love that."
"Even if it's weird, nerdy, and a major burden?"
"I happen to like weird and nerdy. As for a burden,'If I take the ship, I take the ballast.' Something my grandfather used to say. Means, if you accept something good, you take all of its associated strings attached as well."
"And you're willing to do that?"
"I'm not running away yet, am I?" she asked wryly.
He nuzzled her. "Thankfully, no. But… It… must be hard to cope with, finding out that you're something besides what you thought you were."
"Yeah," she agreed, then canted her head to peer back at him. "And no."
"No?"
"It meant we had one more thing in common. It… did take me a while to come to terms with it, and the whole thing with Leo happened at the same time, and it just wasn't the time to focus on it. But I had the whole winter to mull it over. It made some things slot into place and make sense."
"And what was your conclusion?"
"That I'd be open to your advances, if they weren't too…" She circled a hand in the air, searching for a word.
"Lame," he finished for her. "The music box was totally lame, and I should have known better."
"It was a bit… over the top," she confessed. "I mean, it was well-intentioned and all, but… Venn diagram time…" She indicated a circle far to her right—"Jewelry…"—then indicated herself, circling her bauble-free head and neck, and then showing her hands and flipping them over and back for him to see—"Me."
The turtle sighed. "Yeah… when you put it like that… I suppose I was working toward an idealized notion of femininity, and not actual, rough-and-tumble tomboy April." He winced, and his brows knit in question. "Was it really as bad as Bigfoot's roadkill soup, though?"
April mirrored his grimace and gave a slight nod. "About as nauseating."
"Yyyyeah…" He turned his head away. "I was ready to give you up after that. I realized I was pushing too hard for it. But then you kissed me, and… I had to reassess everything I thought I knew… Love is as strange and unpredictable as Dimension X physics…"
"I didn't want you to give it up… I wanted you to keep trying until you got it right. You acted as if a mutant didn't deserve a shot at love." It was her turn to sigh. "And then those dream beavers attacked, and I nearly lost you." She clung to him. "I didn't know what to do… I did everything I could and thought I might lose you anyway. And after that… there just wasn't a lot of time for 'us.' Invasions, space, getting Splinter back and losing him again, having my brain invaded by the crazy Aeon lady in my crystal…"
"That crystal was what had me worried… I thought I was losing you to it."
"You were." She turned her head away in shame. "I needed it… The power… it was addictive! And then when Za-Noran overpowered me, used me to destroy y—" She choked on her words, and her hand covered her mouth.
"Shhh, shhh… it's all right." With a thumb, he brushed her tears away. "I got better… you managed to put all my atoms back in the right places and everything." He waved his hands across himself, indicating that he was all still there.
"I shouldn't have let Za-Noran tear you apart in the first place. I was too scared that I couldn't beat her to be able to beat her. It was only with the guys' extra little push that I did."
"But you did eventually, and that's the important thing." He chuckled drily. "Only took you two tries."
"Two tries isn't good enough! Especially when failing the first meant killing you!" she scolded; him for making light of it, but mainly herself for messing up in the first place. "I didn't listen to you; I brushed your concerns off, I let the crystal control me… and you died because of it! I'm only lucky that there was enough power to pull you back together after blowing you, and nearly Raph, to smithereens!" She paused to look dejectedly into his eyes. "I'm so sorry, Donnie!"
He gathered her up into his lap, rubbing his cheek against hers to soothe her. "It's all right," he cooed. "We make mistakes sometimes. You assess it, learn from it, and plan a new course. Just like science."
"You died, at my hand," she whispered, tears flowing freely. "I have nightmares about it. What if I couldn't bring you back?"
Don turned her to face him. "And, like science, when the experiment is over, we let it go, and move on to the next with the knowledge we've gained. Think, if I agonized over every experiment that went wrong, I'd be a sobbing heap in my lab about eighty-three hours a week."
She shot him a hard look. "You're awfully flip about nearly dying."
He smiled kindly at her. "Come on… one of us nearly dying? That's a typical Tuesday night for us."
"Yeah, I guess that's about right," she agreed with a note of bitterness.
He stroked her face, gentle as always. "You beat her. You needed a little help, but you beat her, you did the right thing, and I'm proud of you. No more nightmares now."
"I don't think PTSD works that way, but…. I suppose it's a start."
"Meditating on it will help get those thoughts out of your system. And… I'll always be here for you, if you need me."
"I'll always need you, Donnie," she murmured, encircling his neck in her arms. "No more dying, though, okay?"
"I'll do my best," he grinned back. "That's part of why we stay together… we're each other's safety net. We'll always be there to catch one another. And you became part of the family; we'll always be there to catch you too when you fall… literally or figuratively."
April finally seemed to accept this. "I love you, Donnie," she said tenderly.
"I love you too, my sweet little buttercup."
She pushed back from him and screwed her mouth up at him. "'Sweet little buttercup'? Really?"
"I mean… uh, my… rough little… tumbleweed?" April gave him a rather withering look. "Look, I'm making an effort… It was the best I could come up with on short notice," he apologized.
She sighed dramatically. "I'll take what I can get, I guess…
Don opened his mouth to answer, but wan interrupted by a voice from across the room. "Shell's bells, they're gonna talk some more…"
"Raph, quiet! They're working through some deep issues."
"Seriously, you guys, it's been like half an hour… Would you just make out already?"
The couple turned to see the other three brothers sitting next to the video games in the back of the lair. Don's eyes lifted heavenward. "And this would be the down-side of living in a house full of ninjas."
"KISS!" the turtle trio chorused.
April gave a small shrug. "May as well indulge them," she said, leaning toward him. "Besides, I think that's enough talk."
Donatello agreed by saying nothing and smiling brightly as he leaned forward to meet her lips with his own.
x-x-x-x-x
A fic for wrightmother, winner of one of my stories in the TMNT2012Fans Wrap Party raffle. She requested some Apritello romance with them talking about the struggles they'd faced to be together and how they overcame them. (Like a hurdle do!) Hope you enjoy, wrightmother!
This story sprouted out of one I was working on originally... Things were getting too talky, while Donnie reminded me that, "Hi, still stuck in a window over here..." I'll finish that one after my other raffle winner's story.
Bonus story: The ship/ballast line is one my husband's grandfather was purported to have said; he himself became the sole support for a large family of his mother and several younger siblings at the age of 9, after his father had drunk away the family savings and then committed suicide; at the age of 21, he met husband's grandmother, a 30-year old war widow with children, who had escaped the bombing of Rotterdam, and married her so that he could support her and her children as well. When the judge questioned him on whether he wanted to take on the burden of a widow with children while still so young, he said, "If I take the ship, I take the ballast." Husband has a great deal of respect for him, not from this story alone. I'm sorry to say, I never got to meet him.