Disclaimer: I do not own the teenage mutant ninja turtles in any way, shape or form.
"The notes I handle no better than many pianists. But the pauses between the notes - ah, that is where the art resides."
― Artur Schnabel
…
Chapter One.
April O'Neil enjoyed hanging out at the turtles' lair, whether it be sparring with Leonardo, tinkering with machines along with Donatello, or just watching TV with Mikey and Raph. Today however she was kind of wishing she'd stayed at home and used the studying for midterms excuse she'd been holding onto for a rainy day.
Turned out that Spring cleaning could happen at any time of the year. Who knew?
Still, she smiled a little as she piled old pizza boxes into a leaning tower for Mikey to dispose of after he finished his fluffy duster duel with Leo, at least the turtles made it fun.
They also made it a battlefield, she mused, as an old coke can sailed over her head to land squarely in the garbage bag. It was followed by a very belated call of 'Four!"
"Hey!" She yelled back, pretty certain she'd felt the wind from that on her cheek as it passed, "some people are working here."
Master Splinter, who was cleaning the refrigerator of cheesicles, tapped his staff on the floor once in warning. Raphael's voice called out a grudging "Sorry," in response.
She cast a smile in Splinter's direction, noting the amused cast to his whiskers. "Is that the clean laundry?" She nodded at a pile of towels and other assorted things on the table. Despite their having very little in the way of clothing, the clan seemed to go through an inordinately large amount of towelling a week. At Splinter's nod she gathered it up. "I'll put it in the spare room."
"Thank you, April."
She dodged another can, this one orange crush, and grinned, "No problem, Sensei."
If it got her out of the main warzone for a while, well that was just one of the side benefits.
…
Despite the vastness of the main living area, the turtles' lair was not without its limits, therefore they didn't have a designated laundry room, but rather an odds and bobs room, which contained pretty much everything apart from the kitchen sink. It was to this room that April made her way, aiming to dump her laundry pile on the closest flat surface and leave.
Something familiar about the flat surface made her pause and she turned back, running a reverent hand over what, under the layers of dust and grime, had once been a highly polished wood grain. Tracing the curve of another piece of wood down, she found what she was looking for, feeling a distinct disappointment as she pressed down on a surprisingly dust free key, only to be met with silence.
Half an hour later Donatello found her in the room as he struggled to bring in an assortment of pieces of wood and steel bars. She'd cleared off the laundry she'd dumped on top and given the wood a perfunctory polish with her shirt sleeve.
"I didn't know you had a piano."
"Huh?" he muttered, distracted by the load in his arms. April moved to help him, setting the pipes to one side against the wall. "Oh hey," he smiled, "I'd forgotten we had this."
"Can you play?"
He wiggled his fingers with a rueful smile and she nodded, understanding. Large hands and a reduced number of fingers would make any instrument difficult, if not impossible. "Sensei can though," he said. "A little. Or at least he did, before we gutted the insides for other uses."
"Other uses," April asked, pressing down on another of the ivory keys to hear nothing but a muted 'thunk' from somewhere in the bowels of the instrument. "Like what?" What could possibly be more important than making music.
"Piano wire has a really high tensile strength," Donnie said. "We used it for a lot of things over the years; improving weapons, cutting cheese, you know… the usual."
"Cutting cheese huh?" April smiled. "Why do I believe that. Still, it seems a shame to leave it gathering dust in here. You should pull it out into the main hall. You've got space enough. If I can get you the wire you might even be able to get it working again."
At that Donnie's face took on an intrigued look. "I probably could," he muttered, flipping up the top of the piano to take a more detailed look at the inner workings.
"You're pretty much unparalleled when it comes to things like this." April said in encouragement, running her hand over the sleek grained wood. "It'd probably be a walk in the park for you." And now for the clincher. "I always wanted to learn to play piano."
When Donatello's head came up out of the instrument there was a gleam in his eyes, which April knew meant he had a new project.
…
The news that Donnie intended to get the piano working was received with mixed reviews to put it mildly. Master Splinter looked dismayed for a millisecond, before his usual calm masked it. April had had to smirk at that. She imagined four turtle toddlers had made a serious amount of noise on the piano back when they'd first got it. Gutting the piano to get wire to cut cheese indeed. Leonardo seemed intrigued. Mikey was ecstatic over the idea, already coming up with names for their band.
She hated to break it to him that 'The Turtles' was already taken.
Raph just seemed pissed, but then, when wasn't he. He helped them drag the piano out of storage and tuck it away in a dark corner of the main living room, moaning the whole way about what a waste of time it was. April had cast him a strangely thoughtful look which had made him squirm and rub the back of his head with his hand before darting off to 'go bug Mikey'. After that she dutifully ignored him, setting to the piano with cleaning sprays and rags, even finding a little stool to go with it that was just the perfect height.
Two days later the piano was gleaming… and still silent as the grave. And that's how it stayed for a while.
As it turned out, piano wire wasn't the only thing they had to get. There was a fair amount of specialist equipment needed to tune a piano and it didn't come cheaply. To get the best possible outcome they really should be hiring a piano tuner, she figured, but bringing someone down into the lair in order to do the job didn't seem the best of ideas really, so she ordered the tuning forks, hammers and other assorted little bits and bobs off the internet and waited for them to be delivered.
The piano wire in the meantime she picked up at a local store. She even bought a little extra, "lest you run out of cheese cutting gadgets," she said to Donnie with a smile which he returned. He too knew the real reason for Sensei using the wire the first time around.
…
The instant she got home from school and saw the parcels waiting for her she called Donnie in excitement. He offered to come and help her down to the lair with them but in the end it was Raph who showed up at her window a half an hour later, looking sullen and subdued.
"Just wait there a sec, Raph." She said, grabbing her school bag so that she could do a little of her homework while she was at the lair that evening. He didn't reply but when she came back into the room, one arm in her jacket and book bag over that shoulder, he was standing by the kitchen table, idly picking at the package wrapping. Something in the set of his shoulders put her on guard. "Something wrong?" she asked.
He shrugged.
April let him have a moment and sorted herself out, getting her jacket on fully. She dallied for a while with the zip and, while she was looking down, his voice spoke up quietly. "How much is all this costing you?"
"Don't worry about that, Raph—"
"I'm not!" He waved a hand a little more wildly than he'd intended and winced as she took a step back in surprise. "I'm not," he said again, softer. "I just…they're all so… and I can't." He growled and clenched his fist. She saw the green of something that wasn't his skin clutched tightly there.
"You have money?"
"I need to pay you."
April shook her head. "I already told Master Splinter, it's not necessary."
"It's not from Master Splinter and it is necessary." His gaze was all over the room, landing on anything but her face. April dropped her book bag with a solid thud and sat down at the kitchen table, dragging him down to sit opposite her.
"Explain."
He didn't speak for a long time after that, his gaze focused intently on his hands as they lay on the table. April's gaze fell there too after a while.
Out of the four of them Raphael had the biggest hands. Reaching out she grasped one, pulling it over to her and turning it palm side up. His hand stayed relaxed, two fingers curled up gently towards his palm. The biggest hands, thick, blunt fingers, clumsy, and yet he handled the most dextrous of weapons; so many different grips necessary and he could switch between them in a split second.
And just like that she understood.
"I never really thought how hard it must be," April murmured, "living in a world that doesn't quite fit, that's just a shade too small." Raph's small shuddery intake of breath told her she was on the right track. "But somehow the four of you make it work; just look at all the things Donnie's made over the years. And I swear he has a typing speed of seventy words per minute. You can all manage chopsticks with more finesse than me." She looked up just in time to see Raph's small smile. It gave her the courage to push on. "Leo told me once that you used to whittle when you were younger. I know you can knit," she continued, "I've seen you paint.
"I'd love to hear you play, Raph."