Donatello's reflection blinked back at him through one eye. Without his glasses, he could barely make out his own face, but from what he could see, it didn't look good. The turtle reached gingerly to touch his other eye, swollen shut and already bruising like a plum, but just as one of his three fingers was about to touch his throbbing face, a voice rang out from across the apartment.

"Don't touch it!"

He sighed, and his hand fell to his side. With his one good eye, he took stock of his injuries in the bathroom mirror. One black eye. A scrape across the other cheek. He took a deep breath and shuddered, his hand snapping up to clutch his side. Bruised ribs. Not broken, but definitely bruised. The turtle in purple took another shuddering breath. He was lucky there hadn't been more of them.

His host came up behind him. "Don."

Donatello turned slowly to face her, his injuries belaboring his movements.

"Don, let me see."

Though he had dumped his gear at the door, he had not bothered to remove his bandana. It obscured his injury, but he had no intention of untying it. Being alone with April made him feel vulnerable enough as it was. April let out an exasperated sigh. Even on her tip toes, she was still more than a foot shorter than Donatello. Her neck craned backwards trying to get a look at his face, which seemed to be turning an off shade of green. Donatello sniffled slightly. She was holding a ziplock bag full of icecubes.

"Just for you," she said with a slight smile. The plastic crinkled in her hand.

"Do you have anything to wrap that in - to avoid potential cold injury to the site -" he mumbled nervously.

"Don, just let me see it!" she snapped.

Taking his chin between two fingers, she coaxed the turtle towards her. Donatello grimaced, but not just on account of the pain. He had been too distracted, going through those e-waste scrap bins. He hadn't noticed. He didn't see them coming.

April's full pink lips drew into a taut frown as she reached up with the bag of ice. When the turtle flinched, she sighed. She did not try to touch his face again. Instead, she took one of his hands in hers, slowly opening up each of his three fingers before placing the sloshing bag of ice in his palm.

"Ice your eye," she ordered.

Donatello nodded, slowly, feeling himself sway slightly. "Thank you…for coming to get me," he murmured. "I didn't want to worry Sensei." Or get an earful from Leo. Or a slap upside the head from Raph. Or tell Mikey. Then everyone would know.

April smiled. "It's no problem, Don. Really."

As Donatello tried to return the smile, he felt himself lurch forward. He watched, unable to stop himself, as the smile vanished from April's face. His heart sunk as her eyes widened.

"Don!" she cried.

"I'm fine," the turtle heaved, leaning on her to steady himself. "Really. I'm fine," he repeated, his fingers curling around the bag of ice as he sagged over her shoulder.

"You are most definitely not fine," April muttered. "Come on."

Slowly, the two made their way across the apartment in tandem. April leaned, low, and Donatello slumped on to the couch, still clutching the bag of ice. The turtle sunk into the couch, his shell settling into the old piece of furniture that was somehow too hard and too soft at the same time. His head reeled, and a wave of nausea washed over him, turning the inside of his mouth sour. With a deep breath, he closed his one good eye.

"Don. You need anything?" her hand was on his shoulder.

The turtle struggled to open his eye again. When he did, she was standing before him, with her hand on her hip, her long auburn hair spilling over her shoulders. Beautiful as ever.

"Do you need coffee?" she asked. "Would that help you stay awake?"

"Research actually shows that it is in fact safe to let patients with concussions sleep," he managed a small smile. "But a coffee would be great."

"Whatever you say, Donnie," April shook her head as she strode across the small apartment to the kitchen. "Ice that eye!"

Too exhausted to argue, Donatello laboriously drew the bag upwards. The heat of his hand had begun to melt the ice, and the bag sloshed with cool water, making it all the more challenging to do as he had been instructed. Grimacing, he laid the bag over his swollen eye. The merciful cold settled over his swollen face, numbing the eye he could no longer open. With a sigh of relief, his neck lolled back over the back of the couch and he closed his eye again.

The kettle rattled as it became hot on the stovetop; Donatello's face slowly became cold and numb. The aroma of coffee wafted across the living room, and he inhaled deeply, drinking the rich smell in. There was another smell here, too…something familiar. Before he could place it, his bruised rib flared, hot and angry and agonizing, and the turtle gritted his teeth. Maybe it was broken after all.

The kettle screamed. The bag of ice slumped over his eye; his arm was starting to ache from holding it there. The turtle sighed. Everything was going to be all right. April was making coffee.

"What do you take in your coffee?" she called.

"Coffee. Black," Donatello grunted. "Please."

April appeared with a mug in one hand and the French press in the other. Sliding the press across the coffee table, she glanced up at him. Donatello forced his good eye open and eagerly groped for the coffee.

"You got it?" she asked.

He could hear the hesitation in her voice, but he nodded emphatically in response, and they exchanged the bag of ice for the cup of coffee. The turtle held it for a moment, savoring the way it smelled.

April sat beside him. "You can stay as long as you want," she offered. "But you should probably call Splinter. You know how he gets."

Donatello cast her a quizzical glance with his one good eye. "What about your roommate?"

April shook her head. "No roommate. I can't really afford the place on my own, but I've been writing some short news pieces for this online biotech journal, so that helps."

"Biotech?" the turtle blinked in surprise.

"Yeah," April began, almost wistfully. "I was a Biotech minor in college, before the labs got to be too much for my schedule." She smiled sadly. "I thought it would help people take me more seriously."

Donatello's fingers curled around the coffee mug. There was so much to learn about April. He had never thought that a person could hold his attention the way that she did. She was beautiful, of course; hours of marathoning whatever the TV in the lair could pick up alongside Michelangelo had taught him about the physical attributes of beauty. It had also taught him that beautiful girls fell for beautiful boys. But April was so much more than beautiful. She was kind, and thoughtful, and best of all, she was smart. And for some reason, she liked him enough to throw herself into a city car share and come to his rescue in the middle of the night.

It was difficult for Donatello to see without his glasses, so he squinted, trying to get a glimpse of her as she made her way back to the kitchen, her long hair swaying over her shoulders, her hips swinging with each step. He sighed.

"How's the coffee?" she asked over the scraping sound of her excavating more ice from the recesses of the freezer.

Donatello took a sip and wrinkled his nose. The coffee was stale; all aroma and no body. He swallowed the hot, tasteless brew as quickly as his mouth could manage.

"It's great, thanks," he coughed. Donatello had never been particularly adept at lying. Before he met her lying was not something he had ever needed to be good at. He had gotten along just fine, eschewing conflict with ease. But April O'Neil would not be ignored.

"Let me see your eye," she insisted.

Grateful for the excuse to abandon the coffee, Donatello complied. He watched with blurred vision as April leaned forward, her hair falling around her shoulders. The turtle took a shuddering breath, drinking in her scent. That other smell lingered between them, but he ignored it. She was so close he was afraid she might hear his heart pounding beneath his plastron.

"Let's get this off," she murmured, and Donatello blinked.

"Huh?"

"Your goggles," April explained, rolling up her sleeves.

As she reached to push back his goggles and headset, the turtle's only good eye widened. That smell. It was Raphael. His smell was all over the couch. All over the apartment. All over her. Instinctively, he jerked back, recoiling from her touch.

"Don!" she cried. "Are you ok?"

Donatello swallowed loudly. "Y-yeah," he stammered. "It's just, I'm a little weird…about being touched. After what happened with the Foot."

Another lie.

April's face creased in concern, but she nodded in understanding. "Of course. I'm sorry, Don," she said, tenderly.

The turtle winced, his face and neck tense with pain after jerking away from her. He had known April and his brother were involved, but he had had no idea to what extent. If he had had any doubts, Raphael's musk all over her apartment had obliterated them entirely. Slow and deliberate, he peeled his goggles and headset away. April gathered them up gingerly, and set them on the table, next to his forgotten cup of coffee.

April deftly replaced his gear with ice, her fingers barely brushing his as she set the bag in his hand. "Ice that eye," she ordered. Then, more gently, she added, "Give me a minute to change - then maybe we can put something on? I think they just added more Star Trek to hulu."

Donatello nodded meekly. Obediently, he pressed the ice over his black eye, which had begun to throb again in the absence of the numbing cold. He watched her with his only good eye as she walked away, wishing for nothing more than to shrink into the couch. If he had just happened to blink out of existence at that very moment, he wondered if anyone would even notice.

"So…" he began in an attempt to bury his self-pity in small talk. "What are you writing for the journal?"

She swung her bedroom door open behind her. "Oh, you know, mostly news pieces. I did a short piece on the updated laws regarding sharing genome data last week."

Donatello squinted, trying to see what she was doing.

Reflecting in one of the decorative mirrors dotted throughout the living room was a glimpse of her bare back, defined by the sweeping line of her spine, like a perfect stroke in an inkwash painting. Her hair swung over her shoulders as she reached over her head to pull on her top. Donatello gulped. He knew she had opened the door so that they might talk, but why hadn't she shut it? Had she just assumed that he couldn't see? Or, that even if he could, there was nothing he would do?

"An interesting piece went up on the genomics of Monarch butterfly migration and mating earlier today…I could get you a free subscription code, if you'd like to read it."

Donatello tried to smile. "I'd like that."

A sentence from one of the many biology books he had devoured came to mind, and something dropped in the pit of his stomach. Male alphas may gain preferential access to sex or mates. Suddenly, it all made sense. Her attraction to Raphael. Their…whatever it was they were doing. His physical prowess. His sheer size. Raphael was an alpha male. This explained why April responded to him the way she did - it was more than a superficial attraction. She was responding to him on some subconscious, biological (genomic might be stretching it) level. Raphael saved April. Not the other way around. Donatello's lips crumpled into a frown.

He had never felt so painfully omega male.

The door across from the living room swung all the way open, and April emerged in her faded yellow sweatshirt and a pair of leggings with the hole in the knee. She flopped down on the couch, and Donatello stiffened at how close she was. In what seemed like one swift motion, she tucked her legs up under her and snatched up the remote. The television flared to life, and Donatello bit his lip.

"How's your eye?" she asked, monotonously clicking the remote controller through a slur of channels.

"It's ok," he replied, noting that she that she did not reach to touch him this time. His stomach lurched. He wished he had known there would be this many variables. There had been so many chances for this to go wrong, and so few for it to go right. He had played right into the hands of probability and blown it, like an idiot. Whatever they could have been was gone.

Slowly, April turned away from the television to face him. Stiffly, Donatello let his arm slide down to his side, he still held the sandwich bag full of melting icecubes tightly in his fist.

"Don."

Donatello's chest tightened. "Yes, April?"

"I need to know," she peered up at him from beneath her long dark lashes.

Donatello could feel her her eyes lingering on his bruised face. He could not help but blush. He tried not to swallow. He tried not to blink. Just when he realized he was holding his breath, she spoke again.

"Who's your favorite Star Fleet Captain?"

The turtle exhaled a sigh of relief, his entire body sagging. Then he smiled. Though it pained his aching face, he raised his brow ridge. "That's a pretty serious question, Miss O'Neil."

"Inquiring minds want to know," she gave him a wink.

If Donatello had had the strength to stand, he would have gone weak at the knees.