Queen's Note: for the need of TMNT family-ness

Growing

It happened suddenly, or rather the realization happened suddenly. It had April sitting upright more in her spot, coming out of that pleasant, dazed and absorbing state that came from watching a favorite TV show with family.

"Hmm?" Donatello 'said,' blinking a little owlishly, he was tired from the day of training while she was at school, and thankfully he and the others had made sure to take showers right after that and before the girl came down.

April made to grab his arm on the second try, starting the extraction process of getting out not just off the couch. The teen gave the normally purple banded turtle a grateful look as he arm turned from rock hard to steal and shifting to help lift and pull her out.

"Something wrong?" Michelangelo asked from her other side where he, Leonardo and, until that moment April too, had all been in the cocoon of freshly cleaned and drier warm blankets.

"Nothing," April staggered to her feet, the picture of teenage lack of grace despite her own intensive training. She yawned and stretched, moving out of the way of the TV, she could sense the turtles all relaxing back after seeing she was heading to the bathroom. She waved at the table that had her father and Splitter, the two fathers glanced up and smiled, but kept their discussion going.

In a few moments time April rested with her back on the inside of the bathroom door, thinking on what she had seen, had realized what she had been seeing all along and tried to sort out how she hadn't seen it.

Because she had been there?

For a long time she was growing up with the boy, but she seemed to have stopped growing, though Donatello had always been taller she was no longer Raphael's height, or those few odd inches taller than Michelangelo and Leonardo. The boys, they were all taller than her, Donatello was hitting close to six and a half feet now, but he was also filling out at the same time, getting thickener in the chest, shoulders and thighs. Even this shell seemed to be subtly changing shape with the rest of him.

...or was Donatello changing to match his shell? How did that work with turtles again?

April felt like she was about to go delving into the sub world of raising turtles-forums on the internet again that night when back home. Or in her room here on her laptop if she stayed the night.

Taking a deep breath, and letting it out with a big sigh, hanging her head for a few long moments before getting up to finish the main reason for coming into the bathroom. April made sure to wash her hands, coming out back to the TV area, only this time she didn't collapse back into the nesting couch.

Raphael grunted, startled a bit to look up, the male had be laying down, formally doing pushups to get rid of some left over, restless energy without really leaving, now laying and propped up on a pillow one of his brothers had tossed over. He had sensed April coming back, standing a moment to take the time and debate just where to sit back down again. Not that he could blame her, his younger two brothers could get a little too clingy he knew, and April had seemed to be nearing her level of tolerance of being hidden in-between Michelangelo and Leonardo. The turtle hadn't been expecting their adoptive clan sister to just take two steps, make an unlady-like sound of defect and flop over Raphael's shell in a show of dramatics.

"The hell?" Raphael half demanded in a lowered voice, jarred out of the focus on the TV show, shifting as he felt April pull herself over the hump of the hard shell, fingers gripping the top edges of the shell. The turtle pushed himself up, lifting the human up as he did so, to look over his left shoulder. "What are you-?"

The other three brothers were blinking over, the peace of TV watching gone for now. Even further back the two fathers glanced over at the oddness.

"This isn't fair." April protested as she was lifted, trying to press down, then stopped to lift her legs and balance on the ridged shell, scowling at the back of Raphael's head when he did a full pushup with her body weight on him as if she wasn't there, settling back down.

"What isn't fair?" Leonardo asked from half under Michelangelo, taking the moment to stretch.

"You're all so much taller than me," April groaned flopping back down over Raphael in teenage exasperation, as if her bones temporarily vanished, "And bigger and stronger and taller..."

There was a long pause, and then Raphael busted out laughing as he understood what was going on, not minding when a folded fan was produced to keep smacking his head as he kept laughing. Really became aware of the light weight on his back, remembering how years ago it was almost a struggle to do pushups with April sitting on his shell.

"Wait..." Michelangelo blinked as this seemed to occur to him and the other two at the same time, their clan sister was comparatively smaller than each them.

"You might be shorter than us now April, but you know how to deal with people bigger than you sparring," Leonardo offered with a smile as the fan was aimed and shook at him.

"Don't you try and comfort me like that!" April huffed, avoiding Raphael's grasping hands as he tried to get her off his back, "This isn't fair! I'm the oldest!"

"We're also mutant turtles." Donatello pointed out with a lop sided grin, showing off inadvertently he no longer had a missing tooth that he regrew, reclined back to stretch and examine his legs, sitting up a moment to look at the differences between himself and Michelangelo, than glanced at April. "With no idea what our height and size cap will be."

April gave a defeated raspberry at him, grumbling about logic, then yelped as Raphael got a hold of an arm, pulling her over his shoulder and off his shell. Grinning at the other, now wiggly teen, it quickly turned into a wrestling match. Even if some would disapprove of the larger mutant not really holding back until he had April was pinned against his front, the muscles in his arms solid enough they might as well be like metal as well.

"There, now be quiet and watch tv." Raphael said, balanced half on his side, half using his shell to stay relined back without fully laying down.

"Gimme a pillow- you're plastron is hard." April waved a foot in the air, not two seconds later three pillows were thrown over from the blanket cocoon.

Raphael rumbled a growling sound, rolling back with his sibling hostage, "Hey-"

Another pillow in packed on his face.

"Release that Kunoichi-in-training you evil Yokai." Leonardo sat up, eyes narrowed as he and Michelangelo held up the last two pillows like weapons, to their side, Donatello was looking bemused.

Raphael narrowed his eyes, the rumble dropping a few notches in tone, but her was smirking. April squeaking as the arms around her locked and squeeze more into a holding hug.

"Charge!" Michelangelo yelled, but with Donatello being unhelpful it took him and Leonardo just those few moments for Raphael to get up and with a laughing human over his shoulder run off.