"If you make listening and observation your occupation you will gain much more than you can by talk." Robert Braden-Powell

The inevitable had happened after the incident of April O' Neil's reaction to her father's fate, She had been officially 'disbanded' from the popular crowd. By which that meant that they had simply elected to ignore her, pretended she didn't exist and of course shamelessly gossip about her both when she was away from them, and in her presence.

Shauna was caught with two thoughts from her observations whilst this happened. Her first notion was the sheer shock of it all. These people where supposed to be friends where they not? And according to most tv shows and books, friends stood by you when times got hard, they supported you and helped you through it… wasn't that one of the key factors of actually being friends? But of course, the Irish girl remembered that she did not in fact have an answer to that question, after all what friends did she ever have to get any sort of statistics from that comment.

However the second observation she made, and it was the more important of the two. Was how April herself was taking it, if these words had gotten to her (and she was quite certain that they must be) she didn't show it. She held herself high and ignored them twice as much as they where ignoring her. Shauna found this to be an impressive quality to have, but something was still… nagging her about all of this. If it had been her in April's position and if she had lost someone who meant the world to her… when in actuality she already did…

What would she have wanted people to do?

When it came right down to it, the thing worse than everyone talking about it in front of her where the ones who said nothing, the ones who just looked it you with pity. Who said nothing and did nothing; those people where the ones that hurt the most.

What would have made the whole thing easier would be for if someone would have found the courage to just… be compassionate, to come forward and italk/i about it, to say how sorry they were about what happened, and if she needed someone to talk to that they would be the one. Perhaps that's what April needed now?

It occurred to Shauna that she was acting no better than those silent observers who held pity in their eyes. And it was a daunting realisation; however it brought with it the ability to make the pushing decision that she was going to do something about it! She wasn't going to be like everyone else, she was going to act on an impulse and talk to April.

However how she was going to find a way to talk to the girl was a different matter altogether.

6 days…

It had been 6 long, agonising days.

Her father was taken, she was staying with her estranged aunt, who although was shaken about the situation. Didn't grasp it as well as the 16 year old; perhaps she too thought the red head was crazy, suffering from post-traumatic stress. She had offered to keep her from school for a few weeks, of course April refused. She wasn't going to jeopardise her education.

However one good thing had managed to come from all of this. Her friends, her new friends which were not the type one would expect to have but they were more loyal than any of the people she had thought where her friends at school. They were brothers, four very unique, very different, very ivery/i special brothers.

Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo and Donatello, she smiled to herself. Four very uncommon names, but again they were uncommon boys, heck they weren't even boys, they were turtles. Mutated turtles trained in ninjistsu. It was bizarre! Something you would get from… a comic book or something. But as crazy as it was, she owed her life to them, they had come through for her, although her dad had got taken from her. They had promised they would bring him back.

And she believed them.

As the bell rang marking the end of another day in this prison hell she gathered up her things. She was going to go home, get through her homework as quickly as she could and then do the same routine she had been doing for almost a week. Spend countless hours tracking every possible web domain to try and find any little snippet of information about the 'Kraang'. So far all she had managed to find where hair products, comic book 'sound effects' and a you tube video which apparently was instructing people on how to milk chickens. She may have forwarded the link to Donnie but that was neither here nor there.

She was determined to find any little clues and pass them on to the boys, however as she thought of that she had a small little smile which widened slightly in a realisation. Tomorrow would be Saturday, Saturday marked the day that she would finally get to see their home!

True the thought of venturing willingly into the New York sewer system was more than a little repellent, but she was excited. It would be cool! But she had a ever so slight hunch that part of the reason they were taking her down to their home was so she would spend less time worrying about her father and act like a normal teen… but maybe she was giving them too much credit.

As she finished zipping up her bag she felt a pair of eyes on the back of her head, she frowned to herself as she could feel her slightly happy mood ebbing away bit by bit. All week nothing but looks, glares, laughter, gossip… a good story, which was what they wanted and apparently what they got.

It made her sick, honestly sick to her stomach.

Where these people so small minded and their lives so dull that they get enjoyment out of mimicking and making speculations out of other people's lives? For whatever reason the red head had had enough, it had been a long week of hell and now she was going to do something about it.

Moving to stand she turned her head around, a cold glare etched on her face as she met the gaze of the would be offender. Whom, startled at being caught managed to knock over her books. April frowned, she knew the girl, her name escaped her but they had a few classes together. She was a transfer student. For some reason seeing her scramble down to gather everything pulled away bits of her anger. Bits of it, but not all of it.

Approaching the back desk with her arms cross she stared down as the girl looked at her feet. "would you mind not staring, I've had enough of it for one week" she didn't sound as angry as she would have wanted, nor as menacing! Surprisingly though it had some affect for the girl abrubtly stood, papers crumbled together in her hands and her face nervous "sorry! Ahem, sorry.. about, about that it's just you, uhmm.. well I… that- that is"… she trailed off with a nervous laugh before hastially shuffling the papers, apparently looking for something.

"April! I uh realise that this has been a, particularly hard, hard week for you" she read, her eyes moving with each word. "And I know that a lot of people, including myself haven't acted like decent human beings"

The red head blinked, several times.

Was this happening? Was she honestly reading a written apology to her? This was… not what she was expecting. It was… weird, very weird and not at all normal. But at the same time.. she supposed it was… sort of nice? In a weird way?

"so to conclude I would like to sa-" "can I see that?" April interrupted, hand outstretched. It caught Shauna off hand for a moment "uhh… pardon?" "the papers" she clarified "can I take a look?" "oh.. uh, yes, yes of course" Sniffing the brunette handed them over.

April managed to read through them far quicker than what the girl had spent writing them "sup? Wanna hang out?" she echoed, an eyebrow arched. "I… uh.. thought maybe a casual approach wouldn't be… uhh.. appropriate?" April hummed in agreement, all anger completely gone now and replaced with curiosity "you know, this is the first time someone's written a four page apology slash conversation starters" she looked again at the girl, an amused expression on her face

"ayyye, I think I'll be taking them back now" she cringed "I just.. I know we don't know each other and I know that this week has been… shitty. But I guess I'm just trying to say that if you ever want someone to… I don't know talk to? Hang out with or something… you can ask me" she smiled slightly nervously.

That would have been a better thing to put on the paper.

April smiled.

"I'll keep that in mind.