Chapter 20: Please

When April had officially introduced Raph as a new admin on her board, she had been prepared for a lot of things to happen after this. Bad things, actually. Teaching Raph how to use a laptop and her message board really had showed her a thing or two about Raph and computers.

And of course, this had proved to be true when Raph had accidentally deleted a post and blocked a user in the first week.

Not to mention the off-topic-incident that had happened afterwards. April flinched a little at the thought.

Okay, she had overreacted, she knew that. But neither Raph nor the others knew how important this message board was for her. Before she had started training as a kunoichi the message board had been the only source of support for her friends she had been able to offer, the only she had been able to do to look for her father, for the Kraang, for other mutants. It still was a very important source of help. Maybe it would always be.

So there was that. But still, she had overreacted.

At first, the plan had been to just call Raph and tell him about this whole off-topic-thing, but he hadn't picked up, no matter how often she had tried to reach him, and as time had passed, she had gotten angry, remembering how hard teaching Raph had been, how hard it had been to restore the deleted post, how many apologies she had sent the user who had accidentally been blocked. And then Raph had gone on and on with his off-topic discussion without picking up his phone, and she had exploded.

Literally.

So much even Raph hadn't yelled back at her or gotten angry himself.

Actually, he had been rather comprehensible. So un-Raph, really.

She blamed his current state of health for it.

And ever since that off-topic incident, Raph hadn't made any new mistakes, and she started to feel more secure about Raph as an admin. Four days had passed and he was acting like a flagship-admin. She could only hope this would last and wouldn't turn out to be a phase.

Her T-phone rang and April pulled it out of her messenger bag, checking the caller ID.

Speaking of the devil…uhm…turtle, she thought as she picked up.

"Hi Raph, what's up?"

"Not much," he replied. "I just wanted to know if you'll come to the lair later today."

"I planned on coming over for a visit tomorrow."

"Oh, so you can't come today?"

April narrowed her eyes. Something was wrong here.

"Why?" she asked, and she had to give it to herself that she didn't add an angry or annoyed, "What did you do this time?"

"Well, uhm, I maybe, just maybe need your help with something," Raph admitted.

April choked a sigh.

"I'm on my way."

"Thanks, April, you're the best!"

"I know."

"Okay, what is so important that it can't wait 'til tomorrow, Raph?" April asked half an hour later while opening the door to Raph's room.

Raph was just sitting on his bed, his laptop on his knees and his broken ankle propped up on a cushion, but the moment he set eyes on her, the corners of his mouth rose and he was showing April the biggest, most innocent grin she had ever seen.

April squeezed her eyes closed and took a deep breath.

"Don't tell me you deleted the internet for real this time," she said in an edgy voice.

"What? No!" Raph replied.

This made April open her eyes again.

"Then what's going on?" she asked, some of the tension fading away, because really, the internet was still there. It couldn't be that bad then, right? Or could it be that he had deleted her message board?! She tensed up again.

"Well, you see…uhm...," Raph stammered, fumbling with his fingers and avoiding April's eyes.

Then it has to be the message board! April thought and drew a sharp breath.

"Spit it out, Raph!" she called out.

Raph took a deep breath. "Darius informed me that the new 'Realms'-book is going to be released earlier in one special bookshop here in New York."

April released the breath she had been holding in one long sigh.

"Okay," she said. "And what does this have to do with me?"

"Well, you are a 'Realms' fan, too, so I thought you might want to know," Raph replied.

April shrugged. "True, but I don't mind waiting a little longer."

"Oh…uhm…okay." Raph dropped his eyes.

"What's the matter?" April asked. "You have one more book left to read, so you wouldn't mind either, right?"

"Uh, that," Raph replied. "Actually, I finished the fifth book this morning."

"I see", April said. Didn't look like she was going to get of this. She sighed. "So when's the new book released?"

"Tonight," Raph answered. "At midnight."

And suddenly it hit April why this whole thing couldn't have waited until tomorrow, but she still didn't get why he couldn't have told her over the phone.

"And people are already queuing up in front of the bookstore," Raph continued.

"But it's only early afternoon!"

"I know! But it's limited to one hundred books, and this has only been announced an hour ago. I spoke with Casey already. He refused to queue up or take turns with you, but he'll bring you food and take your place if you need to go to the bathroom, but he says he is not a 'Realms'-fan, so this is the most he can do, and…"

"Wait, wait, wait!" April interrupted. "You want me to queue up for several hours to buy a book?"

"Well…uhm…I guess…"

"Raph!"

"April, please!"

And then it happened. Raph looked April in the eyes, tilted his head a little, and then he gave her the cutest puppy dog eyes April had ever seen in her life. And having to deal with Mikey on a daily basis, this really meant something.

She wouldn't have thought that Raph, out of all four turtles, would be able to look that cute, but he did. She knew he was doing this out of sheer desperation. He would have thought of something else if he hadn't broken his ankle.

Okay, now that she thought of it, he would never have read "Realms" if he hadn't broken his ankle and her bringing him the first "Realms"-book to kill time. So in a way, she was responsible because she had introduced him to this intriguing world of knights and sorcerers and shadow zombies, but still, she didn't want to queue up for hours!

She just didn't want to. And she wouldn't. No, she wouldn't!

Raph tilted his head a little more to the side. "Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaase?"

Twenty minutes laterm April had lined up in front of the bookstore.

Oh, Raph, you soooooo owe me!