The chipped plate was inches from dumping its cargo of half-eaten sandwich on the floorboards when April plucked it from Donatello's limp hand. It went into the stack she'd already collected from his nearby brothers, whose blanket-clad forms she navigated very carefully as she picked up the litter around them.
They'd succumbed to sleep hours ago in a heap on the floor, propped up against the front of the sofa - Raphael in the centre with his head lolling back and his mouth wide open, issuing faint ambient snores; Michelangelo cocooned like some kind of blanket-pastry and draped almost across his brother's lap; Don tucked ambitiously under Raph's armpit, weighing down his other side.
Not one of them stirred as she cleaned up, even when she tweaked the edge of the blanket up over Don's protruding arm. It would be nice to pretend she'd simply learned a thing or two about stealth since meeting the turtles . . . but the bruises and sheer exhaustion marring their unguarded faces told a different story.
April shuddered.
She rose with the dirty dishes in her arms. Tidying up the general chaos that the turtles left in their wake was almost mechanical after having them stay with her, but while it gave April a strange anchor of normality in the midst of the most frightening twenty-four hours of her life, it also reminded her that the boys were fifteen.
Fifteen years old. Easy to forget when she watched them mow their way through enemies like wizened martial arts masters. Hard to ignore when the fights didn't go so well for them.
April turned and walked away before the lump in her throat could betray her.
"You didn't . . ."
At first, she wasn't sure she really heard that soft, broken spiderweb of a whisper, all but lost beneath the vigorous crackling of the open hearth. Her feet scraped to a quiet pause, and she glanced to the heap of turtles for any sign of life. All three of them were still out for the count, and with Casey out chopping firewood and Splinter meditating upstairs, she was alone in the large, dusty living room of the Northampton farmhouse. Alone except for . . .
"Leo." She released his name on a breathy tide of deep relief and settled her gaze on the sole occupant of the sofa. Although the turtle's condition had stabilised, he had yet to hold an extended conversation with anybody. He hadn't moved at all beneath the heavy quilts drowning him on the sofa, but his eyes were trained on her; tiny slivers of white, weary, full of hurt . . . but cogent, and vivid with the quiet intelligence she always associated with Leonardo. "What didn't I?"
His brow furrowed, and there was a pause before he whispered: "Run out on us."
Threatening dark figures coalescing around them in a violent dance. Flashes of fire and smoke and clashing steel. Leo's phantom dead weight burning around her shoulders. April's breath trembled, but she managed to press a hand to her hip and rustle up a watery smile for him.
"Don't sound so surprised, mister. I'm tougher than I look."
"You looked pretty tough . . . to me." Leo's slow, admiring smile went unfinished, interrupted by a pained wince and hiss of air through his teeth. "Sorry. Not . . . what I meant, though."
Taking care not to disturb Leo's slumbering brothers, April stepped back to the sofa and settled down on her knees beside him, abandoning the dishes quietly to the floor. The determination on Leo's face was the same that had driven him through the ordeal at the store; clinging to consciousness by his fingernails, doggedly marching forward through pain and fear, but April hated to hear the uneven hitches in his breath. She touched a hand to his shoulder, her expression pinched with concern.
"Rest, Leo. Whatever you have to say, it can wait."
His head twitched urgently from side to side. The overspill of his thoughts was clearly important to him, so April waited patiently for him to build up to the words.
"It's . . . always been just us." A faltering start, but Leo took another sharp breath and persisted. "My brothers and Sensei. Everyone else was . . . danger. Couldn't trust anyone. We were . . . too different. Nobody would understand."
His gaze slid to the heads of his sleeping brothers, and in that single, aching look April saw the infinite depths of Leo's devotion to them. The desperate, protective love at the core of this unusual family tightened a knot in her chest.
"Then you," he persisted, "and Casey . . ."
The turtles had accepted April so quickly into their clandestine fold - and yet, in many ways, they hadn't. In saving her life, they had made themselves vulnerable, and it had taken time for April to see them really relax around a stranger in their midst.
Mikey had crumbled first, so hungry for social interaction outside of the only family he'd ever known that he had offered his heart up on a plate immediately - and April had quickly become very reluctant to give it back. He was curious, vibrant and endearing. His face lit up whenever he saw her. He wanted to share everything he loved with her, and any tiny act of kindness she sent his way was met with a level of enthusiasm she would normally have reserved for winning the lottery. April had never had a little brother, but within minutes of knowing Mikey, she had understood what it meant.
Any wariness from little brother #2 had dissolved before the mouser mission was even over. She and Donnie had fallen in step so quickly that he'd felt like an old friend in a matter of hours. That feeling had flourished as she got to know him better, rooted in mutual admiration of each other's intelligence and technical skillsets - but he was more than just a big brain. He was sweet, and thoughtful, and as eager to listen to the ins and outs of her mundane human life as he was to talk shop. The first time he had ranted to her about some dumb thing one of his brothers had done to his lab, April knew she had somehow earned the privilege of his undying trust.
Raph had been a tougher nut to crack - something he would no doubt be proud of. Not that he was ever explicitly rude to her, but getting more than a blunt, pragmatic conversation out of him was often like pulling teeth. His brusque nature had even prompted her to ask Don once if she'd done something to upset him, but Don had only laughed it off. 'Irritated', he'd explained, was 'Raph's default setting'. She'd been making progress, slowly, but she had Casey to thank for the sudden breakthrough; after that big goon had barrelled into the turtles' lives, Raph's defences had weakened. The differences were incredibly subtle, but she noticed he would tolerate her careful gestures of affection and kindness, and even bare actual feelings in front of her from time to time. Day by day, she saw him softening at the edges around his human friends.
But it was Leonardo whose trust had been most difficult to gain. The blue-masked brother was infinitely polite and considerate, an unfailing gentleman to her on every occasion . . . and yet her best efforts had done little to bridge the emotional distance she sensed lurking between them. He had walls, and they were sheer white cliffs she couldn't get a handhold on, let alone breach.
As he spoke now, wounded and humbled and suffering in ways that broke her heart, April knew it was that powerful need to keep his secret family safe that had made him so cautious. Even staying at her home hadn't been enough to bring those walls down.
Until now.
"What you said back there . . ." he swallowed, eyes glimmering. "What you both did . . . I . . . Thank you. You'll never know what that means to us. To me."
Leo's walls were still standing. After such a close call, April suspected they had grown taller and sturdier than ever, a permanent barricade between the family that mattered so much to him and the narrow-minded world that would only ever be a potential threat.
Now, he'd simply accepted that April stood on his side of the wall.
"Family looks after family, Leo," she insisted, resolute.
He squeezed his eyes closed, suddenly weathering a different kind of pain altogether. "We didn't look after you. I'm sorry. I . . . we cost you . . . everything."
Her home was a pillar of flame at her back, and the heat rasped against her skin in the cool of the alley. April's chin wobbled, and she couldn't shake away the memory before Leo's forlorn gaze settled back on her face. His expression was one of self-recrimination.
She wasn't having that.
"You didn't cost me anything, and it certainly wasn't everything." April banished his guilt with a soft brush of her hand against his bruised brow, and there was nothing forced about her fond smile. "Don't worry, Leo. All the important stuff survived."