Donatello's Ruby 5

Chapter 1 Re-viewed and mildly edited. Not huge but some story shadowing bits changed.

This is coming along more than I thought. It helps that writing Donnie makes my heart flutter. Not being interrupted or criticized for wanting to do this is definitely helping too. Healthy relationships are important! Especially with yourself.

This might end up being longer than I thought it would be. I have the outline in all its messy glory, and, well, the outline is now two pages long. It used to be about a third of a page. Blame Kimmay94. She followed the story and made my heart doki-doki.

Donnie listened as she climbed out of the duct, impressed by how little noise she made. He knew it came from her dealing with that man, but he was impressed nonetheless. She took slow hesitant steps, even on the gravel he could barely hear her. His heart picked up a few beats as he listened to her move closer. He popped a whole gyoza into his mouth and quickly pulled up his scarf. Wouldn't be the best thing to have her screaming at his green face.

"Thank you."

Donnie's heart stuttered for a moment, her voice tingling its way up his shell. He thought April had a nice voice, hers sounded like the birds in the park. Not the hyper early morning ones, the ones you hear before the sun sets. Soft and low but sweet. The tremble he heard didn't sound like it belonged there though.

He wanted to hear a different tremble in her voice, one he put there.

Donnie blinked and shook himself. Where had that come from?

Don't get him wrong, he is definitely a healthy 25 year old, but he tried to stay away from those thoughts unless it was spring and he couldn't keep them away. He was already dreading the hell of his heat.

Raph would start beating his punching bag to shreds around its wood and metal core. Leo would be meditating for hours. Mikey would skate the wheels off his skateboard, again. He already had a project planned that would take all of his brain power, hopefully. Any and all solo missions were an automatic no. Any non-related people weren't allowed to come over. If anyone walked away from a situation you didn't ask why. It wasn't too bad as long as he stayed busy, but the thought of the nights were enough to make him cringe months in advance.

Her small 'thank you' whispered through his head again. She could help. . .

Donnie felt sweat bead on his head and neck, he had to calm down. He didn't want to scare the little bird. Besides, he didn't know anything about her, and she didn't know he was a turtle.

The noise she made as she ate her gyoza short circuited his brain and seemed to flip his brain upside down. Was it a sigh? A moan? He wanted to hear it again. More.

Be suave!

"Ya know, you are one hard bird to follow." He mentaly slapped himself. Bird?! What was he saying? Why a bird? Well, her voice was-

"What?"

Oh, no. Now he had to explain the bird thing. Deflect! Deflect! Compliment her!

"I gotta give it to ya, if I didn't know what I do, there is no way I could have followed you." He added a low nervous laugh trying to sound cool. Yes! Nothing weird about that right? He ran the sentence through his head a few more times, making sure he didn't sound creepy. Nope, he followed her, he is a creep.

"Why?" Donnie felt his heart plummet, it might have fallen out of his hoodie. What was he thinking! She was running from an attacker! Here he was trying to-to. . . He didn't even know what! She must think he is such a weirdo!

Say something! Anything!

"I-I U-umm. Oh, no. I-i-i ment. . ." He caught himself and took a deep breath. His stutter hadn't been that bad in years, and even then it was only around April. He needed to think, but he didn't have much time.

He pulled his hood tighter and checked to make sure he had as much of his face covered as possible.

Apologize, and explain yourself. He turned himself to face her, stretching out his left leg and balancing his gyoza there. How would he explain knowing how to climb a building?

"Sorry, that sounded really creepy huh? I'm, uhh. . . A parkour enthusiast! Yeah..." Another nervous chuckle slipped out. "I-I didn't mean to sound like a creep." He would rather go through torture than make her upset.

What? Where are all these weird thoughts coming from?!

"Why did you follow me?" Her voice sounded like she could barely contain herself. Her body looked ready to bolt. When had she closed the gyoza? "What do you want from me?"

Everything and nothing. NO! Bad brain! Use your logic!

"Nothing!" Except now I do. . . Stop it! You just met! And she is so scared. . .

"Well, Murakami did want me to give you your new gyoza." He should stop talking.

"A-and I wanted to make sure you weren't hurt! You did fall kind of hard. I-i was worried." Curse his stuttering stupid mouth. He was trying to not be creepy!

Tilting his head back he used his free hand to rub at the knot of his mask. There was no way she wouldn't take off again now. Giant, creepy man.

He heard the gravel shift as she turned towards him a little. He felt himself shrink into himself, his head dropping, trying to look smaller, less scary.

He waited for her to say something first, anything. He pulled his hand from his head to slowly rub along his still bent knee. His heart was racing, and he prayed she couldn't see any of his skin.

He waited. He glanced back towards the fire escape. Should he run?

And waited. He still needed to make sure she was okay.

She started to giggle and he felt His heart swell. He never wanted to be anywhere else.

She was small, but he couldn't really tell with her puffy coat. She had her chin tucked into her shoulder as her little bubbles of laughter melted his heart. Legs that were poised to bolt just moments ago relaxed and folded smoothly behind her. Even though she didn't turn to face him he could still see a beautiful brown eye peeking from behind the black fur lining of her hood, and the curve of her smile lifted cheek pulling at his heart.

The thought echoed so loudly in his head as he felt his body melt, 'So cute.'

Her body tensed and she whipped back around so fast he thought he would get whiplash. A moment of panic rushed through him as she went to stand, he reacted without thinking, his mind focused on one thing only.

"Please, don't go!" He reached out to stop her and gently placed a hand on her shoulder. His heart crumpled when she curled in on herself, pulling her hood down farther. His words tumbled out and he couldn't stop them.

"L-look, I know this is weird, but, ah, gosh. I don't even know! W-what I do know, is y-you a-are are-" He let out a groan and rubbed his face with his hand, feeling it heat up. "I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable! I-i just wanted to, t-to, t-t-tell you that, y-you looked cute peeking around your hood like that? Ugh, im so sorry, I-i havent stuttered in years a-and now im worried you might have thought i was a weirdo just h-hitting on you." Bringing both hands to his face he folded his legs and mumbled through his mittens. "Hell, if i knew you were close to my age I probably would."

"Why?"

Yet again, on nervous auto-pilot his words tumbled out as he felt himself calm from hearing your voice.

"That, right there. Your voice makes me go all gooey. I don't know why, I don't know how, but when you laughed," He felt himself tremble at the memory. "It just sounded perfect." Dropping his hands he glanced back at her and tilted his head. "It shook me through my shell."

Donnie froze, he had said 'shell' to you. Without even realizing it, he had almost told you this biggest secret.

Aww shell.