COVID-19 is good for something y'all. I've never really stopped having thoughts and ideas about this general character arch, but a mildly flowing narrative so as not to jump RIGHT the fuck into some wild shenanigans I had none. I also had like no time in the past 5 years. A career change, several weddings, relationships, joining the no dad club, getting a Goddaughter and getting engaged makes for not a very dull time. But I really missed not having Dana locked away in my nighttime visions on the ceiling as I failed to fall asleep. This was a more recent thought which I figured was a perfect jump back in to the shallow end of my fave green bois. I hope y'all enjoy!

Dana loved that the boys would visit her when she hadn't had a schedule. It'd taken weeks for her to actually find a job and while the owner of this new club was nice enough to work around her auditions and subsequent school schedule, it meant suddenly a lot of her evenings were taken up by washing dishes and salivating over the taken bass slots of the rotating night music.

Now, at first, when she'd had nothing to do, Mikey, who had taken a particular liking to coming to see his "favorite ladies" after patrol, was a welcome distraction to her existential dread and teenaged dramatics. Raph would make it a point to stop by in his own time, and while Mikey had enough pity on the juvenile blonde, Raph took it upon himself to keep her grounded in reality. Now and again they would even convince Donny and Leo to swing by, but that was mostly when April had a night off and was awake to visit. However, when she began her night shifts, Dana would come home ready for a nap and, surprise! There was a 6+ foot turtle in the living room munching on chips or sipping a beer asking how her shift was. It wasn't like they weren't surprised she was working, she'd told them she'd gotten a job practically the minute she'd left her interview; clawing her way into the lair to scream to high heaven she could play bass for a living. Okay, that was a lie, the owner said if a slot was made available in their rotating roster he would CONSIDER her for the performance shifts, but that was close enough. The problem with the boys is they showed up randomly and without warning, having no concept of when she was or wasn't working, and they wouldn't dare wake April on those late nights lest they face the fiery wrath of a tired and workaholic reporter. So her she kept having to be, with a giant turtle or 2 who were happy to see her and she didn't have the heart to tell them to leave. So she kept showing up to her dance auditions half lucid and barely making it through any choreography.

It's fine, she told herself, they'll get the hang of this new schedule, it will all be fine and they'll be happy wonderful friends and it'll be great. But here she was, after a failure of a dance audition and a brutal double night shift climbing the stairs ever closer to her sweet bed, hearing the familiar sound of a superhero movie on the Tv at a volume just too loud to be April and Dana nearly sobbed.

Opening the door, she saw the youngest turtle perched upon the living room couch, Cheeto dust sprinkled across his fingers, and practically crumbled onto the floor

"What's with you, Princess?" the gruff voice of Raph came as he left the bathroom, leaning over to the kitchen island to grab his beer. That was it, she couldn't do this tonight.

"Guys, I am, like, so happy you wanna hang with me-"

"I mean I'm just here to listen to you whine all night."

"Oh bite me you big frog." Dana paused, closing her eyes while her head laid against the rug; nearly drifting to sleep. "I adore you guys, you're so fun, but I have been coming home from long ass shit shifts to get sleep and like 80% of the time you're here and I'm up for like 4 more hours to hang with you guys and I'm fucking tired and I want. To. Fucking. Sleeeeeep." The two terrapins fell silent as Dana lay on the floor, heaving with exhaustion. It was a miracle her shouting hadn't woken her cousin, but April had long learned to put in her headphones in case Dana's nightly visits, or even frustrated screaming, became too loud. As Dana slowly pulled herself off the floor, she was suddenly aware of the frustrated tears pooling in her eyes.

"Awwh, babes, I'm sorry, we didn't know you were so tired, but we don't know when you're working or anything and figured you wanted company." Mikey sounded so ashamed that Dana was ready to turn around and cry because she'd upset him, but she had to press on and fix this little blunder. No, she thought, she will be strong and set boundaries and figure things out she will keep her goddamn precious green peanut HAPPY. Breathing deeply, she refocused.

" I appreciate that. Really, I do. But, like, I need sleep and you guys can't just come in whenever anymore. You don't do this to April on nights she needs to go to bed, how come we can't find a good balance like that?"

"Well, April has our shell cell numbers and the lair line programmed in so we just text her first to figure it out."

"Okay, well how do I get your numbers so I can maybe sleep?"

"Eh, she just brought 'er phone to Don to program it all in."

Dana would say she realized why these two were not considered the most logical members of their family, but then she remembered she didn't fucking ask about this to begin with.

Within a week she'd brought her phone down to Donny to program everything in, giving a very dramatic sob story to Leo about how she needed it in order not to die of exhaustion.

Two weeks later, after a much better sleep schedule, she was accepted at a small dance academy.

Well, I never said all my Ideas were golden, but this was shooting around my head for a good few weeks as I contemplated how I'd bring this little project back up while in isolation. I can't promise a schedule but I can promise I'm gonna try and write out my ideas when I get them ;*

-Giggleslut