A/N: Yes! Finally! An update! This is promising. Maybe all is not lost. (backs off as angry mob advances) Alright! Here's the chappie!

Warnings: Again, mild swearing. And plenty of stiff-older-brother-Leo moments. But he gets over itat the end.

Disclaimer: I do not own the Ninja Turtles. However I do own Sheila and her family, and will be pissed if anybody steals her! She took an entire two-hour phone conversation to create! Can you guess with who...?

White Raven

Don VS Sudoku

Sheila stopped in a café on her way home. She bought a cinnamon bun and a milkshake, sitting outside to eat them. She absently watched a pigeon peck at a burger wrapper on the sidewalk, thought drifting vaguely. A group of kids from school walked past, and she didn't even acknowledge them. It was only when someone tapped her on the shoulder did she snap out of her daydream.

"Shy?" It was Jason. He sat opposite her on one of the spindly high-backed chairs and rested his elbows on the table, watching her. "Didn't expect to see you out and about this early!"

"Ha ha," she said sarcastically, slurping on her milkshake. "What are you doing out?"

"Bored. Just walking around. You?"

"Same." She playfully swatted at his hand as he made a grab for her cinnamon bun. "Hey! I paid a buck and a half for that!"

"Buck and a half? This place crazy?" Jason licked the icing from his fingers that he had managed to swipe. "You can get three for that price at a street vendor's."

"I was hungry," Sheila shrugged. She broke a piece off her bun chewed on it. "So wassup?"

"Oh, just trying to stay out of the house." Jason made a face. "I hate it when Mom gets all upset. You're so lucky your parents get along." There was a note of wistfulness in his voice that made Sheila feel distinctly ungrateful, that she didn't deserve to have such a good family. She looked away.

"I'm sorry, Jay," she whispered. Jason gave her a lopsided grin.

"For some more of your bun I'll cheer up," he said sweetly. Sheila shot him a half-glare, but pushed the plate toward him.

"Rhetorical little rascal."

"Don't use such long words," Jason complained as he bit into his part of the cinnamon bun. "Makes my head hurt." Sheila grinned involuntarily. If anyone could bring a smile to her face it was Jason.

They sat for a quiet minute, enjoying one another's company and watching the activity around them. A buzzing noise from Jason's wristwatch made Sheila jump slightly.

"Ugh, alarm, I gotta go." Jason swiped his mouth with the back of his hand and slid off the stool. "See ya later Shy." He walked off, hands in pockets. Sheila felt an odd tingly sensation up her spine as he disappeared, similar to the one she felt when looking at Mikey.

Why am I being so flippant? Sheila demanded of herself with a mental growl. I can't possibly like them both. I can't. I won't!

Chicken, a snide voice accused. Jason's nickname suits you, 'Shy'.

Sheila got up abruptly, stuffing the remainder of her cinnamon bun into her mouth and crumpling the plastic milkshake cup in her fist.

Shut up, she snarled at the antagonizing voice. Just shut up. I do NOT like either Mikey or Jason!

An unbidden image of Mikey relaxing on the couch swam up from the darkest recesses of her mind. Feeling the heat rise in her cheeks, Sheila ground her teeth and shoved that thought away. She stalked out onto the street, letting the broken cup fall into the garbage bin on her way out. Thrusting her hands into her jeans' pockets, she kept her eyes averted to the pavement and consentrated on her footsteps. People buffeted her on all sides and she stuck to the buildings to avoid the worst of the crowds.

What shall I do? She asked herself idly, kicking a marble-sized rock on the ground. It skittered onto the street and disappeared in the whirl of traffic. I don't want to go home yet I've done all my homework. I could go to the park…

Deciding against the latter option – she knew it would be packed to the gunnels on a weekend – Sheila headed for the harbour

The harbour was bustling too, but she knew of a secret secluded spot along the docks. She snuck beneath the pier in question – a disused subject with a few rotten boards and old, frayed rope coiled loosely in amongst the ancient lobster traps – and sat under the wooden slats, hugging her knees to her chest, and drawing designs in the sand with her finger. Her one good eye slid out of focus as she sank inside herself, into her thoughts.

There is no way I like Mikey, she decided. He's a turtle. End of conversation. That in itself is too problematic. And Jason…

Jason is your friend. Your best friend. That's it.

Right?

These new and somewhat uneasy thoughts confused Sheila. She had always been a simple girl with simple priorities. Get good grades, improve her drawing, don't fight with her family. Avoid her classmates. But these new potential porogatives were more complex. Imagine if she had to go out with one of them…?

You're getting ahead of yourself, she pointed out to her imagination that was now working at a hundred miles an hour, turning over every possibility of having a boyfriend, be him human or terrapin. Maybe neither of them even like you that way. You're exaggerating it.

With a groan Sheila shook her head, and looked down at the sqiggly lines and odd geometrical shapes she had unwittingly drawn in the sand. She smoothed her flip-flop over it to erase it and picked at the old pile of fish net she sat on. Broken plastic buoys were strung along it every few feet, stagnant water pooling inside their cuplike interiors. Algae had collected inside these, making the water more of a slimy mass than of liquid.

Face it. Nobody would ever like you like that. The snide voice was back. You're not exactly a beauty; although, maybe Michelangelo won't mind, being a turtle.

Where did you even come from? Sheila asked the voice irritably.

Hell.

Shut up.

A period of stony silence lay heavy as a blanket on the girl and her mental companion. Sunlight dripped through the pier above her, transfixing dust particles in its shafts. A water spider was busily spinning a web around a fly foolish enough to get too close. Sheila felt her stomach roll and looked away.

All of a sudden the hairs on the back of Sheila's neck stood straight up. She froze, certain she was being watched.

Something lept fluidly from the pier abover her onto the sloping bank of sand at her right. She let out a scream and scrambled backward, stifling anothing yell as the thing – whatever it was – advanced on her.

"Shh!" Leonardo hissed, lifting the brim of his fedora to glare at her warningly. "Someone will hear you." He crawled under the dock and sat beside her, icy eyes trained on her again. Sheila felt as if she were under a microscope.

"Well no one would hear me if you'd come up and told me who you were, instead of coming out of nowhere like some mugger!" she said furiously. His eyes narrowed to mere slits, and Sheila wondered if he could even see her.

Realizing getting him angry wasn't resolving anything, she sighed resignedly. "What do you want then?" she asked.

Leo raised an eye ridge his expression still had an icy edge to it.

"For your information," he told her coolly, "I always come here when I need to think. I wasn't expecting you here at all."

"Oh?" Sheila's temper was riled. "And why would someone as calm and collected as you need to think?" Her sarcasm was not wasted on him.

"Look," he snarled. "Just because you've been… been… fraternizing with my brothers, doesn't mean I trust you! Don't mouth off at me." He halted abruptly, glancing around. Someone was walking along the beach toward they're pier. Quick as a flash, Leo darted backward, tucking himself under the fishing net and squeezing behind a lobster trap.

The footsteps paused then slowly receaded as the person moved on. Leo poked his head out from behind the debris.

"Fraternizing?" Sheila demanded, "Is that what you think we were doing, fraternizing?" She was speechless. How dare he?

Leo did not reply, but gave her the cold shoulder, clambering cautiously out from the assorted dockyard garbage. Sheila was about to give him a slap in the face, but thought better of it. Instead she sat in fuming silence, arms crossed, staring determinedly at the water lapping at the beach a few yards away, turning over what he had said in her mind. She supposed grudgingly that he had a right to be angry at her, turning up in his life unexpectedly, but at the same time resented his offhand treatment of her. After all it wasn't her fault she had been taken back to the lair, although she wasn't sorry she had been.

"Why do you hate me?" Sheila asked suddenly, surprised by her own daring. Leo seemed tacken aback.

"I don't hate you," he replied roughly.

"Yes you do. You're always glaring at me, scowling when I'm around, and you're not always like that, according to April."

Leo seemed rather miffed that Sheila had been discussing him with April, but merely replied, "I don't hate you. I just don't trust you."

"But I gave my word!" Sheila protested, surprised. "I swore!"

"Not on your honour."

Sheila paused.

"I tell you what," she said quietly after a few moments. "I'll swear on my honour, if you promise not to mention it to anyone. Okay?"

Leonardo nodded solemnly. In any other situation Sheila would have laughed.

"Then I swear on my honour not to tell anyone about you guys, unless of course it's vital to your survival or something like that. I won't if it is purely for my own gain." She wrinkled her nose. "That formal enough for you?"

Leo gave a half-smile and nodded. "Yes. That put my mind at rest."

Sheila snorted, but Leo gave her a bemused look.

"I'm serious."

"I know. That's why it's funny!" Sheila checked her watch, swore under her breath, ignoring Leo's pointedly raised eyeridge.

"Shit, there's a TV programme I like on soon… I gotta go! See you later… as long as I leave my trackers and dinamite at home?"

Leonardo chuckled. "Maybe."

Sheila got up and crawled out from under the pier, waved cheerily at Leo, and jogged out of sight, feeling that she had gotten somewhere with the stony immobile terrapin.

Scratch, scratch, scratch, went the lead on the paper. Don gnawed on the eraser of his pencil, eyes locked on the grid of squares on the paper. A drop of sweat coursed slowly down his temple, unnoticed. He tapped irritatedly on his desk with his other hand, mind whirring. He must solve the puzzle! The lives of the entire population… no, the very fabric of the world hung in the balance, suspended, barely held up by his intellectual capacity, able to outwit any problem…

"Damn Sudoku!" he muttered under his breath, eyes scrunched up as he stared at the numbers again. "How can three be there if there's already a three in that box? Therefore, the three must go here. No, wait. There's a three in the diagonal. How about here? No, no, it could just as easily be here. I'll come back to it. How about this nine then? It could go here… but then it would clash with the nine in the horizontal!"

Knock knock.

Don jumped a foot in the air, smacking his head on his adjustable desk lamp and sending the pencil flying across the room. He gave a muttered curse in Japanese, rubbing his bruised skull with one hand, bending to retrieve the pencil with the other.

"Come in!"

"Hey Donnie…" Mikey opened the door, blinked. "What, did I desturb your nap?"

"Huh?" Don stood up.

"It's dark in here! How can you see?"

"Um…" Don hadn't even noticed. He rubbed his eyes with his hands, realizing for the first time how tired they were. He must have strained them.

Mikey sauntered into the room, flicking on the light switch en route. Don's eyes streamed as a sudden burst of light flooded the dingy space, and he wiped his hand across his face. He had hung his bandanna on the edge of an especially thick book on physics, all the better to see the stubbornly unsolvable Sudoku. Mikey reflected it had been a while since he had seen his brainy brother without his mask on.

"So what do you want?" Don asked, seating himself on his wheeled desk chair and linking his hands beneath his chin. Mikey blinked, nonplussed.

"Whatcha mean, Donnie?"

"Have you broken something?"

Mikey shook his head.

"Has Raph broken something?"

"No."

"Has Leo broken something?"

"No! Nothing's broken. I… wanted to ask you something."

Don raised a sceptical eyeridge but said nothing. Mikey took a deep breath.

"Do you think we were right to bring Sheila back here?"

Don seemed surprised.

"What else were we supposed to have done?" he asked, confused. It had been, after all, Mikey's idea that they bring her back to the lair in the first place.

"I dunno," Mikey said softly. He sat heavily on the bed, eyes downcast. "Just some stuff Leo said…"

"Oh, he had a temper tantrum didn't he?" Don smiled wryly at Mikey's shocked face. "What? That's what they are."

"Yeah, but…" Mikey grinned. "I've never heard you call them that." He sobered quickly. "He accused me of… liking her, Donnie! Like I'd… I don't know… take advantage of her, or something." He buried his chin in his hand, gazing miserably at the floor again. "Now I'm starting to wonder if maybe it'd be better to stay away from her, like he told me – "

"No," Don said firmly. "You're thinking this out too much. Look at it this way: we've all been around April and Casey a lot and he isn't that touchy around them, he hasn't been since we first met them. Once he got to know them he's mellowed out. Maybe that's all it'll take with Sheila." He gave his younger brother a reassuring smile. "Don't dwell on what Leo said, he was just being Leo, uptight, alert, and a pain in the neck. It's who he is. He's just being protective."

Mikey gave a heartfelt sigh. "Yeah, I guess."

"Not guesswork," Don said wisely. "I know. He'll thaw eventually." He swivelled his chair around, facing the aggravating Sudoku puzzle. "However, this is guesswork. How can a two be there if there's a two in that vertical row?"

Mikey snorted.

"You just have a Sudoku issue, don't you, bro?" he asked with a snigger.

"Maybe," Don grumbled, scribbling furiously with his eraser on the paper. "Stupid thing." He flipped irately through the Reader's Digest Sudoku book that April had bought him. "I think I'll just stick to crosswords." He stuffed the booklet aside and got up. Mikey stood too, and they exited the room together, Don with the intention of scoping out another, less difficult passtime.

Mikey sauntered jauntily to the kitchen. Don headed for the TV area. Perhaps there was a crossword book on the coffee table.

A thorough inspection proved fruitless. With a frustrated sigh Don sat back on his heels having rooted under the recliner for any sign of a dropped and forgotten crossword book. He was about to give up when the elevator dinged and out stepped Leonardo, decked out in his usual fedora and trench coat, a newspaper tucked casually under one arm. Don practically raced over to him.

"A newspaper, my savior!" he cried, whisking the paper from his older brother, flicking excitedly through it to the cartoons. Leo simply raised an eyebrow delicately, taking off his hat and hanging it on the coatrack.

"Don't you have anything to do?" he asked. Don was devouring the crossword eagerly from where he stood, pencil zooming over the paper at lightning speed.

"All the vehicle's are in tip-top shape," he answered absently. "All my gear's oiled, the elevator's running smoothly. And I can't invent anything new without a mental stimulant." He fell silent, eyes scrutinizing the puzzle. "What's a six letter word for 'an X-man comic'?"

"Snikit!" Mikey called from the kitchen doorway, holding a plate of leftover pizza. He saw Leo hanging up his coat and his smile faded. He stamped off to his room.

Leonardo gave Donatello one last look of bland surprise – the purple-banded turtle was grinning inanely at the crossword, muttering something about 'incompetent puzzle' and 'unable to evade my wrath' – and headed toward Master Splinter's quarters to greet him. Don was left standing in the centre of the room, locked in a battle of wits with a printed pattern of blank squares.

A/N: Yes! Don stinks at Sudoku! That doesn't even make sense! But whatever.

Please review. 0:-)

And I got the X-man thing from CPQ, who got it from Reijiro. Thanks chicas! Please, everyone, if the spelling or anything was incorrect, tell me!