April woke slowly, her cheek resting against the battered cushions of the aqua sofa. It smelled faintly of potato chips and mutant Turtle, which she found more soothing than she should have.

Slowly she sat up, brushing a few strands of hair out of her eyes and looking around in confusion. She didn't remember falling asleep, but she must have dozed off at some point, and been left to sleep there. Mikey was sprawled on the lounge chair nearby, snoring softly and mumbling something about the Turtle Titan, with Klunk draped bonelessly over his lap.

Then April heard something else — the telltale crackling of soldering, coming from Don's lab. She crawled up onto her knees and peered over the back of the couch, and saw him hunched over his workbench, the sparking light reflecting in his goggles. He looked as if he hadn't moved in hours — and knowing Don, April suspected he hadn't. He could stay awake and lucid for days if he needed to, when he was consumed by a problem.

"Donnie?" she called out, coming toward him. She glanced at his computer as she passed — the clock said 6:03 A.M.

He stopped soldering and pulled off his goggles. "April," he said with a wan smile. "I didn't want to disturb you."

"Don, have you slept at all?" she asked, putting a hand on his arm.

"Um, no," Don said, sounding uncomfortable. "Now that I have the parts I need, I really want to get this ultrasound finished—"

"Don, the baby can wait a little longer," April said. "It's not going anywhere. You can't go without sleep for a couple of days and solder things safely." She slipped her hands over the curves of his cheeks, raising his head to look her in the eye. She felt him relax slightly at her touch, and the resistance in his eyes began to ebb away, slowly but surely.

"I just—" Don said quietly.

"The baby needs you more than it needs an ultrasound. And so do I," she said softly, stroking her thumb against the corner of his eye. He sighed and leaned into her touch, as if soaking up the contact with her skin. "Just sleep — at least for a few hours, Don. For me."

It was the last two words that seemed to finally break him down. She saw that yearning look in his eyes as he responded with a sigh, and reluctantly pulled away. She watched as he put away his tools and pushed back his chair, before heading to the old fire-escape that led up to the second floor. His movements were slower, less acrobatic than usual — the lack of sleep and the strain were showing in him, as hard as he tried to work past them.

For a moment, she was tempted to follow him into his room and stay by him until he fell asleep. He was working so hard for their child — for her — that she almost felt guilty pushing him to sleep when he didn't want to. But she also didn't want his hand to slip at a crucial moment while holding a soldering iron. A few more hours wouldn't make any difference.

As he vanished into his room, April heard a faint whirring noise behind the walls, and the aqua doors to the elevator parted. Raph and Casey stepped out, looking battered and bruised — Casey had a bandage running over his cheek and a few tears in his shirt, and Raph was trying to rub smears of dark liquid from his green skin. Blood.

He glanced up at April's expression. "It ain't mine," he informed her. "Most of it ain't, anyway."

April let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding.

"Those Purple Dragons ain't gotta worry about Hun no more," Casey said, giving her a thumbs-up. "We left 'em all tied up like a birthday present for the cops. After we softened 'em up, that is."

"I'm glad you two are all right," April said.

"Where's Donnie?" Raph asked, glancing around.

"I just sent him off to bed. Mikey's asleep—" She pointed over at the lounge chair. "—and I think Leo is upstairs."

Raph's eyes rose briefly to the doorway of Don's room, and then he wiped at a dark stain on his cheek. "I'm gonna go take a shower," he said casually, glancing over his shoulder at Casey. "Don't wait up for me."

April frowned, not understanding what he meant by that. But as Raph headed towards the bathroom, she realized why he had made a point of leaving — Casey was looking at her with a strange, nervous expression, unable to meet her eyes when she turned toward him. He rubbed at the back of his neck with his gloved hand, his eyes slowly moving across the floor at her feet. Finally he seemed to summon up the ability to speak.

"So, uh…." he muttered. "You feelin' okay? With the baby and everythin'?"

"Yes, I'm fine," April said. She was actually feeling a little nauseous, but she also had the odd feeling that the baby wasn't what he wanted to talk about.

"Well, that's good. I mean, you should feel fine," Casey said quickly. "If there's anythin' I can do to make you — feel fine, just lemme know. It's all part of the job, and everything. The guys are real pumped about that baby, I can tell ya — bein' uncles and stuff." He ran his fingers through his hair. "Raph'll be a great uncle — teach the kid to wrassle and how to fight and stuff."

April listened to him patiently, waiting for him to get to the point of what was clearly bothering him. When he paused for breath, she held up a hand, and said quietly, "What's really the matter here, Casey?"

He stopped, his hand still uneasily rubbing the back of his neck. He bit his lip, struggling to find the words. "Are you in love with Donnie?" he said at last.

Silence fell over the lair, broken only by the distant sound of water running. April felt her pulse racing as she drew back slightly, the blunt question sinking into her mind. She hadn't expected Casey to come right out and ask her that — her first thought had been that Casey wanted to rekindle their relationship, and wanted her to know that the baby didn't make him disinterested in her.

And though she had often considered whether she was falling in love with Don, somehow having it asked openly made her feel as though she had been slapped. For the first time she had to come up with an actual answer to the questions swirling in her mind, the feelings that seemed to boil up inside her whenever she was near Don.

"I think I am," she said quietly.

Casey said nothing at first. He simply watched her evenly, his fidgeting gone now that he had asked the question. But then sadness crept into his eyes, and April felt a wrench.

"Casey, I'm sorry," she said quietly.

"Don't be," Casey said hastily. "You ain't got nothin' to apologize for. I just — I wanted to make sure you really felt that way about him, you know? That you weren't just stayin' with him because of the baby." A glimmer of hope appeared in his face. "'Cause if that's how it is, I don't mind you havin' Don's baby. Modern family, you know? I'd be a great dad to it."

"My baby already has a father, Casey," April said, touching her stomach.

"It could have two dads," Casey said, raising his hands. "I wouldn't be tryin' to take Don's place or nothin'."

April smiled weakly. "I appreciate the offer, Casey, but… I don't feel the way I do about Don just because of the baby." She couldn't bring herself to look him in the eye — it felt as if she had done something wrong, as if she had cheated on Casey by falling in love with Don. "I — I was already starting to feel that way before I found out I was pregnant. I don't know exactly when it started, but I —" She swallowed hard. "I feel really confused. I'm sorry…"

Casey smiled crookedly. "I understand," he said. "I really do. You don't gotta be sorry about feelin' that way. I just wanted to make sure."

"I didn't mean to hurt you."

"Don't think about it. The important thing is you're happy," Casey said steadfastly. "You are happy, right?"

April felt herself flinch at the question. "I — I don't know," she said quietly.

"Don ain't makin' you happy?"

"Don and I aren't — aren't technically together, Casey."

Casey's brow wrinkled. "Why not? I mean, he's in love with you and you said you're in love with him."

"Don — he's been finding his way back after — what happened with the Purple Dragons, and I didn't want to take advantage of that," April said slowly. "Besides, he's much younger than I am, and I — I don't know it's right for me to be with him."

Casey stared at her, and then shrugged. "Raph's my best friend, and it don't matter none that he's way younger'n me. He acts older than he is a lot of the time, you know? And look, I don't know exactly what happened to Don when you were captured, 'cause somethin' real bad must've happened to make him act this funny, but I do know he's doin' better because you're around him every day."

April wrapped her arms around herself, and sank down onto the edge of Don's computer chair. Casey wasn't exactly a master of persuasive argument, but there was a certain raw quality to his words that made her protests seem silly and feeble. She knew Don was doing better than he had been before she had kissed him, but she didn't know how much of his recovery was because of her presence and how much was his own strength. She had desperately wanted to keep him going, to protect him from his own trauma, to let him know that she would never abandon him. Never.

Because she loved him.

The words popped into her head without her consciously thinking them, as if someone else had whispered them in her ear. Suddenly her breath was gone and her heart was racing, as the words I love him, I love him, I love him rushed through her like a river current, sweeping away everything in their path. She loved him, she wanted him, she needed to tell him…

She thought back to his face, his eyes as she had told him that not making love to him wasn't a rejection, but a postponement — that he needed time to heal, and she needed time to figure herself out. There had been sadness there at the time, but also hope. Hope that she might be his when he was better, no matter how impossible he had once thought it was. And that had been before they learned that he had impregnated her, which tied them ever more tightly together.

She had been straining against her feelings ever since she had found out he loved her — maybe she had been scared by having feelings for someone so different from her. He was brilliant beyond the measure of anyone else she had ever met. He was special, something amazing, and yet he looked at her like a child seeing the moon for the first time. She couldn't understand why…

Casey seemed to have noticed her turmoil, and he leaned on Don's computer table. "It seems pretty simple to me," he said.

"Maybe it is," April said softly. She settled back in the chair, feeling guilt seep back into her thoughts. "Casey, I really am sorry," she said.

"Don't be," Casey said, still looking sad despite his smile. "I wantcha to be happy, and if Don makes you happy, that's what's important. That's the most important thing."

He spread his arms toward her, and April swiftly moved forward to hug him, resting her head against his solid muscled chest. She still felt guilt for having to turn away a man who loved her still, someone she still had affection for. But Don… she had something more for him, something rooted deep in her soul, something that rang out in her mind like a church bell, sang out in her heart as she thought about Don's face when he had looked up at her.

Now she just had to talk to him.