The One

Baby Steps

The bell over the door jingled cheerfully, jolting April out of her daze. Glancing over to the entryway of the store, she felt a small burst of surprise to see Casey standing there. She'd seen him a few times here and there but he hadn't been by her shop since the day she'd met him.

"Hey, April. How's it goin'?"

"Casey. I'm surprised to see you here. Didn't think you were the type to go antiquing." She sat up a little straighter on her stool as sudden concern struck her, and she instinctively lowered her voice even though they were alone in the store. "Is everything okay?"

"Huh? Oh, you mean with the guys? Sure, everything's fine. I was coming by to see how you were."

Her brow furrowed a little. "Oh...well...I'm okay, I guess."

"Raph said you were sick."

"Little green blabbermouth," she groused, scrubbing her face with her hands. "I'm not sick sick. I'm just a little under the weather. Not enough for me to justify closing for the day." It was then she noticed his dirty black pants and oil-stained gray button-down shirt. His name was embroidered in red and white thread over the left side of his chest. "What are you wearing?"

"What, this?" He glanced down at himself. "It's my uniform."

"Uniform?"

"Yeah. You know, from my job?" He smirked. "There ain't a lot of money in bustin' gangbangers, even if it is fun."

"Uh..." Funny, she'd never thought about Casey actually having a job. "Where...where do you work?"

"Carson's Garage, over on 31st. I'm a mechanic."

That explained why he always had motor oil lining the creases of his hands. "I didn't know."

"Yeah, I've been workin' there since I was a kid. Phil Carson knew my pop. He let me start cleanin' the shop when I was thirteen and paid me out of his own pocket until he could hire me legally when I was fifteen. Made me a deal: I'd have a job as long as I wanted so long as I didn't drop out of school." He tilted his head to the side, abruptly changing the subject as he studied her. "You sure you feel okay? You don't look so good."

"Gee, thanks."

"Come on, you know what I mean."

She sighed and rested her chin in her hands. "Truthfully? I'm exhausted, I think I'm getting a cough, and I haven't wanted to eat anything but saltines and apple juice for the past three days."

Casey rubbed the back of his neck. "Listen, I'm off the rest of the day. Why don't you take a sick day and let me watch things down here? I swear I won't touch anything."

"I can't ask you to do that." April gave him a skeptical look. "How would you even know what to do, anyway?"

His shoulders squared a bit. "Okay, first, you didn't ask me. I offered. And second – you've got everything priced, right?"

"Right," she said slowly.

"And you'll be right upstairs if there's any questions, right?"

"...Right."

"Okay, so we're good. I know how to work a cash register and credit card machine." Seeing her dubious look, he rolled his eyes and crossed his arms. "Look, I know we kinda got off on the wrong foot. But it seems like we'll be running into each other a bunch because of the little green dudes and I thought we should at least be friendly. So come on. Let me pitch in."

She hesitated a moment longer, but she was just so tired. And she had never heard Casey Jones sound quite so...competent...before. "Okay," she said finally. "But only if you promise to come get me if you have any questions. And...please don't pick up anything fragile?"

"I will not pick up anything fragile," he said with exaggerated patience. "Now will you get outta here?"

With one last uncertain glance around the shop, April climbed the stairs to her apartment and changed into sweats with a sigh of relief. She poured the last of her apple juice into a glass before curling up on the couch. She'd started the movie "While You Were Sleeping" the night before but had fallen asleep during the first ten minutes. She started the movie from the beginning but her eyelids were growing heavy before the opening credits were done. One moment she heard Natalie Cole singing the opening song, and the next she was rattled awake by a heavy knock at the door. She lifted her head and blinked in confusion at the dim twilight, still not registering that someone was waiting in the hall.

The knock came again and she heard Casey's voice through the door. "April? You in there? I've got your keys."

A startled glance at the clock showed that it was after 6:30, and she jumped clumsily to her feet, still tangled in her blanket. "Coming!" She hurried to open the door. Casey stepped inside, holding out the keys to her shop in one hand and a plastic bag from the mini-mart down the street in the other.

"I locked up for you. And I stepped out for a sec to pick up a couple things."

April took the bag. A grateful smile dawned on her face as she saw a bottle of apple juice, a box of crackers, and cough medicine. "Thanks, Casey. You didn't have to do this."

"I figured I'd save you a trip later," he said with a shrug.

"Well, I really appreciate it." She set the bag down and jingled the keys. "Come on, I'll let you out."

"Nah, don't bother. I'll just use the fire escape. Raph showed me how to climb down without makin' any noise." He gave her a little smile and wave as he climbed out the window. "Feel better, okay, April?"

To her surprise, April found herself smiling and waving back.

The next week, he tripped over an uneven floorboard in her store and knocked over a vase. She would have strangled him if Donatello hadn't held her back. "Put me down, Donny! Jones! Get back here!"

The First Step

"Soooooo..."

April jumped, letting out a very undignified squeak. "Geez, Raph! Take a couple years off my life, why don't you?"

The smirk on his face only widened as he climbed in from the fire escape. "So when were you planning on tellin' us about your thing for Casey?"

She could feel herself blushing all the way up to her forehead. The heat in her cheeks made her think her face had to be the color of her friend's mask. "I – it's not a 'thing'," she sputtered. "We went to get ice cream together. That's it."

"Is it, now?" he crossed his arms, insufferably smug. "I didn't think a big, 'myopic ape' with 'misogynistic' tendencies would be your type."

April collapsed onto the couch and slapped a throw cushion over her burning face, cursing both her expansive vocabulary and Raphael's memory. "That was years ago!" she groaned into the pillow.

The cushion beside her dipped heavily as Raph's familiar bulk settled next to her. He tugged at the pillow but she didn't let go. "Aw, come on. I'm only messing with you." His solid shoulder jostled against hers in a playful nudge. "Actually, I should be thanking you. I won the bet."

He leaned back sharply (it wasn'ta flinch – ninja didn't flinch) as the pillow came down with surprising abruptness and her green gaze pinned him with the force of a gimlet. "Care to explain?" she asked flatly. She couldn't help feeling a tiny bit of triumph in her embarrassment as Raph's color changed a bit. She wasn't sure if turtles could blush – if they could, Raphael was doing it, but he quickly dismissed any awkwardness with a backhanded wave.

"Please. We all saw this coming. Only question was when you two lovebirds would wake up and realize you were gone on each other. I was the only one who thought it'd happen before Labor Day." He looked very pleased with himself. "Actually, by the time you two knew each other for six months, I figured you'd end up together."

April wasn't sure if she should act amused or irritated. She settled for sarcastic. "So does this mean I get to start calling you 'Yenta'?"

Raph let out a bark of laughter that turned into one of his warm, rumbling chuckles. "Here I am, coming to tell you 'mazel tov' and all I get is sass. What kind of attitude is that for a young lady? You'd think you spent your life hanging out in sewers."

The only thing worse than a smug Turtle was a Turtle who thought he was a comedian. The pillow came back up. "I need a drink."

His hard-shelled warmth disappeared from her side. She didn't hear him move, but she heard the fridge open and the clink of bottles. If he noticed that the beer she had started keeping in her home was Casey's preferred brand, he didn't say anything. She felt the throw pillow being tugged on again and this time she let him pull it away. A green, three-fingered hand hovered in front of her face holding an ice-cold brown bottle. He'd already removed the cap.

She snatched the bottle from his grasp and raised it to her lips, only letting it drop when she'd drained half of it. Raph drank more slowly. Drops of condensation ran down the brown glass and beaded on his hand.

"Okay," she finally said, feeling the scrutiny of his amber gaze. "You caught me. I have a thing for Casey Jones."

"Do tell."

"Wipe that smirk off your face," she warned. "If you keep this up, I'm going to start locking the windows and you can start buying your own beer."

He raised his hands defensively in mock horror at her empty threat, but she knew him well enough to see the subtle softening around his eyes as his expression gentled. "Hey, I'm glad for ya," he said. "It was a long time coming."

They sat together in companionable silence for a while before Raph spoke again. "You know he loves you, right?" he asked quietly. He stared at his drink, swirling the last few sips around in the bottom of the bottle. "I mean...he ain't gonna say it. Not so soon. But he does."

April picked at the label on her bottle with her thumbnail. "I know," she said softly. It gave her little elated butterflies in her stomach, but it also frightened her a little. It had been a long time since she'd been in a relationship, and she'd never been with someone who clearly felt so deeply for her. Casey hadn't really talked much about his feelings, but the smile that lit his blue eyes when he saw her coming said more than enough. April respected him, cared about him, felt inexorably drawn to him...but was that love? She didn't know. She'd never been in love before.

"Hey." Raph bumped her with his shoulder again. "This is a good thing, April."

She smiled at him and nudged him back. "I know."

His eyes glinted mischievously. "But you'll let me know if you need me to defend your honor or anything, right? 'Cause the virtue of a young lady is something that should never be - "

The rest of his words were muffled as she lifted the pillow a third time and smacked him in the face.

Down the Road

"So what do you girls have planned for tomorrow?" Casey asked, pulling on his coat.

"The art museum, I think," April said, darting a glance at her sister to get a nod of confirmation. "Hank asked me if he could get a few more hours, so he'll be watching the store."

"Seems like he's workin' out pretty well."

April nodded. The soft-spoken Vietnam War veteran had been her first official hire two months before. "I've really appreciated Angel pitching in on the weekends, but it's made a huge difference in my workload to have steady part-time help."

"Cool. Well, I'll leave you to your girl talk," Casey said with a sideways smile. He extended his large hand once again. "Robyn, it was really nice to meet you. Maybe you two can give me a call when you're done at the museum and I'll take you to dinner."

Robyn smiled warmly and shook his hand goodbye. "That sounds great."

"Casey bent to give April a quick kiss on the cheek before stepping out the door. "See you later, A."

"G'night, Casey." She smiled at him and closed the door. His heavy footsteps echoed in the stairwell until he let himself out of the building. Robyn was already gathering up the empty wine glasses, so April headed to the kitchen and started filling the sink with hot water.

"You did a really good job on dinner," Robyn said as she entered the room. "Your cooking skills have definitely improved."

"Don't get used to it," April replied with a smirk. "I'm only showing off for you. We're eating out for the rest of the week."

Her sister laughed and covered the lasagna before putting it in the fridge. "I'm glad I finally met your mystery man," she said, "although he wasn't what I was expecting."

"Believe me, he wasn't what I was expecting either." April pulled on her big pink rubber gloves and gave a generous squirt of dish soap to the rapidly filling sink. The steam curling up from the water smelled like warm lemons.

"I always figured you'd end up with someone like...oh, I don't know. Stephen Hawking."

"Oh, please."

"You know what I mean. You're two very different people, Sis. I'm actually surprised you've been with him so long. He doesn't seem like someone who would hold your interest." Robyn tucked a strand of dark auburn hair behind her ear, tilting her head inquisitively. "You said you met through mutual friends?"

April's lips quirked a bit in amusement. It sounded so tame and normal when her sister put it like that. "That's right."

There was a moment of silence as Robyn gathered up the empty plates. "If you didn't still have the same group of friends, do you think you'd stay together?" she asked carefully, handing her sister the stack of china.

"I used to ask myself the same question," April answered quietly. Casey was the polar opposite of anyone she had ever been attracted to, but fate had thrown them together. Actually, a bunch of aliens, gang members, and psychotic scientists had thrown them together...

...And there wasn't anyone else she could relate to or talk to about it. She knew some of her friends thought she was settling for someone beneath her, even if they hadn't said it out loud. And truthfully, she had wondered what would have happened if she had met someone else. Would she have been able to trust him with the knowledge of Splinter and his sons? Would they have welcomed a new human presence into their lives? For her sake, she thought, they would be willing to reveal themselves to someone new, but her ersatz family had risked so much for her since she'd met them, she didn't know how she could ask for more. In her most uncertain moments, she had asked herself what would become of her and Casey if the unthinkable happened – if the Hamato clan were somehow taken from them. Did she and Casey have enough between them to keep them together?

"Maybe at first, we wouldn't have stayed together," she admitted. "But I don't worry about that anymore. Not after really getting to know him."

Robyn picked up a towel and waited for her sister to hand her a dish to dry. "So tell me more. What do you guys do together?"

April wrinkled her nose at the stubborn tomato sauce that had gotten burned onto the edges of her baking pan and shoved the dish under the water to scrub it again. "It's true that we don't have much in common, but we've learned how to share interests. You'd be surprised how romantic a late-night motorcycle ride can be. And believe it or not, we've gotten dressed up and gone out somewhere nice for dinner – he's not crazy about sushi but he knows I really like it. And you know what else?" she said, pointing a sudsy finger at Robyn's face, "We read books together."

Robyn shook her head. "I don't mean anything bad by this, but I didn't peg Casey as much of a reader."

"He isn't, but he loves stories. So if there's a book I like or I think he'll like, he'll let me read it to him. Sometimes it'll be while he's working on his bike or getting something else done, but sometimes we'll just sit and I'll read aloud. We finished Les Miserables a few months ago. He walked in on me crying my eyes out over the last few chapters and he got curious."

"No way!" Robyn giggled. "You read that entire book out loud?"

April laughed, too. "Almost all of it. I skipped the battle of Waterloo and most of the religious and political commentary. He really liked it, though!"

What April didn't mention was that Casey hadn't been the only listener...

"So when's the next story time? Can we come?"

Casey folded his arms and glared at Michelangelo. "Wait a second. You guys just spent the last five minutes giving me hell about this, and now you wanna join in?"

Mikey grinned shamelessly. "Sounds like fun!"

April giggled and Casey turned his glare on her, but the softness that stole into his eyes whenever he looked at her lessened its impact. "You are not helping."

She threaded her arm though his and hip-checked him playfully. "I'm not trying to help." Turning her attention to the Turtles, she said, "You can come over at eight tomorrow night. We're reading 'Les Miserables'."

Leo's eyes lit up. "Really?"

"You've read it?" April asked, surprised.

"Twice. It's one of my favorites. How far into the book are you?"

A delighted smile brightened April's face. "We just started! Jean Valjean just got to the Bishop's home."

"Great. Now you can geek out with someone else other than Donny," Raph said with a smirk.

"Go ahead, mock me now, but you won't be laughing once you experience this book," April replied archly.

"We'll see you tomorrow night, April," Leo said. He hooked the fingers of his right hand through the back of Raph's belt, tugging him along as he herded Mike and Don toward the window with his left. "Come on, guys. We're late starting our training run. If you can keep up with me, I'll tell you all about the Bishop so you're caught up with the story."

"Oh, wonderful," Raph drawled, pulling free from Leo's grip. "Come on, Mikey. Auntie Leo is gonna give you story time right now." He ducked under Leo's open-handed swat, tweaked the back of Michelangelo's mask, ("Hey!") and slipped out the window first. Leo grinned and chased after him, Mike hot on his heels. Don tarried just long enough to toss a quick "See you later!" over his shoulder, then he was gone.

The Turtles showed up for April and Casey's reading sessions frequently after that. Whenever they missed a few chapters, Leo would fill in the gaps for them. As much as April enjoyed having the brothers join them, there was one day she was very glad they had missed. She had been reading Marius' love letter to Cosette: You look at a star from two motives, because it is luminous and because it is impenetrable. You have at your side a softer radiance and a greater mystery, woman. Casey was stretched on the couch with his head in her lap. He hadn't said anything, but he had lifted his hand and very gently brushed the back of his fingers across her cheek.

"I know he doesn't seem like my kind of guy," she continued softly, "but he's really a good man, Rob. He's a lot kinder and braver than I ever gave him credit for when we first met." And there were all the things April couldn't tell her sister: Casey's quiet confidence while taking them to his farmhouse after the disastrous attack by the Shredder that had destroyed her home and nearly killed Leonardo; the endearing way he roughhoused with the Turtles like a goofy older brother; his steadiness and strength during the bizarre Triceraton invasion; and the first time her eyes were opened and she really looked at him, the first time she realized that this was a man who would never let any harm come to her: "Hun! Never, ever threaten her!"

Robyn looked down at her interwoven fingers. "I've questioned your choices a lot over the past few years," she said in a small voice.

"Yes, you have," April agreed dryly.

"I'm sorry." Robyn put the last plate away and leaned her hip against the counter. "I had no right to do that. It's just...you're my little sister. I can't just forget that. Even though we're adults now, I still feel responsible for you."

April grinned. All Robyn was missing was a blue mask. "I know. I understand that a lot more now than I did when I was younger."

"You don't need to prove anything to me," Robyn said, resting a hand on April's shoulder. "Just...don't disappear on me, okay? You've been a lot harder to contact over the past few years and I'm afraid of losing touch. Promise to keep me in the loop?"

April smiled, hoping that Robyn couldn't see her heart's bittersweet throb reflected in her eyes. "I promise." It was not the first time – and it wouldn't be the last – that one breath had held both a lie and a heartfelt truth.

This story has gotten away from me a bit. I originally planned four one-shots, which I wrote – but the fourth has taken on a life of its own and doesn't really fit with this series any more. So it will be its own stand-alone story, but there will still be one more short story in this series. I know what it's going to be...just have to write it. Thanks to everyone who has read and reviewed so far!