It's going a little slow, I know. But if you read Unspoken Affection, you know things will start picking up pretty soon here ;)

*In the dojo*

"So, you want to keep your hands close to the center of the staff, without having them actually meet … Yeah, just like that. Keep your elbows here when you're twirling. You want to stay nice and centered or else you might as well just be swinging around a stick."

He caught April's smirk over her shoulder as he corrected the positions of her hands on his bō staff.

"I thought I was just swinging around a stick," she teased.

"Ha, ha, ha," he said dryly, trying not to think of how that comment sounded very Casey-esque. "Alright, give it a whirl."

He stepped back to observe her as she squinted her eyes in concentration and slowly began spinning the bō. It scraped the rug a couple of times and he encouraged her to raise it higher. She did so without comment, lips pursed. The hand positions he'd shown her a moment ago became confused, and rather than turning in a straight arc, the staff tilted at an angle and hit her in the shin. She leapt back a step.

"Don't move your stance," he said pinching the end of the weapon to put its motion on pause. "That comes later. You've got to get twirling down first."

She exhaled with an impatient whine as he fixed her grip again. "How do you get it to go so fast?"

He chuckled, subconsciously taking note of the way her hands felt under his own. They were so small.

"Eleven years, one month, and three days of practice, that's how. I've had the benefit of training under a grand master of ninjutsu since I was five—three and a half if you count curiosity. Trust me, it doesn't happen overnight, and that's okay."

"But you make it look so easy."

"It is," he said.

She raised a brow at him and he smiled, vaguely aware that her hands were still enveloped in his own.

"Once you get used to it." He shrugged. "Then it just becomes second nature. You're thinking about it too much right now."

She scoffed. "What a funny thing for you to say, Donnie."

"Yeah, yeah." He rolled his eyes, the warmth now finally growing in his cheeks. "Alright, try again, but this time don't concentrate so hard on how to move your hands, just let it happen."

He stepped back again and she proceeded to twirl the bō, moving at a painstakingly slow pace that he knew she minded more than he did. He smiled as he watched her nose wrinkle, the dusting of freckles on her cheeks breathing with her skin.

His eyes traveled to her hands, observing the still-awkward positioning of them as they clutched and released the staff in the wrong spots, twisting weirdly at the wrists in between. He didn't stop her though, didn't say anything. Instead, he found his gaze moving back up her arms and then down the curve of her back to her waist, down around her boots and back up again, noticing the bend in her knees, the space between each foot, the sheer curvature of her. She'd always been beautiful to him, but somehow the extent of her femininity had escaped him for a while.

"Am I doing this right?"

He didn't answer. In fact, he'd hardly heard. Her voice, while sweet and endearing, seemed somewhere far away, echoing through the back of his mind as un-urgent at the moment. He simply continued his staring, the sound of his heart gaining volume.

"Donnie," she said. "How do I look?"

"Beautiful."

What he said didn't register until she glanced over at him and a flush of heat blossomed over the entirety of his face.

"I mean your form … The way you … Your um … You-you get it," he said, waving a passive hand, though his stomach had somehow found its way to his throat.

"Yeah," she said, a tiny smirk hidden in the corner of her lips. She'd stopped twirling the bō by now and was clutching its middle with one hand. "My form," she repeated.

His eyes grew to the size of saucers as he realized she'd, yet again, caught him in the act of staring. "The way you were standing—I mean twirling … the staff. I mean ,your hand positions—placements, could still use some work. But I was talking about your form, is—was beautiful … Not that you're not … But …"

He groaned to himself and tugged at the tails of his mask, turning his face away as he looked over his shoulder and took a breath. "What's next?" he said loudly, clapping his palms together.

She smiled, leaning casually against his staff with her hip popped to the side. He wondered if she did that on purpose, if she knew how enticing she was.

"You're the teacher, Donnie."

"Yeah … Right, of course." He cleared his throat and tugged on the ends of his mask again before letting them fall across his shoulder. "So we went over blocking and striking. The twirling will get there with practice. But for now, how about some sparring?" He shrugged, forcing himself to play it cool as he fixed a casual grin to his cheeks.

She narrowed her eyes on him, that smirk still concealed beneath her freckles. "I thought Sensei said you were on temporary sparring leave for another week or so."

Donnie shrugged. He leisurely—and yet very consciously—strolled closer to her, gripping the top end of the staff and leaning against the opposite side. "What, are you afraid I'll beat you?"

She scoffed. "You know I'm not. And you also know that, any other day, I'd take you up on that challenge in a second," she said, poking a finger at his plastron. Her daring smile softened. "But I don't want to get in trouble with Sensei, and I don't want you being sick any longer than you have to be."

His smile dropped at one corner. "I'm not sick. It's just taking my body a while to ... rejuvenate."

She raised an eyebrow at him. "Remember two days ago during training?"

He looked toward the ceiling as though trying to recall.

"You passed out, Donnie."

"For like five seconds." He shrugged.

"More like five minutes." Her smile turned sympathetic and she rested her palm against his plastron now, withdrawing an intensified beat from his chest, as though his heart was desperate to get as close to her hand as possible. "You only have to wait it out a little longer, D. Do it for me will you? I want you to be okay again."

His chest deflated with a sigh, but he rested his hand on top of hers and smiled. "I am okay."

The corners of her lips turned up tenderly, and he hadn't realized until that moment, how far he'd leaned forward.

"Know how to twirl a baton yet, Red?"

Donnie and April both jumped and snapped their gazes toward the entrance to the dojo where Casey was strutting in with his hands behind his head, a mischievous grin to his lips.

Donnie growled under his breath.

April propped her hands on her hips. "You know, you and Donnie's weapons aren't so different. Maybe you could learn a few things from him too."

"Except Casey's hockey stick isn't a weapon," Donnie grumbled.

Neither of them seemed to hear because Casey was already responding with, "Nah, defense isn't really my style."

The turtle twitched. "Defense?"

Casey smiled at him with that irksome smirk that said so obviously he only ever opened his mouth for the strict purpose of getting under people's skin—"people" here being Donatello. "Don't take it the wrong way, buddy. You're not exactly wielding a threat over there."

Donnie's back teeth clenched and he allowed his grip to tighten on his staff and release the naginata blade. No sooner had Casey cocked an eyebrow across the room, then the three of them were encased in a blanket of darkness.

"Donnie!" came a chorus of irritated voices.

"It wasn't me!" he shouted back.

He blinked as a small white light popped on across the room. Casey waved his phone and Donnie and April followed him out of the dojo where they joined the congregation of his brothers and Splinter in the common room.

"Man, I was just about to beat the game," Mikey whined from over by the arcade game. He was staring somberly at the blackened screen, his face lit up by the light of his T-phone. He placed his palm on it lovingly. "Three hours of my undivided attention. Three hours of no pizza. And it's all a waste!" He fell against the game dramatically and moaned.

Casey snickered. "That sucks, bro."

Mikey popped up with a glare, rounding his cell light on Jones. "It was you wasn't it? I knew it! You just couldn't let it be could you?"

Casey shook his head. "I promise you, Mikey, I had nothing to do with this blackout. Though I can't say I'm complaining."

"So what was it this time, Donnie?" Leo asked, disregarding Mikey's next comment as the little orange-banded turtle flew at Casey like a wrecking ball and they began to tussle at Leo's feet.

Donnie turned his gaze away from them too and noticed all other eyes gazing at him expectantly through the shadows.

He tapped his chin with his knuckle, stepping over Casey and Mikey as they rolled past him. "Can't have been a short," he muttered. "I just checked the breaker box yesterday. Something must've tampered with the cables in the east tunnel, probably a rat, or maybe the rubber jacket around the current was worn someplace and there was a leak. I haven't been down there in a while to assess the conditions. I'll go check it out."

There was a stiff shift from the shadows to his right and Splinter took his wooden gaze away from the two wrestlers to flash glinting eyes on Donatello. It seemed one moment he was standing a good ten feet away and the next he had a hand on Donnie's shoulder.

"Take your brother with you, my son," he said, nodding toward Leo.

Donnie dropped his shoulder—a little worn by his sensei's recent spike in over-protection—but he bowed his head respectfully. "Hai, Sensei."

He and his older brother exchanged glances, and it did not go unnoticed when Leo's eyes made the quickest glance in Raph's direction. But Donatello pretended not to have caught it and took the moment to sheathe his staff instead. Then he and his brother silently broke away from the group to gather a couple of flash lights and exit through the turnstiles.