Just a little Apritello moment, nothing too intense. (I ship these two so hard though. They are too adorable.) Enjoy and review!

Disclaimer: *sigh* No, they're not my characters.

She was disgusted.

What kind of people would allow such a thing, and how could the New York City Board of Education happily permit it to infect the entire system like it was good for the under-aged brain? They were endangering the new generation, filling their heads with explosive, mind-melting gibberish and equations. Chemistry…It was revolting.

Infuriated, that's what she was. There was no quicker way to turn a headache into a migraine than by being forced to delve into the ever-vexatious universe of stoichiometry. What were they thinking? And to make it a requirement? What if she didn't have any aspirations to be a nurse or a chemist or pharmacist or a—a…Donnie? No, an ingenious-beyond-reason, mutant turtle she would never be, and she doubted very much that there was anyone in the world ever ambitious enough to strive toward such a goal, let alone who was actually keen to the existence of those kinds of things to begin with…Well maybe besides the Pulverizer. However, to have an ingenious-beyond-reason mutant turtle as a best friend was some sort of bizarre blessing. She felt bad for her fellow Chemistry-hating peers. None of them had a purple-banded ninja that came fully stocked with a mental library even the greatest minds in the world could not measure up to. If only he wasn't a turtle…

Even still, she felt no shame in stomping across the lair with her laptop and Chemistry book tucked under her arm, head pounding with an ache born of simply reading the first two problems on her homework assignment sheet. She strutted straight up to the open doorway of Donnie's lab, hardly even recognizing the presence of Leo, Raph, and Mikey watching Super Robo Mecha Force Five in the pit or the high pitched whirring of a drill somewhere up the spiraling ramp.

The lab was riddled with computers, blinking things, tools, chemicals, beakers, and unfinished projects. Framed photographs of the family of mutants and April herself adorned the wall opposite where she stood, and Mutagen Man reared frozen in the furthermost corner, arms looming over his tank in an endless forever like a sad joke no one liked to talk about. There was no turtle in purple sloping over the homemade work bench with a blow torch. Neither was there one sitting in front of the monitor, three-fingered hands flying across the keys at a rate that always impressed her. Nor was there one lounging in the den with his brothers, jumping up with an adorable gap-toothed grin to chirp a high-pitched "Hey, April!" and ask her how her day had been, if she needed anything, and if she wanted to see what he'd stayed up until the early hours of the morning engineering the night before.

She pursed her lips as the pounding in her head sharpened.

"Where's Donnie?" she asked in the general direction of the cluster of boys.

Not one of them took their eyes off the television.

"He's upstairs," Leo said, probably only half-conscious of his response.

"Dude, I knew it would work someday," Mikey said, chin in his hands as he lay across the floor on his plastron, feet kicking rhythmically through the air. His comment predictably made no sense until he widened his eyes in mock mystification and quoted, "If you build it, they will come."

Raph slapped the back of his head and was the only one to glance in April's direction, though it was with green eyes brimming with disdain. "He's on construction duty...Like blowing up his lab didn't cause enough noise!" he shouted as the drilling that had stopped for hardly five seconds began again.

She just barely caught Raph's growl as he glared up toward the second level as though truly hoping Donnie could feel his eyes burning through the floor. Mikey made a comment she didn't hear, and Raph responded by swiping up the little turtle's neck in a one-armed coil. Leo finally blinked away from the TV and attempted to separate the two. April took this as a go-ahead to ascend the ramp.

Indeed her gangly hero appeared to be in the middle of some sort of production process on a small room she had never known existed. He was standing just inside the doorway, one hand propping up what appeared to be a shelf, as the other wielded the drill that was getting Raph so irked. His forehead was adorned with a crown of black leather-like material that had a small flashlight attached to one side. She guessed this was something he'd whipped up recently—probably in a simple matter of minutes after he'd discovered his need for a light in order to complete this project. His brown eyes were narrowed on the point on which the beam shone, and of course, just as in any other moment of concentration, he had his tongue poking out between his teeth.

April did not notice herself smile. It was such a natural image—despite the fact that her eyes were on a 6 foot turtle standing completely erect on two feet and expertly handling a power drill.

Donatello was always tinkering with something. It was like he had the worst case of the best addiction possible. At least it was something that kept him occupied and ultimately served a greater purpose for him, his family, April, her dad, Casey Jones, and basically every innocent citizen populating this city perforated with metallic villains, dark-hearted mutants, alien droids, and Rat Kings. Donnie had a serious problem. He simply could not stop making the world a better place.

She strolled over to his construction site—in no rush to break his concentration—and noticed the rusted tool box propping the door open, the pile of wooden boards waiting in a neat stack against the wall just outside the doorway, and the tin can of nails sitting on a shelf he'd already attached to the wall inside.

As engulfed in his work as he always tended to be, she often underestimated his acute sense of hearing. He had been raised as a ninja after all, trained to broaden his senses and sharpen his awareness. Even beneath the whirring of the drill he must've heard her approaching. Nevertheless, when he snapped his head up and met her gaze it was with a jolt of surprise, as though he'd forgotten they coexisted in the same world.

In his rush to greet her, he neglected the presence of the tool in his hand, smacking it against the half-secured shelf as he lifted his hand to wave, and in his attempt to catch the wooden board, he knocked over the tin can and a waterfall of screws and nails splattered the floor by his feet. He automatically dove to try and catch them, inadvertently dropping the shelf he'd forgotten to hold onto just that quickly, and earned himself a whack on the head. It took only a second of embarrassed fumbling for him to abandon the salvaging of his work and hastily prop one hand on the bridge of his shell and lean against the one stable shelf at an attempt to coolly brush off his clumsiness.

April did her best not to smile, though she couldn't say how well it was working out. For a nimble turtle who'd been studying the art of ninjutsu nearly his entire life, he could be extraordinarily awkward and unbalanced at times—especially around her.

"H-Hey, April." He cleared his throat and tried again. "April…Hi."

She allowed herself a small grin, but it had less to do with a response to his greeting than it did to the blush of green-tinted pink in his cheeks. "Hey, Donnie. What are you working on now?"

He blinked. "Oh…This?" His palm slipped off of the edge of the shelf as he turned but he caught himself before falling completely forward and then ripped the light off of his head as though just remembering he was wearing it. He tossed it to the floor where it bounced into the corner of the room. At this point he reverted to his best defense and reoccupied his hands, picking up the drill and a few screws to resume attaching the board to the wall.

He took a breath and then spoke normally as he began to work. "Mikey and Raph were playing ninja dodge ball yesterday and managed to knock a hole in the wall. Then we realized there was a whole chamber behind it so we took the entire wall down and cleared away the rubble last night. Sensei thought it would make a convenient weapons vault, so I've been working on converting it into a suitable storage area."

April poked her head through the doorway to judge the size of the room. It was quite narrow and didn't necessarily go too far back. It might've been deep enough to accommodate Donnie's long legs if he was sitting with his back against the doorway, but that was about it. It was small—but considering its intended purpose, it looked like it would do an adequate job.

"Cool."

Donnie's eyes followed her. She could feel his brown irises tenderly observing her movements, no longer focused on his original task. At least, not until he realized he was staring, and she knew this because he jerked his head around and ducked under the board he had readjusted against the wall. She glanced at his hands as he began shifting things around, but it seemed he was no longer on a productive train of thought, as he was mainly sliding the tin can back and forth across the shelf already in place and picking up the drill only to set it back down again. She had broken his concentration.

She again tried not to smile; although she wasn't sure why the moment seemed to call for it. Instead, she thought she might as well help him regain his focus. "Mind if I help?" she asked innocently. Who cared about Chemistry homework anyway?

He glanced at her and a wide smile traveled across his cheeks. "Sure. Can you hand me that toolbox?" he said before actually turning his attention on re-leveling the board above his head.

She set down her textbook and laptop on the shelf next to the tin can and proceeded to pick up the rusty box of the assortment of tools she'd never known half the names of before taking up the job as Donnie's part-time assistant.

"Just be careful not to let the door—"

He was interrupted by a heavy thud that was accented by a click and the blunt presence of darkness before she could even piece together what he'd been about to say. The moment she had lifted the tool box off the floor, the door had adhered itself to the wall, shutting them both in the tiny room.

She blinked at Donatello, or rather, in his direction. He had to have been standing hardly a foot away, yet she couldn't even make out his silhouette.

"Oops. Um…Is that bad?"

"Well…"

She heard the scuffle of him adjusting the shelf he'd been holding so that it wouldn't fall completely to the floor as he let go of it. She could feel his towering presence shift and inevitably bump into her as he tried to shuffle toward the door.

"Ah sorry…"

His hands found her shoulders with a gentle grip and he ushered her around until they had switched places. Then the air in front of her became suddenly empty as he knelt down on the floor, carapace brushing against her legs. A moment later, a bright light flickered and the tiny room found abstract shadows to befriend.

"Ah ha," he said, rising back to his feet and putting them chest to chest—or plastron to chest. She watched his cheeks fill with color in the rounded lighting. He cleared his throat and turned very carefully toward the door, shining the light on it in all its solid glory.

"There's no handle!"

"Yes, well, technically there is, it's just on the other side—"

"Donnie! You put in a door with no handle?"

"It has a handle. It does, it's just not on our side of the door. I was planning on installing one once I was finished with the shelving unit but—well I wasn't finished with the shelving unit. But it's alright," he said hastily at the look on her face. "Don't worry. This is simple. We just have to get someone to open the door from the outside that's all."

He reached for his belt, paused, then patted down all the parts of his shell that his hands could reach. "Uhh…Can I borrow your T-phone?"

"Where's yours?"

"It's in the lab," he said. "I wanted to recalibrate the—"

"Donnie!"

"We'll just use yours."

"I don't have mine."

At this he raised an eye ridge in one of those rare expressions he occasionally flashed that carried the smidgen of an attitude. "You don't have it?"

"No."

"April, why don't you have your T-phone?"

"Why don't you have yours?"

He groaned in half exasperation. "I thought I told you to always have it on you. What if there's an emergency?"

They were stuck for a moment in an ironic pause before she broke herself out of it with narrowed eyes and pushed past him to squeeze toward the door. "Oh just move, Donnie."

She began throwing her fists against the slate of steel. "Leo! Raph! Mikey! Helloooooo! Somebody open the door…You wanna help me out here, Don?"

He blinked at her then shuffled timidly closer with his plastron framing her back and joined her in pounding on the door over her head and calling out for his brothers.

Raphael was now sitting apart from his siblings with his arms folded across his chest, glaring flatly at the television and trying to ignore the happy way that his youngest brother swung his feet and tilted his head from side to side with an exaggerated smile painting his freckled cheeks like he was thoroughly enjoying the melody to a song none but him could hear. He was such an odd ball. It was like there were all of two separate worlds. On one lived Raph, Leo, Donnie, Splinter, April, Casey, and every other sane human being in existence, and on the other, living his life out in full contentment, was Michelangelo.

Raph unconsciously cocked his head to the side with his left ear angled toward the staircase. He had noticed only a moment ago the sweet silence of paused construction, but now he was quite sure that he was hearing something else—something that wasn't a drill.

"You guys hear that?" he said, loud enough to be heard over the television.

Leo glanced over his shoulder quizzically as Mikey uttered a, "Huh?"

"Mute that," Raph demanded.

Leo aimed the remote at the television and the room went quiet as the three brothers stiffened in listening postures, trying to pick up the noise—only it wasn't such a challenge now. There was a very blatant banging piercing the atmosphere and it was accompanied by the muffled voices of Donatello and April shouting with the obvious intention of being heard.

The three turtles looked at each other, each masked face glancing between the other two at first with a look of idle confusion as though silently questioning how to react. And then, simultaneously, their expressions changed to ones with fat, knowing grins taking over their cheeks. They didn't need to utter a word.

Raph re-crossed his arms, this time with an air of smugness and leaned even farther back, wiggling his shell comfortably into his beanbag chair and crossing his ankles. Leo unmuted the TV then set the remote on the floor next to him and leaned back on his palms as the three of them returned wordlessly to their show.

"What is that noise?"

They glanced up at Splinter who had emerged from the kitchen, guarding a cup of tea, the wispy streams of steam reaching up and curling around his long beard.

"April and Donnie got themselves locked in the new closet," Raph said with a smirk as Leo and Mikey snickered in silence.

Splinter's amber eyes glanced up toward the second floor, and for a long moment he simply stood on the step in a contemplative, unbothered silence. Then without uttering another word, he calmly took a sip of his tea and turned away to begin his meditation in the dojo.

She wasn't sure how long they stood there banging and shouting, but after an uncomfortable tingle blossomed in her fists and her voice began to crack, it was clear, no one was going to come to their aid. She dropped her fists with a huff and a groan, squeezing her eyes shut against the continuous pounding in her head. Being trapped with a giant turtle in a tiny closet wasn't helping her migraine.

"They can't possibly not hear us," she grumbled.

Donnie didn't respond. He too had given up on demanding assistance and when she glanced over her shoulder at him, with the beam of light illuminating his face from the bottom up, she could see his brown eyes calculating out a solution as his free hand tapped a knuckle against his chin.

He nodded to himself, then dropped his hand and smiled in full confidence. "I can get us out of here."

She raised an eyebrow and propped a hand on her hip. "Really?"

"Oh ye of little faith," he said strapping the headband back around his forehead. He reached over her shoulder, for a moment pressing his chest against hers so that she had to lean back to get out of his way. His hand dug around in the toolbox on the shelf behind her until he found what he was looking for—a flat tool she'd seen him use for plastering holes in the walls.

"This should do the trick," he said assuredly, finally straightening his spine.

She had to shift around out of his way again, pressing her shoulders against the back wall as he knelt before the door and examined the crevice where the door met the frame.

He smiled back at her over his shoulder and said, "Time me."

She rolled her eyes with a small smirk and watched him poke out his tongue as he proceeded to trick the door into opening.

Half an hour later, she was sitting on the floor with her knees drawn up to her chest, her elbow on her kneecap and her cheek leaning against the back of her hand as she whined flagrantly, digging the fingers of her other hand into her temple.

"I've almost got it," Donnie said in response.

"Donnie, you said that like twenty minutes ago."

"Yeah but this time I really almost…Darn it!" he said, chucking his tools angrily to the side. He had been riffling through his toolbox for a different one every five minutes.

He threw his shell against the door, sitting too with his knees drawn and his arms perched on top of them.

April released a small unintentional smile at his choice of exclamation. The way he spoke always amused her—when it wasn't factual gibberish that she couldn't understand anyway. Even that though sometimes she missed when she was sitting in school listening to her boring teachers drone on about subjects uninteresting even to them. At least Donnie had a passion for what he knew and was animated when he spoke.

He yanked the headband from his head again, making their one light source, besides the crack under the door, bounce around the room excitedly before hanging toward the floor and shadowing his face.

"I should've picked a different door," he mumbled.

"No kidding. Where'd you get it?"

"The junkyard. You wouldn't believe how many I had to choose from. You humans throw out the strangest things."

"You humans?" she scoffed. "Way to categorize things, Donnie. And I always bring you my random crap before I throw it away."

Even through the darkness she could see his cheeks burning bright. "That's—I didn't mean it in that sense. I was just…You are technically a human—well mostly. I suppose you could be considered a unique anomaly among your species. I don't mean that in a bad way. You are quite special. Not that you're…or that I think…I mean taking into account your extraterrestrial DNA and—"

"Donnie." She shook her head, still grinning tiredly. "It's okay. I wasn't that offended."

"Oh," was all he responded with.

They sat in silence for a while, staring at each other through the shadows without really being able to tell what exactly the object of the other's gaze was.

Her migraine died down to a dull pulse for a moment as she contented herself with watching his knees sway and meet together, leaning toward one wall and then the other, while his hands fiddled with the strap of his headlight which was dangling between them, constantly shifting the shadows.

Though they both had their legs bent, the tips of April's boots still met Donnie's toes in the center of the floor. It was a good thing she wasn't claustrophobic—though she vaguely wondered if she suddenly might've been had she been locked in the closet with anyone else, which was a funny thought because Donatello was the longest of his brother's and took up more vertical space, though he was incredibly lean—borderline lanky if not for the muscles that had solidified in his limbs from years of training.

She blinked rapidly as she suddenly realized her eyes had been traveling around his silhouette, and switched her gaze to the spot of white hovering between their knees.

"So," she sighed. "What now?"

He too allowed himself a long exhale. "Well…I suppose I could try breaking the door down, if we're that desperate, though it's made of a pretty heavy alloy and it wouldn't be an easy feat. Plus, there's not much room to do it very effectively."

"Okay…Any other options?" she said, glancing back up at him.

He shrugged. "We could just wait until they decide to let us out."

"What do you mean decide to let us out? You don't think they were ignoring us do you?"

He pinched his lips together in one corner of his mouth. "April, we're in a sewer full of ninjas. They've developed pretty sharp senses over the past fifteen or so years. Either they're leaving us in here on purpose or they left the lair, which I doubt, but even if that were the case, Master Splinter would still be here and I know for a fact he could hear a fly buzzing around in Mikey's room from the dojo."

"So Splinter's in on it too huh?"

Donnie shrugged.

April blew her bangs out of her face. "Those bastards."

She caught a glimpse of his affectionate smile though he didn't fully look in her direction. "There's only so much to do around here to keep them entertained during the day," he explained.

"Yeah well…" She sighed again, eyes drifting to the bulky outline of her textbook and laptop sitting on the shelf over Donnie's shoulder.

Her stomach roiled, only intensifying the pain in her head again. She really didn't want to even think about Chemistry right now. But she supposed there was no better time than the present. She got up on her knees—which entailed practically straddling one of his legs—and reached over for the book and computer.

"Well, since we're not desperate yet, you might as well help me with my homework."

She sensed him tensing as she forced her way next to him and nestled down on the floor again between him and the shelf. There was just enough room to put them shoulder to shoulder with hardly any extra space to maneuver their elbows. She tucked her left leg under her right and leaned forward slightly so that her shoulder was in front of his and preoccupied herself with opening up her laptop and flipping through the pages in her textbook, trying not to notice yet again the tender way in which he watched her.