Hey, I'm really sorry for how long this has taken me! Mixture of writer's block and getting distracted by other fanfics. I'm really sorry to all you out there who were waiting for this chapter, and I'm sorry if you're disappointed with it; I tried to rush it at the end just to get something up for you all. I swear next chapter will be more to my usual standard though.

Hope you enjoy!

Fly on,

NitnatRide

Chapter 4: Somehow

Kelly's POV

"So," April smiles after saying hi when Casey and I walk through the door, "did you guys enjoy the match?"

"It was awesome!" Casey exclaims, grinning. "The Marines won by a landslide." Suddenly he smirks, talking before I can stop what I inevitably know he's going to say. "Kelly really owes me, too; not only did I introduce her to the genius that is live basketball, but I also introduced her to her future husband."

"Shut your mouth!" I snap, embarrassed at his teasing. All the while, I still hold the ball to my chest protectively.

"Huh? Her future husband?" Everybody stops what they're doing and comes a little closer. Mikey looks ready to hear something he can use to rip into me. Donny and Leo also look amused, but somewhat happy for me, too. Raph, on the other hand, is frowning, for some unknown reason. I'm about to connect with him, but I suddenly realise his thoughts without doing so, and I restrain myself from groaning; he's going to be the over-protective big brother type who has declared war on all males even potentially interested in me. Great. Wonderful.

"Yeah," Casey laughs. "A sporting legend caught her eye. And the best part is that she caught his, too; the ball in her hands is from him, with his signature on one side and his number on the other."

"His number?" April beams, eyes wide as she walks closer to me. "Ooo-ooh, Kelly's got a boyfriend! I'm impressed you got him hooked after seeing him once. You go, girl!"

"Go where, exactly?" I snap, their optimism grating on my last nerve. Their smiles slip off their faces quickly as they see the seriousness on mine.

"Don't you guys realise that nothing can come of this? I'm a freak, and I always will be! I can't talk to him about what school I went to, what I do in my spare time, what my talents are or even where I live or what my family is like. I can have no resemblance of a normal life, and I don't want to drag him into that. And that isn't even considering the near-certainty that he would run for the hills if I did tell him all of that! I can't even use this number he's given me because I don't really have a cell phone; I call them through my own brain, and any caller ID would only show a series of symbols. If he even picked up in the first place, he would start asking questions about why the hell my cell phone had a weird number. I can never show him who I am, and I can't lie to him. So what choice do I have but to let him go?"

My whole body sags as I finish my logic rant, and I let the ball drop to the ground before running to my room, flicking the switch to lock it before crashing face-first into my pillow.

April's POV

The silence that follows Kelly's departure is horrible; each of us is radiating sympathy, but at the same time we all know that that is not what she would want right now. She has to suppress those thoughts even slightly to allow room for other more rational ones.

The basketball that Kelly let drop before she escaped to her room wobbles one last time on the floor before coming to a rest a few steps from me. I stare down at it in pity, seeing only the dreams and happiness that this poor girl believes she cannot have. She is so selfless and self-deprecating; she doesn't want to drag this boy into a world full of horrible acts that he's not aware of, but she also considers herself one of those horrors, and that the terrible things that have been done to her make her an abomination as a result. She doesn't seem to realise that in the space of a few days, the guys, Splinter, Casey and I see her as a sister and friend with amazing abilities, rather than as an experiment. We need to improve her perception and hope, demonstrating that she is more than what she thinks somehow. Somehow.

Something on the basketball catches my eye, and I pick it up to study it more closely. I blink in surprise as I recognise that signature. I check again. No, it definitely says 'Ryan Daker'.

"Ryan Daker," I repeat to myself. "No way."

"Wait," Casey walks up to me, a dubious expression on his face. "You know Ryan Daker?"

I frown at him. "Thanks for the support, Casey. Yeah, I know him, but not as a basketball player."

Ignoring everyone's confused looks, I walk to the computer and load up the internet. I search for 'Slam Dunk Florescence', and sure enough, there's the ad that I was looking for on the venue's news page.

"See here?" I point to the screen, drawing the guys' attention to a listing of the people involved, which included Ryan's name. He is even in a photo of an event he did in the past at this place.

"So…" Casey's eye narrow in suspicion and disbelief. "Ryan Daker, the sporting legend, is…in a band?"

"Yep," I nod. "It's with a childhood friend and his little brother, Chris and Jackson Roath. Slam Dunk are really well-known and popular in Manhattan and other parts of the city. I really like their stuff, but they've all agreed that they don't want to do this kind of thing big-time. They just want to stick with being popular in the city, rather than being famous. They've got a gig going on at this club called Florescence in two weeks. If she wants, I'm sure I can grab Kelly an extra ticket."

"That's really sweet of you all."

I jump at the last voice I expected to hear. We all glance around, but Kelly's nowhere to be seen, and her bedroom door is still closed. Glancing at each other, we shrug in perplexity.

"I'm talking through the computer speakers, guys. You really shouldn't be shocked by this by now."

I attempt to keep my face carefully amused rather than surprised and awed; if she knew that we weren't looking at the computer, that may mean that she's able to see us somehow through the screen, too. I have to do that because I also know why she's speaking to us in this way, and why her tone was self-conscious a few seconds ago; she's demonstrating how different she is, so trying to convince us with the same ridiculous conclusions she's drawn. She's saying that she can't do something as normal as go to a music concert or even meet up with a nice boy again because she isn't normal. She is normal though; she just has a few added extra abilities.

"That kind of casual front may have worked on me, April," Kelly speaks again, "if I couldn't read your intentions in your wave-pattern. They were nice thoughts though, thanks."

I sigh. "Look, Kelly; whether you think you're normal or not, you have the right to a normal life, and you deserve to be happy. It just so happens that being happy, for you, means doing fairly normal stuff, like hanging out with friends and family, going to basketball games, going to music gigs, and stalking a really cute guy that you like."

A huff sounds from the speaker, and I internally celebrate that I made her laugh. I let her mull that over, and half a minute later her voice sounds again, quieter than before.

"I'm scared," she admits. "Scared of so many things. I…I really love music. It's one of my passions, and so if I see Ryan making music that I love, I'm scared that…the feelings I have for him will get so strong that I won't be able to back out. If that happens, then it could go three ways; we get closer and he finds out what I am and we stay closer, which would be…amazing; or we get closer and he finds out what I am and freaks out and leaves me, which would be devastating; or he doesn't like me like that at all and we drift apart."

"Whoa, hey, slow down," I interrupt. "Exactly how much do you think your relationship would develop after one concert?" My rhetorical question is met with silence as she contemplates its meaning.

"Listen, I know it may be the computer side of your thinking that's telling you to make predictions and calculations, but I would have thought that you, of all people, would know that human thoughts, behaviours and especially emotions are very tricky to predict accurately. Did you expect to have such strong feelings already for a guy you've never even properly talked to?"

Again, silence.

"Maybe," I continue softly, "you could take it one meeting at a time, just to see how it goes."

A few minutes pass before: "But I'm scared. You said so yourself that I already have strong feelings for him. What good would it do to let those feelings grow only to get them crushed?"

I smile sympathetically. "That is a potential conclusion. But so is the complete opposite, and you know that. Can you imagine living with that knowledge after not doing anything, after missing your chance? We're all here to support you in heartache, if the worst happens. But there's not a lot we can do to help you fight regret."

A defeated and weary sigh fizzes through the speakers.

Nothing else seems to happen until Mikey says, "Hey!" and points at the screen, and we all watch in amazement as the cursor moves independently before selecting the 'buy tickets now' button on the open page.

The grin that spreads across my face is full of all the relief and joy and excitement that I feel, and I can feel the same emotions from the guys around. The computer screen pixels suddenly overlay a digitised image of Kelly's sheepish face over the open page, and she beams shyly at us. Then, beautifully, she smirks mischievously.

"You know, if you want free tickets, I can always 'convince' the payment program that you've paid already?"

I smirk back but disapprovingly. "No, Kelly; we're paying – or, more accurately, I'm paying – for these tickets with actual money, not techy magic tricks."

"I was just offering," she sticks her tongue out at me.

We all laugh at her antics before she disappears from the screen to reappear from her room. After we all give her hugs of support, she and I both go and prepare for the gig in a fortnight, discussing clothes, make-up, shoes, accessories, anything that normal young women talk about before going on a normal night out.

So that's chapter 4. Sorry for it being so much shorter than I'm used to publishing, it's just a really long time since I updated this, so I really wanted to just give you all something. I really hope I don't take as long to update it again. Thanks for sticking with me if you have been waiting for this. Please, just leave a review so I know that I should update again, or I won't make it a priority.

Fly on,

NitnatRide