there was a time we knew each other

Aprilllllllll o'neilllllll

April O'Neil made poor decisions from time to time. She came back to hang out with a bunch of turtle mutants when she should have convinced herself they were imaginary. She let Leo try to pierce her ears as a kid. She agreed to go on missions when she should've done schoolwork. She asked people from the future how she died—stuff like that.

CJ had just stared up at her, looking up from his food, fork raised half to his mouth. His tuna fell off as he looked at her.

"I-" He coughed, and set his fork down. "What?"

"I know that it's probably really insensitive of me to ask, especially so bluntly, but I just—you don't need to get into specifics or anything, just please don't be cryptic. I need to know how I ended up in your time or I swear I'll go crazy," April and CJ continued to stare at each other. "Please,"

"I, um," CJ looked slightly mortified. "You are not going to like my answer,"

"Obviously,"

CJ set his plate on the floor in front of him—he always preferred to eat sitting on the ground— and turned to face her. He tugged at his sleeves and took a deep breath.

"I'm going to be completely honest with you,"

God, April already regretted this.

"I don't know how y- she died,"

April felt her face twitch on its own accord and watched CJ track the movement with his eyes.

"What,"

"I mean, it was the Krang, probably, but past that, I really don't know,"

"You don't know,"

"No one saw it happen,"

"No one found...No one found me?"

CJ cringed.

"No one looked," CJ scratched at his arm. "There wasn't really many people to look, at that point,"

"I don't get it," April asked, probably sounding a little deranged.

"Everyone else was dead or fighting for their lives when you went down," CJ said, looking an odd combination of embarrassment and grief.

"How do you even know I went down then?" April asked, desperate. What if she had spent her last days wandering an apocalyptic wasteland, her whole family assuming her dead?

"You stopped responding on the comms," CJ said like it explained everything. April motioned for him to elaborate. "She never ignored the comms. She always-always responded. If she didn't- just. She didn't respond and that's how we knew you were dead,"

"It couldn't have just been, I don't know. Broken?"

"No."

April turned away from CJ slightly, lost in thought. This is not how she wanted this conversation to go.

"When?" She asked after CJ had started eating again. "How old was I?"

"Er, 42, 43," CJ made a so-so gesture. "Somewhere in there,"

That was way higher a number than she had expected him to say. She would have been surprised if she had made it to her thirties, but early forties was impressive. 

"So, I...Died pretty recently for you." 

April is still not used to the way CJ looks at her sometimes. Like she could hold up the sky if she wanted to, like they'd known each other forever, like she looked at her mother, like the guys looked at Splinter. The look her mother got when she thought of April's grandmother. The grief.

"Yeah, pretty recently," He said, swallowing. "Couple months,"

CJ has only been here a couple months.

"CJ," He looked up at her. He always did, when she said his name. "How long ago did I die relative to the portal?"

"An hour, maybe two before I went through,"

Jesus Christ, why did she ask? April wiped at her still-dry cheeks.

"Can I hug you, CJ?"

He nodded, carefully moving his plate out of the way as April joined him on the floor. She knew she was comforting him just as much he was comforting her as they fell into each other's arms.