My Hero In Purple

To The Moon And Back

Three years later.

"Anyone seen April?"

"Donnie, I think you should keep better track of your girlfriend."

The genius shot a look of warning at his youngest brother, who shrugged.

"Just sayin', you never know where she is lately."

"Never is a strong word in this situation," Donnie bantered, tapping his ballpoint pen against the rim of his clipboard impatiently, "She's just been a bit more... elusive, lately."

"Whatever," Mikey waved off his older brother, "You might wanna check over at her apartment."

Donatello nodded, grabbing his bo staff from its resting spot against the pillar near the lair's entrance, abandoning his experimental notes in its place.

"Yo, Donnie!"

The purple clad turtle's head rotated slightly to meet his brother's gaze.

"It's your turn to do dished tonight."

Donatello sighed out a breath, ignoring Mikey's irrelevant comment and heading down the subway tunnel in the direction of April's apartment.

Thinking about it, his love had been more distant lately. Perhaps it was just the apprehension over senior finals, or her still-recuperating after returning to Earth and watching the Fugitoid sacrifice himself... he remembered how shaken she'd been when her cyborg professor had driven the Ulysses straight into the Triceraton base. Still, April's behavior these past few days had been more pensive than grieving.

Donatello, with all his observational and scientific habits, hated being left in the dark. It drove him completely crazy, not knowing what April was thinking. After all, he'd been stranded in suspenseful waters  in the years before the beautiful redhead had accepted him into her heart. Being uncertain of female emotions wasn't a novelty for the turtle, but that didn't mean he had welcomed back that uncertainty with open arms.

Donnie's thoughts continued their apprehensive rampage through his brain while he traversed the rooftops to April's place.They still hadn't given him peace as he rapped his knuckles against her bedroom window.

No answer. He knocked again. Still, April didn't appear to let him in. At that point, Donnie's heart began to hammer anxiously against his plastron. Perhaps April's distance wasn't some fluke -- perhaps she was purposely shutting him out. His mind spun a plethora of scenarios within seconds of realizing this possibility. Had she grown tired of him? Come to her senses? Was there the slightest chance that after so much time spent in contentment and bliss (at least from Donnie's perspective), April had decided to end it all? Was this her way of rejecting him -- by avoiding him altogether?

Somehow, through the panicked haze that had rapidly blanketed his brain, Donatello's common sense returned. He flattened his palm against the window pane. The glass, normally resonating with the undertones in the music April always played whenever she was home, was completely unmoving, signaling the lack of any song being played. Donnie realized her simple white curtains weren't backlit with the soft light of her bedside lamp.

She wasn't avoiding him -- she wasn't home.

Donnie's paranoia was placated slightly, though his apprehension didn't disappear completely. He looked over his shoulder at the New York skyline, wondering where April could be . The genius scaled the fire escape, craning his neck up to glimpse what he could of the constellations overhead. Few could say they'd been among those stars, and no human (save for April and Casey) had been beyond the Milky Way. To state that Donnie and the rest of the team had made history was an understatement. If not for their being mutants, the group of teens would have been heralded for going where no other Terran had gone -- to the very edge of the known universe!