Day 8 - Presents

A wisp of cold air curled upwards in a tendril of steam as April let out a deep breath, yanking her puffy yellow jacket closer to her body to stop herself from shivering any more. Her cheeks were red raw with the biting chill of the wind, and her hands, though gloved, felt numb enough to snap off at any moment. Had it been any other occasion, she wouldn't have stepped into this weather by any will of her own.

But this was for something special. Something she had to do. In the great many months she had spent with her four turtle friends, surrounded by their warmth and kindness, she had done nothing to repay them. If anything, she'd just made their lives that little bit more tedious: being kidnapped by mutant brains, making them put their lives in danger for her sake - like any ungrateful 'damsel in distress' you could think of.

Tonight, she was going to change that.

With a small shudder, she produced a small, slightly crumpled piece of paper from her pocket and quickly fumbled to read over it, running her chunky gloved finger along the messy scrawl of words as she went. The boys, for the most part, had been very vague in stating what they wanted for Christmas, only jotting down a few ideas each that, on the whole, she could tell they really did not want. From looking at the list, they were going for the cheapest things they could possibly think of; for Leo, a third-party Captain Ryan figurine that didn't even look like the character it was based off of; for Raph, a very early issue of Corps Cadavres that she knew he already had; for Mikey, an assortment of basic cooking utensils that, judging by what he made, he was never going to need; and for Donnie, a simple, plain, run-of-the-mill screwdriver that would fit in nicely with his other sixty-odd screwdrivers of the same type.

Of course, given that they initially refused to let her get them anything, this was an improvement, however when she persuaded them to drop their original idea (she seemed to be pretty good at that) she was expecting them to ask for something a little more exciting than a screwdriver. Regardless, she hadn't started another argument about the subject. She knew from experience that if you won once against highly trained ninjas with teenage attitude, then chances were you weren't going to win again for a long time, and she wasn't going to push her luck.

Even so, she refused to spend an altogether grand total of ten dollars on their Christmas, let alone on things they didn't even want. They were important to her: as friends and family, and she needed to show that to them.

Thankfully, she knew exactly how.

Moving now, her legs having started up on auto-pilot as she finished reading, April stuffed the worthless sheet of paper into the closest trash can and made a beeline for the closest store that would still be open at this hour, which conveniently was the exact store she was looking for.

From the outside, it didn't look like anything special. Just another one of those stores that you just walked by everyday without giving it a second thought. The windows were covered in greasy, smudged handprints and the foundations of the building themselves were slightly cracked in places. The sign that hung above the door was also tipped over to one side, and the words that were printed on had long since faded away. Nothing too surprising for this end of the city.

However, from the inside it was a whole different story.

Whatever impression the outside appearance of the shop gave to a customer was instantly wiped away the moment they stepped through the door. Instead of a scabby, run-down old shack with squeaky floorboards and a leaking roof, they were greeted to a lush and luxurious looking emporium, filled to the brim with what seemed to be hundreds upon thousands of sparkling treasures. She could still remember the first time her dad had brought her here, all those years ago, and when she emerged from the shop, hugging her first ever chemistry set closely to her chest with broad grin on her face. And how proud her dad looked when she chose it over the other toys...

A cold gust of air blew by her, jolting her out of her thoughts. She realised she was still standing outside, gawking at the few things she could see on display at the window, completely alone in the eerie silence of the street. She didn't particularly think much of window shopping, especially when it was a freezing cold winter night; especially when it was an incredibly quiet freezing cold winter night with the constant threat of being mugged by a few purple dragons or alien brains hanging in the air.

Shivering, more from the thought of being jumped on rather than the cold, she stepped inside.

When the cold air met April's warm skin once again, her purse feeling considerably lighter than before and a hulking yellow plastic bag draped over her left shoulder, she couldn't help but groan slightly is dismay. The store had been like a sauna, and already she was missing the incredible warmth it had bathed her in for the last twenty minutes as she scoured around the many shelves in search of the perfect set of gifts.

Nevertheless, it had been worth it. The store was still as amazing as she remembered it being, and within thirty seconds of gazing around the place she had already found at least twenty items for each turtle. Of course, choosing between them had been very difficult, and not to mention time-consuming. There was just so much on offer, so much they would have wanted; so much they had no way of getting without her. The thought brought a sudden pang to her heart. It made her realise how lucky she had been, how she still was, to be able to walk into a public building without people screaming in terror at the sight of her.

And it made her realise she had done the right thing.

Donatello was not having a fun Christmas.

He had been kicked in the head and bludgeoned with a ball of ice. He had walked head-first into concrete wall, his lower body had been paralysed, and he had been poisoned with eggnog. And to top it all off, he hadn't even shared a kiss with April under the mistletoe, something he had been planning for weeks upon weeks. Meanwhile, his brothers had been thoroughly enjoying themselves in the festivities without a care in the world for him (festivities such as the 'make fun of Donnie' parade and whatever else they could think of), and Splinter wasn't being much help either. His only saving grace had been April, who genuinely seemed to be the only person in the entire world who actually cared about him when he had been injured in such ways; like when he had been beaten black and blue by a brainless mutant monkey that, compared to him, had no fighting skills whatsoever.

Tonight, however, he was going to stay safe.

The lair was buzzing with excitement, a feeling not usually mutual among the turtles when it came to this particular Christmas night, instead belonging solely to a an extremely hyper Michelangelo, who would bound off the walls as if they were made of rubber as he prepared to hand out his presents: and everyone knew Mikey's presents were the best.

Thankfully, it wasn't Mikey's turn to hand out early presents, as it seemed to be every year. This year, with some amount of persuasion on his part, they had managed to hand the spot over to the newest member of their family: April. Of course, had she not been as stubborn as she always was, then the exchange in roles wouldn't have even been possible. He knew instantly that she would argue with them when they turned down her offer. He could see the fire sparking in her eyes as soon as Leo turned her down, and the next thing he knew they were writing down a list of ideas for her. There was no doubt in his mind that April had disapproved of what they wrote.

That was confirmed when Leonardo fainted.

"Oh brother..." Raphael sighed, rolling his eyes like this was a common occurrence as the leader went crashing to the floor in a flash of green, the limited edition series one DVD of Space Heroes clattering off of his hard chest as he landed.

"Good job, April," Mikey grinned proudly, as if he were handing the girl a gold medal. "You broke Leo!"

"Don't worry though, Donnie can fix him." Raph turned to him. "With that new super advanced drill he's been working on that can go through anything."

"I'm okay!" Leo offered weakly from the ground.

April, who had a stunned expression on her face at the suddenness of it all, cracked a wide smile. He had to say the look suited her. It was a genuine smile, something he had been seeing less and less of from the girl lately, not that he could blame her. It was Christmas, after all, and they still hadn't rescued her father.

"Raph, you're next!" she piqued, digging into a yellow bag that lay by her side and handing him the incredibly neatly wrapped present she produced from it. Donnie could instantly tell that April had done it again, a box that size was definitely not necessary for a comic book.

What it was the right size for, however, was an assortment of turtle necessities; ranging from from a variety of different foods to even a small aquatic tub fitted with a ramp, a plastic palm tree and what could almost be a deck chair. Perfect for Spike.

Raph's eyes were wide in shock as he unwrapped the items. Carefully, he lifted them out of their packaging and examined them, trying his best to hide the smile that was forming on his face. "April...I-"

"Oh, wait a minute. There's something else too." April fumbled around in the bag, her hands reaching down deep, before presenting a plastic card to him. When the hot-headed turtle looked at her questioningly, her smile simply grew wider. "It's a membership card for the vet. If anything happens to Spike, then you can just call me up and I can see that he's taken care of."

Raph took the card from April, and just stared at it in stunned silence, gripping it tightly as if it would grow legs and suddenly try to run away from him.

Donnie was silent too, however there was a completely different reasoning behind it. That present alone must have cost April a small fortune, and combined with everything else she had bought for them...he didn't want to know. Regardless, he decided to not bring it up. April had done all this for them, and she was happy. He didn't want to bring the mood down.

Finally, Raph cracked. The smile that broke out onto his lips was even larger than April's, and it almost seemed like he had shed a few tears. It even looked like he was going to take the girl up in a hug, but when he noticed his brothers staring at him expectantly, and Mikey mischievously, he just settled for: "Thanks."

"Enough of this boring stuff! Let's get to the exciting stuff already!" Mikey chided loudly, setting himself down in front of April with his arms outstretched. "What did you get me?"

April, still smiling, handed the overexcited turtle his present, and within five seconds the floor of the pit was a sea of green wrapping paper; Mikey having shredded it off the moment he got his hands on it, his blue eyes shining eagerly. Had Donnie blinked, he might have missed it, however he was too busy boring holes into the box. The size of it was just...wrong. Compared to the presents his brothers had received, with their packaging being evidently larger than what they were expecting, the size of this was exactly what he would have initially expected, and it only took Mikey one look at the label to come to the same conclusion.

"You can't be serious..." the excited look that had been on his face had vanished. His features were drooped, and his voice was sullen. "This is a joke...right?"

The girl just looked at him, her now omnipresent smile faltering just slightly. "Isn't that what you wanted?"

For a moment, Mikey said nothing. Shakily, he opened the box in his hands and peered inside at its sparkling metal contents. Then, he looked back at April, his mouth curved upwards in a desperate and forced smile. "Y-Yeah! It's just that it's so..."

April's smile was almost completely gone. "So...?"

"So..." the orange turtle faltered, getting his feet as if he were in some kind of trance of disbelief. He gazed at the box, Leo's DVD, Raph's presents, then at April, the box, and then back to April.

And then he snapped.

"SO LAME!" he cried, throwing the box of cutlery to the ground with his superhuman strength, sending the various forks and knives flying across the floor. His features were angry, angrier than Donnie had ever seen them. Then again, Mikey never really got angry.

"I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU, APRIL! YOU ARE THE WORST-" Mikey stopped short when, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the comic book on the ground, lying hidden under the plastic mould the cutlery had been sitting in. Slowly, he bent over and picked it up, his eyes scanning over the shiny cover incredibly quickly as his face did a complete one-eighty.

In a streak a green and orange he was on April, hugging her so tightly that Donnie ended up cringing when he saw the look of pain on the girl's face. "YOU-ARE-AWESOME!"

"Merry...Christmas...Mikey!" she choked as all the air was crushed from her lungs.

It took both himself and Raph to wrench Mikey off of the girl, who spluttered something incoherent gratefully as they carried him away, eyes streaming from being held so tightly. Once things had settled down (and Mikey had stopped squealing and squirming), however, April was back in business. There was only one present left in the bag, and Donnie could feel a lump forming in his throat as she offered it to him, her smile now returning.

"Merry Christmas, Donnie."

Gently, with a smile of his own, he took the gift and held it in his hands, only now able to truly appreciate the care April had put into wrapping it. The folds on the paper were smooth, and the tape that had been used to hold it together looked crisp and clean. There were no rips, there were no marks. It was done perfectly.

And it definitely wasn't the right size for a screwdriver.

"Thanks." was all he managed, placing the present down at his side. He wasn't going to open it tonight. It was too special. He needed to wait.

For a moment, the girl frowned at him, but then she gave him an understanding nod. Donnie could have sworn he saw her blush slightly, but he thought nothing more of it, instead moving onto the question he had been waiting to ask all night; the question they most likely all had on their minds.

"So...what would you like for Christmas, April?"

At once, the girl's smile faltered completely, and Donnie could see a look flash over her cerulean eyes. A look of pain, a look of sorrow, a look that said: "My dad..."; the one thing that seemed impossible right now.

But the girl bit her tongue, and those words did not come out. Instead, she brought back a weak smile, and the words that did come out made Donnie's heart melt.

"Just...stay with me, guys."

Donnie could see the tears glistening in her eyes now, the tears he knew she didn't want to form. Without a word, without a thought, he moved over to her and wrapped his strong green arms around her, letting her rest her head against his chest. And soon more green arms joined his, taking hold of her, comforting her, protecting her. It was an action they'd taken up by instinct, one that did not need a signal. April was their sister, and they would always keep her safe.

"Merry Christmas, April."

Bah. This one was so stupidly long and I don't even know why ._. Apparently I define 'short story' differently than most people.

Anyway yeah, here it is. I may have possible made a very very VERY loose reference to a certain fanfiction on here. It is very small, but see if you notice it.

I do not own the turtles or anything affiliated with them.