#sariphantom

"We wanted to go for another Sewer Tire Ride. Why not bring her along?" Raph cheerfully suggests. "Those are always fun times!"

"Except when some of us get separated from the group," Leo mumbles as he fiddles with his skateboard's wheels. 

Mikey shakes his head with energy. "Guys, there's no way April will want to swim in the sewers." 

"Plus," Donnie adds, "it's not exactly an activity I'd call normal."

"But she ain't exactly normal either," Raph remarks. 

"Sheesh, Raph, you can't say to a girl she's weird," Mikey jokes, and misses the way Donnie flinches. 

"Well, it's not the first time she frets about this stuff," Leo points out, holding his chin. "She could probably use something classic, for once."

"Aaand we're back at the beginning of the conversation," Donnie sighs in defeat. 

"Let's focus for a second," Mikey says, holding one hand up in front of him, rubbing between his eyes with the other. "What's a thing we do that's both enjoyable and normal?" 

The silence that follows is so dense they can almost see it with naked eyes. 

"Okay then," Raph pushes, "what's a thing humans do that's both enjoyable and doable for us?"

"That eliminates everything sewers related," Donnie thinks aloud. 

"And Turtle Tank related," Mikey adds. 

"And heroes related," Raph pouts. 

Leo snaps his fingers. "Ooh ho ho, I think I know just the thing!" he says in his best I'm-awesome-and-I-know-it voice, which makes everybody subconsciously tense. He flips his mask tails before making finger guns at his self proclaimed twin brother. "Donnie, you're loaded, right?"

Donnie cringes. 

He doesn't like this. 

He doesn't like this one bit. 

----------

April’s conception of normality might be a bit skewed. 

“I found Mayhem in the streets,” she’d told her parents when she’d first brought her new pet home. It’s a mutant dog thingie I picked in a mad goatman’s lab, she hadn’t said. And it also teleports, she most certainly hadn’t added. 

“I’m going for a sleepover at my friends’!” she tells her parents now as she leaves with her backpack. You know, the giant turtles living in the sewers, she doesn’t say. Whose father is a rat formerly known as an action star movie, she definitely doesn’t add. 

On her way to the nearest manhole, she tries to take a guess at whatever the plan might be, knowing full well it’s a lost battle. The boys have been rather vague with their invitation, like they often are. Hey, you should come over for pizza night, they say before dragging her in a maze of death. Yo April, wanna come see Leo make a fool of himself as a basketball mascot? they ask and then end up playing against a full team of mystic monsters. Not that she minds, really; she’d die before admitting it, but that maze pizza might’ve been the best she’s ever had, and she finds herself having fun all the way with whatever situation they get themselves into. 

The thing is, there’s nothing in there that she can bring up in casual conversations with her classmates, which leads to her barely sharing any of her personal life at school. Which leads to her feeling like an outcast, at times. 

April’s nature being what it is, she doesn’t mull over it. Right now, she’s quick to shake the blues away, and she’s excited as ever when she reaches the lair. The boys greet her with a glee she’s delighted to see, and they start speaking all at the same time, explaining they’re actually going out for the week-end. That’s hardly the first time something like that happens, April thinks, not reading too much into it - okay, maybe she’s getting a little suspicious over the Hamato family’s growing agitation. Raph’s hands are stimming, Leo and Mikey keep on interrupting each other, Donnie has his sacred board shorts on and Splinter is carrying an honest-to-God suitcase. With wheels. 

She can’t help but squint skeptically when they leave the Turtle Tank in the garage and get in an old-school van instead - probably a rental car. Raph makes himself as small as he can to fit at the back of the van, and Donnie hits the road as soon as everyone’s settled. April’s wariness is short lived, though, with how easy it is to vibe with the pop music blasting on speakers; how funny it is to take sides when Raph and Leo fight over which song to put up next, how good it feels to join Mikey and Donnie as they sing their lungs out, or how amazed she is at the way Splinter recognizes the landscapes around them as they get out of New York. 

April half expects their destination to be some kind of yokai residence, or maybe something along the lines of a mystic cave. She’s actually surprised when they pull up in front of a cute, cozy, perfectly typical little cottage next to a pond, lost in the middle of nowhere. 

The boys jump out of the van like the seats have been burning their butts; April reminds herself they’ve probably never been driving for this long before. She’s glad to stretch her legs, too, and the excitement takes over her once more as they go exploring their house for the night, bickering over who gets to take which room, making “whoops” of victory with every new discovery in the closets and whistling in appreciation at the size of the bathroom, which looks like it can handle even Raph. 

If April wasn’t so thrilled, she would marvel at how casually the whole week-end flows, at how domestic and relatable this sleepover is. She’s too busy hosting a cannonball competition in the pond to think about how different it feels from their clandestine dives into New York rooftops’ pools. Too busy decorating her homemade pizza to realize how common the ingredients are. She’s so focused on her Monopoly strategies to try and remember when was the last time she played board games with anyone, and she’s too captivated by the local frogs’ loud singing at night to bother with any kind of late evening existential questioning. 

Her sleep is so sound that the rays of the sun aren’t enough to wake her up the next morning; she gives a silent nod to her past self for putting up an alarm and sneaks her way downstairs, fully intending on making breakfast for everyone. She revels in the way the smell of eggs and bacon wakes the whole house up, laughs at Leo’s repetitive yawns, puffs up at Mikey’s praises on her cooking. She smiles as Donnie instinctively checks his phone, forbids Splinter to wash the dishes - that’s the least she can do to express her gratitude - and joins Raph for a little morning jog around the pond. When they pack up again, each of them seems lighter than they had before the trip. 

It’s only on their ride back to the city that it dawns on her. There are a lot of things they could’ve done differently this week-end. They could’ve gone to a mutants-friendly place, or gotten some fancy Hidden City pizza. They could’ve traveled with the help of Leo’s portals, or stayed in the lair for a movie night like they usually do. She knows how sincerely she would’ve enjoyed each of these options.   

But the truth is that she’s glad for the road trip. She’s charmed with the cottage, and baffled with the simplicity of it all. 

This is definitely something she could tell her classmates all about, if she wanted. And maybe she will, when the opportunity presents itself. 

Right now, though, she’s just content to lay her head against Mikey’s shoulder and to drift off, lulled by the sound of Leo’s bragging about some imaginary victory at RISK and by the smoothness of Donnie’s driving.