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The first time, April was seven years old.
She'd met the turtles and their rat-dad just six months prior, shortly after her birthday, and had instantly declared them her 'best friends ever in the whole world' when she found out they also liked Lou Jitsu and Jupiter Jim!
Her parents weren't home often, so April spent a lot of time by herself at her aunt's. Except, her aunt worked all day, so sometimes April left the apartment to go to the playground or the store. That was how she had met the turtles! She'd dropped her favorite Jupiter Jim action figure down the sewers and crawled down an open manhole to find it, only to find four turtles instead.
It was weird at first, because most people weren't turtles. But her mom had always told her that people come in all colors, shapes, and sizes and so it was bad to judge people without getting to know them!
April liked to think she'd done really well with not judging before getting to know them. Her mom would be super proud!
Six months later, and her parents had come home and gone off again a few times.
Last time, her mom had promised to help April braid her hair. She wanted braids like Tanya at school! But her mom had been called away on an emergency. She'd apologized and said they could put braids in when she got back, but some of the other girls at school kept making fun of her pigtails so April wanted to change them now.
She'd told the turtles this, foot stomping and pout on her face.
Leo had shrugged. They didn't really get why it was important, because none of them had hair! But Donnie had nodded and said it was important that she looked cool. If they helped her, would the other girls at school stop making fun of her?
(Raph had suggested biting the other girls, but April was pretty sure that wouldn't help.... even if it did sound more fun.)
So, she'd put all the products she remembered her mom using into her backpack along with a laptop and made her way to the lair in the sewers.
Pulling out her laptop, she found a video online of a lady doing a girl's hair in a cool style that April liked, two large braids down either side of the girl's head. It didn't look too hard, right?
The boys watched it with her the first time, crowding around the screen to squint at it, occassionally pausing and rewinding the video.
"I got it!" Donnie had cried at the end of the video, scrambling around to sit behind April with a brush.
Unsurprisingly, he hadn't got it.
They spent the whole day trying to fix April's hair, and at the end of the day had managed two very awkward, lumpy braids. They hadn't been perfect, but she'd been so very pleased when she'd gone home and shown her aunt.
Thankfully, the woman in question had been kind enough not to laugh. And although she let April run around that night with her hard-won braids, she'd mercifully tidied them up before sending her off to school the next day. If the turtles ever noticed, they never said. And April never said anything either, after all, they'd worked hard figuring out how to braid with only three fingers!
For the next few years, every time she wanted to change her hair, April and the turtles would try their hands at it before she went to her mother or auntie.
They weren't experts, but practice made perfect and they'd gotten way better over time.
At one point, Donnie had dragged one of those giant doll heads from a dumpster that they'd all carefully cleaned and brushed the hair of. Leo had been quick to point out that the doll was blonde and had different hair than April, but it was better than nothing.
Right now, at 14 years old April had known the Turtles for over half her life. They were her brothers, her other parts, her confidants, her closest companions.
She sighed and leaned forward when Raph gently nudged at the back of her head. "And then Cherish said if Kim wanted it so badly that she should just fetch and then threw it!"
Mikey gasped dramatically from somewhere to her right. They'd all just celebrated his self-proclaimed eleventh birthday a few weeks prior. The youngest turtle didn't have the patience for actually helping with her hair, although he was always looking through magazines and videos online for new styles and products.
In front of her, Donnie was staring down at the doll head, tongue poked out of their mouth in concentration as they carefully selected a few strands of hair and tucked them away. Leo sat next to them, tucked so closely that their legs pressed together. The twins were oddly inseperable, despite Donnie's explanation that they couldn't possibly be biological twins.
April was pretty sure it didn't matter. And everyone else agreed. Twins were twins. After all, she wasn't a turtle, but she was still their big sister.
"Man, why does Cherish have to ruin everything?" Mikey moaned, pouting.
There was an upset sounding grunt from behind April, and Raph paused in his work to shoot Mikey a disapproving look.
"Awe, don't be mad Raph!" April grinned even though she knew the thirteen year old couldn't see it as he worked on a braid. "Cherish really is the worst, except maybe for Kendra. She's new, her mom just married Jason's dad so she moved here from Chicago. She's such a know-it-all!"
Raph gave another disapproving grunt, mouth full of bobby pins and hair elastics. He was a lot like April's mom, because he always believed in being nice to people even if they weren't nice to April.
April thought that people who weren't nice to April deserved a good smack to the back of the head. The twins were of a similar thought. But trying to say that to Raph usually got them all put in time out, so better to keep that thought to themselves.
The largest turtle gave a long, deep sigh, and April could imagine him shaking his head even as he reached over to smear some more product over his fingertips.
In highschool, April decided that she'd let her hair grown naturally. Sometimes she'd style it into cute little buns or with a bandana, but gone were the days of sitting in a comfortable clump in the lair with Raph at her back gently tucking her hair into braids.
Not that they weren't still together all the time. If anything, with the freedom that came with being able to leave the house without sneaking out, April was able to be away from home for longer and longer periods of time. And most of her free time was spent either trying to work various ill-fated part-time jobs or with the turtles. Sometimes both.
Sometimes, the turtles would help her color the ends of her hair, fading it into a bright yellow or pink or whatever other color caught Mikey's attention.
The smell of the bleach would always cause Raph's beak to scrunch up and make the snapper sneeze, and Donnie wouldn't come near at all until after everything was setting under plastic bags. Thankfully, Mikey and Leo seemed to be better able to tolerate it, and were happy to chatter away with her about school or work while painting the bleach onto her curls, carefully checking to make sure they didn't miss any spots in the back.
Afterwards, they'd collapse in a turtle-pile in the livingroom, a tired heap of shells and scales and limbs.
"I wish I could do that," Leo had hummed once. "I think I'd look good blonde. Or maybe with like, bright blue streaks!"
"Blonde would be cute," April mused. "The streaks might make you look like a wanna be emo though."
"Oh, ew. That's Tello's aesthetic," Leo's beak scrunched playfully at his twin. "Can't steal their vibe! Bright blonde then, and long. Maybe I could get a weave."
April laughed, rolling over to look at him, enjoying the playful, smug smile he gave as she punched his arm.
After the Krang everything was different.
She'd been living in the dorms at school, but those had been very well destroyed. So, she'd finally taken the turtles up on their offer of a spare subway car. They'd helped her hang up fairly lights and her old Jupiter Jim posters from her childhood bedroom. And maybe it wasn't normal or healthy for her to be living there with them. But the thought of being anywhere else made her nauseous.
And besides, they needed her.
Leo was well on his way to physical recovery, but had found a need to brace his right knee more nights than not. Mikey had shakey hands, slight nerve damage from his portal-making having played havoc on his system. Donnie hadn't told them the extent of their damage at first, not until they'd found them seizing one night alone in the lab. The development of epilepsy had led to a permanent buddy system being put in place. And Raph was still struggling with changes to his vision. A nasty infection in his eye had necessitated it's removal, and although he was adjusting well there were still moments where the depth perception was just too off and he missed a stair or rammed into a corner.
Not to mention their emotional states.
But, sometimes things felt ok. Quiet.
"Hey, April?"
"Sup, Big Red?" She looked over at Raph from across the living room. Junior was out with Cassandra for the night, and Splinter had vanished into the Hidden City with Draxum muttering something about Big Mama. So it was April and her turtles for the night.
Raphael had surpassed everyone in size when she'd been in her early teens. And the twins when she was still in high school. Mikey was about even with her, but likely only for a little while longer. Still, it didn't stop the oldest turtle from being so small sometimes.
"Do you remember when you used to let us braid your hair, when we were kids?"
She hummed in the affirmative, remembering everything from lumpy pigtail to carefully put in box braids. Raph had done most of the actual braiding, Leo and Donnie hadn't been able to take to it in quite the same way.
Stretching out with a yawn, she got up to her feet. "C'mon, I got stuff in my room. We'll grab the others on the way back."
It wasn't exactly the same anymore.
Raph's fingers tugging against her scalp were shakier now, and every once in a while she had to hide a hiss behind her teeth when he pulled just a little too hard, not really able to see. A few curses escaped around the bobby pins and elastics clasped in his mouth, something his younger self would've been scandalized by.
But there was familiar there too. Mikey had laid his head in her lap, angled up so he could see what was happening and offer words of encouragement. Leo and Donnie sat legs pressed together, and had put in an old Lou Jitsu flick as background noise, even though they were each taking turns helping Raph. Leo had even pulled some bright electric-yellow hair from some unknown hidey hole, and they were helping twist it into long braids that tucked artfully up into a bun at the top of her head.
The air felt heavy with the scent of product and leave-in conditioner. The smell brought back vivid memories of being smaller and younger, when life was no less colorful.
It felt good, a reminder that life goes on.
So April ran her fingers lovingly over some lumpier-than usual braids that had fallen over her shoulder, knowing that she wouldn't fix them nor would she say a thing.
Because right here, right now, they were all beautiful.