Such a small gesture, but it does ward off the rest of the lingering anxieties. Donatello offers a faint smile back.
It's enough just hearing her footsteps, but it doesn't keep him from looking back over his shoulder, almost like he expects her to vanish. How does something like what happened earlier trigger? A threat? They'd been threatened earlier but somehow something had pushed her over some invisible line this time.
Her apology breaks him out of his thoughts, not realizing how quiet he'd gotten. He looks back at her again, startled before he shakes his head. "No it's... Not exactly that." His gaze skitters sidewise, hesitant. Talking about anything even remotely close to feelings was foreign ground to him. He's never been very good with emotions in general. "It just reminded me of what happened with one of my brothers. He was under someone else's control- an alien, actually." He breathes a small, mirthless laugh at that. "Different alien, pretty sure it's not related to yours. But the way he looked at us, it was like he didn't know who we were. ...we thought we'd lost him."
It was a sickening sensation, like the floor opening up beneath you. Donatello isn't sure how to really describe it otherwise. Explaining the situation was the easiest thing. He supposes that fear was a part of it, but not necessarily in the sense that Li had suggested. He knows the difference, and it hadn't been the same fear he'd experienced when a wild, incoherent Shredder had nearly ripped his shell apart. It was a fear of losing someone, even though they were right there in front of you, and that fear spawned a different sort of helplessness.
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It's enough just hearing her footsteps, but it doesn't keep him from looking back over his shoulder, almost like he expects her to vanish. How does something like what happened earlier trigger? A threat? They'd been threatened earlier but somehow something had pushed her over some invisible line this time.
Her apology breaks him out of his thoughts, not realizing how quiet he'd gotten. He looks back at her again, startled before he shakes his head. "No it's... Not exactly that." His gaze skitters sidewise, hesitant. Talking about anything even remotely close to feelings was foreign ground to him. He's never been very good with emotions in general. "It just reminded me of what happened with one of my brothers. He was under someone else's control- an alien, actually." He breathes a small, mirthless laugh at that. "Different alien, pretty sure it's not related to yours. But the way he looked at us, it was like he didn't know who we were. ...we thought we'd lost him."
It was a sickening sensation, like the floor opening up beneath you. Donatello isn't sure how to really describe it otherwise. Explaining the situation was the easiest thing. He supposes that fear was a part of it, but not necessarily in the sense that Li had suggested. He knows the difference, and it hadn't been the same fear he'd experienced when a wild, incoherent Shredder had nearly ripped his shell apart. It was a fear of losing someone, even though they were right there in front of you, and that fear spawned a different sort of helplessness.