Throttle was sitting in the bedroom he and his bros shared, staring out the window, three empty bottles of beer laying on the floor at his feet and his fourth beer in hand. No matter which way he looked at things, now that he knew that Shara was a half breed, he was determined to take her into protective custody as soon as he could so that he could keep her from being hurt.

He didn't kid himself though, her being half alien and one of his fellow martian females, simply gave him more of an excuse to keep her close to him. But he didn't know how to go about keeping her close to him without fighting with her.

She had been raised as a human. She had a human's tendency to lash out against those that she felt were a threat to her and her way of life. She'd probably try to kill him and his bros if they took her freedom from her without striking a sort of precarious balance first.

Something that she could live with and something that they could live with.

The trouble now was finding those things and listing them.

From what little bit he knew of her already, she liked doing dangerous things. The same things that he had labeled her as a lunatic for. But now that he knew that she was half martian, those things could be explained away as her alien blood since all of their race was the same way.

Her willful nature could also be explained away because of her alien blood. And it was her willful nature that bugged him the most.

Martian females weren't weak simpering Misses. Not by a long shot. They liked getting their hands dirty and taking risks just as much as the males. And that was part of the reason that there was so damn few of them.

They took far too many unnecessary risks. They took on enemies that they had no chance against. And many of them died far, far too young. Leaving behind a score or more of males that now had no hope of ever mating and producing offspring.

Those same males often died much sooner than they should as well.

He leaned back in his chair and braced his feet on the window sill and took a drink of his beer as the door opened and Modo came walking in. "Hey bro."

Throttle lifted his empty hand and gave the gray furred man a two fingered salute in greeting before taking another drink. Modo looked at him strangely for a second as he walked over to him and looked down at the beer bottles littering the floor around Throttle's chair and wondered what his bro was trying to sort out. Or maybe he was trying to forget something. It was sometimes hard to tell which way things went with Throttle since he didn't usually drink unless he was trying to sort something out or he was trying to forget.

"Is everything okay bro?" Modo asked as he bent down and picked up one of the empty bottles and studied it for a second.

Throttle made a humming sound and polished off his beer and leaned down to set the bottle aside and wondered where the hell his fifth, sixth, and seventh beers had gone before he straitened his spine and tipped his head back to look at Modo who was holding one hand behind his back and trying to look innocent.

He reached out a gloved hand and wiggled his fingers at the man. "Gimme."

"Give you what?"

"Gimme my next beer."

"Beer? Your drinking beer? You? The great and noble leader are-"

Throttle took one of his boots off and threw it at the giant's head and used his tail to snatch one of the beers behind Modo's back and popped the lid off before Modo could snatch it away from him. "Dammit bro. If something's wrong you need to talk to me, not sit here alone and try to drink yourself stupid." Modo growled at him.

Throttle hummed and took a drink and waved his free hand at the man then set the bottle aside and said, "If you knew what I knew, you'd drink too." Modo's ears twitched slightly as he frowned. What did Throttle mean by 'if he knew what he knew' he'd drink too?

"Is something going on bro? Are you feeling a little stressed or something?"

Throttle snorted. The word stressed didn't even begin to cover what he was feeling at the moment. But then neither did the words; worried, troubled, and hot and bothered. Although those words were pretty close to describing what he was feeling at the moment.

"Something like that-" Throttle said after a moment or so as Modo planted himself in the floor next to Throttle and set the bottles that he'd been trying to keep from him, down. "Can I ask you a question Modo?"

"You just did."

Throttle gave him an unamused look. "I mean a different question."

Modo cocked his head and considered him for a second before saying. "Fire away."

"If you found a half martian female, you'd take her into protective custody wouldn't you? Even though she had been raised as a human and would fight you." Modo got a funny slightly panicked look on his face and grabbed one of the unopened beers and popped the lid off and downed an entire half bottle before he bothered to answer Throttle's question.

"Yes. Yes, I would."

Throttle made a 'hn'ing sound. "Even if she might try to kill you?"

"Even if she tried to kill me. You know how badly our kind needs females. Especially young healthy ones that we might be able to sire offspring with. It wouldn't matter if she's a half breed or not. She'd still be one of us-"

"And as such she needs to be protected." Throttle finished his sentence for him then took another drink of his beer as Modo asked.

"Why would you ask me a question about this? It isn't like any of us have come across any-" He stopped talking, and let his jaw drop open when Throttle gave him another unamused look and quickly pulled himself together and asked.

"Oh momma, you've found one? An honest to god half breed female? Here? In the city?"

"Yeah. I found her today while I was out riding."

"But...how did you know that she was a half breed?" Modo asked curiously, knowing that many half breed females didn't look like them. Many of them took after their fathers or mothers depending on which one of their parents wasn't a martian mouse.

"I knew because Charlie knows her. She even has pictures of her with her mother. They have the same coloring. The same eyes and hair." Modo had an even more shocked look on his face. Charlie? Their human, Charlie, knew the half breed? How the hell had that managed to escape their notice?

Didn't Charlie tell them everything?