I didn't say anything. I just sat cleaning my blades and let Raph do the talking.

Raph said what I had been thinking...at least..part of what I'd been thinking. It made me nervous that Mike seemed to be bonding with her so quickly. As if she was nothing more than a little stray kitten we could just feed and keep.

I wondered how much of it on her end was real.

We didn't know at the time, of course hat she was in fact a thief. A pickpocket. She had muttered a few things in her unconscious state that made me think she was. But I had no proof.

Still, we couldn't afford to trust her. And Mike was starting to already.

I still felt pity for her. I understood what Mike wanted, why he reacted to her like that. He always was the kindest of us. He would bring home hurt animals he found in the sewers to make well. HE found a bag of newborn kittens once and nursed all but one to maturity so April could find them good homes.

One died, and he cried over it as if he was still a child that believed everything had to be fair.

It was one of the reasons I love him so much. My brother is the kindest person I know. If he could run the world, it would be a much happier place.

I didn't want her to hurt him. I felt furry at the idea, and I'm not used to that. Raph is the time bomb, not me.

And yet, I wondered if it was real from her end too. Splinter had said little about what he had spoken to her about, but there was something in the way he looked when he left her that first night. A thoughtful, and sort of sad look, that made me think maybe she was more than just a sneak thief.

Maybe Raph was wrong.