Notes: Firstly, I'd just like to send out a great big thank you to everyone who has read and supported my other works. Secondly, this tale features stronger adult content than the previous installment, but I feel it still falls within the Mature rating parameters. And lastly, reading Follow Me Back Home and the related tangents series first is recommended. Thank you again and enjoy.

Chapter 1

I see the waves of sand
Big, free
Another land
Dreams within dreams
You are alive
They gave me their wings
I spread them wide
~The Reign; Tarja

"Hey, have you heard this one before? A one-eyed Martian walked into a bar..."

Modo narrowed his lone eye at the mouse speaking. "Yes?" he prompted icily.

A burly mouse with sand-colored fur and mud brown hair that brushed his shoulders rolled his own eyes and set a glass bottle down on the counter with a loud clunk. "And he ordered a root beer," he finished cattily. "Seriously, you're a grown mouse. Aren't you ever going to order anything stronger?"

"Nope," Modo responded casually, as he snatched up the bottle and popped the top off. "It'd make my mama frown."

Conrad, the bartender and owner of the bar, rolled his eyes again and swiped a rag across the counter. "Yeah, yeah. The way you three keep chugging those on me, I ought to charge you double. You know," he added, his tone turning awkward, "if I wasn't supplied with them for free."

"Well, here's somethin' for your trouble," said Modo. He tossed a coin onto the bar and left, pausing outside to take a long drink of the sweet, bubbly liquid. The sky was bright today, as clear as the sky over Mars could be. The area surrounding Conrad's was quiet, which it usually was, since the bar and grill was near the outskirts of the residential district. Scattered clumps of dark grass poked up through the sand around the cluster of old, rough-looking buildings, and Modo leaned back against the coarse wall of the bar as he took another drink, watching the Martian figures moving in the distance as they went about their daily lives.

He barely heard the approaching footsteps on the hard ground over his own gulping, but he did - barely. He knew immediately that those steps could only belong to one being. Even Ashlin, delicate as she was, didn't walk that soft or quiet. Ashlin had an adorable habit of scampering.

He swallowed his mouthful and turned, and a moment later Tamerin came around the corner of the bar. Every biker's dream come true: scuffed black boots laden with buckles, a skin-tight t-shirt with the sleeves - and a few other parts - clipped off, a cropped leather jacket that glittered with zippers, black leather gloves with no fingers...and let's not forget the impossibly tight latex rubber pants. Pants that made one a little worried - or in some cases hopeful - that they would split, especially when she stopped walking and shifted her weight to one side.

"Have you seen Throttle?" she asked, resting a hand on her jutting hip.

Modo gave his head a shake. "Not since this mornin'."

Tamerin clucked her tongue and pushed her sunglasses up into her hair. "He's not at the garage, so he must have gone for a ride without me. I'll have to spank him when he gets back."

As she spoke, she cast a glance over her shoulder at the sprawling building visible in the distance behind her...which meant she missed the blush that spread across the gray mouse's cheeks. He didn't exactly appreciate the images her last sentence conjured up.

"I still have a few more things left to do," she noted, her right hand still fiddling with her sunglasses. The light caught the metal charm dangling from the bracelet she wore, making it glisten. He was all but used to it by now, but sometimes it still struck Modo as a little strange. He was accustomed to seeing that spiked shape dangle from the ear of his bro.

Throttle had other ear adornment these days, and he had talked Tamerin into getting a few of her own. A row of tiny rhinestone studs curved along the cartilage of her left ear, each one glittering a different color - a contrast to the plain silver stud in her right earlobe. But it seemed like anything went well with her white skin, which was even glossier than her matching mane of white hair.

Not like her mother, whose flame-red hair was every bit as glistening and lustrous as her pure white skin, like her flesh had been formed from freshly fallen snow. He hastily pushed this thought from his mind; Tamerin's mama was still a sore subject for him.

"You're welcome, by the way."

Puzzled, Modo looked and saw that her gaze was fixed on the bottle in his hand. "Oh - yeah. Thanks," he mumbled.

"Don't mention it," Tamerin said crisply, with a toss of her snowy hair. "It's not that big of an inconvenience to teleport all the way from Mars to Earth and back again, just for a couple crates of liquid sugar in a bottle."

Modo squirmed and glanced away. Tamerin grinned and lightly punched his jaw. "Kidding, big guy. You know I'd do anything for you three."

"Four," Modo reminded her.

"Oh, yes," she amended, with a roll of her eyes. "I forgot, you've corrupted Rimfire."

The comment made him bristle. He wanted to say something about exactly who had 'corrupted' his nephew, but he held his tongue. Tamerin had given him a playful punch a moment ago, but that didn't mean she wouldn't knock him flat with the real thing in less than a heartbeat if he pushed her temper. "You headin' back to the garage?" he asked instead, changing the subject.

Tamerin glanced behind her again. "In a minute. I need to pick up a few things."

She nudged her sunglasses back down, lifted a hand in farewell and walked away, hips swaying. Modo absently leaned against the side of the bar again, his eye on the Second Chance Garage. Less than six months ago, that shabby building had been nothing but an old storage facility that wasn't used anymore. But within a week of following Vinnie from Earth to Mars, Charley had adopted it. "I'm on a planet covered in bikers," she had explained. "I'm going to need somewhere to keep all the bikes I'll be fixing."

The three of them had laughed at the time, thinking that she was getting a little ahead of herself...but word traveled fast, and once the locals knew that a pretty and talented mechanic had moved into town, they came in droves. Before long, Charley was swamped with repairs. The rest of them started helping out in any way they could - Ashlin and Tamerin, too - in the hopes of lightening the load a little...and before they knew it, things just kind of fell in place. The shabby building looked a lot less shabby now, especially on the inside, which was cleaned up and decorated with posters and had music pumping during the daylight hours - the kind of place where any biker would feel at home. Charley was the boss, and the rest of them were her obedient little workers...most of the time.

It was a great way to live, and Modo couldn't remember a time when he - and everyone else - had felt happier. In fact, he'd even go so far as to say that life was perfect...except for that one tiny little thing.

But he really didn't want to think about the coldness that still existed between him and his nephew right now. He still had a job or two to finish up, but it was nothing that wouldn't keep until later, so after gulping down the last of his root beer and tossing the bottle away, he started for home.

After putting the last of her tools away, Tamerin slid the toolbox into her personal locker and latched it. She wasn't accustomed to locking things, but she had learned quickly that if she didn't protect her tools around here, they would mysteriously disappear. Not because her fellow mechanics were dishonest...just forgetful and disorganized.

"I'm done here, so I'll be heading out," she announced.

Across the room, Charley looked up from the engine she was working on, her expression both surprised and impressed. "Already? That was fast."

Of course it was. She might not be Military anymore, but the traits of a soldier were ingrained in her...whether she wanted them to be or not. Everything she did was swift and efficient; she never wasted time when she had a job to do. It wasn't in her nature to be sloppy or lazy, so when it came to the checklist of jobs that Charley wrote out every day - one each for her, Throttle, Modo, and Vinnie - she was always done first.

Tamerin actually wouldn't mind letting things slip every once in a while, but it was like her very genes fought against it.

Scowling suddenly, Charley reached over, snatched the magazine Vinnie was reading out of his hands and swatted his hip with it. "If you stopped lazing around all day, you wouldn't always have to work so late," she scolded.

"Hey, I get things done," Vinnie protested. "Just in my own time."

Tamerin hid a smile and shook her head. It didn't matter if Vinnie bothered to apply himself and finish his work early or not; he'd still stay in the garage all day, so long as Charley was in here. Charley should have realized that by now.

With a giggle, a small white shape suddenly tottered across the floor, making a beeline for the engine still sitting out on the workbench. "I hep Mommy," Vector announced happily, as he poked at the machine with a plastic wrench.

The sight made Charley laugh and scoop her son into a loving hug. "At least somebody around here has a good worth ethic," she noted wryly.

Vinnie didn't respond. He just put his arms around his wife and son, which was exactly what he had been quietly waiting around for all along. Still smiling discreetly, Tamerin saw herself out.

Living on Mars was infinitely different from living on Malteria, but she'd quickly grown used to it. There was never any doubt that she would. Like the rest of her kind, she was genetically designed to adapt swiftly to virtually any environment, whether it was comfortable or not. Mars wasn't uncomfortable...just different. It had perceptible day and night, shifts in temperature, sand storms, unfriendly and potentially dangerous neighbors. It was a place that was harsh at times, but it didn't bother her.

Another adjustment was living in a cave instead of an underwater city. Her home with Throttle had dark brown walls made of tightly packed dirt and rock, and the gray stone floor was covered in soft rugs. There was basic furniture and separate rooms, with sliding doors built straight into the rock of the walls. It was an unusual combination of primitive and advanced, but it was warm and dry.

Not that any of it really mattered. She could live just about anywhere, wet or dry - her body could handle both. The location and its characteristics didn't matter to her. All she needed to keep her happy was Throttle.

She wondered sometimes, even with him able to pick up her emotions through his antennae like he could, if he really knew just how much her heart soared when he was near and how badly she ached for him when they were apart. Even now, mildly annoyed with him for running off somewhere and having fun without her like she was, she longed for his voice, his subtle scent.

And speaking of scents...

After leaving her boots on the mat by the front door and hanging up her jacket on an empty hook, she paused to sniff her bare arm. Frowning, she tugged her gloves off and sniffed the glands hidden along the tender inside of her wrists; yes, it was there. That telltale sweetness that always precluded fertility. Except now that she was mated it was so subtle she had almost failed to spot it last time. After over forty years of waking up one morning practically drowning in her own scent, having cycles that were nearly undetectable was a big adjustment.

Fortunately, enough pheromones still pumped into her scent glands for her to notice, and just like always, that sweet smell showed up several hours before she was completely fertile. Unfortunately...the painful ache of arousal that went along with her cycle had only dulled a little from back when she was unmated.

At least it served as a reliable warning sign. A fellow Imeeran would be able to detect when his mate was fertile with ease, but Throttle...he couldn't tell the difference between the smell of fertility and the smell of sexual excitement, which she had to admit were irritatingly similar. And pushing him away was a lot harder than she first thought it would be, but she couldn't take the chance of ever getting pregnant. Thanks to the seemingly infinite amount of genetic material used in the creation of her species, no one had any clue what would happen if someone were to breed with a non-Imeeran. There was a chance the pregnancy would fail in the early stages, or a chance she might give birth to something completely normal...or a chance that the clashing genetics would produce some horrific mess.

She really didn't want to be the test subject who found out, and so she braced herself as she sat down on the living room couch, waiting for the inevitable tension that would arise once Throttle came home and got a whiff of her - a tension that would only get worse when she told him to back off. It almost made her wish they would have a lover's quarrel when he got back - something they hadn't done yet - so she would have an excuse to avoid him for a week. Well, another excuse.

When he came home a little while later, she folded her arms and tried to look put out - which he missed completely, since for some strange reason he walked backwards through the front door. "So, did you have fun?" she asked, as dryly as she could. "I wouldn't know, since you went without me."

Throttle just chuckled and started nudging off his boots. Really, pretending to be annoyed when she wasn't was such a waste of time. Thanks to his antennae, he could read her emotions even more clearly and strongly than she could read his. In response to her words she felt a twinge of amusement from him; no doubt he thought she was only playing. She didn't often tease him or joke around - not like she did with Vinnie and Modo. She always tried to be gentle with his feelings, knowing that they were a lot more fragile than he let on...and whenever she did tease him, it was because she was trying to coax him to come over and...punish her.

Well, good job, ex-Major-General, she thought sarcastically.

"I would have brought you with," Throttle said, still facing the door, "but somebody persuaded me to take him for a ride. He was pretty insistent and I didn't want to keep him waiting."

Tamerin found herself wishing that the old rumor that had existed since shortly after the first twenty settled on Malteria was true - that once a couple had been together long enough, they would be able to read each other's minds and send their thoughts to each other. It was a long held, if fanciful belief that had never been proven, since all of the oldest couples - some of which who had been together for centuries - had been killed in combat. Tamerin wasn't sure if she believed it herself, but she wouldn't mind being able to peek inside Throttle's head about now - but even if it was really something that was possible, it would take a lot more time to achieve. Time and sex. Lots of sex.

Focus, damn it!

Hoping that her indifference to what he had just said didn't register through their bond, she made a bigger show of pouting. "Throttle, I put up with you always running off with the others because I love them like family, but if you're going to start disappearing for hours with a complete stranger..."

She trailed off, because sometimes leaving a sentence unfinished said far more all on its own...and because she was pretty sure her little act was a colossal failure. And then Throttle turned around.

Her heart did a somersault. Cradled tenderly in his arms was a little boy with shaggy off-white fur and two stubby horns. He had his head cuddled against Throttle's chest, and there was a faint smile on his face as he dreamed.

Tamerin swallowed back the lump rising into her throat and said nothing. Neither did Throttle. He just quietly planted a kiss on the top of Michio's head before carrying him to his room. He came back a moment later and flopped down next to her, casually draping his arm on the back of the couch. "So, are you going to make up for being mean to me?"

"I was only kidding," she said quickly.

Throttle smirked. "I know."

He leaned to kiss her; she hastily planted a hand on his chest. "Wait."

Eyebrows raised, Throttle pushed his specs up to his forehead and eyed her curiously. Sighing, Tamerin held out her arm, displaying the inside of her wrist. He knew all about her scent glands - and knew all the places they hid on her body - and he cupped her hand in his as he brought his nose to her skin, inhaling deeply. He made a sound low in his throat and nuzzled the sensitive inside of her wrist.

Tamerin barely withheld a whimper; that wasn't the reaction she had been trying to invoke. "Throttle..."

With another low sound - like a growl crossed with a purr - he kissed and nuzzled his way up her arm. It seemed like in less than a second he had made his way up to her throat - the place where her largest and most potent scent gland hid - and started gently nipping at her skin as he pressed his firm body against hers, pushing her back into the cushions of the couch.

Her own body responded instantly, her skin turning warm beneath his touch while her breath quickened. The space between her legs was also starting to warm, and it was all she could do not to lock her ankles around his back and yank him closer.

All that from just a brief bit of touching? He hadn't even kissed her yet. She must be closer to actually being fertile than she thought - if she wasn't already. With all the strong smells in the garage, she could have been giving off the signals for hours and never noticed.

Her heart was pounding now, but not from excitement - well, not completely. She tried to squirm away, to put her hands to his chest and shove, but Throttle was grappling for her, wrapping his strong arms around her as he all but crushed her to him. Not that she couldn't get him off with ease, but...she disliked using physical force against the one she loved. "Come on," he murmured in her ear, his voice even huskier than usual. "Let's go finish this in the bedroom."

Grunting, Tamerin twisted her face away as he started to kiss her. "No."

His cheek pressed against hers, she felt him blink. "No? You want to go at it right here? Fine by me, but there's no door and Mitch might wake up and walk in on us..."

With another grunt, she jabbed him in the ribs with her elbow and shoved him away with her bare foot. "I mean no," she repeated firmly, as she scooted back until she was pressed against the arm of the couch. "Not now."

She tucked her knees tightly to her chest. Throttle blinked again, his brow furrowing a little. "Are you still playing?" he asked suspiciously.

"No," she muttered. "I'm fertile."

Throttle let out a groan and slumped back against the other arm. "Already?"

"It's been four months," she reminded him.

She had already been fertile once since they first got together, shortly after she moved in with him here on Mars. But they had both been busy at the time, helping Charley set up her new garage. Avoiding each other had been relatively easy. But now...

Now they had a routine. They spent most of the day working in Second Chance together, they went on rides together during their free time, they took Michio to school together, they came home and had almost every meal together, and every night they fell asleep in each other's arms...because virtually every night they made love to each other.

Sure, it was excessive, even for an Imeeran, but she couldn't help it. She'd been alone for a long time before they met, and she loved him desperately. They had a connection that she hadn't been sure they would be able to achieve at first, since he wasn't an Imeeran...but she had been wrong. Completely wrong. And it was that very connection that had them grappling for each other so often. It was a sense of oneness that was so pure, so perfect...it was addicting.

The other thing that never failed to stoke their passion - or rather his - was the smell that was currently flowing from her pores. And getting worse by the minute. She breathed a sigh. "I'll sleep here," she offered.

"And leave me with the bed?" Throttle asked dryly. "A bed that smells like you? No thanks. Scoot."

He gripped her by the waist and shoved her off the couch, then stretched out with his arms folded beneath his head. He looked put out, and she felt ripples of irritation coming through their bond. She absently rubbed her arm - as if she could buff the smell away. "Sorry," she mumbled.

His expression softened, just as he nudged his specs back down over his eyes. A flicker of love washed over the irritation, sweeping it away. "Not your fault. Can't fight biology."

Tamerin smiled faintly. "Guess I'll go start on dinner," she said uncertainly.

"No, I'll handle it," Throttle said quickly. "You should probably go eat somewhere else tonight. Let that smell clear out of here for a while."

Grimacing, Tamerin unconsciously lifted her wrist to her nose. "Is it that bad?"

Honestly, she thought that her own scent was kind of nauseating, it was so cloying and sweet. She didn't really notice most of the time - only when she was fertile. Yet Throttle, just like an Imeeran male, reacted to it like it was the most wonderful fragrance in the universe. Sometimes before they made love he would smell her as part of their foreplay - just run his face all over her body, breathing in. It was flattering, and she enjoyed the affect it had on him...except right now, that is.

Instead of answering her question, Throttle let out a quiet sigh. "Tam, you know I love you. And it's because I love you that I'm politely telling you to get out of here while I can still control myself."

"...Right. I'll go eat someplace else tonight."

"I think that would be wise."

Even though he was plainly telling her to get lost, it felt funny to leave so abruptly. They almost never said goodbye to each other without touching in some way first. Squeezing a hand or an arm, bestowing a hug, a brief - or not so brief - kiss. She knew better than that, so she quietly put her jacket back on, slid on her boots and stepped back out into the early evening air.

This was going to be a long week.