Duncan stood with hands on hips in the washed out looking hospital room staring at a washed out looking Richie. The boy's hair was a shock of red gold against the white sheet and pale skin. Tessa sat beside the bed, dozing with her head in her hand.
The boy had only been with them a month and this was their second trip to the hospital. Duncan remembered the first.
He and Tessa had returned from the cabin and Duncan had not been overly enthusiastic about watching over a teenage hoodlum. It was selfishness he knew. He liked his life with Tessa, but his life was already changing. The Game had already found him.
So he went looking for one Richie Ryan who turned out to be rather difficult to find. After four days of searching, Duncan finally found the boy in an abandoned warehouse, lying amongst miscellaneous refuse to keep warm no doubt.
The heart of the Highland warrior immediately softened. Richie then, like now, looked so fragile, so young and defenseless. Old bruises painted vivid colors on the boy's face and when Richie woke and scrambled to get away, the boy limped.
Duncan managed to bully the kid to the T-bird but his every attempt to help the kid walk was rebuffed. The immortal had known the tough guy routine was an act even at the police station, but right then it had been laughable except that it was more sad than funny. The Richie who shuffled along beside Duncan, pain and weariness etched in his young face, was just a boy, unused to being cared for or about, taught by experience to take care of himself any way he could.
So he had taken the boy to the hospital and then home. Richie had a sprained ankle and a cracked cheekbone as well as bronchitis and was certainly in no shape to care for himself on the streets. Tessa had been none too happy to suddenly have a boarder but she had accepted it, knowing that Duncan couldn't just throw the boy back on the streets and caught by her own maternal instincts at the pathetic sight of the boy. So documents had been falsified making Duncan Richie's newest guardian until the boy turned eighteen in a couple of months.
But this hospital trip was different. Duncan's eyes were immediately drawn to Richie's wrists now bandaged and encased in soft restraints.
When the paramedics had taken Richie away the previous night, Duncan had taken a moment to change and wash the boy's blood off before he and Tessa followed. They were greeted by a doctor who assured them that barring any unforeseen complications, Richie would be fine. Then the man's mouth had tightened into a frown. The doctor had asked them if Richie currently saw a therapist, the frown deepening when Duncan said no. In fact Duncan didn't have any answers to the man's questions; had the boy been depressed, anxious, guilty, impulsive? Duncan thought that Richie seemed anxious and impulsive all the time, and he didn't know any of the boy's friends who might have more insight. And when asked about recent traumatic events, he could only tell the man about the beating that Richie had received a month ago though Duncan didn't know who had done it or why.
All in all the doctor was very displeased when he left. Duncan didn't know what to think. Richie hadn't seemed to be suicidal but then he'd only known the boy a month.
Duncan had refused Connor's offer to get the boy's records though now he was rethinking the decision. He wanted Richie to tell them about his past when the boy felt comfortable. But what if Richie had been a danger to Tessa?
But Richie hadn't seemed like a danger. The boy had been scared at first, particularly after Duncan's explanation of the events at Soldier's Bridge. And Richie covered fear with bravado and disingenuous smiles.
Things had settled down quickly, Richie's curiosity and sunny disposition surfacing. And the boy knew a good thing when he saw it. The boy had a roof over his head and three meals a day…and a job, a legit one. At first Richie had complained mightily about working in the antique store, especially about the boring inventory lists Duncan made him go over to keep the boy off his ankle.
But they both knew that this was Richie's only chance at a future. By the time the boy was fifteen years old, his rap sheet prevented him from getting hired at McDonald's. At the store, Richie had a chance to build references and a work history. And he had two people who cared.
They were still working on that part. Richie had at first slept with a knife under his pillow, but had since decided that the sword-wielding immortal was not going to slice off his head in his sleep. The boy was skittish, desperate for attention and affection but wary of it and rebuffing all physical contact.
Duncan sighed, the sound loud in the quiet room. Had he been wrong? About everything? Maybe he didn't know Richie at all. Suicidal, Richie had attempted suicide. Maybe if he thought it enough times, the reality would sink in.