Author's note: I would like to apologize for the delay in getting this chapter up, but have been taken ill for the last 3 days and have now just finished the third chapter. I hope you enjoy.

Tessa stayed on Connor's trail but didn't get close enough for him to see her, if he did, she might not find Richie. She knew that that was where Connor was going, and she was going to find out what was going on. Where was Richie? Was he allright? Why didn't he come home last night? Those were the questions that the suspense was killing her to know. She was thrown for a curve when Connor turned off from the main road and got on a dirt path and started downhill, Tessa swerved her car in the same direction to follow, but by the time she was on the path, Connor was nowhere to be found. It knocked her for a loop but she wasn't giving up just yet—she followed downhill and came to a fork in the road, she took the left and decided if she got nowhere, she'd double back and head right.

Connor kicked open the front door and marched in with Richie's bag in his hand, he immediately went to the foot of the staircase and called up, "Richie?"

"I'm in the kitchen," Richie called back.

"So why am I not surprised?" Connor asked himself as he headed in that direction.

He found Richie at the table halfway through a sandwich and drinking a glass of milk and at the rate he was going, it looked like he'd swallow the straw.

"I was right, you are a machine," Connor said, "Don't you ever get full?"

"Not too often—so, did you talk to Mac?"

"Oh a bit."

"Wha—was—uh—is he cooling down yet?"

"Oh he's past that stage, he's cold."

"So does he still hate me?" Richie asked.

"He's not angry, Richie—he still needs a bit of time to really come back down off of whatever he's going through—but he'll come around, and he's already made it clear that you're welcome back whenever you're ready."

"I'm not, yet."

"I know—I got a few of your things, it wasn't much but I do think you should be able to get through the week with it."

"Thanks."

"So how are you liking the house?" Connor asked.

"Oh it's—very nice, could use a few things, though."

"Like what?"

"Well, a radio for one—maybe you guys like peace and quiet for that meditation and stuff—but the silence is about enough to drive me up the wall."

"Don't worry, I got you an easy fix for that," Connor put Richie's bag on the table. Richie opened it up and the first thing he pulled out was his walkman. "Thanks."

"Anything else that's to your liking?"

"Not specifically, it's just—I can understand this place being good for getting away from it all—you know it's nice, it's quiet, it's peaceful, there's no neighbors, no police, no dog catchers—but for someone like me, there's not really much to do around here."

"Not yet, but I have a few ideas how to fix that."

"Oh yeah, like what?" Richie asked.

"Well of all the rooms I haven't done anything with, I was thinking of getting one fixed up with some bar games in it."

"Bar games?" Richie repeated.

"Yeah—pool, darts, foosball, roulette—"

"Connor, roulette is not a bar game, it is a casino game."

"Maybe where you come from."

"What kind of roulette is played in a bar?" Richie asked.

"Russian."

"Well I have a question, who's going to take care of the house when you go back to New York?" Richie asked.

"Good question—I hadn't thought about it, oh well, I'll think of something later, now why don't you go unpack?"

"Okay."

Richie took his bag and headed up the stairs to his room. He emptied the bag on his bed and out fell his walkman, three changes of clothes, his wallet, a few of his magazines, a deck of cards, some of the very cheap jewelry he wore including rope bracelets and a quartz crystal necklace—and then he found something that wasn't his. A keychain and he guessed it was Connor's; it had a little holographic picture of a lady on it, clearly not Mac's. Richie tilted it back a bit and the picture moved, so he moved it again to see just where the holographic part came in—and her dress came off. Definitely not something Mac kept around. Richie started laughing and then—he saw something else in his bag—this time it was something that definitely belonged to him.

He reached in and pulled out about five pictures that had been taken a few weeks ago—pictures of the three of them, of he and Mac and Tess. Looking at them now, nobody would ever guess Richie was in the mess he was. Even he was still having trouble realizing it, 24 hours ago his life had been perfect he hadn't a worry in the world. Of course that was a lie, there had been plenty of problems, he just hadn't realized it at the time, or cared. And now—he couldn't even finish the thought, now everything was a mess, and despite what Connor told him, would probably stay that way.

So apparently there was one thing that Richie could always rely on himself for, and it didn't matter where he went or what he did or how hard he tried, he always managed to blow any and every chance he had at something good. Why didn't he ever learn?

Tessa slowly opened her eyes and the first realization she came to was that her forehead was throbbing. She woke up and saw that she was in the middle of a wreck—now she remembered, when she took the left at the fork in the road, she came upon a very poor road. Even for dirt, whatever had happened to the land it was worse than all the potholes, cracks, splits, speed bumps and manholes on the downtown streets. She had tried to stop the car so she could search on foot since she figured it would be safer, but the road turned into a basic drop-down point and her car didn't stop until it met with a tree, and Tessa realized that if she hadn't been strapped in during the time, she might've gone flying through the windshield.

As she got out of the car, she quickly came to the conclusion that everything to her hurt, her head hurt, her face hurt, her back hurt, her chest hurt, even her teeth hurt. She could already tell that this path had been a dead end so she started walking back up the way she came, and with every step, a sharp pain in her hip kept making itself known. Looking up the road to see just how far she would be going before coming back to the fork, Tessa's heart skipped a beat when she saw something. It was too far away to clearly make out, but Tessa would swear on her life that it was Felicia. And just as easy as she saw the figure, it disappeared. Trying to ignore all the aches and pains in her body right now, Tessa started running, or at least tried to, up the path she'd come and before she knew it, she came back to the fork.

Looking around she saw nobody, nor any sign that anybody had been there. This time however, she knew she wasn't dreaming, she knew for a fact that she saw somebody, someone who looked like Felicia. She was wide awake now so it had to be real, she was in a lot of pain but she wasn't going to attribute what she saw to a head injury for delirium from the pain. Going back to get on the main road she decided to do as a last resort. She looked down the right side of the fork and didn't see too much, but she figured she had to look, she wouldn't be satisfied until she had. Richie was somewhere nearby, that much Tessa knew---and she could also guess that there was a crazy Immortal woman somewhere in the same direction---maybe Tessa couldn't kill her but she could certainly come close if she got the chance.

Richie hadn't made any noise in about an hour, and Connor didn't like it. He went up to see just what Richie was doing that he was so quiet, and he pushed the door open and found Richie curled on his side, asleep, with all of his current belongings placed right beside him---apparently he'd fallen asleep before he had a chance to unpack and put everything away. The sight would look endearing but there was something amiss, Connor couldn't put his finger on it right away, so he crept up closer to the bed to get a better look. He got his answer—Richie's face was scrunched up into an expression absolutely unreadable, except for the tears and rolled down from his eyes and onto the pillow.

"What have you gone and put yourself through this time?" he asked the boy, although he was in too deep a sleep to hear it. Connor shook his head, Richie had a very hard time accepting things when he couldn't see the proof for himself, and that proof was what he was too scared to step forward to.

Connor saw that Richie had something in his hand, and he gently took it away so he could see it for himself. It was a photograph no more than a couple of weeks old with he, Duncan and Tessa in it together. So this was what got him upset now---Connor put it and the other pictures on the bedside table, and he kissed Richie on the forehead and made a silent promise that he would take care of everything, and he would. He would keep Richie with him until it was the right time to send him back with Duncan, and he knew that time would come. Connor smoothed back the bangs on Richie's forehead, and in doing so, came to a realization of something—he tried again, and felt that Richie had a fever, not a large one but one nonetheless.

"No wonder you're feeling horrible," he said, "Not to worry, that can be taken care of, I'll be right back."

Dead on her feet---that's how Tessa could describe how she felt right now, dead on her feet. She felt like she'd been walking for miles and truth be known she probably had been. In all the ground she'd covered coming down this road, she had seen nothing for the longest time, no people, no houses, no sign of life anywhere. Just when she was about to give up, she noticed something a little ways down the road—so she forced herself to press on, and when she got down far enough to see it, she couldn't believe what she was looking at—Connor's car.

So she had come to the right place, at least it seemed so, if Connor's car was here, then he couldn't be too far away, could he? The car didn't look as if Connor had abandoned it in a hurry or a panic, meaning he had to be nearby. Tessa looked around and didn't see anywhere he might've gone to, but then, she looked over the edge of the top of the hill she was on, and saw down below a large house, actually it looked like with a little work it could've been a church. Tessa didn't see any other place around for a while, so she decided she would check out the house, if they weren't there—she would have to cross that bridge when she came to it.

As she headed down, Tessa still remained alert to the fact that Felicia was out there somewhere---she had to be, there could be no other explanation for what she saw. Just the thought of meeting up with that woman, face to face again, it sent chills up her spine, she had enough of that the last time she saw Felicia, when she was threatening to burn her face with her blowtorch. How she wished that she could have that opportunity right now—however being out in the open, if she did meet with Felicia again, she could knock her down and run for it. But run where? She didn't know these parts, she didn't even have any idea where she was going, and she had been going on for so long without anything to eat or drink, or even a chance to rest, that she seriously doubted that if she had to, she would be able to get away.

She took a few more steps and her body decided then to quit on her, she fell on her knees and her body met with the hard dirt ground. She needed to rest before she truly collapsed, but she also needed to find Richie and get to the bottom of it---however her exhausted body won the battle and she lay where she was for a few minutes, trying to rest. Now it came back to her just how much every part of her body was hurting---by the time she would be able to find a mirror to see how much damage was done, she doubted she would even be able to recognize herself. She imagined herself covered in bruises and scrapes and cuts, swollen and scabbed, black and blue and red. As if she didn't have enough to remind her of what happened, her head was pounding again and felt like it was going to burst.

Tessa forced herself to get up and she started down the path again, this time she was trying to block out from her mind all the pain and the agony that she was experiencing with every step she took. Even so, she couldn't ignore the fact that with every step she took, it became harder to breathe, so she stopped and leaned against a large tree to catch her breath. However as she stopped to do so, somebody lunged out from behind and grabbed her. She tried to scream but the person clamped one good strong hand over her mouth so that she couldn't make any noise.

Duncan was and had been for the last hour, trying to figure out something, anything that might tell him where Connor was, and more importantly where Richie was. Connor said it was a place Duncan didn't know, so that immediately crossed out all motels and hotels on the map, because Connor knew that would be the first place Duncan would look. Next he considered holy ground, but then he realized that it was pretty much an impossibility to keep somebody like Richie on holy ground for long, especially overnight and this late in the morning.

In addition to that mystery, he was also trying to figure out what had come of Tessa---Connor hadn't said if she was also with them, and Duncan liked to think that he knew Connor well enough that he would say if she were. So if she weren't with them, where could she be? Duncan didn't get a chance to complete that thought because the phone rang.

"Hello, Tessa?"

"No," there was a low, raspy voice on the other end of the line, "But she is a pretty one, isn't she? And how about that boy of yours, Richie? He's a real pretty one, wouldn't you say?"

Felicia.

"Why are you doing this? You know where I am, if you want to fight, why don't you just come?"

"Too easy---I want to make sure you suffer plenty hard first, and believe me, that's exactly what's going to happen in just a few minutes."

Before Duncan had a chance to say anything, she gave him an address of where to find her, and she suggested he hurry, because when the clock struck the hour, and that wasn't too far off, two people who he loved dearly, would be dead.

Tessa refused the third glass of water offered to her, "I don't want another drink, Connor, I want to know where Richie is, I swear if you've done anything to hurt him, I'll—"

"Take it easy, Richie's okay, he's upstairs asleep---now, do you mind if I ask how you got here?"

"I followed you---I saw you leaving the store and you had Richie's bag, and I'd been looking all night for him, so I followed you to see where you'd taken him. And now that I'm here, I'm going to get him and----"

"And what? Tessa, you can't get out of here and back home, that much I know just by looking at you. What happened?"

"What happened is I tried keeping up with you and almost got killed because of it---my car has collided with a tree down the other side of the fork in the road – meanwhile I came this way because I saw somebody."

"Who?"

"This woman we know, her name is Felicia Martins."

"Do you really think she'd come here? Of all the places she could go, she'd come here, why?" Connor asked, "For what reason?"

"I'm sure I don't know, but I'm positive of what I saw."

"Why would she come out here?" Connor asked.

"I don't know, but I saw her, Connor, I know it---and now, I want to see Richie." Tessa tried standing up, but her ankle gave out on her and she sat back down. "Where is he, Connor?"

"Tess!"

Tessa and Connor turned and saw standing in the doorway, a very tired and very flushed Richie.

"Richie, come here, let me take a good look at you," Tessa said.

Richie cautiously walked over to Tessa and as soon as he was close enough for her to touch, he knelt down a bit and put his arms around her and buried his face in her shoulder, and that's when the apologies started spilling out.

"Tess, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry about what I said, I didn't mean—"

"Shhhhhh, it's allright, Richie, I know---how are you feeling?"

But Richie didn't seem to hear her. "I'm sorry, Tess, I wasn't trying to hurt you when I said that I–"

"Richie, take it easy—I may not be anything great compared to Duncan, but it takes more than a few words to hurt me, especially coming from you."

"You see, Richie? I told you they weren't unreasonable," Connor said.

"Tessa, what happened?" Richie asked, taking in the scrapes and cuts on her face.

"I had a little accident—but I'll be allright. How are you?"

Richie's eyes shut almost completely. "Tired."

"Well Tessa's going to be here for a while, so why don't you go back to bed?" Connor suggested.

"Okay," Richie got up and turned around and started heading for the doorway, "Tess."

"Yes, Richie?"

Richie turned back around to face her, "I'm glad you're not mad at me, though I couldn't blame you if you were."

Tessa waited until Richie was upstairs to ask Connor, "What's the matter with him?"

"He has a slight fever, but don't worry, I gave him something for it."

"Has he been here all night?" Tessa asked.

"Yes and he's been making himself sick because he's been worried that you and Duncan didn't want him to come back home."

"Oh my God—no wonder he's upset."

"Yeah, and Duncan, while he's not as bad as Richie thought, I still wouldn't send Richie back to him right away."

"I know, when he came back last night, he hardly said a word to me, and he wouldn't tell me if Richie was allright, or where he was—he didn't even seem worried when Richie never came home."

"And you?"

"I couldn't sleep worrying about him, so I went looking, and to be honest, I'm not too thrilled about going back either."

"No problem, I can go back, pack another bag, knock Duncan out again and we'll be set," Connor said.

"Don't make me laugh, Connor, it hurts too much."

"Well look, you look like you're about ready to drop—so how about I show you the guest room and you can rest?"

"What floor is it on?" Tessa asked.

"Don't worry, I've got a solution for that."

Connor walked over to her, lifted her on her one good foot, picked her up, and carried her up the stairs.

"Very funny, Connor."

"You know what I think?"

"What?"

"I think you and Richie could both use a vacation from Duncan."

"I hate to say it but I agree. He's been getting on both our nerves lately."

Connor took Tessa into the guestroom he'd fixed up for she and Duncan and put her on the bed so she could rest up.

"Well I hear a little time apart is good for a couple," he said, "And you've been with him for 12 years now? I'd say that's time enough for a break. I've known Duncan for well over 300 years and let me tell you, if I didn't take a break from him, I would've killed him long ago."

"Connor, you're not lying to me about Richie, are you? He is going to be allright, isn't he?"

"Don't worry, Tessa, he'll be fine—all he needs is some time to relax, a little peace and quiet, and if he actually can manage to keep the medicine in him, he'll be good as new in no time."

"I sure hope so," Tessa said, "I'd hate to think that we'd have to rush him to the hospital for something—he's usually very---very—"

"Energetic?" Connor tried.

"That would be the understatement of the year," Tessa replied, "You show me a man who's had 12 cups of coffee in one day, Richie can still outdo him—but now, Connor," her voice dropped to just above a whisper, "He looks terrible."

"Nobody looks great when they're sick, or do I have to remind you of that?" Connor asked, "Don't worry about a thing, everything is going to be allright, I'll see to it myself, okay?"

Tessa finally gave in, "Okay."

"Good, now go to sleep, I'm going to make sure Richie actually went back to bed."