This time, Richie arrived to his meeting with Jo more than half an hour early and before the venue opened. It was plenty of time to sit in the parking lot and debate whether he should go inside or not; a decision only made when the waitress flipped the sign in the door to open, then stepped out into the midday sun to squint suspiciously at him. He pulled off his helmet to offer a mollifying smile in response. She gave him a small nod of recognition, then went back inside. Richie started to put the helmet back on, and stopped. He'd made it this far; what was the worst that could happen?

She could still arrest you. His internal voice had been awfully insistent on that possibility ever since Jo had texted back to confirm a place and time. She'd seen him kill. She might have seemed magnanimous in the immediate aftermath, but who knew how she felt now that she'd had a few days to think.

But his was the only vehicle in the lot. The sun shades on the bar windows were translucent enough for him to see that the waitress was the only person in the front end. And the aroma of frying food that normally hung thick around the building was barely discernible. OK, the last detail didn't have anything to do with the possibility of police presence, but it did give his nervously churning stomach one less thing to use against him.

He sighed and knocked the kickstand on his bike into place.

Inside, he found a high table in the corner and slid into a chair without removing his jacket. He became acutely conscious of the blade carefully hidden in the folds, just as he'd been in his first weeks after getting one. He was going to get hot with it on. His jacket was too heavy for the season, but the corner spot lacked any way for him to hang it up without exposing its contents.

It's also evidence. Incriminating evidence. Regardless of what else Jo had on him, no amount of cleaning would ever fully remove the traces of Kenny's blood on his sword. And here he was, bringing the weapon straight to her.

The oldies station playing over the speakers disguised the slight clank his sword made when it hit the side of the chair.

What if it hadn't disguised it enough? Sounds carried differently in empty spaces. He waited, tensed, half expecting the waitress to emerge from behind the bar with uncomfortable accusations. Seconds passed without any sign of her.

"You're being paranoid, Ryan," he muttered. More than usual, he thought. It was one thing to always be on guard against meeting someone who wanted to kill you, and another to worry about whether someone wanted to destroy your life.

Seeking a distraction, he squinted at the beer menu. It was a long list, filling three columns of a half-sized sheet of paper. And he had no idea what most of the provided information meant since he'd never been the kind of guy who cared about the finer points. He still wasn't, yet something about the English Ale sounded like it would really hit the spot.

No, he thought. Not that one. He wasn't going to lose himself in someone else's tastes again.

A gust of cool air and the rustle of fabric derailed the argument. He slapped the menu down and looked up. Jo stood a few feet away, staring at him like, well, like she hadn't expected him to be waiting for her. The expression on her face was a peculiar mix of surprise and wariness that always—in movies, at least—preceded the person screaming in fright.

A dozen defusing quips tripped over each other on the way to his tongue, and then Richie opened his mouth. "Just think about the potential," he announced. He held up his fingers like he was framing a shot through a camera and centered the "lens" on Jo. "Beautiful, smart homicide detective. Young, handsome civilian partner—who happens to be dead. You gotta admit: it's a helluva concept we came up with. We should sell it to Hollywood. Instant hit, guaranteed: Lethal Weapon meets Weekend at Bernie's."

Jo blinked like she'd seen his lips move, yet hadn't heard or understood what came out. A frown creased her forehead, and then a hand came up in slow motion to brush away wisps of hair that the short walk through the parking lot had left windblown. Another beat, then two: Richie's pulse thudded in his jawline as he waited for a reaction. Then the corner of her mouth twitched and normal-person speed resumed. More importantly, some of the wariness ebbed away.

"You seriously think anyone would want to see that? It sounds terrible."

"Why not? Remakes, reboots, sequels, mashups: they're money in the bank."

"Or the fast track to bankruptcy. Also, you have terrible taste in movies."

Richie gasped at the attack. "Oh, come on! Lethal Weapon is a classic!" Jo still looked dubious, so he pressed on. "I think I saw the first one a dozen times in the theater. You know, once it got to the dollar theater. I had a friend who worked there who let me sneak in for free." He sat up straighter, eager to explain the thrill that movie had brought to him. That spring had been his best in the years since he'd entered the child welfare system. "Glover. Gibson. Mullets. Shoot outs. Stunts. Epic chase scenes. What's not to love?"

As if realizing how awkwardly far apart they were, Jo approached and climbed into the seat opposite Richie's. A hand on the table and another on the chair back gave away her continued injury. The button-down shirt she wore was loose enough not to be constricting, but tight enough to prevent concealment of a gun, which meant she wasn't carrying. She didn't have any handcuffs or a badge showing either. Richie allowed himself to hope.

"How about the fact that if any cops acted like they did in real life, they'd be fired on the spot," she countered. "And I'm not even going to address the issues with Weekend at Bernie's."

Richie leaned in, a quick faux-conspiratorial glance around the bar confirming their privacy. "And that's exactly why our concept is genius: all the action, none of the boring reality. I mean, as far as most of the world knows." He settled back again. The more he thought about the idea, the more he warmed to it. He might really be on to something marketable. Under the table, his leg juddered.

Before Jo could come up with a rejoinder, the waitress arrived. "You're a couple of early birds. We don't usually get customers in right at opening." She flashed a teasing smile. Her name tag said 'Todd,' though Richie was pretty sure that wasn't her name. She'd added a blue streak to her hair since the last time he'd been in and the hank bounced against the side of her face as she talked. "What can I get ya?"

Jo snatched the beer menu from the table and gave it a quick overview. "What do you recommend? I've never been here before."

"You're going to have a beer?" Richie asked. He shouldn't have been surprised since the reason for their meeting was those owed drinks, yet he'd still assumed she'd be collecting her "payment" in soft drinks.

Jo nodded vehemently. "Hell yes. Henry cleared me to drink this morning. It meant I had to give up the painkillers, so I think I've earned a beer or two." She looked to the waitress. "I'd also like a burger. Shouldn't drink on an empty stomach. Do you have a food menu?"

There was a few minutes of negotiation while 'Todd' ran through the options of both food and drink. Despite his intention to listen, Richie found himself studying Jo for hints as to her mood. Again, he confirmed the absence of handcuffs, badge, and gun, as if he might have noticed them before she sat down and had simply forgotten. The blouse looked new; the jeans didn't. That told him nothing. She had stress lines around her eyes, but the casual way she spoke to the waitress indicated that she wasn't in a hurry. Also, she was ordering beer. For real. That had to mean she was off duty, right?

She's going to turn on you, a small voice whispered in Richie's head. She never looked at him—not the peripheral vision checks one used to keep an eye on potential danger nor the casual glances of a friend looping another in on a conversation. Yet, somehow, he sensed that she also wasn't trying to not look at him either. She had other business to conduct, and Richie wasn't part of it.

Get her before she gets you!

They were still alone in the bar. Its tables dotted the room like stoppers in a pinball game, yet the paths between remained clear. Through the translucent window on the swinging kitchen doors, he caught a glimpse of shadow from the cook moving around. One person. Two, if he counted the waitress. He could stand up right now and stroll out the front door without any issue. No violence necessary. Jo would probably only be miffed at being left to eat alone, which would be a perfectly reasonable reaction.

Shove it, he told the voice.

"How about you?"

"Huh?" Richie's attention jerked back to reality.

"Do you want your usual?" 'Todd' asked, her pen poised over the tablet of paper she'd been taking notes on. Her black 'Clancy's Bar' t-shirt had the sleeves rolled up to expose an intricate tattoo on her upper arm.

He had a usual? Had he really been here often enough to have a usual? "Uh, sure. Isn't your name Zoe?" he asked.

"I'm Todd." She tapped the name tag with the end of her pen, as if to emphasize the obvious. "The cook is Zoe." It sounded like an accomplishment. She made a note on the pad. "I'll get this order right in and be back in a minute with your drinks. Can I get you anything else?"

Jo and Richie both agreed they were fine, and the waitress left. No sooner was she back out of listening range when Richie again leaned on the table. All thoughts of the movie pitch were swallowed in a more important query. "Why aren't you going to arrest me?"

Jo unrolled her fork and knife from her napkin, pushed the utensils to one side of the table and the napkin to the other, then set her hands, fingers interlaced, down in the new median. "What would I arrest you for?"

Richie tilted his head, frowning at this response. Of all the answers he'd played over in his head, this was not one he'd imagined. Most of them had, in fact, started with the words "You have the right to remain silent." Now, here she was, talking like they'd spent Wednesday night bowling.

"Let's look at the facts," she continued. "There's no body. The security cameras all suffered a mysterious electrical malfunction. In short, there's no physical evidence." She splayed her hands out. "And beyond that, there's no witnesses who'd be willing to testify." She paused, and after a second Richie realized that she was counting herself amongst the people 'who didn't see anything.' She saw his eyes widen and nodded in confirmation of what she hadn't said.

She continued, and Richie listened to Jo's litany with an increasing sense that there was a catch, and he'd missed it.

"A troubled kid with a history of running away runs away…again…after violently attacking multiple people, and then disappears? Even if I did arrest you for killing him, we both know the charges would be thrown out." She drew a breath, her gaze darting away. "And, I know a few guys who might thank you for doing us all a favor."

Words betrayed him.

In the stiff silence, 'Todd' brought their beer. She dropped the bottles onto the table in time with the beat of the current song, then spun and did a quick shimmy before returning to the kitchen, with no apparent awareness of how her mood clashed against that of her customers'.

"A favor?" he finally managed.

"A pretty big one. You saved Liam," Jo leaned forward, pressing her point. "Kenny knew where Henry lives. What's to say he wouldn't have come back? What if he'd found Abe, or me? He could've gone back for my partner, and his kids. He knows where they live, too. Or Rhonda, his social worker. She's still alive. Those are the people from just last week. What about all the people along the road who made the mistake of trying to help him?"

"Jo…" Richie started, unsure how to frame his thoughts. It was hard to look at someone who'd lasted almost nine hundred years in the Game and not appreciate his techniques. If by 'appreciate' one meant 'harbor complete revulsion toward.' He picked up his bottle and set it right back down again. The thunk of the glass against the table had a hollow echo.

"He needed to be stopped." He sighed regretfully. "I happened to be in the right place and time to do it. That's all. Kinda wish I hadn't been." A shudder ran through his body; Kenny's Quickening still prickled at his mind, hitting him at random with glimpses of memories and flares of emotions—none of which were pleasant. Four days after taking the Quickening, those flares should have stopped. They hadn't. Scrubbing a hand over his face, he shoved awareness of Kenny back into the darkness where it belonged.

"I know it probably doesn't help," she said. She studied him for a moment, during which Richie willed himself to not look away. "Are you OK? You seem like you're doing OK."

"OK?" He didn't understand her question. "Yeah, of course I'm OK."

She responded with a scathing look that could strip the grimy layer off the bar floor. "Richie. You—" With her finger, she slashed a line across her neck. "And now a man is dead." Her eyes narrowed. "Was he a man? I mean, he wasn't … really a kid, was he?"

Richie nodded, quick and sharp. That she'd asked the question at all showed how much progress they'd made. "Oh. Yeah, he was old, and strong. He'd lived a long time."

"How … long?" she pressed, when Richie didn't supply that detail. "Lay it on me. I can handle it."

That remained to be seen, though given how much trouble she'd had wrapping her head about Richie being in his forties, Richie had his doubts. "Some progress" still left a lot of ground to cover. "Let's just say he was closer to ten centuries than ten years."

Jo's jaw dropped. "Centuries?"

"Centuries."

"He spent ten centuries being a murderous little shit and no one stopped him?"

Richie shrugged. "Wasn't for lack of trying. Too many people made the mistake of underestimating him. Normally people didn't survive that mistake, though. I did, back in the day. Didn't turn out so well for him."

"I killed someone once in the line of duty, too." Jo pulled in a steadying breath before continuing. "In the moment, you just react and do what you've trained for. Afterward, though … The department made me go to counseling for six weeks. I still sometimes have nightmares." She bit her lip, as if unsure of asking the next question. "Do you have someone you can talk to?"

Talk? Now? He could've used that the first time he took a head. He recalled returning to the loft with Mako's essence still thrumming through his nerves and Mac kicking him out. In one short afternoon, he killed a man, experienced the overwhelming power of an Immortal's essence crashing into his, and gotten kicked out of his home and disowned by the person who had been his father figure, best friend, and teacher.

Funny how quickly he'd adjusted to killing. Had to adjust. Maybe that was why Mac did what he did.

Now the Quickening … He couldn't get sick anymore, and mostly he didn't miss sinus infections, hacking coughs, and congestion. Sometimes, though, he wished he could curl up in bed and have someone bring him soup and offer sympathy for what came after killing. It was a shame people couldn't respond to Quickenings the way they responded to chest colds. Especially this time.

"Look, I'm not going to pretend that I'm OK with this whole Game thing," Jo continued, picking at the label on her bottle until the top corner ripped away from the glass. "But I'm starting to understand why it's necessary. First Kostya, now Kenny…" She audibly exhaled, the admission obviously hard for her. "There's a difference between murder and justifiable homicide, and I know what side of the line you're on."

Richie cringed at her admission. While she wasn't treating him like a dangerous animal anymore, this new category she'd put him in as some kind of 'Black Ops' wasn't going to work either. Connor may have left Richie in charge of keeping the Game out of the city, but that still meant he was going to have to play it—regardless of whether the other Immortal was a bad guy or not.

"Jo, Kenny was…" Evil, he wanted to say, only that wasn't right.

"He's trying to survive!" Mac had yelled the first time they'd encountered Kenny and his methods. "The only way he knows how."

Richie took a long swig, and nearly spat the beer back out at the unexpected taste. In defiance, he took a second slower sip. This was his brand, and he was going to enjoy the drink, no matter what Kenny would have preferred. "Yeah, there were a lot of reasons why the Challenge happened the way it did. This time. Next time, it may just be between two people who want to fight." He'd reminded Kenny of their cardinal rule, as if Kenny needed reminding. Only now, Richie began to realize the line hadn't been for his opponent. "We already have a reason; any other ones are details."

He could see her churning through everything she'd seen and everything they'd previously discussed. "If I hadn't been in the restaurant that day, would you have fought Drake?"

Maybe she was starting to get it. Richie shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe. Maybe not."

What he wasn't going to tell her—what he could never tell her—was how badly he wanted to go find someone like Drake right now: an Immortal he had no personal connection with, one who seemed like a decent person and no more than an average fighter. Get them before they get you. Only the niggling sense that it was Kenny's desire and not his own kept him from acting on it. "Just because I pick my fights doesn't mean my reason is always going to be one you approve of."

"And you want to win," Jo stated, as if acknowledging an excuse she'd grown weary of rebutting. The words hung between them, fragile, yet able to turn into an unforgivable breach.

Richie opened his mouth to object, then snapped it shut. He didn't expect to win in the end, but did he want to? He hadn't thought about that since his headhunting streak all those years before.

There can be only one!

At some level, yeah. He wouldn't have made it even this long if he hadn't wanted to. Kenny had definitely wanted to, and look how well that had turned out.

"No." Richie met Jo's gaze straight on. "I want to live."

The bluntness seemed to shock her; her beer bottle froze in mid-tilt toward her mouth.

"I was nineteen the first time I died." Richie gestured at his youthful face, then down at his body. Somehow, he suspected he'd neglected to mention that detail before. She knew he was young, but not how young. "Then I got a second chance—with some serious strings attached."

"I'll say."

"Now I got a choice: live forever, or die trying." One shoulder came up in a deprecating shrug. "It could be worse." He didn't elaborate on how; he didn't think he needed to. "Here's to fighting the good fight." He hefted his bottle in a mock toast, and noticed that, although Jo didn't match the toast, she did finish the swig she'd started.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught the movement of the waitress at the far end of the bar as she pulled glasses out of the dishwasher and slid them into an overhead rack. Her lips were pursed as if in a whistle, though any sound was lost beneath the music. She looked openly happy, and Richie felt a momentary stab of envy.

"Don't you have a girlfriend?" Jo asked, an eyebrow raising at his apparent transgression.

Richie licked the remaining drops of moisture off his lips and set his bottle back down. "Yeah," he answered, and like that the envy disappeared at the reminder that his own life was hitting a smooth stretch. It wouldn't last, not with the Game all around him, but that just made him all the more determined to enjoy it while he could. "Emily's a lot of fun. She's been introducing me to all kinds of new music and movies, forcing me to update my slang—and my perspective. Can you believe that she has no idea what it's like to live without the Internet?"

"You mean, back before 'selfie' became a word and there was no need to make texting-while-driving illegal?"

"I know! That's what's so mind-blowing." He emphasized the word with its visual gesture, and nearly dropped the beer. "That means neither should I. A person my age shouldn't treat the phone book as the go-to way of finding local services. She seriously thought I was joking when I asked her where she kept hers. I didn't realize how out-of-touch I'd gotten or how much effort I was going to have to put into paying attention to what I am and am not supposed to know." He'd get there. After all, if Methos could constantly reinvent himself, Richie sure could. And then, the hard part would come. "Can I ask you something?" Jo gave a cautious nod. "When do you think Henry should have told you? Like, do you think he should've told you sooner?"

"Told me?"

"About what he is."

"Oh." She glanced toward the kitchen, as if hoping to find reprieve in the arrival of the burgers. "Do you think the cook went out to slaughter the cow himself?"

The innocence of the question—one asked with no sense of awareness about its thematic connection to the earlier conversation—made Richie crack a smile. "Nah. He's still trying to get the meat defrosted. This isn't the kind of place that prides itself on its fresh food. That's what makes it so good."

"Says the person who doesn't need to worry about dying from food poisoning. Or starvation."

Richie shrugged. "What can I say? I'm a talented guy, and I'll try pretty much anything once. Also, you're not getting off the hook that easily."

Jo made a face at being called out. "It sounds like you're getting pretty serious about this girl. How long have you known her?" Jo shifted in her seat and winced, but quickly covered it. It suddenly occurred to Richie that they would have been better off going to a coffee shop or, really, anyplace with more comfortable seating. The scent of cooking meat wafting from the kitchen told him it was too late to suggest a change now.

"Not that long. I mean, things are still really new. But—" He frowned into a future he couldn't see. It was too soon to know if he and Emily were still going to be together in a month, much less a time when he'd have to either tell her or leave her, though he suspected that if he were to consult a Magic 8 Ball on the question, he'd receive an "All signs point to yes." "I've never done this before. Telling someone, that is. If I do it, I don't want to mess it up."

"Never? Really?"

Richie shook his head, a blush of embarrassment warming his cheeks like he'd just admitted that he'd never mastered his ABCs.

"But you told Henry … and me … and doesn't Abe know, also?"

"Yeah, I didn't really have a choice with any of you. I mean, I was in Henry's morgue. Resurrecting in front of someone is like the ultimate ice-breaker. Believe me, if I coulda gotten out of there without him seeing or learning anything, I would have. You and Abe just kinda just happened. And, no offense, but I'm not interested in dating either of you."

"None taken—" Jo started.

Just then, Zoe brought the second round of drinks, and with it the food. Jo had apparently ordered a basic cheeseburger with a side salad instead of fries. While it smelled good, it looked pathetic next to the concoction Zoe dropped in front of Richie: three patties, cheese, all the vegetables, onion straws, and spicy chili dripping down the sides. The scent of hot peppers kicked him in the face. The side of fries was also covered in cheese and chili. He had no memory of ever ordering this before, but decided on the spot that he'd never order anything else again.

"I don't know how you do it." Zoe surreptitiously used her apron to wipe a drop of chili off her hands. "Just the look of that is giving me heartburn." A shake of her head, and she added, "If you two need anything else, just holler." Grabbing the two empty bottles, she danced away.

Jo also shook her head, but for a different reason. "Your girlfriend isn't going to question your age if you eat like this in front of her."

"'Gonna remember that," Richie said, the burger already half way into his mouth before he finished speaking. "So…" he prompted. "You got an answer?"

"So." Jo picked up her fork and used it to stab at one of her pieces of lettuce. Her gaze flickered around the bar, skidding over the tchotchkes that decorated strategically placed shelves and the framed posters on the walls before landing back on the salad. "If you want to know the truth—" She paused until Richie affirmed, again, that he did—"there's a part of me that wishes Henry had never told me. He could have gone on being eccentric and mysterious awhile longer, and then one or the other of us would've had enough and called it quits. In a lot of ways, that would've been easier." She stopped again, this time long enough to start eating the coveted food with the careful bites of someone who wasn't sure she was going to like what she found.

Richie quietly kept working his way through his meal, trying not to look too eager to hear the rest of where her thought was going. It sounded like one she was still testing, and he knew from experience how fragile that could be. Chili dripped down his chin and splashed onto the edge of the table.

"You and Henry … and, I don't know, maybe all of you, act like it's the fact of what you are that's the hard part." She shook her head. "That's the part you can prove. Really, the hard part is everything else, everything that goes along with knowing the fact of what you are. And that part keeps getting more complicated. Every time I turn around, there's something else I need to accept into my worldview. Immortality, the Game … what's next? Ghosts? Werewolves? Zombies?" She stabbed the end of her fork at him as if to cut Richie off. "No, don't tell me. I do not want to know. I don't want to know about space aliens, or demons, or anything. I'm done."

Setting the burger down, Richie finished chewing and swallowed so he could speak clearly. "Jo, I can honestly tell you I've never met a ghost, werewolf, or zombie. To the best of my knowledge."

"What did I just say? I don't want to know," she said wryly. "I can't put back what I do know…" Her expression creased into a frown as if she'd tasted something bitter, then smoothed. "…But I don't want to." She dropped into silence for a few moments, mulling over her announcement, her gaze unfocused. When she returned, she sounded more herself than she had all day. "I didn't think so until… well, right now, but Henry told me at the right time."

"Which was…?"

"When I was ready to listen," she said. "I know it's not a great answer, and I'd like to tell you you'll know when that is, but how would you?" Giving up on the salad, she set the fork down and turned her attention to the burger. Like everything else about her Richie had observed, once she dedicated herself to a task, she didn't hold back.

"So, what you're saying is: don't rush things, and don't wait until it's too late. Got it. Can't possibly mess that up."

"Just, whatever you do, remember she'll need her space—"

"—To make sense of things. Right."

Jo shook her head slowly and held up a finger to forestall another interruption until she finished eating. Only after she discarded the final edges of the bun back onto her plate did she continue. "She's a person, Richie, not an accessory to your immortality. Once she knows you've only been pretending to be her peer, she's going to feel betrayed and overwhelmed. As the two of you figure your new relationship out, remember that it's not just about you. Don't forget to be there for her life, her secrets, and her battles, too. Hers. Not her handling of yours."

Richie had felt all that chili congealing into a cold lump in his stomach as Jo talked. The enormity of coming clean struck him like a bad Quickening. It would be so much easier to go on being Richie Jensen, nineteen-year-old karate instructor. Easier, right up until it wasn't. And the only way to avoid the inevitable was to never date again.

"Maybe you should just arrest me," he concluded.

Jo motioned to the waitress for the bill, then eased back to finish her beer. "Sorry, Richie. Much like Liam's school, your love life is not in my jurisdiction."

Richie's eyes jerked up. Was she serious? Joking? He recalled the promise he'd made her … was it only a week ago? God, it felt so much longer. Somehow, unwittingly, he'd managed to fight his first Challenge in months outside her district, and now she was teasing him about it. That really was progress. "Yeah, I guess not." Yes, she was definitely teasing, and it was amazing. Mirroring her, he also leaned back, ignoring the thunk of his sword against the chair as his movement shifted the jacket.

Letting a grin tug at the his cheeks, he promised, "I'll never bring it up again."