AN – This is for all those people who asked me to continue the story. I hope you like it. Duncan and Tessa have slightly different agendas about how to take care of Richie.
French notes – n'est pas? – aren't we? Tout sera bien – All will be well.
***
"I don't understand." Tessa scrubbed hard at the counter. "Why would he not want to do this?"
"Maybe he's afraid." Duncan murmured.
"Richie is not afraid of you." Tessa shook her head.
"Not of me." Frankly Duncan would have preferred Richie to be a little more awe stuck around Immortals. It might keep him out of trouble.
"Duncan Macleod. My cooking is not that bad."
"Of being part of a family."
"It is no more than those people should have given him." Tessa scrubbed harder. "He is just a boy."
"He's been on his own for a long time Tess. It's a big adjustment for him."
"He is already living here." Tessa pointed out.
"As our employee." Duncan reminded her. "Our eighteen year old employee. Not our sixteen year old foster child."
"We are the same people n'est pas?." Tessa shrugged as only as a Frenchwoman could.
"Uh huh." Duncan was non committal.
"He can live in the same room and work in the store .. on Saturdays .. just as we agreed."
"On Saturdays?" Duncan raised a brow.
"See." Tessa smiled. "Tout sera bien."
"Sure." Duncan waited.
"Of course, I would not choose for him to dress in such things. They are old and torn and will not be nearly warm enough when the cold weather comes."
"That's why you don't like his clothes?" Duncan gave her a knowing glance. "You think he'll be cold?"
"And the colours .." Tessa winced. Then threw up her hands. "I am an artist. God did not make such colours to go together."
"Yes. Well." Duncan sighed. "I don't think he has many clothes."
"Really?" Tessa looked pleased.
"Tess. You can't expect him to spend all his money, that he's worked for .. on clothes that you like."
"What teenager doesn't like presents?" Tessa smiled. "It will be worth it. He will be .. what did he call it? .. a chick magnet."
"That's another thing." Duncan tipped his head on one side. "What if he wanted to bring a girl home to stay?"
"But he is too young!" Tessa looked shocked.
"Tess. He has lived on the streets on and off since he was fourteen. I doubt that there are many things that he hasn't experienced."
"Does he know what it is to be loved?" Tessa challenged. "If he will look for it in the arms of strangers?"
"Tessa. He is sixteen. Not six. He has the right to make his own choices."
"This is what you will say the next time he gets arrested?" Tessa scoffed.
"OK." Duncan allowed. "Maybe not all his own choices. But he is not a child."
"At sixteen did your father treat you as a man? Allow you a man's freedoms?"
"Indeed he didna." Duncan winced at the very idea. "But Richie hasn't had the advantages we took for granted sweetheart. He's had to fend for himself. He's earnt the right to make a few mistakes."
"Just so long as he appreciates the consequences." Tessa observed loftily.
"I think it would be pretty hard to ground someone who can pick locks." Duncan chuckled.
"Next you will be teaching him to fight with swords!" Tessa threw up her hands. "This is the 20th Century Duncan. There is more to raising a child than teaching him to sit a horse and hold his ale!"
"That doesn't mean he has to learn everything at once." Duncan protested. "This is not his world Tess. You can't just put him in some expensive clothes and expect him to appreciate Art and listen to Opera. He needs to be introduced to these things gradually."
"And this is why you offered him a job and a home?" Tessa arched a brow. "Because you are not trying to change him?"
"Its no the same." Duncan protested. "I'm giving him the chance to make his own choices."
"You think he will choose to go to school?" Tessa shook her head.
"They have girls in High School." Duncan pointed out. "Cute girls in short skirts."
"Are you know this because ..?" Tessa narrowed her eyes.
"I've watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer." Duncan said innocently.
"Oh you." Tessa rolled her eyes. "He is still young enough to need some guidance."
"So we guide." Duncan wrapped his arms around her. "We just don't expect too much right away."
"You think I am expecting too much?" Tessa looked concerned.
"I think Richie has been in too many different foster homes and its never worked out. I don't want to push him out onto the streets again because he thinks that he isn't the right sort of kid for us."
"You think that is what he is afraid of?" Tessa frowned. "That we cannot love him because he doesn't like Art or Opera?"
"Maybe." Duncan allowed.
"But that is ridiculous." Tessa protested. "How can he think such a thing?"
"Experience?" Duncan suggested. "Too many places where he didn't fit in."
"I just want us to be a normal family." Tessa sighed.
"Tessa, you're French, I'm Immortal and our bouncing baby boy is 120 pounds. I think normal is a little out of our league." Duncan nuzzled her hair.
"Then we will have to invent a new type of family." Tessa decided. "I will make a sculpture. You, me and Richie. Then he will see how he fits into our lives."
She kissed him soundly and turned purposefully towards her workshop.
"Now all I have to do is convince Richie." Duncan sighed.