"It really isn't that good of a story." Richie said quickly.
But Duncan wasn't backing down. "Tell me anyway. You have to know that I'm curious."
"I thought Jason told you." The teen replied quietly.
Duncan shook his head. "He just said you might be there. It had some meaning to you. That you use to talk about it."
"It was just a silly dream." Richie replied, yawning through his own sentence.
Climbing onto the bed to lean against the headboard, Duncan persisted. "Come on, partner."
"You swear you won't laugh?" Richie asked hesitantly.
Duncan wrapped an arm around him in response. "My word of honor."
"You know how I was in an orphanage when I was little?" Richie questioned.
It was a conversation that Duncan remembered vividly. When he had picked the teen up after his attempt to steal his foster care records, the pain in the teen's eyes when he talked about his stay in an orphanage stuck in Duncan's mind. "Yes."
"Well, I was one of the few little kids there. Most of the kids were older and they always talked about crossing the Tacoma." Richie explained.
Duncan wasn't clear on what he meant, though. "Why?"
"Every couple of weeks one of them would get to cross the bridge. It was, like, a huge deal. When their time was coming, they would get all excited and brag about getting freed." Richie explained.
But, again, Duncan wasn't totally clear on what he meant. "What did they do to cross the bridge?"
"Got emancipated." Richie explained quietly.
Finally Duncan understood. "The county line."
"What?" Richie replied, confused.
The Immortal patiently explained it to him. "The other side of the Tacoma is the next county over, Rich. When they turned 18, they were free to go wherever they wanted. Including the next county. Which is obviously somewhere they didn't go when they were wards of the court. They always kept you within the county, no matter how much you got shifted around, didn't they?"
"Yeah." Richie replied. Then he had a realization. "That's it, isn't it?"
"What?" Duncan replied.
Richie looked up at him. "It was all about being free from the state. Not being a ward of the court anymore."
"Probably." The Immortal replied, not completely sure what Richie was getting at.
The teen quickly spelled it out for him, fortunately. "It always seemed so exciting. They would talk about it for weeks. 'Gonna cross the bridge, be a free man. Start a new life.' It was like the bridge was magical. If you went across it, you'd be set. And it was just a stupid county line."
"And you thought if you crossed it, your life would change?" Duncan pressed gently, seeing that the teen was still reeling over the realization of what it had meant to his former idols.
"Sort of." Richie replied with a shrug, pausing temporarily to let out a yawn and shift away from Duncan. "When you told me I was to decide who it was, I guess it just got me thinking about it. I mean, I'm the same age as those guys were."
"You're only 15, Richie." Duncan reminded him quickly, securing his grip around the teen's shoulders.
Richie merely shook his head briefly. "Yeah, but I was supposed to be 18. That's how old they were. And I didn't have any idea who I was. So I figured, the bridge was the place to go. I didn't really know what else to do."
"And you had to walk it because?" Duncan pressed.
Earning him an odd look. "Well I can't drive and I didn't have the cash to take a bus or cab."
"All right." Duncan replied, managing to keep himself from laughing at the simple response. He had made the teen a promise and he intended to keep it.
To the Immortal's surprise, Richie continued talking. "It was so hard, though. I didn't realize how far it was and it was so nasty out."
As the teen shivered slightly at the memory, Duncan squeezed him closer, listening to him tiredly ramble on. "But it was too late to turn back. By the time I was halfway there, I knew it was a stupid idea. I mean, what can crossing a bridge really do? Tessa sure hit that one on the head. I had nothing waiting for me on the other side. But I didn't have anywhere else to go, so I guess I just figured I might as well keep walking. It wasn't like I had any other options."
Sitting silently for a moment, Richie finally let out a wide yawn. He continued on. "Brilliant, huh? All I managed to do was make myself sick and kill a dream."
"I don't know." Duncan replied. "Sounds to me like it worked."
"What worked?" Richie replied.
Duncan smiled at him. "Crossing the bridge. You did it to figure out where you belong, to get a fresh start, find a home. That's exactly what you got. Next time you need to find yourself, come to me though, okay? I'll put you in a good coat and drive you to the bridge myself so we can walk across."
"I'm exactly the same place I was before I left, Mac." Richie replied.
Causing the Immortal frustration. "Not quite." Duncan told him. "When you left you were a kid without roots. That isn't the case anymore, Rich. Take my word, you are firmly planted here with me."
"I don't know what I'm supposed to do now." Richie told him quietly.
Wrapping his other arm around the teen, Duncan pulled Richie all the way in to rest on his chest. "Now you hang out here with me. You'll learn, grow up at a decent pace, play." When the teen didn't protest the 'play' comment, Duncan couldn't help but smile. Richie was very nearly asleep in his arms.
As Duncan sat silently, assuming the teen was asleep, he was startled by the boy's question. "Am I going to go back to school?"
"Well." Duncan replied, not sure exactly how to respond. "You've missed a big chunk of the year and we travel an awful lot. Would you be terribly upset if we home schooled for the rest of this year? Got you a tutor?"
"Nah." Richie eventually mumbled into his chest.
But Duncan wasn't entirely sure the boy would be okay with the idea. "Really? You couldn't play on the basketball team this year. You'd have to wait until you went back next year."
"Will you play with me sometimes?" Richie questioned, prying one eye open to look up at the Immortal briefly.
Duncan gave him a reassuring nod. "Of course I will, Richie. Anytime."
"Good." The teen replied, once again shutting his eyes.
But Duncan was not ready to end the conversation quite yet. "Your coach said Jason would come watch you play. How do you know him?" When Richie didn't respond, Duncan questioned gently. "Richie?"
"He was one of my foster mom's boyfriends. He helped me out sometimes." The teen finally mumbled.
Duncan persisted. "How'd he help you out?"
"Richie?"
"Rich?"
The teen was dead to the world, contently asleep on the Immortal's chest. Duncan finally admitted it to himself and decided he would just have to have those few lingering questions for a while longer. Running his hand through the teen's curls and giving him a gentle kiss on the forehead before tucking him in, Duncan was relieved to note that the boy's temperature didn't seem too high. Gently getting up from the bed, Duncan quietly crept out of the room and left the door cracked behind him.
As Richie looked over at the bedside clock, he was surprised to see that he had slept for nearly two hours. That only gave him a few more before Duncan came back to give him more medicine. That should be plenty of time, though, he reasoned. As soon as the Immortal had brought up the bridge, he realized what he needed to do and now was as good a time as any. He just hoped he could find Jason and get back into bed before the Immortal ever realized anything was amiss.