AN – Sorry this has been a long time coming, and for those who've asked I haven't forgotten about my other stories, but real life is real busy right now – so any writing time is precious, please bear with me. You know I'd rather be doing this J

***

Duncan sucked in his breath. Trust Richie to pick his moment. Standing in a New York alleyway, amidst the graffiti and the dumpsters, in the early morning chill was not the place he would have chosen to talk about this.

"Richie, I wish I could have  .." he began.

"Don't you dare blame Mom," Richie said fiercely, balling his fists angrily by his sides. "It wasn't her fault .. she died."

"Oh, Rich, .." Duncan had to swallow hard, that the lad would think such a thing of him. "Of course, it wasn't her fault. She loved you."

"Like you'd know," Richie challenged. "You weren't there."

"No," Duncan let out a shuddering breath. "And I am more sorry for that, than I can say, lad."

Richie gave him an odd look. He'd hoped for some kind of explanation. Some reason that his father had taken so very long to find him again. But he's expected evasion, excuses. He hadn't expected his Dad to care so deeply about what he had missed.

It was at once reassuring and terrifying.

"So, why?" He asked, genuinely curious this time. "Why did you go?"

Duncan weighed up his options. He didn't want to lie to the lad. But Richie wasn't ready to hear the truth. Not yet.

Not all of it anyway.

"Look, Rich, you know that I have a pretty dangerous job?"

"Dangerous?" Richie eyes widened and his face took on a stricken expression. "You mean you could get hurt?"

Duncan was about to point out that espionage wasn't exactly the profession of choice for those looking for a good pension plan and a nice pair of slippers by the fire. Then he realised that, at twelve, Richie's ideas were probably the product of movies where the hero managed to defeat a clutch of uzi wielding maniacs, without spilling so much as a drop of his martini.

"Maybe," Duncan couldn't bring himself to lie about that. "But, I'm pretty good at looking out for myself. I've been doing it for a long time."

"Oh," Richie tried to hide his feelings, stuffing his hands into his pockets and ducking his head, but the hurt was written all over his face. "I get it. Little kids are a lot of work and bother, huh? You hadda look out for yourself. You couldn't have a little kid tagging along."

"Richie  .."

"But its, OK, now," Richie looked up with desperate eagerness. "Cos, I'm bigger. Practically a teenager. You don't gotta worry about me. I can look out for myself. You won't hardly know I'm around."

Duncan looked down at that, earnest, hopeful, face, all too aware that Richie was still braced for rejection.

"Not good enough." He said flatly.

Before Richie's face could fall, he reached out and cupped his hand under his chin, "I've missed out on too much of your life already, I want to know you're around, I want to come home after a hard day and find your things underfoot, I want to cook food you've never heard of and watch you make faces at it, even as you clear your plate, I want to take you to ball games and the park and all the things you've never done, I want to see your face when you graduate College, for Lord's sake lad, don't you know by now, you mean the world to me?"

"But you've only just met me." Richie said in a small voice, somewhat overwhelmed.

"I know, I know." Duncan tried to reign in his feelings. Still, it wasn't exactly a lie. After all, in a life that spanned over four centuries, time was a relative concept. "I didn't know Tough Guy. On my parents graves, I swear, if I had known anything about you, I would have found you after Emily died, and brought you home to live with me."

"But, what about your job and stuff?" Richie needed to know.

"Nothing is more important in my life, than you lad." Duncan vowed. "You are my son and I love you."

Richie looked at him in wide eyed wonder, a small smile growing in his lips.

"C'mere, Tough Guy," Duncan hugged him, feeling a spark of joy when Richie slipped his arms around him and timidly hugged him back.

Then he felt Richie shivering.

"Hey," he nudged gently. "You want to go back inside now?"

"Oh." Too abruptly Richie went to push back from him, assuming that he wanted to end the embrace. But Duncan was ready for that. Shifting his grip he scooped Richie up and started to carry him back inside.

"Daaaad, whatcha doin'?" Richie protested. But he was laughing and making no effort to squirm free.

Which was a relief, because although Richie was still smaller than Duncan, he had bulked up a lot since he became Immortal and it wouldn't take that much to drop him.

And Duncan really didn't want to have to explain about Immortal healing.

"I'm carrying you," he explained. "Because now I have you, I'm never going to let you go, ever again. Is that OK?"

Richie looked up at him, resting his head, just slightly, against Duncan's chest.

"I guess." he smiled shyly.

"Good." Duncan smiled back.

It was a start.

***

"Do you want peanut butter on this?" Duncan asked, buttering the bread.

"Yeah, sure," Richie tipped his head on one side. "You ain't answered my question."

"You noticed that, huh?" Duncan smiled fondly at him. "You'd make a pretty good spy yourself."

"Now, you're changin' the subject." Richie rolled his eyes.

"I learnt from the best."

Richie furrowed his brow in confusion. "You mean me, dontcha?"

"Don't worry about it," Duncan tousled his hair. "Here, one peanut butter tripe decker surprise."

"Thanks," Richie took the sandwich, eagerly taking a bite. He chewed with satisfaction. "You still ain't answered my question."

"You're pretty smart, you know that?" Duncan teased.

"Daad." Richie whined.

"Alright," Duncan grinned. "The answer to your question is .. yes."

"You mean it?" Richie's face lit up. "You really, really mean it?"

"I'll never promise you anything I don't mean Rich." Duncan vowed.

"Oh Dad," Richie threw down the sandwich and hugged Duncan so tightly that he squeezed the breath out of him. Duncan grinned happily. This was progress indeed.

"Um .." Richie pulled back looking awkward. "Does it have to be a puppy?"

"Well, it might have trouble growing into a dog otherwise." Duncan teased.

"No, I mean," Richie was deadly serious. "Could we get an older dog. Like from a pound? Maybe, one of the ones that nobody else wants."

Duncan looked at him and his expression softened. Even after all they had been through together, Richie could still be remarkably closed mouthed about his past. It seemed somewhat disloyal to interrogate this younger, more pliant version.

Still, if Richie wanted to tell him.

"Was that what it was like, at the Orphanage?" he asked gently.

"People like the little kids," Richie shrugged. "They're cuter. And girls. People like girls. They're easier."

"Was it all bad?" Duncan hoped not.

"Some of the places were okay," Richie shrugged. "But it didn't matter how much I liked 'em, you know? She'd get pregnant or he'd get a new job and they'd send me back."

"That must have been hard." Duncan sympathised.

"You get used to it," Richie shrugged. "Sometimes, I was glad."

"Oh?" Duncan willed every fibre in his being to appear calm and disinterested. He didn't want to spook the lad.

"I can be quite a handful." Richie admitted quietly.

"I was no angel when I was a lad," Duncan fished. "But my Dad was pretty fair, he only punished me when I deserved it."

"I tried to be good. But sometimes, I wasn't even sure what I'd done wrong," Richie looked down. "It was when he drank, people can get pretty mean when they drink. But its not their fault. They don't know what they are doin."

"Who told you that?" Duncan asked.

"Maggie. She was my social worker for a bit. She was nice."

"I'm glad," Duncan said sincerely.

"I don't think he liked me much, though," Richie said thoughtfully. "He sent me to my room a lot. I really hated that room. It had the worst wallpaper."

"Worse than the pink walls with yellow sunflowers?" Duncan asked gently, before he remembered that Richie had been older then. Fortunately, this Richie didn't seem to notice.

"Much worse," he nodded. "Big green goopy swirls. I mean, it wasn't even a real pattern. Please, can I have another piece of chocolate cake"

***

"That was touching," Methos threw him a beer and sprawled on the sofa before twisting the cap off his own bottle.

"How much of it did you hear?" Duncan asked.

"All of it." Methos shrugged.

Duncan waited. But nothing more was forthcoming. He sighed. Clearly Methos was going to make him work for his pearls of wisdom. That way, if things went awry, he could pretend it was all the Highlander's own idea.

"And?"

"And what?" Methos looked up, if Duncan had initiated the conversation. "Are you asking for my opinion?"

"Do you have one?" Duncan arched a brow.

"How do you think Amanda will feel when she realises that she had a wasted journey?"

"Is that likely to happen?" Duncan raised a brow.

"I'm not sure," Methos pressed his lips together. "That pattern he was just describing? That was the hideous wallpaper back at the Motel."

"When he had the nightmare?"

"The very same." Methos agreed.

Duncan looked thoughtfully into his beer.

Maybe they wouldn't need to go back to Seacouver, after all.