AN: Sorry to take so long updating. I have no excuse other than writer's block. Thank you Lori, Bev, and Neoinean for listening to me complain and plot and throwing in some ideas to help. You guys ROCK!

"Hey, they have the pig on a spit and everything!" Anthony exclaimed, dragging Brandon over for a look.

"We're getting a table!" Heather called after them. "Richie, this is really neat."

"Thanks," he answered distractedly looking over the buffet. He grabbed a few purple taro rolls before following the others in their search for six seats together amid the long tables.

"What is that?" David asked.

"Taro roll. It's made with Poi, that's why it's purple. They're good." He handed one over as they took over the midsection of a table. "Try it."

David tentatively took a bite. "It's sweet," he said in surprise.

"Yup."

"Lekeke!" someone called jogging up the aisle in a robe towards them. "Thank God you're here, cuz!"

Richie got a slightly panicked look on his face. "What's wrong?"

"It's Keleko...he's sick," the stranger informed him.

Richie's jaw dropped. "Oh, no... nununununo. No no no! I'm not...no... just no, okay? No!"

"C'mon, cuz. We need you, man!"

"No. I'm on vacation here. I'm with my family..."

"Family?"

Richie sighed. "Heather, David, Mac. Anthony and Brandon are around here somewhere."

"Nice to meet you, I'm Michael. Please, cuz, I'm begging you here. We need a..."

"Don't you say it," he warned.

"What's a luau without a..."

"Please, I'm begging you, now." He stood and tried to move the conversation elsewhere.

"C'mon, we need a..."

"Don't..."

"Fire dancer."

"Fire dancer?" Heater squealed. Richie blushed. "This I have to see."

"No, you don't..."

"Sure she does, Likeke!" Michael insisted. "Come on, for me?"

"Oh, yeah, that's a real inspiration."

"Then for this pretty young lady, then."

"No, man. No one is gonna notice. Lemme have my vacation."

"Richie's not the type, anyway," Duncan piped up. Richie looked at him. "He doesn't have the grace, skill, talent or balls to do it," he said slowly.

Richie inhaled deeply, puffing out his chest. "I'll see you guys after dinner." He turned on his heel and left.

"And he doesn't have the sense to realize when I'm manipulating him, either," Duncan finished with a smile.

"You are positively evil!" Heather laughed swatting at Duncan's arm.

He shrugged, truly wondering why he had tricked his former student into performing... "Habit."

Not long after Richie had disappeared, the luau began. There were singers and dancers and story tellers to entertain the crowd. There was an MC who came out to introduce the acts and entertain between them.

"Siva Naifi Afi," The MC said as a young man made his way into the stage.

"That's Richie," Heather said excitedly.

The group stared at the young man on stage. He was wearing a loincloth. That was it as far as clothing went, Heather noted with a slight grin. He had a flower lei po'o {head lei}, a shark tooth and lava bead lei, and grass arm bands and anklets on.

"The traditional Samoan fire knife dance is when the warrior gets his chance to show his strength, bravery and courage. Tonight our own Likeke, one of our dolphin trainers, will moonlight for you as our fire dancer. While he may not be Samoan by birth, he is one of the best fire dancers you will find in the islands."

"He has balls," Brandon said over his food. "I wouldn't be caught dead on stage like that!"

"You couldn't pay me enough to do that!" Anthony agreed.

"Shh!" Heather hissed.

Richie was completely uninhibited as he toyed with and played to the audience as he carefully executed moves with his fire staff. Duncan recognized some of his moves in Richie's routine. Anthony excitedly pointed out a kata Duncan had taught him as well. Then Richie abandoned his staff in favor of fire chains, which he used to demonstrate a traditional Samoan dance. The chains left blazing circles in the air as he spun them in intricate patterns. The audience cheered and screamed at his show. Cameras flashed and he even went down into the audience and posed for a few pictures. He smiled and did his dance to the beat of the drums banging in the background while everyone clapped and screamed as he stole the show. When he was done, he was honored with a standing ovation from half the crowd.

Ten minutes after he had gone off stage, Richie appeared back at the table with a plate full of food.

"Did I miss anything good?" he asked innocently.

"You were wonderful!" Heather cheered excitedly giving him a strong hug and peck on the cheek.

"Thanks," he blushed happily, not missing how her fingers lingered on the back of his neck a bit longer than necessary. "And you..." he turned to face Duncan. "I'm on to your little game, just so you know."

"What?"

"It may have taken me a second, but I know what you did."

Duncan smiled. "Too late to do anything, now, isn't it?"

"How did you learn all that stuff?" Brandon asked.

"Friends, classes, made some of it up..." he shrugged. "Not so hard when you've been working with the same weapons for years."

"I can do that," Anthony announced proudly. "Well, not the fire part, but some of the rest."

"Good for you, kid."

They spent another hour talking and eating before they decided to head back to Richie's house. Brandon immediately insisted his new best friend, Anthony, sleep in the other bed in the room he was using. That left Duncan in the only other spare bed in the house, which was in Richie's room. The teens may have been getting along, but there was still an odd stiffness between the former student/teacher pair across the hall. While Duncan and Richie were experts at pretending there was nothing wrong between them, they also knew when something was off. Something was definitely off.

"I swear if you two don't shut up, I'm getting you up at four and you'll regret ever second of it!" Richie shouted across the hall at the babbling teenagers. He turned back into the room he was sharing with Duncan.

"I remember yelling at you like that," Duncan mused, looking up from his book.

"Don't start," Richie shot back playfully.

"You grew out your hair," Duncan observed changing the subject, instead of pressing the subject like he used to.

"Uh, yeah. A while ago. That's why it looked so bad...back in Washington." Richie opened the closet to toss in shirt in the laundry hamper.

"I thought I told you no tattoos."

"What?" Richie turned back around.

"You got that tattoo again."

"Yes, I did. And it's real so there's nothing you can do about it." Five years previous, Richie had gotten the Celtic infinity knot tattooed on his lower back. Five years before that he had gotten a similar one in henna that Duncan and Conner had scrubbed off with what felt like steel wool.

"What about the glasses? They can't be real."

Small talk, another sure sign things were still off between the once close pair.

Richie sat down on his bed and put the glasses on the nightstand. "I thought they looked nice."

"They do. Just, if you don't need them why have them?"

"Disguise. I thought it was very Clark Kent of me."

An uncomfortable silence fell over the pair as Richie continued to get ready for bed. "Well, uh... guess I'm done. You can turn off the light when you're ready."

"Oh, well, I'm ready when you are." Duncan put his book down.

"No, you were reading. I can sleep with the light on."

"I was just waiting for you."

"You're probably in the middle of the chapter. Finish it."

"I've read this before. Just turn out the light."

"You can't stop in the middle of a chapter. Finish," Richie insisted.

"It won't kill me," Duncan rebutted a slight edge to his voice.

"Won't kill me either."

"Richie! Just shut off the light!"

"Why are you yelling at me?" Richie demanded, standing up.

"Because you're making me mad!"

"What'd I do?"

"...Just turn out the light and go to bed," Duncan snapped.

Richie stood there between the twin beds for a second before going over and turning out the light then walking out the door and down the hall. Duncan lay in bed for a minute before getting up and going after him.

"What are you doing?"

Richie flipped the channels on the TV. "Putting up a chair rail; what does it look like I'm doing?"

"I think we need to talk."

"Why do you say that?"

"We're going to wake everyone up, if we haven't already. Can we go outside?"

Richie stared at the infomercial for a minute. He sighed. "Fine." He led the way to the backyard.

"Well?" Duncan asked after they had settled into some lawn chairs.

"I have to start? You're the one who started yelling."

"You're the one who was being difficult."

Richie snorted. "I wasn't following orders, you mean."

"What are you talking about?"

"I didn't jump to it as soon as you said so."

"Okay," Duncan took a breath. "We both know this isn't about turning off the light."

"Fine, you tell me what this is about."

"This is about you and your bruised ego."

"My ego?" Richie repeated.

"You run away from your family to play the tough guy for a little while..."

"I'm doing what you taught me to do!"

"And as soon as it got too hard, you come running home for help, calling the first person who came to mind..."

"I called the only person who came to mind!" Richie snapped.

"Because I'm supposed to drop everything to bail you out when you get in over your head?"

"You're my friend; I thought you would help! But if this is disrupting your life then go back and I'll find someone else."

"I'm here, aren't I?" Richie didn't answer. Duncan sighed. "This is stupid."

"You started it," Richie mumbled.

"Me?"

"Um-humm."

Duncan paused and thought for a minute. "Yeah, I did, didn't I?"

"Did you just admit that this is your fault?" Richie asked.

"I'm the reason you left, aren't I?"

"So we're gonna get into this, huh?" he asked looking away.

"It's what this all boils down to, you have to admit it."

Richie nodded in the dark, studying a dark object in the far corner of the yard. He eventually decided it was Finny and Skye. He sighed and shifted in his seat. "I left for a lot of reasons." Duncan didn't say anything. "I guess I made you pretty mad, huh?"

"Confused," was Duncan's quiet answer. "What made you leave?"

"I grew up."

"What does that mean?"

"It means I'm not...I wasn't who you thought I was. I wasn't the little kid you wanted me to be."

"I didn't want you to be a little kid."

"Then why did you treat me like one?"

"I didn't."

"You did. You were smothering me. Every time I turned around, there you were wanting to make everything better for me. Wanting me to come to you for the answers. I had to do it on my own, Mac. I had to grow up sometime."

"Rich..."

"I know what you wanted, you told me. I'm sorry, but I didn't want that, I don't want that... I never really did. And especially after that whole debacle with Greg... I didn't know who I was anymore. I didn't know what I liked because I liked it and what I liked because I wanted to be liked. The only way to fix that was to go out on my own and find out."

"And you couldn't let any one know where you were? Just that you were alive? Richie, I had no idea where you were for..."

"Okay, I'll admit it. That was drastic. And I'm sorry. I just had to prove I could do it. If you knew where I was, I wouldn't have had the chance. I tried to go on my own and still keep in touch...it didn't work."

"What are you talking about?"

"Missouri? Mac, I wasn't down there for five minutes before you showed up with a car! You insisted on paying for everything, sent little gifts all the time..."

"You called every weekend," Duncan reminded him. "Or whenever you had a problem."

"And that was half of why I left. I had to prove it to myself as much as anyone else. I had to force myself to handle things on my own. No advise, no help, no nothing. Just me."

"And? Did you prove your point?"

Richie nodded. "Yeah...yeah, I did. I'm my own person now. I have my own place, my own money, my own life. For once I'm not 'Richie Ryan; so-and- so's kid, friend, student, whatever'. I'm just me now."

"Are you really that different?"

"Enough to count," he shrugged.

"So, what's changed?"

"Well, I don't play basketball anymore."

"Soccer. Your team won first place last year."

Richie's eyes narrowed. "How did you..."

"Saw the trophy in your room."

"Oh, right."

"What else?"

He shrugged. "I don't know...just little things."

"You go off on a life changing journey and all you did was switch from basketball to soccer?"

"There are other things; you just put me on the spot."

They sat quietly until Richie let out a huge yawn.

Duncan looked at his watch. "It's nearly three. We should get to bed."

"I guess so." Richie got up and opened the sliding glass door. He whistled for the dog that bounded out of the shadows followed shortly by the rabbit. "Sky and Finny," he explained to Duncan. "After you."

"We'll finish this later," Duncan said as he walked into the house.

Richie grinned and shook his head. "I knew that was coming."

"Of course you did. But if we're going to get up at four, we'd better get some sleep."

"About that. I was thinking...why don't we take them to the gym tomorrow. That way we can see what kinda of muscle Brandon has."

"And coincidentally the gym opens at what time?"

"Eight...but you get the place to yourself if you go in around nine thirty or ten."

"Do they have room for what we need?"

"I'm sure we can take over one of the classrooms or something."

"For the sake of my sanity...fine," Duncan agreed secretly pleased to find a way to get a bit more sleep.

"Don't wanna be with a couple cranky teenagers all day tomorrow?" Richie asked. "Don't say it," he added before Duncan could reply.

"I won't," he promised as he passed Richie to get into bed. "Good night, Rich."

Richie flipped off the light. "Night, Mac...oh, and if something attacks your feet in the middle of the night, that's just Finny...she likes to hunt toes."