AN- Thanks to my reviewers! However, some places tell me that I have 4 reviews, another says I have 6. Only three of the 4 viewable were emailed to me. Therefore, if you've submitted a review, and it isn't shown, then I didn't get it, and FF.net is having indigestion. Nevertheless, I humbly request your reviews…
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Unfortunately, Richie wasn't allowed to sleep through dinner. He was awoken from his nap only two brief hours later by Tessa knocking on his door.
"Richie, dinner," she called to him without opening the door. There was no reply, so she knocked again, this time louder. "Richie?" This time she was greeted with a moan. "Richie, dinner's ready."
Richie heard the knocking, but wished it all away as part of a bad dream. When he heard Tessa's voice, he silently prayed that she would eventually give up and leave him in peace. Then she knocked and called again, louder. No such luck. He groaned as he dragged himself the rest of the way into wakefulness. Then came the voice again. With a heavy sigh, Richie pulled himself up. Obviously he would get no peace until after dinner.
"In a sec," he called back sleepily. Fortunately his fatigue masked the other emotions he was feeling. Satisfied, Tessa went back into the dining room. Duncan had just carried the rest of the plates and serving dished over to the table.
"He said he'll be out in a second," Tessa informed her lover. Duncan nodded in acceptance.
"Was he sleeping?" He asked.
"I don't know," Tessa answered. "Probably." Duncan frowned.
"We probably should have let him sleep. If he's taking a nap, he must need the extra rest."
"Yes," Tessa agreed, "but he needs to eat a decent meal even more."
"Decent?" Duncan asked, confused.
"All he's had to eat today were a few slices of toast this morning and a turkey sandwich when he was done working." Duncan frowned again.
"That's not like him," he observed. "But then, neither is taking naps." Tessa nodded.
"You don't think he's getting sick?" Duncan wasn't given a chance to answer. Just then Richie plodded into the dining room with heavy footfalls. Whether he was sick or not, Duncan couldn't tell just by looking at him, but the teen did look exhausted.
"What's for dinner," he asked blearily as he plopped himself down into a chair.
"Pasta," Duncan answered as he took the lid off the largest pot, revealing bowtie noodles. Richie forced a smile to his face. Normally, he loved it when MacLeod cooked Italian. Tonight he just wasn't all that hungry. He poured himself a glass of lemonade from the pitcher on the table, hoping that it wasn't too sweet, while he waited his turn to serve himself some pasta.
When it was his turn, he served himself a noticeably smaller portion than his norm. He skimped on his sauce serving, too, which Duncan knew to be his favorite part. Biting his tongue against comment just yet, Duncan served himself and sat down to what would hopefully be a nice, quiet dinner with his family.
The conversation centered mostly around small talk—when the store would be ready to open, how Tessa was doing reestablishing herself as a local artist, and when they would arrange to see old friends again now that they were back in town. Richie was silent during this, which was also very uncharacteristic of him. Both Duncan and Tessa watched as he focused on eating his pasta, methodically, piece by piece, making sure that each one had the correct amount of sauce on it, and taking a quick sip of lemonade after every bite to wash it all down. How very, very unlike Richie…
Richie finished his meager portion and got up to put his empty plate in the dishwasher.
"Something wrong with the pasta?" Duncan asked, finally no longer able to remain silent. Richie turned to him, confused. "You didn't eat very much," Duncan explained. "I thought my pasta was one of your favorites." Richie smiled weakly, blushing slightly.
"It was fantastic as always," said Richie. "I'm just not that hungry."
"Are you feeling alright?" Duncan asked, keeping his tone light as though only making fun, since normally Richie is always hungry. However, he was very serious in asking. Richie smiled again.
"I'm fine," he lied easily. "I just had a late lunch." He looked quickly to Tessa as if to prove his point. However, he didn't quite get the support that he was expecting.
"Richie, all you've had to eat today was four slices of toast this morning and that sandwich this afternoon," she began. "How can you not be hungry now?" Richie sighed, biting the inside of his lip. He didn't want to snap at her, which he very nearly did.
"That sandwich was very filling," he said instead, but his tone was mocking.
"Are you sure you're alright?" Tessa asked, ignoring his tone.
"I'm fine," he reiterated with much impatience.
"How can you be fine when your appetite's non-existent?" Tessa returned.
"Because I said so!" Richie exploded suddenly. There was a moment of tense silence before Duncan finally rejoined the conversation.
"Richie…" Or attempted to.
"Look," the teen said thickly. "I'm fine. Tess, you've watched me eat three meals a day. Just because I'm not stuffing my face doesn't mean that there's something wrong with me." He said this slowly and pointedly, emphasizing every word.
"We're only asking because we care," Tessa said softly, hurt. Richie released another impatient, elongated sigh, but he didn't bother to clarify that it was himself that he was impatient with. How are they supposed to believe nothing's wrong if this is the way you act?
"I'm grateful," he said shortly, sounding anything but. "But if you care so much then why not try respecting my judgment?"
"That would be easier if you stopped lying to us," Duncan interjected. Richie paled considerably.
"I don't have to stay here and take this," he said, raising his hands and backing up slightly.
"Richie," Duncan tried again. The teen would have none of it, however. He turned on his heals and headed for the door.
"Where are you going?" Tessa called after him.
"Riding!" Richie shouted back as he left the loft and descended the stairs. Tessa moved to follow him but Duncan grabbed her arm stopping her.
"We can't let him leave like that!" She protested.
"We can't stop him, either," Duncan pointed out. Tessa sighed, collapsing herself into a nearby chair and allowing her head to fall into her hands.
"What are we going to do?" She asked without looking up. Duncan sighed tiredly.
"We can't help him if he won't talk to us," he said. Tessa looked up at him.
"So now you think we should help him?" It was a low blow, and she regretted it instantly.
"First he needs to admit that there's something wrong," said Duncan, ignoring the hurt from Tessa's statement.
"Well he's not about to do that now," said Tessa ruefully, staring off in the direction that he left in.
"I'll talk to him when he gets back," said Duncan determinedly. Tessa nodded.
"Do you think he'll be back tonight?" She asked, he voice quiet and fearful. Duncan didn't have an answer for her.
***
Richie decided that now would be as good a time as any to head over to the shelter. It was open twenty-four hours a day to accommodate Seacouver's burgeoning homeless population. Even if Angie wasn't working right now, someone would be there to tell him when would be the best time to find her.
Of course, it did occur to him, when it began to rain again on the drive over, that it would have been much easier to simply try and call her. But Richie sided against that option… he didn't know if he could handle calling her number and getting a stranger on the line. Not to mention the awkwardness of having her say 'hi' and then lots and lots of dead air. No, in person is the best way.
And so Richie turned down Madison and headed for the shelter.
Only when he got there, the shelter was now a shoe store.
"What the hell…" Richie was at a loss as to what to do now. He was positively certain that he had remembered where the shelter was. He had remembered every other location vividly. Yet, here he was, and no shelter. Richie cursed again while trying to decide what to do.
As if to blatantly mock his current string of luck, the solution presented itself only a few moments later. Richie spied a traffic cop making his rounds and ticketing all those parked illegally. He was carrying a big umbrella and an even larger scowl, but nothing ventured, nothing gained…
"Excuse me, sir?" The cop ignored him as he proceeded to write out another ticket. "Excuse me?" Richie repeated, a little louder. This time the cop glanced up at him, but went back to writing out his ticket. "Excuse me!" Richie said again, practically shouting, and his voice was brimming with impatient exasperation.
"You want something, kid?" The cop asked as he tore the ticket off his pad and stuck it under a windshield wiper.
"Didn't there used to be a homeless shelter here?" Richie asked, his voice returning to feigned politeness and losing some of its demanding edge. The cop looked up as if to take stock of where he was.
"Yeah," he answered. "Closed about six months ago."
"Closed?" Richie asked in disbelief.
"Yeah," said the cop, irritated at having to repeat himself. "Closed."
"Why?"
"Not enough money, not enough volunteers, and then the city cut back funding and under it went."
"You've got to be kidding!"
"You're too well dressed to be homeless, kid," the cop said skeptically.
"I used to volunteer there," Richie answered tightly. He wasn't in the mood to trade words with a street cop.
"Yeah you and half the city," said the cop. "Perhaps if you kept with it, they wouldn't have had to close up shop."
"I was out of town for nine months," said Richie, enunciating every word and trying to remain calm. The cop looked Richie up and down, and his scowl only increased.
"Well you most likely weren't in school," he said as though he were certain he was right. "Where were you, prison?" Richie's temper flared, but even he knew better than to risk an aggravated assault charge on a police officer… even if said office was being a… not so nice person.
"Do all Seacouver policemen make such wild assumptions?" He asked, affecting his favorite tone for dealing with authority figures. "If so then no wonder the crime rate's on the rise." Just as the cop was bristling, making ready to respond, Richie switched over to French. "If you must know," he said with perfect accent and inflection, "I was in Paris for nine months, you fat-assed, greasy pig!" Richie's venomous tone carried his meaning home, even if the cop didn't understand a word he had said.
"Why you little—" Richie cut him off, though.
"What are you going to do, arrest me? Yeah I'm sure your captain will love that one. I wonder what type of penalty is assessed for speaking French to a police officer…" The cop, though by now a rather amusing shade of purple, remained silent. Richie tossed off a few more French expletives before climbing back on his bike and speeding away.
Richie pulled over once he was around the corner and several blocks away from the officer with the chip on his shoulder. For some reason he felt too warm in his biker's jacket, so he removed it. That left him in just his tee shirt, but he didn't mind. He continued to ride.
He also didn't mind when it started raining. The cold raindrops and evaporative cooling felt good against his too-hot skin. Then somewhere in the middle of cooling himself off, Richie decided that the only thing for him to do now was to drive over to the apartment Angie shared with her mom. The shelter was on the fringes of his old neighborhood. Angie lived on the other side of it. If he wanted to see her, the fastest way would be to drive straight through it.
Though, for some reason, Richie desperately didn't want to see his old neighborhood ever again. He wanted to drive through the Latin Quarter, or Rue de la Tournelle where the barge was docked. He wanted that stop sign to say 'arrêt' and for that policeman to understand every word he said.
But for right now, he desperately wanted to see Angie, and that meant driving through his old neighborhood again.
Richie made it most of the way there when he realized that he didn't feel well. His arms were freezing from the contact with the rain, and his tee shirt was soaked. Yet the rest of him felt unbearably hot, and he was starting to get dizzy. Knowing that something wasn't right, Richie pulled into the parking lot of a Burger King, aiming to simply get out of the rain for a few minutes, and to catch his breath, which for some reason seemed to trying to run away with him.
Finding enough change in his jacket pocket for a soda was a welcomed surprise. He made his way up to the counter and ordered a small Pepsi, longing to have ordered it in French and depressed and miserable that he could not… amongst other things. After being given his drink, and paying for it in quarters, nickels, and dimes, Richie made his way to a booth and sat down heavily, hearing is soaked sweat pants make a 'squish' sound as he did so.
The soda made him feel slightly better. At least his mouth was no longer arid, and the world seemed to hold focus a bit better. His arms were practically numb from cold, and the heat everywhere else was becoming unbearable. When he heard himself wheezing he muttered a curse at having contracted a chest cold. You really should be home in bed, he chided himself as he removed the lid from his now-empty-of-soda plastic cup and grabbed an ice cube to suck on.
But the loft just didn't feel like home, and he was having trouble sleeping without the gentle rocking of tidal river waves beneath his bed…
Richie popped another ice cube as he tried to summon up the motivation to leave the fast food restaurant, either to go back to the loft or continue on to Angie's. When he finally did force himself to his feet, he decided that Angie's was closer…
When Richie made his way back outside, he found a pack of boys eying his bike.
"Something I can do for you guys?" He asked as casually as he could as he made his way over to them.
"This your ride?" One of the boys asked. Richie nodded. "It looks sweet."
"Nah," Richie contradicted, waving it off. "Thing's a piece of junk."
"Then you wouldn't mind us relieving you of it," said another boy, stepping forward and standing tall. He practically towered over Richie, who let out another impatient, exasperated sigh. Was everyone against him tonight?
Richie's response was kneeing the unfortunate boy in his most vulnerable spot. The poor thug never saw it coming, and crumbled to the ground in a heap, moaning and clutching himself. His buddies looked on, stunned.
"Actually, I do mind," said Richie icily, fishing his keys out of his pocket. Then the other boys woke up from their collective trance.
"Why you son of a—" Suddenly Richie felt his head snapping backwards. One of the thugs landed a punch just off from his left eye, and the force of it nearly knocked him off his feet. However, he was quick to recover. He threw his fist forward and connected with another boy's chin. That one staggered backwards and tripped over his fallen comrade.
In his attack, he didn't have time to see nor avoid the hard fist that connected with the area of his left kidney. Richie yelped in pain and fell to his knees. From his kneeling position, he instinctively reached for the switchblade he used to keep in his back pocket.
It wasn't there. It hadn't been there for nearly a year.
Richie didn't have time to even curse before a steel-toed boot connected with his shoulder and sent him spiraling backwards towards the ground. He came to rest on his stomach in time to turn his head up and see his four attackers coming to loom over him.
He wished MacLeod were here. He could easily tackle this gang… Richie has seen him do similar things in the past. He wished he had the Katana at least, or even his dinky switchblade. And he wished above all else that he was back in Paris, drinking tea with Darius and living these events in the form of painful moments in chessboard confessions only, as opposed to staring at them wide-eyed in the middle of a rain-soaked street in Seacouver, the immortal priest nearly a month dead and gone.
Richie wished for all of those things, but he didn't have any of them. And that realization made him angry. Very angry. Richie threw himself to his feet, cursing freely in French as he threw himself into his attackers. He threw numerous punches—both fists—and watched the thugs fall back and scatter, taken by surprise by Richie's sudden fury.
Richie successfully broke their line and got passed them. He practically jumped onto his bike, grabbed the keys from where he had dropped them, kicked it into gear, and sped away. The boys vainly gave chase, but couldn't catch him. He felt a last-ditch punch scrape his back as he exited the parking lot.
Richie just rode in circles, not really paying attention to where he was headed, or even to how late it was getting, or to how low his gas meter was running, or even to the rain that continued to fall. His side hurt, his head hurt, even his hands hurt. The rest of him was either sweating or uncomfortably numb. And he was exhausted. When he finally took stock of where he was headed, he found himself back on Pauling Avenue, nearly upon the duplex that stood in place of his old apartment…
Richie didn't have it in him to curse again as he pulled an illegal U-turn and made his way back to the loft. Instead he mentally cursed the boys who attacked him, the cop for his gross assumptions, the Burger King for not offering crepes as a side dish, and the city of Seacouver for not being Paris.
He hated that he automatically drove towards his old apartment… to a building that wasn't even standing with people there now who wouldn't even know he existed. He hated that he hadn't carried his switchblade for nearly a year and yet being back here made him automatically think it was there again.
He hated that Darius was dead and he hated even more that avenging him meant returning to the States.
He hated how here he was just a punk kid who mouthed off to cops, got into gang fights, and reached for the knife he knew how to use.
He hated being back where he was just Richie Ryan, petty criminal, ward of the state, con artist, and all around loser. He hated seeing the houses where he was fostered, seeing the orphanage where he spent too much time, passing people on the street he used to know who didn't recognize him any more.
This is where he stole, where he scraped to get by, where he fought for his life before he was old enough for it to be considered his own. This is where he was Richie Ryan, no ties, no family, nothing special, nobody's favorite, easily forgotten. This is where he started, and where he promised himself he wouldn't wind up. He was going to make something of himself. He was going to be somebody—become more than just what Seacouver promised his life to be.
And yet this is where he found himself now, picking fights with cops and street gangs, striking out on his own, and feeling sorry for himself and venting his frustrations on the streets he hated so much.
As the gas ran out on his motorcycle, nearly eighteen blocks from the loft, Richie dumped it into neutral and swung his legs around, preparing to push it the rest of the way. He sang some French pop song as he made his way along, leaning on the bike for support as he went and using his own voice to drown out the sound of raindrops beating on his helmet, and hating most of all the realization that he was Richie Ryan, doomed to be trapped forever in Seacouver with only fond memories of Paris, and of a happy family there, and the priest who taught him to play chess and listened to his problems without offering advice nor judgment… fond memories that would fade with time the same way he couldn't remember Emily's face, or recall Angie's phone number.
The pop song was replaced by quiet sobbing as he came within sight of the loft. Only the light in the living room was lit. Even the cold concrete of the building was uninviting to him as he pushed the bike around back and tried to quiet his shameful tears. How he missed being welcomed home by the smell of brackish salt and the sound of lapping water…