AN- All the thanks in the world goes out to my wonderful (and patient!) reviewers!!! Sorry this chapter is late. My internet connection got farked, and I only got this bucket o' bolts back online this afternoon. Anywho, here's the next chapter. Enjoy (and review!)!!!
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Tessa proceeded to remind Duncan of the time she and Richie spent awaiting the outcome of the fight with Grayson, most notably of the conversations they had during the transatlantic flight. Though she had informed him of all of this before, that was nine months ago, and the immortal admitted that hearing it again helped to put things into a bit of perspective.
"One of the things he said to me before we left was that Paris was the best time of his entire life," said Tessa towards the end of their conversation on the topic. The immortal smiled.
"I've never seen him happier," he added. Tessa nodded.
"That's because he had a family—a real family, for the first time since Emily Ryan died."
"I fail to see how that's changed," said Duncan, honestly confused.
"It hasn't," Tessa reaffirmed with feeling. "He is part of our family, no matter what—or where, or even when for that matter." Duncan couldn't help but smile at the addendum.
"Yeah, but for some reason he seems to think it has," the highlander observed. Tessa was silent, thoughtful. Then: "I wonder what we did to change his mind…" That statement, though still stemming from Duncan's confusion, held a great deal of sadness in it, and regret, even though the immortal had no idea as to what he should be feeling guilty for. That, perhaps, was the greatest offense of all.
"I honestly don't think we've done anything," said Tessa.
"You mean, it's more like something we haven't done?" Duncan asked, suddenly thoughtful. Tessa just shook her head. There were no certainties here. "Then what were we supposed to do differently?"
"We three are a family, Duncan," said Tessa, working through her thoughts by saying them aloud. "That fact has been stated, restated, and I had thought generally understood since you joined us in Paris. And now… Duncan, something made Richie reconsider his position in our home—in his home! We need to find out what it is." Duncan nodded in agreement.
"Where do we begin?" He asked, as though the task at hand were far too monumental for two individuals to tackle.
"I think we start by talking to Richie," Tessa offered, slightly sarcastic. Duncan laughed slightly at her need to state the obvious.
"But what do we say?" Duncan countered. "Do we just come right out and ask him why he isn't treating us like family anymore?" The highlander couldn't keep the hurt from his voice, and Tessa couldn't keep herself from nodding in agreement to the sentiment.
"Better to ask why he doesn't feel like family any more," Tessa corrected. The sentiment was still hurtful, but it didn't hold any accusations. Duncan sighed in frustration.
"Do you honestly think he'll give us an answer?"
"We won't know until we try," said Tessa with a slight shrug that conveyed her exact answer to his question. Duncan sighed again and rubbed his eyes, wondering if all parents go through this and then amending the statement to include the stipulation that other parents had children who thought of them as parents. From what Duncan had observed, Richie seemed to think of him and Tessa as his older siblings.
"We never discussed it," said Duncan, voicing these thoughts. "He and I, I mean."
"What do you mean?" Tessa asked, unsure.
"When I arrived in Paris, and you told me everything about what had happened, Tess, I was so happy. Relationships are one thing, but a family? I have the most wonderful woman in all the world," Duncan then pulled Tessa close and she leaned into the embrace, resting her head against his shoulder. "And then Richie comes to us like some sort of compensation for the fact that I can't have children of my own…" He trailed off, not knowing how to continue.
"I told you that nine months ago Duncan," said Tessa. "We may not be able to have children, but we have Richie, and that is enough for me." Her voice was soft from fatigue, but Duncan heard the simple honesty in that statement.
"For me too, Tess," Duncan reaffirmed. "I guess it just wasn't enough for Richie." Tessa sat up straight and looked her lover in the eye.
"I think you've gotten it wrong," she said. "Perhaps it was too much." Duncan sighed yet again, his own fatigue showing. He shook his head slightly, at a complete loss as to how to deal with this situation.
"I don't know," he offered at length. "I do know that we moved into the barge the night you told me about… what happened. Richie and I never spoke about it. The roles were already there; we just actually assumed them properly for the first time. We both spoke to you, and that's how… we accepted the arrangement we'd already decided on somehow. But I never said a word of it to him, nor he to me."
"Well, perhaps you should start," said Tessa with a smile. Duncan laughed slightly, returning the grin.
"I should," he agreed, both relieved to finally have a launch point for the task at hand and a bit of an understanding of some of the underlying concerns (if his hunch was correct). Yet the regret over being a man and therefore withholding from speaking to the lad, and his guilt over that decision's final outcome (or so he perceived) colored that laugh. Tessa could only look on him with sympathy, to her credit withholding judgment. "But in the morning."
***
That morning Duncan left early to go for his customary run. Richie's door was shut, but the pre-immortal presence was humming nicely in the background. Duncan figured that the run would help to clear his thoughts so that when he got back, showered, and generally make himself presentable again, that he could bring himself to knock on Richie's bedroom door and attempt to have some sort of deep, meaningful, problem-fixing conversation. By the time he returned to the loft, Duncan had everything he was going to say all planned out, and as he ascended the stairs he was almost looking forward to it.
And so the distinct lack of the pre-immortal's presence was a complete and total (disappointing) shock. Richie was nowhere to be found.
***
Richie had awoken earlier than usual. Or rather, since he had barely gotten any sleep the night before, when he was tired of tossing and turning, he decided to reluctantly get out of bed. His head was pounding, and could hear himself wheezing as he breathed.
After dragging on a clean pear of sweats, Richie stumbled into the kitchen. The master bedroom door was still closed, but someone had turned the coffee pot on. Richie's fevered brain finally surmised that it must have been Duncan, who put it on before going for his run. The clock on the microwave said seven thirty a.m.
Richie put the kettle on in direct defiance of the percolating coffee pot.
Around eight o'clock, Richie had decided that he was lucky to have kept the tea down, and so breakfast was out of the question. Since today was Sunday, the store was closed and Tessa was sleeping in. Pretty soon though Duncan would be back and Tessa would get up to eventually work on her art as the men of the house did some sort of errand or chore.
Richie decided that he definitely didn't want to be around when the highlander got back.
Remembering that his bike was out of gas, Richie headed down to Tessa's workshop. Somewhere amidst the part of the enormous space that also served as a basement, Richie found the empty gas can. The nearest gas station was only four blocks away, so Richie ran back upstairs to grab his wallet before hoofing it with the gas can to the station.
It didn't even occur to him to borrow Tessa's car, or to even ask her for it.
The walk to the station wasn't bad. The weather was nice for a change, though a bit on the cool side. He filled the tank with exactly one gallon and then went inside the mini-mart to pay the cashier.
One gallon of gas wasn't that heavy, so Richie made his way back to the loft in relatively short order. It was only his looming illness that made him completely exhausted by the time he got back, and that was from the diminished lung capacity. He cursed his cold vehemently as he poured the gas from the can into his bike's tank. That being done he went inside to wash his hands in Tessa's industrial sink. The clock on the wall read just after eight thirty. Mac would be home any second.
Richie had two options: stumble back upstairs to bed or hop on his bike and drive it to the gas station. However, by going upstairs he had the chance of running into Tessa, who may or may not be awake by now, and then there was of course the eventuality that Duncan would come home. Richie didn't know anything about the whys and wherefores of his irrational emotions, but he did know that he didn't want to stick around and have another fight with them, only to leave again anyway. Even in his irrationally emotional and fevered state, Richie realized that he had been treating the both of them unfairly, and quite frankly, that he's been a royal pain in the ass. They didn't deserve that kind of treatment, no matter how messed up his head was at the moment.
So really he had only one option. He headed back for his bike.
Richie spent the last of the cash in his wallet to fill the tank. By now it was quarter of nine. The highlander was definitely back by now. But no matter, Richie had a full tank of gas and nowhere to be.
After a bit of deliberation at the gas station, Richie's sufficiently addled brain remembered that Angie's mom always went to seven o'clock mass on Sunday mornings. That meant that she should be home now, and awake and decent in her Sunday best. If Angie was in, so much the better. Richie hadn't seen Mrs. Burke in just as long as he'd not seen Angie, and he figured that he could just as easily spend time catching up with her while he waited for Angie to wake up (if she wasn't already).
Richie was ringing the doorbell at a quarter past nine. Sure enough, Mrs. Burke answered the door, still dressed in her conservative church formalwear.
"Richie?"
"Uh… Hi, Mrs. Burke," Richie greeted sheepishly, suddenly feeling very awkward and out of place. Mrs. Burke opened the door the rest of the way.
"Come in, come in," she directed, her facing glowing in a presently surprised smile. When Richie entered, he noticed that the place was pretty much as he remembered it. The refrigerator was new, as were a few of the cracks in the ceiling, but other than that, it was the same old apartment.
"I took the chance that you still went to church early," said Richie as Mrs. Burke ushered him to a seat at the kitchen table. She smelt slightly of tea tree oil and cold cream, and that smell brought back memories.
"Every Sunday," she said with pride. "How long have you been back from—where was it?"
"Paris," Richie answered. "A little over a week. Been unpacking and stuff, getting the store ready." Mrs. Burke nodded.
"How was your vacation?" Richie laughed. Technically, for him, it could be counted as a vacation. That laugh ended abruptly when he realized that the vacation was over.
"Well, Mac owns this barge," he began. "It was really cool, kinda like a floating apartment right on the Seine in front of Notre Dame!" Mrs. Burke suddenly looked positively giddy.
"Did you get to attend services at Notre Dame?" Richie laughed again. Of course she would ask that!
"Tessa took me once, you know, to see what it was like. But it was all in French, and Latin, so I was pretty lost through most of it."
"But what was it like inside?" Mrs. Burke asked expectantly.
"In a word?" Said Richie, smiling genuinely perhaps for the first time in a long time. "Gorgeous."
"Do you have pictures?"
"Mac and Tessa took lots of pictures," Richie explained, sobering a bit. "Me not so much."
"Well you must bring them by some time!" Exclaimed Mrs. Burke. Richie smiled again, but once again it had returned to being tinged with sadness.
"I can do that," he said, and Mrs. Burke smiled brightly. Suddenly Mrs. Burke stood with a horrified look on her face.
"Oh, forgive me, but where are my manners! Can I get you something? A drink?"
"Water's fine," Richie answered amusedly. Mrs. Burke poured him a glass of water and handed it to him before pouring herself a cup of tea from the kettle on the stove.
"I forgot you drank tea," said Richie, slightly embarrassed, as Mrs. Burke added milk and sugar to the brew. Mrs. Burke smiled at him.
"Would you like some?" She offered.
"If you wouldn't mind," Richie said cautiously. Mrs. Burke had only offered out of kindness, she did not expect Richie to accept. Thus the look of surprise she fixed him with caused him to drop both eyes into his lap and fidget nervously in his chair. "If it's too much trouble, I can just stick to water," he said, suddenly unsure of himself and of his welcome.
"Of course I don't mind!" Mrs. Burke exclaimed, recovering from her initial shock. "I just didn't think you liked tea." Richie laughed, forgetting his insecurities. Of course she wouldn't know that he'd developed a tea habit.
"I started drinking it in Paris," he explained as she got up and fished in the cupboard for the tea bags.
"What kind do you prefer?" Richie thought for a moment. He had a distinct craving for an orange spice herbal, but he also wanted something that would ease the tightness in his chest.
"Do you have anything with mint?" He asked eventually. This time Mrs. Burke contained her surprise.
"I think so," she said as she dug into the bottom of the jar. "Yes, here it is." She dropped the teabag into the cup and poured the hot water over it. "How do you take it?"
"Straight up," Richie directed. Mrs. Burke arched an eyebrow but said nothing as she handed him the cup. Richie bobbed the teabag a few times, breathing in healing aroma and letting it loosen the congestion in his chest. After a minute or so he noticed Mrs. Burke's quizzical look. "It helps my chest cold," he explained.
"Ah," said Mrs. Burke, familiar with the home-remedy yet surprised that Richie was. Richie then took a few tentative sips of his tea, not really preferring the taste but knowing that it was for the greater good. "So tell me about this new tea fetish of yours," Mrs. Burke directed conversationally.
"Well, Mac and Tessa have this friend, Darius, he's a priest—" Suddenly Richie's expression changed completely. He dropped his gaze to his hands, which he wound tightly around the warmth of the teacup. "Was. Was a priest," he corrected sadly.
"What do you mean?" Mrs. Burke asked, concerned by Richie's sudden mood swing.
"He's dead," Richie answered tonelessly. Mrs. Burked nodded and sat back in her seat.
"Oh, I'm so sorry," she said sympathetically. Richie shrugged.
"S'ok," he said, finally looking up from his tea, but not making eye contact. "Actually, that's why we came back here," he added. "Mac wanted to avenge him, and he tracked the killers back here."
"What?" Mrs. Burke asked, her face paling. Richie half-smiled in apology.
"He was murdered, a few months back. They killed him in his own church." If it were possible, Mrs. Burke grew even paler.
"My word…" Was all she managed to say. Richie shrugged and half-smiled again.
"S'ok," he said again. "We found the guys that did it. It's been dealt with." Mrs. Burke nodded, though chose not to comment. In truth, she was very fond of Duncan and Tessa, and so did her best to not so much as think about their private affairs. However, Angie told her about how the man responsible for Gary's death wound up dead, and Duncan had been involved somehow. She also knew about what happened between Nikki, Melinda, and the drug dealer Alexi Voshin. Nikki and Melinda wound up escaping with the fifty thousand dollars, and the drug dealers were all caught—except for Voshin, who mysteriously vanished, and again Duncan MacLeod had been involved. Mrs. Burke may possess a delightful brand of naïve optimism, but she was far from stupid.
"That must have been very hard on all of you," she said sympathetically instead. Richie nodded dumbly.
"Yeah, Mac took it pretty hard," he said into his tea. Then in one swift mental action he banished the depressing thoughts to a far corner of his mind. "But," he said, looking up and finally making eye contact, the strain of striving to return to normal audible in his voice. "He knew a lot about herbal medicine, especially tea. It's cheaper than any medicine you could by, and usually tastes better." Mrs. Burke smiled, allowing the teen the transition.
"Well the next time you stop by, you bring those pictures and we can drink tea together," she said brightly. Richie smiled back, closer to genuine but not quite there.
"Count on it," he said. "But that reminds me, where's Angie?"