AN- Thanks to my three faithful reviewers!!! I really love you guys:) I would have had this up yesterday, but FF.net was updating their document manager. Personally, I preferred the old system, because at least that read my asteryx marks! You'll see what I mean.

AN2- Additional thanks goes to SouthernChickie, who when I was trying to come up with a title for this fic suggested the option "Past and Present". While I didn't choose that option (waning something that would fit better as a bookend for Flight), I took those words and used them for chapter titles, because they convey the gist of what's going on rather well IMHO.

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Mrs. Burke regarded him quizzically for a moment, which tipped Richie off to the fact that something was amiss.

"What I say?" He asked, en guard.

"She didn't tell you?" Mrs. Burke asked, sounding shocked and a little confused.

"Tell me what?" Richie asked, now more curious than anything else.

"She moved to Seattle five months ago," Mrs. Burke explained. "To go to the nursing school there." Richie's jaw dropped. The first thing that struck him was that Angie had moved away, that she'd gotten out, just like she said she was going to. Then there was the realization that she didn't bother to tell him about it. "I'm surprised she didn't tell you," Mrs. Burke continued. "She'd been planning it for months."

"I see," said Richie, still processing this information. "Well, that explains why she never wrote me back." Mrs. Burke tried to look sympathetic, but she didn't quite know what to say. It was Angie's business who she spoke to and who she confided in, though the revelation did come as a shock. She had always thought that Angie and Richie were close.

"I remember you sent some lovely post cards," Mrs. Burke offered. "I always thought..." Richie smiled sadly.

"Yeah," he said on the tails of a sigh. "I wrote her when we first got there, since I didn't have time to tell her before we left." Mrs. Burke nodded, remembering. She always thought it was a bit too rushed of a decision for Tessa to take that job in

Paris... "She never wrote back. I sent her a few more, whenever I went someplace new, like Amsterdam, but she never wrote me back." Richie hung his head, feeling hurt and very much alone in that moment.

An uncomfortable silence settled on the pair. If Angie and Richie had a falling out, then Mrs. Burke didn't hear anything of it... and apparently neither did Richie.

"So tell me about Angie," Richie directed at last. He looked up and met Mrs. Burke's eyes expectantly. Mrs. Burke smiled warmly, truly feeling bad for the teen that she had assumed was her daughter's best friend.

"Working at the shelter, she and a coworker saved up enough to get a tiny little apartment in Seattle. She applied to the nursing school out there and had gotten accepted. She and her friend wait tables out there, and she makes a lot of money in tips. Between that, and what I can afford to send her every month, she can afford to both live and go to school, but just barely. Still, she says she's happy out there." Richie smiled despite himself.

Angie had made it out at last. She was making something of herself. She was happy!

Of course, she had also apparently decided to sever all ties with her old life when she left, and that included Richie. But hey, he was in Paris, so it's not like he was around to complain about it...

"I'm glad for her," he said at length, though he couldn't help the sentiment from being bittersweet. Mrs. Burke smiled appreciatively. He seemed to be reacting much better to this news than Angie dealt with his leaving the neighborhood a year ago. Of course, Angie and her mom lived in a much better section of "the old neighborhood" than he ever did, but that didn't stop her from throwing their lots in together.

"What about the others?" Richie asked, suddenly anxious. If Angie had gotten out, then who else might be gone?

"Her other friends?" Mrs. Burke asked. Richie nodded almost fearfully.

"All I know is that Gary's dead, Nikki's gone, and now Angie's in school in Seattle." Mrs. Burke took a few moments to try and piece together what she remembered.

"You know," she began, "a while back, a bunch of her friends made the paper. I'm pretty sure I saved the articles." Richie's face lit up before quickly becoming fraught with trepidation. At last, he would be able to find out how his other friends were faring. Of course, if there are stories about them in the paper, it could only mean two things: something very good happened to them, or something very bad.

Mrs. Burke made her way into the den where she began fishing through photo albums. She had pressed the articles neatly for Angie, but the album hadn't made the move to Seattle. Now it was just a matter of finding the right book…

While Mrs. Burke was rummaging, Richie fumbled for his wallet. He had an old, faded, and terribly warn photograph of their entire group together, taken sometime in 1988. He had written their names on the back of it, but not where they were. From the looks of it, it could have been Gary's back yard.

"Here we are," said Mrs. Burke as she came back into the kitchen. She set an open photo album down in front of Richie, who took a deep, calming breath before beginning his study.

Local teen turns pro.

Richie's face lit up with a brilliant—and genuine—smile. Larry was now racing on the flat track pro circuit. Richie had always thought that Larry could do inhuman things on a motorcycle, and now it appears as though he was able to convince the professionals of the same thing. The last Richie had heard, Larry was entering competitions left and right, and posting some pretty decent times. Now, according to this article, after he won a string of junior events all along the west coast, Larry turned pro nearly seven months ago. He could be anywhere in the country right now—or even the world—living the high life and chasing his dreams.

Richie smiled again. He had gotten out, then Angie, and it seems that Larry had made it, too. These thoughts brought Richie a small measure of comfort. They lessened his guilt of abandonment at any rate.

Then he read the next headline.

Local teen arrested in connection with liquor store robbery.

Richie inhaled sharply, as though the words on the page had just slapped him in the face to wipe off that ridiculous smile. After a momentary pause to regroup, Richie read the article. Apparently Kyle, a friend he's known since they were at the orphanage together, the same friend who he learned to pick locks with and hotwire engines with, the friend who was actually adopted at thirteen and was given a relatively stable and loving home life, had at some point along the line decided that he wasn't making enough money as a grocery store cashier to support his drug addictions, and decided to turn to violent crime to supplement his income. Richie felt the bile rise in his throat as he read.

Kyle had robbed a liquor store—while flying high on speed—shot the clerk, and stole a getaway car, which lead to a high-speed chase that thankfully ended peacefully. The article was dated five months ago, around the time that Angie left, but there were blurbs that were added later in the form of minor follow-ups on the case. These said that clerk was expected to fully recover, covered the extent of the property damage, and reported on the trial and its outcome. Kyle was sentenced to fifteen years for armed robbery, attempted murder, grand theft auto, fleeing from police, and a score of traffic violations ranging from misdemeanors to felonies. Even though he tested positive for a myriad of illegal substances, he didn't have any on him.

Richie closed his eyes in pain and disgust. Kyle was given a family, a loving, welcoming, Leave it to Beaver family, and he threw it all away for a few cheap adrenaline rushes. Now he was serving time in a correctional facility downstate somewhere. What a waste.

With a heavy sigh, Richie turned the page, hoping to find something more fortunate had happened to whomever he was about to read about. He only had one good friend left unaccounted for, but Angie had other friends not included in their circle, so there was no guarantee that he'd recognize the next person.

Local youth dies in early a.m. car accident.

Richie mentally cursed vehemently in both English and French.

"That happened about two months ago," said Mrs. Burke, who up until now had maintained a respectful silence while Richie sought the fate of his friends. He looked up at her expectantly when she finally broke that silence. She had a sad look in her eyes, though it was strangely detached. "Angie came back for the funeral." Richie nodded. Then he started to read the article.

James Sinclair, 18, of Seacouver…

Richie swore aloud, though in French out of respect for Mrs. Burke. The one friend unaccounted for was now… Richie almost wished that he never found out.

"That was such a tragedy," said Mrs. Burke. "I remember his parents were devastated." Richie nodded absently as he continued to read the article. Apparently James had scrimped and saved for his very first car, and then on his first night of ownership, decided to 'take it north of the city and test it against other cars'. That's journalistic speak for 'he decided to go drag racing, illegally'. The cause of the accident was listed as high speeds. The newsprint photo, though black and white, was still a horrific sight, though Richie couldn't tear his eyes away. It had been closed-casket services.

Richie closed the photo album almost absently. His thoughts were both far away, trying his best to recall happier times when everyone was together, happy, and healthy, and also they were very much focused on the here and now. Angie was in Seattle studying to become a nurse. He never even knew that she wanted to go into nursing. She used to freak out at the sight of blood… Nikki was gone, with Melinda, for parts unknown. She had fifty thousand dollars to her name now, so hopefully she was putting it to good use. Larry was off racing somewhere, living his dreams. However, those happy thoughts couldn't hide the fact that Gary and James were dead and Kyle was in prison. Three made it out, and three died or were caught trying.

Richie suddenly couldn't help but picture his old neighborhood as the worst prison of all.

Out of everyone in that photograph, three were gone and the other three were… gone. That left Richie, the happy, smiling, curly-mopped scrawny slip of a thing standing on the end with his arm around Angie, to gaze out of the photo at his counterpart of a few years later. Of them all, it was he who still remained.

However, the Richie in the photograph was nothing like the Richie staring at the group of seven smiling teenagers. This Richie had been to France, and Holland, had a decent understanding of the French language, had witnessed murders and beheadings (and had even played integral parts in a few… or stopped them from happening at all). This Richie had known a greater happiness than the one in the photo had ever thought possible, or even dared to dream of personally achieving. This Richie was trusted with people's lives and had stood up when it mattered to help those he cared about. This Richie had people he cared about enough to stand up for when it really mattered.

This Richie was not the Richie in the photograph. But then, neither were any of the others. A lot has changed in the five years since that picture was taken. However, this Richie was still here. The only one still here.

This Richie wasn't that Richie, but was trying to lead his life anyway. No wonder the shoes don't fit anymore…

Somewhere in the back of Richie's fevered mind, he knew these things. He knew that it wasn't the world he suddenly had a problem with, nor was it Mac and Tessa. No, somewhere, somehow, he knew that it all lies with him, just as everything has always lain with him. Richie Ryan had changed from that boy in the photograph; no amount of squirming could fit him back into that Richie's shoes again.

But for Richie Ryan, past and present, change had always meant a bad thing. Change meant loneliness, change meant disruption, change meant people died or went away. Change meant losing the things you hold most dear.

But change was karma, change was life's way of balancing itself. Change fought against complacency, both in happiness and misery. Change brought joy only to replace it with pain, and karma didn't care whether or not the two were related.

And Richie didn't want to accept that he had changed. He couldn't accept it, not while also accepting how his life had changed around him. And it seems that life has changed a lot more than he originally thought, and that those changes weren't for the good.

And Richie fought those changes. He was still fighting those changes. He would fight those changes until the bitter end, because acceptance was waiting on the other side, and to accept was to move on, and to move on was to forget, and to forget was to cause the nightmares to start again out of guilt for the ones your forgetfulness has betrayed.

There is no worse punishment than finding acceptance, and there is no worse acceptance than the kind you find for your own life.

And so Richie had accepted that his life had changed, and that his friends had changed, because he couldn't deny the open facts. It was his willful denial of everything else that made him feel like a fish out of water, even in the loft, even around Mac and Tessa, and especially now, as he sat in Angie's mom's apartment—Angie being long gone—as he accepted hers and Larry's success, Kyle's imprisonment, and James's death.

The face in the photograph taunted him until he slipped it rather forcefully back into his wallet and shoved the wallet back into his pocket.

"I'm sorry," he heard Mrs. Burke say, mostly out of necessity, but he didn't look up.

"Me too," he said, his tone soft and resigned. Mrs. Burke's heart went out to him.

"Do you want some more tea?" She offered. Richie debated a moment, very tempted by the offer.

"No thanks," he said at last. Then he looked at his watch. It was just past eleven. "I really should be getting back to the loft." Mrs. Burke nodded.

"It is almost lunchtime," she said. Richie stood, and Mrs. Burke stood with him.

"Thanks for the tea," he said, offering his hand in an almost formal manner. Mrs. Burke ignored it and pulled him into a hug, which he returned after brief hesitation.

"You're quite welcome," said Mrs. Burke, smiling. "You be sure and go straight home now," she directed in motherly fashion, and Richie nodded obediently. "And do come back some time with those pictures of Paris!"

"Will do," he said as he headed for the door. Mrs. Burke followed him out and watched him kick his bike into gear. Soon he was speeding off and no longer visible to her concerned eyes.

That's when she went back inside and grabbed her personal phone book.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"Who was that?" Duncan asked, seeing Tessa hang up the phone.

"That was Mrs. Burke," Tessa answered. "She just called to tell us that Richie spent the morning with her and that he was on his way home now." Duncan's brow furrowed in thought for a moment before the realization struck.

"Angie?" Tessa nodded.

"Her mother." Duncan sighed, relieved.

"Well at least we know where's he's been all morning. Maybe seeing Angie did him some good."

"That's just it though," said Tessa. "Mrs. Burke told me that Angie's been in Seattle the past few months."

"Well, it is possible that Richie went over there to see her mother," Duncan offered, sounding less than convinced himself.

"Or maybe he didn't know she'd moved," Tessa added. Duncan didn't like the sound of that for how it would affect Richie… especially since it also sounded like the truth.

"Maybe," Duncan echoed, not liking the direction that his thoughts were going. Then: "What?" He'd noticed the look on Tessa's face.

"Duncan, Mrs. Burke also said that Richie wasn't well. She said that when she hugged him goodbye she could feel a fever." Duncan sighed.

"We already knew he was sick," he said.

"But he shouldn't be out like that," said Tessa. "Especially not riding his motorcycle."

"I know." Duncan agreed wholeheartedly with Tessa on the matter. The problem was what to do about it. "He's eighteen, legally we can't confine him to bed rest, and I don't think he'd appreciate it very much if we tried."

"A few weeks ago he would have," Tessa observed sadly.

"Aye," Duncan agreed, his conflicting emotions making him forget himself and slip into the brogue.

"Duncan, what are we going to do?" Tessa asked, searching her lover's face for the answers that she didn't have. He tried to convey assurance, but he didn't quite succeed at the task.

"I don't know, love," he said, pulling her close and wrapping his comforting arms around her. "I don't know."