"Okay, thanks, bye," Duncan hung up the phone and groaned to himself.

He'd managed to come up with the numbers for a couple of Connor's more trusted friends who lived near his neighborhood in New York. He'd inquired if they had heard anything about Connor recently or if he'd seemed to be acting differently lately. They'd all said that for all they knew the last time they saw Connor, nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary, and they weren't aware of anything that happened that morning either. So, he was back to square one, and even more aggravated with the fact now, than before he'd started. He sat at the table in the kitchen and pinched the flesh on the sides of the bridge of his nose and tilted his head down and closed his eyes momentarily. So now what? Where did he go from here?

The lights came on suddenly and Duncan shot up in his chair and turned around. Richelle stood in the doorway, her fingers still grasping the light switch on the wall, her eyes wide in surprise of seeing him there. Outside the windows he saw it was pitch dark, how long had he been sitting in the kitchen by himself?

He caught a glimpse of the clock on the wall and saw that it was almost midnight. His voice was low since he knew Tessa and Richie had to be asleep on the other side of the cabin, a mere few yards away between the kitchen and living room.

"Richelle, what're you doing up?" he asked tiredly.

It was then that he noticed Richelle was changed out of her dress and was back in her Ninja Turtles nightshirt. She held up one hand and he saw she was holding a small white bottle.

"I forgot to take my pills earlier, I can't take them on an empty stomach or I throw up, pure raw minerals are hard on the system you know."

"I see," Duncan rubbed his eyes and stood up from the table, "I'll fix something for you."

"Don't bother," she said as she waddled over to the fridge and pulled out a few things.

That was another thing that had changed after the kidnapping. Duncan couldn't explain it, but for some reason after they'd come back, Richelle had been very good about openly taking her potassium supplements; instead of out and out refusing so the others had to hide them in her food like she was a dog. He couldn't explain it, and he didn't understand it; he'd never been able to quite figure out what happened during the month and a half that Richie and Richelle were at the mercy of a couple of Immortals who had never identified themselves, but whatever did happen didn't seem to have been all bad given how the end result had been. Richie hadn't changed too much but Richelle had changed largely, what he considered to be a change for the better. It wasn't something he could pinpoint, it was just a bunch of little changes in her overall personality; maybe there wasn't any connection, maybe, he thought to himself, she'd just grown up a little since last fall. Or maybe Connor knew what he was talking about when he said he knew how to handle teenagers.

"Duncan," Richelle spoke up quietly, "Connor's going to die, isn't he?"

Her question took him by surprise, but only slightly. "Well…there's always the chance…"

"No," Richelle groaned tiredly and moved like she was struggling to stay awake long enough to make her point, "Don't give me that hypothetical possibility bull…I want a straight answer, do you think he's going to get killed?" She looked at him and said, "He is going to die, isn't he? That's why he brought me here to you."

"I don't know," Duncan replied, not wanting to admit defeat but not really seeing any alternative, "If I even knew who he was going after, I might have a better idea, if it's somebody we've had history with…" he looked to her and said, "You're sure he didn't say anything about who he was going after?"

Richelle shook her head, "Nothing…he just told me to stay here with you and not to try and follow after him…I guess he gave me most the same speech he did you."

Duncan nodded slowly, that was Connor for you, or for him anyway. Anytime Connor saw fit to make Duncan's life a little more difficult…

Duncan paced around the kitchen a couple times as he tried to think, then he realized how quiet the room was, too quiet. He turned and saw Richelle at the table, her arms folded under her head, she was asleep. Duncan sighed and gave a small smile, this was one of the rare instances that it was hard to be frustrated with Richelle. The old joke, the best time of day to be around her, when her eyes and her big mouth were closed. Ah, but all the same he couldn't help feeling sorry for her too, after all she was in this just as much as he was, and she didn't seem to have any better idea about what was going on than he did.

It was now after midnight. Duncan pulled Richelle's chair back slightly and she didn't even move in any way to imply she acknowledged the little jolt; he grabbed her and lifted her up into his arms and carried her out of the kitchen and back to Richie's bedroom. Richie was still asleep and dead to the world on his side of the bed; despite the light left on in the room, which made Duncan's job easier, getting Richelle back to bed without tripping over anything. Just made it, he laid Richelle down on her side of the bed and yanked half of the covers away from Richie and draped them over his sister. Neither one of them moved, and he noted they both looked oddly at peace for the moment.

"Sleep tight you two," he murmured under his breath as he stood in the doorway just before he turned the lights out and shut the door behind him.

Tessa felt a yawn escape her and she moved to turn on her side, but as she did she opened her eyes momentarily and saw that Duncan was awake and standing by the window. She sat up on the bed and called to him quietly in the dark, "Duncan, what is it?"

Duncan didn't turn away from the window, or even move at all as far as she could see. Distantly he replied, "Nothing."

Tessa got off the bed and came up behind him, she tried to see what he was looking at out the window, but then she realized he wasn't looking at anything.

"You're worried about Connor," she said.

A slow breath escaped him as he continued to stare out into the night. "Yeah, I guess I am."

"There's any question about it?" Tessa asked.

"No," he replied as a small smile broke through despite his anxiety, "I just wish I knew what was going on."

"I know, me too," Tessa told him, "But I'm sure Richelle's feeling the same way right now."

"Yeah, I suppose so," he remarked.

Despite the fair temperature in the bedroom, Duncan could feel gooseflesh rising over his spine as the possibilities entered his mind.

"If Connor loses…" he started to say.

He felt Tessa's hand gripping his shoulder sympathetically. He knew she could understand how difficult this was for him.

"If it happens," he tried again.

"You mean after you kill whoever's responsible?" she asked.

He turned towards her and could tell by the look on her face that she too was considering all possibilities, and she wasn't anymore pleased with it than he was.

"And after that," she continued, "What're we going to do with Richelle?" He turned to her and she pointed out, "She's spent her whole life in New York, it's what she knows, but she can't stay there alone."

"She's an adult now, Tessa, she can do whatever she has a mind to," Duncan replied, "And she's been doing that for quite a while."

Tessa shook her head, "No, if anything happens to Connor, she'll have to stay with us, and we can't all move to New York and open up shop again there, can we? And we can hardly send Richie to live with her in New York, assuming he even wanted to, they're both still just a couple of kids. What're we going to do with them, Duncan?"

The next morning, Richelle had gotten up early and gotten a shower, hoping that freshening up might make her feel slightly better about her current situation. Richie was just getting up and about when his door opened and his sister came in, still in the process of getting dressed; she had a pair of jeans on and was trying to pull the straps of her tank top up over the straps of her bra and also trying to pull the low scoop neck up so her bra didn't show over it.

"If you're getting a shower, word of warning, the water's hard today," she said as she finally got her shirt straightened out.

Richie wasn't sure what to say. He didn't want to bring up the obvious, lest it get his sister upset again, because if she did she was going to make them all paranoid before the end of the day, and who needed that? But then what were they going to talk about? Let alone, what were they going to do for the day?

He shrugged and made a remark about 'roughing it'.

"Oh it's not so bad," Richelle replied as she waddled over to the bed to find her shoes, "I don't mind it so much, only thing that does bug me is there's no TV, not that I'm missing anything on 'Law and Order' right now, they're currently in reruns. But I'm missing Tiny Toons and that does bug me."

"All those are reruns," he told her.

"Well they're more interesting than Ben Stone right now, more intelligently written too I think based on the last season," she said as she sat down beside him on the bed.

"So…" Richie tried to think of something to say, "You hungry?"

Richelle groaned slightly and held her stomach and replied, "Not really, those pills don't set too well with me, even when I do eat."

Richie didn't feel he could smile to save his life, let alone to fool his sister, so instead he just put his arm around her and pulled her towards him; he knew that the next few days were going to be rough on everybody, but especially on her. The two of them collapsed against the mattress and held onto each other, Richie thought for a minute that if the two of them would fall back asleep, it would help delay having to face the obvious.

But such was not in the cards for them. After a few minutes as they were, Richelle pulled away from him and commented, "Well this is certainly depressing, let's get out of here and do something."

"What?" he asked.

"I don't care, there must be something to do around here," she said as she put her shoes on.

They left Richie's room and made a beeline for the kitchen to head out the back door since it was closer than the front. Apparently Duncan and Tessa weren't awake yet, or awake, just not up, nobody had been in the kitchen yet, even the coffee wasn't on. Richelle stopped at the table long enough to pick up a couple of bananas, handed one to her brother and with that they were out the back door and making their way around the porch and down the stairs.

"So what exactly do you do out here?" she asked as they headed off, not really knowing where they were going, and not really caring either.

"Oh aside from sitting 'round and watching the grass grow?" Richie asked as he peeled his banana, "Well for that people rent boats and head out on the water, go waterskiing and crud like that."

"No thanks," Richelle replied.

"You and me both," he said.

Richelle stopped and Richie bumped into her. She turned back to her brother and said, "There's no sharks around here, is there?"

Richie shrugged, "How would I know?"

"Maybe we could go swimming," she said.

Richie about choked on the lump of banana he'd been chewing and asked his sister, "Did you bring a swimsuit with you?"

"I don't know," she replied.

Richie tried to think of a solution and started to say, "Maybe Tessa…"

"I wouldn't wear any swimsuit she'd be caught dead in, don't forget she comes from a place where nude beaches roam wild," Richelle reminded him.

"Oh…right," Richie said in defeat.

Richelle did a double take and said to her brother, "Pervert" and smacked him.

"Well you started it," he told her.

Richelle felt a chill run through her and she shivered, "I thought it was supposed to be warm at this time of the year."

Richie pointed towards the lake and corrected her, "Gets cold by the water, everybody knows that."

"Smartass," Richelle grumbled as she rubbed her arms.

As they walked along the ground that was half dry dirt and half weeds that Richie wasn't sure what the hell they were, he looked down and watched where he walked and asked his sister, "What do you think the odds are there're snakes around here?"

"Poisonous or non-poisonous?" she asked.

"Does it matter?" he asked.

"Maybe not, but poisonous ones love the water, like water moccasins," she said, "They're supposed to be like rattlers, but you can't hear them."

Richie glared at his sister, he was sure she was just trying to make him paranoid…and she wasn't doing a bad job of it either. He was like she was, he was a city kid, he didn't know what the hell was roaming around out here in the wilderness.

"What about bears?" he asked, "You think they get bears out here?"

"Probably," she answered as she ate her banana, "Probably great big massive hulking black bears that'll rip you to shreds and eat you for dinner."

"Will you stop that?" Richie yelled at her.

But Richelle just smugly replied, "No," and continued as they carried on with their walk around the land surrounding the lake.

"Man," Richie said close to half an hour later when they found there was still plenty of ground to cover before they could make their way around the lake and head back to the cabin, "How much land you think there is out here separating us from civilization?"

"Beats the hell out of me," Richelle replied as they held their arms out at their sides and watched their steps as they made their way over the rocky, uneven ground high up on a hill overlooking the lake.

"We've only got the one car here," Richie said, "I wonder how long it would take us to walk into town?"

"What for?" Richelle asked.

"For anything," he replied, "Aren't you bored out of your mind here?"

"Not quite," she answered, "Besides, I wanted to tell you about this new TV show I saw the other day. Ever hear of 'Land of the Lost'?"

"Ah…" Richie tried to think, "I think that was on when we were kids."

"Yeah well they made a new one," Richelle told him, "And I know you'd like it, they got this woman named Christa in a two piece cavewoman outfit, she talks to dinosaurs by yelling at them while holding a long pole."

Richie snorted and said to his sister, without turning around to face her as they walked, "You really think that's all there is to me, don't you?"

"I'm your twin, Richie," she reminded him, "Your dirty thoughts are my dirty thoughts."

"Ha-ha," he dryly remarked.

"And it's a hell of a lot better than that acid trip from the 70s," Richelle added, "The effects are a lot better, the dinosaurs look real. There's this tyrannosaurus named Scarface." To demonstrate, Richelle held her arms out at elbow length and curled her hands under to bear resemblance to a T-Rex's stance and let out a roaring growl.

"Alright, knock it off," Richie said as he started walking faster to get away from her.

Richelle laughed and chased after him, maintaining her stubby armed posture and her imitation of a dinosaur's growl. The chase continued for a couple minutes before Richie came to a sudden halt and Richelle about crashed into him.

"What is it?" she asked.

Richie pointed up ahead, Richelle looked past him and saw a person standing up on the edge of the hill nearly 100 feet ahead. Neither one of them could tell who it was, couldn't make anything out about the person except that it was a man, and he was dressed all in black. His back was to them so they couldn't see his face; he stood near the edge of the hill and seemed to be looking down towards the lake, not moving, not doing anything, just standing and staring.

"Who's that?" Richelle asked.

Richie shook his head, "I don't know."

"There's not supposed to be anyone else out here, is there?" she asked.

Richie shrugged, "It's a big lake."

"Well what's he doing up here?" she asked her brother.

"I don't know," he said again, and he was starting to feel uneasy.

Richelle looked to her brother, then again to the man ahead and said, "Let's go find out."

"No Richelle, don't!" Richie tried to grab her but she cut past him.

Richelle ran quickly but soundlessly against the soft dirt, Richie ran right behind her but he couldn't catch her. Richelle came up right behind the man and lunged at him, knocking him off balance and the two of them both went rolling down the hill towards the lake. They finally stopped rolling only a few feet away from the water, and from there, Richelle rolled off the man and gave him a chance to turn over so she could see his face as he got up. And when he did, Richelle was not amused and even disgusted by who it was.

"Oh no, not you!"

It was Caspian.

"Richelle!" Richelle threw her head back and looked up to see Richie sliding down the hill and trying to keep his balance on the way down.

"Richie!" she called up to him, "You're not gonna believe this one!"

Richie cleared the bottom few feet and skidded to a halt just short of falling on top of his sister. "What's going on?"

Richelle pointed to Caspian and told her brother, "Look who it is."

"Took the words right out of my mouth," another voice said from off in the distance somewhere.

"Oh no," Richie and his sister said as they looked to each other. They knew that voice.

They looked to the direction the voice had come from, and saw Methos and Kronos walking towards them.

"Oh great," Richelle groaned, "A reunion."

Richie grabbed her by the hand and pulled her to her feet, and they looked to the two other Immortals, who naturally hadn't changed much since the last time they saw them.

"What're you blockheads doing here?" Richelle asked.