By the time Richie and Richelle returned, it was late and everybody was ready to get settled in for the night.

"What are we going to do about the sleeping arrangements?" Tessa asked Duncan, "If Connor's going to sleep on the couch, where are we going to put Richelle?"

"That's no problem," she insisted, "Richie's got a nice big bed, I'll just stay with him in his room."

Duncan laughed a couple of times and blurted out, "No you won't."

"Why? What's the matter, is his chastity belt in the shop?" Richelle asked, "It's a win/win situation, everybody has a place to sleep and nobody gets stuck on the floor like an old dog."

Duncan looked to his cousin, "Connor…"

"Oh no," Connor shook his head, "I'm not sharing a bed with Richie…for crying out loud, Duncan, we're all family here, let them…they have a lot to catch up on."

"Are you sure you don't mind the couch, though?"

"I've spent the last three nights sleeping on flat mattresses in cheap motels that smell like there was a corpse rotting in them…after that, this will be fine," Connor insisted.

"Well that settles it," Richelle said as she picked up her bags and headed for Richie's room, "Come on, Richie…goodnight Connor!"

"Goodnight, Richelle," he replied.

"Goodnight Tessa," Richelle said, "Goodnight MacDuff."

Duncan blinked and turned to Tessa, "What did she call me?"

"I didn't hear a thing," Connor said.

"Goodnight Mac," Richie said, "Goodnight Tess, goodnight Connor."

"Goodnight John Boy," Connor replied, "On that note I think I'm going to retire too, I've had a very long and tiring day."

"We'll see you in the morning, Connor," Tessa said.

"I count on it."

"Connor thinks we might be related," Richie said to Richelle that night in his room, "Do you think he's right?"

"Well if we're not, we ought to be," she said, "We look too much like each other."

She got up from where she sat on the bed and went over to the window and looked out into the night. "What time does the sun come up?"

"I don't know," Richie answered, "It's always up before I am."

"You sleep in much?" Richelle asked.

"When I can."

"Do you think we could get out of here without them catching us?" she asked as she walked away from the window.

"Doubt it," Richie answered.

"Well, it's about midnight now…sun should be up in six hours, we can get out of here then," she said, "I'm anxious to see if there's anything good about this town."

"It's not all bad," Richie told her.

"How would you know? You've been here your whole life, you don't know what's good," Richelle said.

"Well what's so good about New York?" Richie asked.

"Hell if I know," she replied, "But it's still better than Seacouver."

"What's it like living with Connor?" Richie asked.

"He's alright," Richelle answered as they sat on the bed again.

Richie waited a few seconds before adding, "How much do you know about Connor?"

She turned and looked at him as she said, "I know he's a headhunter, same as the guy you're living with."

Richie hadn't anticipated that. "And you're still cool with staying with the guy?"

"He's already explained to me about the people he kills, and what they're like, and I'm not one of them," she explained, "So it doesn't bother me what he does. You should come back to New York with us, Connor's pretty cool, you'd like him."

"Think so?"

She nodded. "Does Duncan keep any guns around here?"

"Hell no!"

"Connor's got some, he's let me shoot them, and I'm pretty good at it," she said, "I bet he'd let you try it sometime."

Richie laughed nervously and commented, "I wonder why he'd keep guns in the house with you living there."

The two sat in silence for a while, occasionally looking at each other and then looking elsewhere, neither saying what they were really thinking.

"Do you think," Richie finally broke the silence, "Do you really think we are…brother and sister?"

"I don't know," she replied.

"When's your birthday?"

"I turned 18 last September."

"What day?" Richie asked.

"The 13th."

"…That's my birthday too," he said.

"What's your blood type?" Richelle asked.

"A-positive."

"Me too."

"But I just can't believe that we were born together, and then split up, and I stayed here and you got carted off to New York, that doesn't make any kind of sense," Richie said.

"Richie," Richelle replied, "We're living with two men who don't die and they cut people's heads off…I think logic went out the window a long time ago."

He looked at her, "Then you really think we're twins?"

"I don't know," she said, "But it's not impossible apparently."

They laid down on the bed and looked up at the ceiling and sighed.

"So what do we do now?" Richie asked.

"I'm not tired," Richelle told him.

"Me either," he responded.

"Want to watch TV?" she asked.

"Nothing good on at this time," Richie answered.

"Want to listen to some music?" she asked.

"It'd wake everybody up and it'd piss off Mac," Richie said.

"…Yeah, I almost forgot about him," she said, "Well, I reckon we're just going to have to make our own fun for the night."

Richie pulled the upper half of his body up so he could look over at her as he asked, "You got anything in mind?"

Richelle looked across the room and seemed to notice for the first time, the set of drums in the room, "Are those yours?"

Richie looked to where she pointed and answered, "Yeah, I got them out of somebody's truck that was heading to the junkyard."

"You play?" Richelle asked.

Duncan had fallen asleep about an hour ago and was in the middle of a dream when he heard a loud ruckus that about burst his eardrums. The first thing that came to mind in the split second before he opened his eyes, enemy gunfire, he was back in World War II. He shot up in bed and realized that it was some 50 years later than that, and he identified the noise as rapid drumming.

"What's that noise?" Tessa asked as she slowly awoke.

"It's Richie," Duncan said as he got up and put on his robe, "He's either going to go to sleep or I'm going to put him to sleep for a week."

Tessa lay back down and commented, "Have to admit, it sounds like he's improving."

Duncan crossed through the hall and before he reached Richie's door, could see the outline of light showing through the crack. He opened the door and looked to the wall where Richie's drums were kept and saw Richie, but he wasn't playing them. He just stood alongside the drum set and it was Richelle behind the bass drum beating on them. When the two teenagers saw him, the noise came to a sudden stop.

Duncan tried to compose himself as he thought about what he was going to say. If it had just been Richie, he would've yelled at him…but it was Richelle, a guest, and what more a guest that Connor had brought, so the same rules didn't apply.

"Richelle," he said, trying to sound civil, "It's late."

"Yeah but I'm a night person and if I'm going to be up, I'm going to keep Richie up too," she told him.

"Well everybody else is trying to sleep so can you find something quieter to do?" Duncan asked, near the end of his rope.

"Sure," they replied.

"Thank you," Duncan dryly said, and dragged his feet like a zombie as he headed out of the room.

"What was it?" Tessa asked when Duncan returned to their bedroom.

"Nothing…Richie's little friend just decided to take his drum set on a test drive," Duncan replied as he closed the door and untied his robe, "I told them to knock it off…maybe now we can get some sleep."

"That would be nice."

Duncan crawled back into bed and pulled the covers up behind him and his eyes were closed before his head even met with the pillow.

He didn't know how long he'd slept for but the next thing he was aware of, another noise woke him up, this one sounding like a bowling ball knocking down all 10 pins at once.

"What the hell was that?" he said as he shot up in bed.

It wasn't the noise, but rather his question that had awoken Tessa this time. She looked at the clock on the nightstand which showed it was 2:15 in the morning.

Duncan left their room and headed over to Richie's again and entered the room again without knocking. He saw Richie and Richelle pinned against the wall, him with his hands on her throat and she trying to grab the back of his shirt to throw him against the wall.

"What the hell is going on in here?" he asked.

Richie turned at the sound of Duncan's voice and Richelle took that opportunity to throw her weight against him, knocking them both onto the floor in a very awkward position.

"Hi, Mac," Richie said, looking up at the older man.

"What is going on this time?" Duncan asked in a tired, semi-calm voice.

"Oh…nothing," they both answered.

"Uh huh…well knock it off," Duncan told them, "It's too late in the night to be playing professional wrestling."

As they got up, he left the room and headed back to bed.

"I knew it was a bad idea to put those two in the same room," he told Tessa, "At this rate they're going to tear down the house before morning."

"As loud as they are," she said to him, "I wonder why Connor hasn't been in to shut them up."

"Maybe he has," Duncan replied, "Though, he seems to be able to control Richelle…he must not have then because otherwise they would've shut up by now."

"He's a pretty excitable guy your warden, isn't he?" Richelle asked as they sat down on his bed again.

"Why do you call him that?" Richie asked.

"Because he's like Connor, though the more suiting term would be parole officer, but warden sounds better…every day I gotta check in with Connor, and if he thinks I'm doing alright, I can go on with my day, just like a P.O." Richelle said, "Duncan's very excitable, isn't he?"

"Isn't Connor?" Richie asked.

"Oh no," she shook her head, "He says that after all the shit he's gone through, nothing can excite him anymore, he's a real laid back kind of guy."

Richie half smiled and said, "I wish Mac was."

"Then he is excitable," Richelle said.

"Sometimes."

"Hmmm…" she sat back and thought for a while before asking, "What do you like to do for fun?"

"Oh, I like to go rollerblading," he said, "And sometimes I go out on my bike."

"You have a motorcycle too?" she asked.

"Sort of," he said, "It's more of a dirt bike."

"But I didn't see any dirt around to ride on, and if you're driving on a paved road that's illegal, does your warden know that?" Richelle asked, "Never mind…what else?"

Richie shrugged his shoulders, "I don't know, that's about it."

"Pathetic," Richelle said, shaking her head somberly, "18 years old and already you've expired."

"And what do you do all day?" Richie asked her.

"Oh I do lots of things," she insisted, and laughed as she recalled, "A couple of times I went to this…performance theatre, they did one show where three criminals are closing in on a blind woman, and she catches on to who they are and smashes all the lights in her apartment so they can't see. Just WHACK WHACK WHACK, leave them in the dark like she is. You ever see that?"

"No."

"Oh it was good, she threw some stuff in one guy's face to really make him blind, and she killed him. Then I saw another one where these 10 people were marching up and down the stage dressed like a bunch of loons, talking about God and the Gospel. They had one guy play Jesus and he said…"

The door opened again and Duncan stepped into the room looking like he'd hit the ceiling. "What's going on in here now?"

"You're just in time," Richelle said as she stood up and went over to Duncan, "As I was saying, Richie, he said 'what if your brother sues you? Better settle with him quickly, or he'll turn you over to the judge," she shoved Duncan, "And the judge to the constable," then she bopped him on the head, "And you'll land in jail!" and she pushed him with so much force that he fell back and tumbled over Richie's drum set, bringing the whole thing down with him.

Both teenagers were trying their hardest not to laugh, and Richelle said in as nonchalant a tone as she could, "Mr. MacLeod, will you be quiet please? Don't you know people are trying to sleep?"

Duncan felt his lip had split and was sure he had blood running down his nose. He got up and strode over towards them and in two steps had gotten halfway across the room and was on top of them.

"I've just about had it with you," Duncan told her.

"Fine, you want to complain about me? Go speak to my warden about it," Richelle said, "He's in on the couch."

No. As tempted as Duncan was to throw her out of the house and be rid of her, he wasn't about to disturb Connor in the middle of the night because of it. It could wait until morning, he decided…it was only a few hours off. His left hand was trembling and it itched to grab her throat and squeeze and squeeze until she turned blue, and the kids must have sensed the same thing because they each took a large step back away from him.

"I don't want to hear another word out of either one of you for the rest of the night!" Duncan told them.

They said nothing and he thought he was finally going to have a peaceful night. He left the room and pulled the door shut behind him, but no sooner had he taken two steps down the hall, he heard them again. Only, true to their 'word', they weren't talking…one of them was screaming like a monkey and the other was making some kind of waka-waka bird call.

He could've just broken down the door and strangled them both. But as late as it was, it would've been more trouble than it was worth, so he forgot it and went back to his own bedroom, regardless of the noise.

Richie and Richelle had spent all night talking and roughhousing and playing and comparing their likes and dislikes, neither had figured they'd ever get to bed. But Richelle opened her eyes and saw the sunlight starting to come in through the window, it was morning, and she was on the right side of the bed, and Richie was rolled on his side over on the left. She sat up and pushed her hand deep into Richie's ribs as she tried to shake him awake, but he wasn't moving.

"Richie…Richie…" she turned and saw an alarm clock on the nightstand and she picked it up and wound it up. First she wound up the ringer so it would go off at full force, then she wound the knob moving the alarm time hand to the current time, and she pulled back the lever which released the little hammer which pounded the two big bells.

Richie awoke with a jolt and a yelp and he about jumped out of the bed completely. Richelle laughed as she pushed the lever back into place, paralyzing the clock's hammer.

"What's going on?" Richie asked as he turned to her, his eyes wide and tired.

"It's eight o' clock in the morning, Richie," she told him, "Time to get up and get out of here."

"Good idea," he replied.

Tessa and Duncan stumbled into the kitchen, neither dressed yet and both looking like they were a creation piece of Dr. Frankenstein's. Connor was already in the kitchen and he saw them both and said, "Well you two look like hell this morning, what happened, did the kids keep you up all night?"

Duncan's eyes pried themselves open wide at his cousin, staring at him in disbelief. Tessa asked him, "You mean they didn't wake you up?"

"Of course not," Connor replied, "I sleep like a rock, always have."

"Even with that thing living with you now?" Duncan asked.

Connor laughed at his cousin and remarked, "She doesn't bother me…there's nothing she can do that I haven't seen before. You're old enough to know not to let them get under your skin so much. Besides, she doesn't spend too many nights at my house."

"Lucky you," Duncan commented.

"Where does she go?" Tessa asked.

"She's 18, she can do what she wants, and she does, all I demand of her is that she check in with me in the morning so I know everything's alright." He saw the confused looks on both of their faces, "What, you don't do that with Richie?"

"No," Duncan replied.

"And why not?" Connor asked.

Duncan rolled his eyes and turned just in time to see, as Tessa and Connor also saw, Richie and Richelle heading for the door, trying to sneak out.