"And where do you think you're going?" Duncan asked them, just as they reached the door.
"Damn," Richie grumbled under his breath.
"So close," Richelle added.
"I asked you a question," Duncan said, "Where do you think you're going this early in the morning?" He wanted to add 'after keeping us up all night?', but thought better of it.
They turned around and Richelle said to Duncan, "I'm taking Richie out and he's going to show me the sights."
Tessa closed her tired eyes for a second and when she opened them again, she asked, "Didn't he do that last night?"
"Well yeah but there's more to see in the daytime," Richie said.
"Not so fast," Duncan said as he walked up to both of them.
"What?"
"Neither one of you is going anywhere just yet," he told them.
"And why not?" Richelle asked.
"Because, Richie has to stay here today," Duncan said, "The upstairs and downstairs need to be cleaned up."
"I agree," she said, "I could see that when I came in yesterday, the place looks like a bunch of gypsies live here. You're a regular slob, MacLeod, can't you ever pick up after your own self?"
Duncan growled at her and swung his arm at them both; they jumped back and Richelle got in front of Richie.
"Hold on there, MacLeod," she said, "I seriously doubt Richie's responsible for those little shrapnel bits all over the first floor, and I seriously doubt he's responsible either for all those empty wine bottles sticking out of the trash can, so why is it his responsibility?"
"Because that's his job," Duncan said, "I run the store, Tessa makes her sculptures…"
"And Richie just cleans up all your messes," Richelle said, "Is that it?"
"Everybody has their own jobs to do around here," Duncan told her.
"Yeah, and I for one happen to know that you don't open the shop today, so what else is prohibiting you from sweeping up the nails downstairs?" Richelle asked.
Duncan was still half asleep after being kept up all night by these two nuts, he couldn't think straight and he realized what he was doing, "I'm arguing with an idiot here."
"And you're still losing," Richelle told him, "We'll split the difference…Richie will clean up this shack today and I'll help him, that way we can get out of here sooner. Because I didn't come 3000 miles just to stay cooped up in this cuckoo's nest all day staring at your sourpuss."
Hmmmm, Duncan felt he'd been in this position before, and he turned to his clansman and said, "You taught her that, didn't you?"
"Well," Connor replied, "It's true."
"I don't care what you say," Richelle said to Richie as they headed downstairs, "They don't pay you enough to do this crap."
"Don't you do this at Connor's place?" Richie asked.
"Hell no, he has a woman that comes in twice a week and cleans up the place," she answered.
"Okay," Richie said as they entered the front room, "How do we want to do this?"
"Ehh, you sweep up the workshop, I'll scrub the floor in here," Richelle told him.
"Okay."
Meanwhile upstairs, Duncan, Tessa and Connor were gathered around the living room engaging in another 'conversation'.
"Say that one more time, Duncan MacLeod, and I'm going to punch your lights out," Connor told him, "Again."
"What the hell do you even know about this kid?" Duncan asked.
"What the hell do you know about Richie?" Connor asked.
"Enough."
"Because he never talks back to you, because he never dares defy you, because he would never dream of keeping you up all night?" Connor asked.
"There's something about her that I don't like," Duncan told him.
"That's fine!" Connor remarked, "I never said you had to like her. And I sure as hell never told her she had to like you either. I didn't bring her out here to please you, I brought her out here so she could meet Richie, so she might get acquainted with her family."
"That girl is not Richie's family, Connor!" Duncan insisted, "She can't be!"
"Why not?" his cousin wanted to know.
Duncan sputtered with the words he was trying to get out, concluding with, "Her birth certificate."
"What about it?"
"It doesn't say anything about her mother having another child at that time."
"Birth certificates can be faked…the only reason she has that thing is so she could get a driver's license for her motorcycle," Connor said, "You've never seen Richie's birth certificate, you have no idea what it says."
"I know it wouldn't say he was born with a twin sister," Duncan said.
"How can you be so sure?" Connor asked, "Twins can be separated, MacLeod, one grows up in one place, the other grows up somewhere else, but they're still the same. They show the same behavior, they have the same traits, they have their own differences but they still act like each other whether they grow up together or not. How else can you explain those two being the way they are?"
"I don't know," Duncan replied, "But I'm going out for a while and I'm going to ask around."
"Ask around where? Who're you going to ask? And what are you even going to ask them?" Connor screamed at his cousin, who descended to the stairway, "What do you think you're going to find out!?"
While Richie swept up the nails and debris in Tessa's workshop, Richelle had filled a bucket with hot water and put in it an old rag and a bar of soap. She splashed the water onto the hard floor, soaped up the rag and tossed the bar of soap behind her somewhere, hoping against all hope that that damn fool Duncan MacLeod would slip on it and break his neck.
She scrubbed the floor until every square inch of it was clean, then she went to see how Richie was holding up in the other room. After she had disappeared out of the room, Duncan came down the stairs, and was not really paying attention to his surroundings. His foot met with the wet cake of soap and he felt his whole body jerk backwards as he fell flat on his back and found himself looking up at the ceiling.
The noise brought both teenagers running back into the room and they were both surprised at the sight before them, though both for different reasons.
"Mac, are you okay?" Richie asked.
Duncan groaned as he started to get up, and he found what caused him to trip. He looked up at the both of them and couldn't tell which one had done it.
"Alright," he said, "Who's responsible for this?"
Just as Richie opened his mouth to ask what he meant, Richelle answered, "You are."
"WHAT!?" Duncan about exploded.
"Well it's your own fault," Richelle said, "If we didn't have to be stuck here cleaning the place, it never would've happened."
Duncan felt his shoulders hunch up on him and he felt his hands curling to strangle her, but he refrained, saying only to her, "The more I'm around you, the less I like having you in my house."
"Well hot damn!" Richelle said, "That makes two of us."
Duncan grunted and growled and went around them and headed for the door. Richelle continued hollering at him, "Hey where do you think you're going? You've made this whole mess you need to clean up! What's the matter with you, were you born in a barn or something!?"
She stopped her grandstanding when the door slammed behind Duncan, she and Richie both laughed and he said, "I think you were a little hard on him."
"So what? He deserved it, tramping through here," she hollered for MacLeod to hear her halfway down the block, "And messing up my nice clean floor!"
"Okay," she said to Richie in her normal tone, "He's gone…Connor will cover for us if we get the hell out of here."
"I don't think we should," Richie told her.
"It's like I told you last night, Richie, nothing really bad can happen to us while we're here because Connor's here, and he's the only one who has the right to smack me around, and right now he happens to be on vacation from that. So no matter what we do, if things ever get too hairy, we just go find Connor and the rest will take care of itself."
"Yeah," Richie said, "But I still think we should get some more work done here before we haul ass."
She looked at him and said, "They really got to you, didn't they?"
"Alright, Tess," Richie said to Tessa an hour later, "We've cleaned the floors, we did the dishes, the bathroom's been scrubbed about to oblivion, and we hauled the trash out of here, can we get the hell out of here now?"
Tessa turned sideways and looked at Connor, who didn't offer her any suggestions. She turned back to them and said, "I don't see why not."
"Alright!"
"Just…" she tried to think of something to say as they rushed to the door, "Be careful."
"Sure thing, Tess," Richie said, and they were gone.
Tessa and Connor heard their booming footsteps jumping down the stairs, and then all was quiet.
"Well," she said, "I think that went well."
"They're not going to be mad at you if that's what you're worried about," Connor told her, "It's Duncan they hate, and they don't really hate him, Richie practically idolizes him."
"And what about Richelle?" Tessa asked.
"Richelle does not respect authority figures and that's what Duncan is making it his job to be," Connor said, "To answer your question, yes, she does hate him."
Tessa rolled her eyes and swayed her head to the side when she heard that.
"She hates him like any teenager hates any authoritative father," Connor said, "It's something they all go through, it passes."
"And what if it doesn't?" Tessa asked.
"Well then," Connor told her, "We'll just have to do something about the both of them."
"She and Richie?"
"No, she and Duncan. I'll admit if this keeps up she's going to have to learn to shut her mouth about some things, but she's my ward and I'm a guest here and Duncan ought to know by now it's rude telling guests what to do with their lives and ordering them around like dogs."
"I just don't get it, Connor," Tessa said, "You said Richie would need watching, so we took him in…whatever possessed you to take in that girl?"
"I remembered Richie," he answered, "That's what I saw every time I looked at her. What he is, what it is that runs through his blood, it runs through hers as well, I can tell."
"Duncan doesn't think so," Tessa replied.
"I trained him to know his Immortality, I never worked with him on his intelligence," Connor said, "Maybe it's my fault, but hell if I'm going to feel guilty about it 300 years later."
"You know, Richie," Richelle said as they left the soda fountain with a couple of drinks, "Connor says if this works out, you could come to New York with us. I think you'll like it there."
"Think so?"
"Yeah, we go to Madison Square Garden a lot, we see the basketball games, the circus, the wrestling," she said, "We have a lot of fun."
"Sounds like it," Richie said, "Next question, do you really think Connor would want me there?"
"What, you mean would he like you?"
"Something like that."
"Of course he does, he wouldn't have planned this if he didn't," she said.
"Hmm, true."
"You know, Richie," Richelle said to him as they sat down on the curb and sucked their drinks, "Connor's been trying to prepare me for meeting you guys, for about three weeks now. And even if I didn't know Connor was older than Duncan, I would still know."
"How?" Richie asked.
"His superiority shows, he's smarter, he shows more common sense, and he's the only one with any damn idea of what he's doing."
"Maybe but obviously he doesn't have too much of one," Richie replied, "Otherwise he wouldn't have gotten stuck with you."
Richelle peeled the plastic lid off her drink and shucked it at Richie, the ice, soda and syrup just narrowly missing him. Richie ignored her and continued sucking his drink up through the straw like a vacuum cleaner.
"So what do people do around here for excitement?" Richelle asked him, "Sit around and watch the cars rust or something?"
"Oh there's all sorts of things to do around here," Richie told her, "I think there's going to be a baseball game later today. You like baseball?"
"Baseball, yes," Richelle answered, "Not football though, I hate football."
"How come?"
"Too many damn rules, just like chess, I hate that game too," she said.
"Hmm," Richie bit his straw, "Well, there's another area where you and Mac have nothing in common."
She turned her head to the side and looked at him, "I should hope I didn't." She chucked her cup into the street and said, "Well, what're we going to do now?"
Duncan returned to the shop, scratching his head and wondering just what the hell he was going to do next. He had stopped in at the police station and inquired if there had been any records for a Richelle Ryan in the area. They had nothing by that name, only by Richie's…the police had suggested if he could get something with her prints on it, they could run them through the system and see if she could be identified.
From the moment he'd first seen Richelle, he couldn't deny there was a resemblance, but he flat out refused to believe that she could be in any way related to Richie. It just couldn't be possible. Could it? No, no, he didn't believe it, he refused to believe it. He went in and saw Tessa and Connor in the middle of her workshop.
"What's going on in here?" he asked.
"Nothing," Connor answered a bit too quickly.
Tessa asked him, "Did you find what you were looking for?"
"No," he answered, defeat present in his voice, "Are they back yet?"
"No, Richie and Richelle," Tessa enunciated every syllable of their names as though making a point out of it, "Are not back yet, why?"
"…No reason," he said as he turned around and headed back the way he'd come.
Connor looked at Duncan's back, and then to Tessa and said, "Well, I don't believe that, do you?"
"Nooo," Tessa replied, and said to Duncan, "Why is it so important that you disprove this?"
"I have my reasons," Duncan said.
Connor looked at Tessa and said, loud enough for his cousin to hear, "You're right, he never tells you anything, does he?"
"Nooo, not ever."
"Uh huh, I could see how that could become annoying after a while," Connor said.
"Yes, very much so," Tessa responded.
"We're back!" Richie announced about an hour later.
"Just in time," Tessa said as they entered the kitchen, "You almost missed lunch."
"Well we would've been here sooner," he explained, "Except Richelle stopped at the market to pick up a few things."
They put several bags of groceries on the table and sorted through everything.
"I still don't know," Richie said as he took out two large bunches of bananas, "Why you had to get so many of these things."
"I happen to have a potassium deficiency," she told him, "I can become very anemic if I don't eat them."
"Don't they give you pills for that?" Richie asked.
"Sure, if you want to spend your whole life taking them," she said and shook her head, "I don't."
"Isn't that dangerous?" he asked her.
"I've made it this far without anything going wrong," she said, "Besides, it's my life, nobody's going to care if I up and die."
Richie came very close to saying, "That makes two of us". He didn't, instead he turned to Tessa and asked, "Where's Connor?"
"Oh he's around somewhere," she answered.
Richelle picked up an orange from the fruit bowl on the table and started taking the rind off of it as she said, "Well, I'm guessing he hasn't gone too far," and added under her breath, "Now if somebody else could just get lost…"
"Well," Duncan said as he entered the kitchen, "You're back."
"Hey Mac," Richie said, "How's it going?"
"About as usual," he replied, "Where were you?"
"Out," Richelle said, "Next question."
"I was talking to Richie," Duncan told her, "If I want your opinion, I'll ask for it."
He turned his back to her and started to leave the room. Richelle hoisted up her orange and threw it at him.
SPLAT!
Tessa, Richie and Richelle were frozen by shock and amusement as the orange hit Duncan in the back and exploded upon contact. Duncan stopped in his tracks and slowly turned his head, glaring daggers at the person who threw it.
Richelle turned to Tessa and said, "What's the matter with you, lady? Don't you ever buy your fruit when it's fresh?"
Duncan growled and lunged at Richelle. She ran past him and out of the kitchen with him on her tail.
"Connor!"
Richelle saw Connor and ran behind him and grabbed hold of the back of his shirt. She was positioned behind him where Duncan couldn't get to her.
"What is this all about?" Connor calmly asked his cousin.
"Look what she did!" Duncan turned around and showed Connor his back.
"Okay, I give up," Connor said, "What did she do?"
"She threw an orange at me!"
"And it did that?" Connor asked, "Why don't you buy them when they're fresh?"
Duncan's jaw dropped. "Connor!"
"Go change your shirt and quit making everything into a major crisis, cousin," Connor told him.
"I don't care what you said about Connor," Richie told Richelle later that afternoon, "Mac's going to tear you apart if you don't watch it."
"Come on, Richie, it was funny, admit it," she said as she took a large swig from her soda can.
"…Yeah," Richie admitted hesitantly, "It was funny, but that's beside the point."
"Look, Richie, I didn't come out here to play nice for the guy…Connor told me to act natural when I got here…that's what I'm doing, that's not my fault," Richelle told him.
The door opened and Duncan and Connor entered the room.
"Come on you two," Connor said to them.
"Where're we going?" Richie asked.
"That's for me to know," Connor replied, "Come on, get in the car."
Richelle swallowed the rest of her soda and set the can down, "Are we coming back?"
"Maybe," he said, "Come on, get your jackets on."
Richie went into his room and brought out their jackets and their wallets and they went with Connor, leaving the loft and soon the whole store, leaving Duncan alone.
He saw the can resting on the table undisturbed and he got an idea. He picked up a pencil and stuck it down the open mouth of the can and picked it up. The police ought to be able to get some prints off of this and confirm Richelle's real identity, Duncan thought. He'd find out soon enough who she really was and what her real motive was for being here.