Date: Mon, 26 Feb 1996 20:55:40 -0500 Reply-To: Sandra1012@AOL.COM Sender: Highlander TV show stories From: Sandra McDonald Subject: Tough Guy 1/4 Author's Note: All disclaimers apply. Not my show. Not my characters. No profits taken. This story takes place between "The Gathering" and "Family Tree." Angie and Nikki are the same characters that later show up in the first season as Richie's friends from his old neighborhood. I hope you enjoy, and please send good or bad feedback so I know what people think! Tough Guy Sandra McDonald sandra1012@aol.com "What about the boy?" Connor gasped as MacLeod began to help him up the steep riverbank. In the seeping light of dawn they'd both seen Richie Ryan hiding in the tall grass and watching them in wide-eyed wonder. He'd seen too much that long, fateful night to ever be a normal teenager again, but he didn't know it yet. Connor bit down on a spasm of pain as his body struggled to repair itself. "He'll need watching . . ." "I know," MacLeod said. He'd felt deep within the same instinct Connor did when it came to the would-be thief, Richie Ryan - the recognition of an Immortal who would someday come into his own power. Older Immortals, by tradition, had an obligation to mentor the new ones, teach them the rules of the Game, give them at least a bare chance of survival against adversaries centuries older, smarter, and better with swords. "I will," he added, agreeing to that unspoken duty. *** He didn't. Well, at least not right away. MacLeod had too many of his own problems to deal with right away before he could even contemplate Richie Ryan. Even before the bridge, he'd made the decision to leave Seattle and Tessa. The city's removal he could bear. Tessa's would break his heart, and hers, but they would have to survive the pain as best they could and move on to separate lives. He could not bear the idea of risking her to Immortals like Slan Quince. After twelve years of peace it seemed as if he was going to be drawn back into the Game, and he had no intention of letting her stay on the board as a sacrifice or gambit. Luckily, she had different ideas. And Connor, both bless and damn his scheming heart, had brought her to MacLeod's hidden island to let her persuade him with words and hands and love that they needed each other far more than they needed to fear losing each other. By the time they decided to return to the real world, by canoe and ferry and car, nearly three weeks had passed since Slan Quince went to hell at the cut of MacLeod's sword. Their first night back, as they lay wrapped in blankets and each other's arms, MacLeod said, "Do you remember the kid? Richie?" Tessa's hands traced the outlines of his face. He would wake sometimes to find her doing it. She claimed she was preparing herself to sculpt him some day out of fine Italian marble that would do his heroic face justice. He usually blushed when she said that. "Yes," she said now. "What about him?" "He knows too much. He saw too much." Tessa frowned slightly. In the silvery moonlight spilling through the window, she said, "What does that mean? You're not going to . . . " "No!" MacLeod said. "You don't think I'd do that, do you?" Tessa kissed the edge of his nose. "No. Of course not. So what *are* you going to do?" MacLeod brushed her hair from her face. Her hands were rapidly distracting him from the topic, and he gently disengaged her before he lost his entire train of thought in favor of more intense and erotic ones. "I'm not sure. But he probably deserves some kind of explanation. I thought I'd track him down." "It shouldn't be hard. You could contact that Sgt. Powell at the police station again." "I don't think he's a bad kid," MacLeod said. "Powell said he'd bounced around foster homes a great deal." "Thinking of adopting him?" she teased. He didn't answer. "Mac," she warned, edging up on one elbow, "this is one of those times when you say, 'Of course not.'" "Of course not." "That's better." "He's too old to adopt," MacLeod said. "You're not thinking of turning him into your own personal project, are you?" "Would that be so bad?" Tessa withdrew her hands. He gazed at her across the pillow, and saw the way her eyes darkened when she didn't want to say what she was thinking. "Tessa," he said, pulling her close to him, cradling her head against his shoulder, wrapping his arms around her, "you're my favorite project, you know that. The I Love Tessa Noel project." "I suspect there's going to be a Let's Save Richie Ryan project as well," she grumbled, but the resistance flowed out of her body and she kissed his shoulder with a sigh. "Duncan MacLeod - Immortal warrior, Highlander, antique dealer, social worker." "You left out the most important one." "Which one?" "Devoted lover of Miss Tessa Noel." "Well," she said, and this time there was amusement and more in her voice. Her hands moved back to where'd they'd been. "Let's see how devoted you really are." They didn't talk about Richie for the rest of that night. *** Sergeant Powell wouldn't release to him the name of Richie's current foster family, but did set him up with Richie's juvenile services officer. Jerry Morra worked out of a community youth center on the east side. He was a tall, friendly man whose way with kids was evident from the way he refereed a basketball game in a court whose chain link boundaries were bordered by broken glass and beer cans. When the game was over, MacLeod introduced himself. Jerry grinned, said any friend of Leonard Powell's was a friend of his, and brought him to a tiny office at the back of the center. The ceiling was chipped and peeling, and the corner was dropping in. "Building's about sixty years ago and falling apart at the seams," Jerry told him. "The whole place is crumbling, but there's no money to fix it." MacLeod took a seat in a battered swivel chair. One entire wall of Jerry's office was stacked high with empty soda cans. Another held color photos pasted in a splendid mosaic - kids, hundreds of kids, playing games or at parties or standing with friends in schoolyards. MacLeod wondered if Richie were in any of the pictures. "Len tells me Richie broke into your shop, but you wouldn't press charges," Jerry said. "Is that true?" "Yes. I didn't think court would do him any good," MacLeod said. "Maybe. Maybe not. Len thinks Richie needs a good scare - you know, the whole Scared Straight program. I think he's just crying out for help." "He wasn't crying when he took my antiques," MacLeod reminded him amiably. "I've known Richie for about six years, Mr. MacLeod. What a hyperactive little kid. They had him tested for attention deficit disorder when he was twelve, and one family even had him put on Ritilin for awhile. But he doesn't have ADD. He's just got a mouth that runs one hundred miles an hour ahead of his brain, sometimes." MacLeod smiled. "That's the one. What about the trouble with the police? When did that start?" Jerry kicked back in his chair. "He got into a couple of bad placements. I think it started then." "What kind of bad placements?" "That's all confidential information," Jerry said somberly. "You may mean well, but that doesn't give you a right to Richie's history." "I understand," MacLeod said. "But it helps to know." Jerry rubbed his chin. "Why don't you ask him, instead? He should be here any minute, if he keeps his appointment. I'm trying to get him to take the GED." "He didn't graduate high school?" "Went to the prom, got into the yearbook, but didn't graduate. Some trouble with American history and algebra," Jerry said. He gestured through the window of his door. "There he is now." MacLeod rose. Richie, crossing the indoor basketball court, looked like any other teenager - jeans, t-shirt, battered sneakers, denim jacket. He wore a tough, casual air as if he were slightly too cool to be coming to see his youth worker. He slowed to a stop when he saw MacLeod, and conflicting emotions crossed his face. Fear. Well, after all, he'd seen MacLeod kill Slan Quince and then take his Quickening. And curiosity, the same curiosity that had brought him to that killing moment after he'd been warned away. And something else, too tight and fleeting for MacLeod to identify. "Richie, good to see you," Jerry Morra called. "You remember Mr. MacLeod." "I remember," Richie said warily. He came to the doorway but no further, and couldn't seem to decide whether to look at Jerry or MacLeod. "It's been awhile." "I had to go out of town," MacLeod said. "I thought we might talk." Richie didn't answer. Jerry, sensing a tension that hadn't been in the room before, gave MacLeod a suddenly suspicious look. "Actually, Richie and I need to go over his progress. Why don't you wait outside, Mr. MacLeod, until we're through." MacLeod nodded. He didn't want to earn Jerry Morra's enmity, or to scare Richie. He waited by the outdoor courts, watching an impromptu game of pick-up between a dozen black, white and Hispanic kids, until Richie came out ten minutes later. "Jerry said I didn't have to talk to you," the teenager said defiantly. "That's right, you don't," MacLeod answered, his eyes on the game. "But you want to." "Did you come here for trouble?" "No. I came here to explain." "Yeah, well, that might take some doing. I mean, it wasn't your ordinary night, was it?" Richie gripped the fence with both hands and lightly kicked at the bottom with the toes of his right foot. "You got some weird friends, MacLeod, who can pull some pretty impressive special effects out of their sleeves." "Is that what you think that was? Special effects?" "I don't know what it was but all of a sudden one guy's got a rocket in his sword, another's going over the bridge, you're chopping off a head, and wham! It's like the fourth of July - " MacLeod gave him a severe look. "You could keep your voice down." Richie scowled. "How do you know I haven't told everyone in the world what I saw? Like the police, who fished that guy Quince's body out of the river? Like maybe Geraldo or Oprah Winfrey - " "I know that you didn't." "How do you know?" "Because that was our deal," MacLeod returned, a trifle more sharply than he'd intended. He was letting the kid's annoying sarcasm get to him. Not a good sign. Mentally he took a step backwards. "Richie, listen to me. I didn't come here to fight with you. I came to invite you to dinner." "Dinner," Richie snorted. "That's a good one. Maybe more people can crash through the skylight while we're eating salad. Maybe you can come after me with that sword again." He did an imitation of MacLeod that the Highlander personally found too low and too thick to be realistic. "I'm Duncan MacLeod of the clan MacLeod, and you're dead!" "Dinner," MacLeod repeated sternly. With a perfectly straight face he added, "No one should be crashing through the skylight tonight. I'd tell you how to get there, but you already know the way. Use the door, not the window, okay?" Richie gave him a hard look. "Maybe. Maybe not." "Seven o'clock. Don't be late." A battered '84 Buick swerved into the parking lot and honked. Richie looked over and said, "My ride's here. Gotta run, MacLeod. Stay away from bridges, okay?" Then he was gone, dashing across the asphalt and climbing into the car. MacLeod saw the bright and big hair of at least two girls, a kid in the front seat, a boy with a buzz cut on the top of his head. Then the Buick was gone with a blast of noise and exhaust. MacLeod frowned to himself. Maybe the Save Richie Ryan project had gotten off to a bad start. *** "So who was the guy?" Nikki asked, and juggled Melinda as the toddler squirmed in her lap. Richie looked out the window at the rows of liquor stores and cheap electronic shops on Saratoga Street. He knew every inch of this neighborhood with a thoroughness that was depressing. "Just a guy," he said. Scotty fired up a cigarette, switched lanes, switched back again. "New probation officer?" "I thought he was kind of cute," Angie said impishly from beside Richie. "Just a guy," Richie repeated. He didn't want to discus MacLeod. He hadn't told anyone about what had happened on Soldier's Bridge, although he could recall every bizarre detail of it by just closing his eyes. He had barely slept for days, fearful that Duncan MacLeod of the clan MacLeod might come for him next, but when he finally screwed up enough courage to go to MacLeod's antique store, he found a note in a woman's handwriting taped to the door that announced it was closed until further notice. He remembered watching Connor and Duncan MacLeod dueling with swords across the empty expanse of a warehouse, and feeling a vague but persistent thrill in his blood at the clang of metal, the traded blows of power and grace. Watching Connor go over the bridge, a projectile embedded in his chest, had seemed like something out of a horror movie. Witnessing Duncan chop off Slan Quince's head and then get hit by about a thousand lightning bolts defied horror and wonder both. Dinner in the house of the sword man. An interesting proposition. The four teenagers and one toddler stopped for lunch at a chili stand and ate outside at a scratched plastic table with a listing umbrella. The sun on four lanes of traffic and the endless spew of exhaust started to give Richie a headache. After lunch they stopped by a shop where Scotty traded in two boosted car stereos for fifty dollars and two worn plastic baggies of pot. The guy behind the counter was probably not older than twenty-five, had the unkempt, disheveled air of a pothead, and looked as if he was going to be at his current job for the rest of his life, if he wasn't fired first. Richie wondered suddenly if the guy had ever failed history and algebra. "Bora-Morra wants me to take the GED," Richie told Scotty and the girls back in the car. He wasn't sure where Jerry Morra had picked up that particular nickname, or what the joke was. Someone had said Bora Bora was an island in the war, but Richie didn't know which war. "So you can go to college?" Scotty asked with a quick grin. For some reason that hurt. Mildly. "You don't think I'm college material?" Richie asked. Nikki started rolling joints against her lap. "What would you do at college? Study? Join a fraternity? There's no payoff in it, Richie." Angie gazed out the window and didn't say anything. Scotty and his older brother Bruce lived in a dilapidated rental house on Gilmore Ave. Richie didn't think much of the house - the paint, inside and outside, was peeling off in strips, the water from the faucets was brown, and the yard was overgrown with trash and weeds - but it had ten rooms of varying upkeep and a very liberal open door policy. Richie had been crashing in one of the spare bedrooms for weeks. He had no intentions of going back to the Mitchells after his arrest, even though Bora-Morra had told him to. He guessed, technically, that he was a runaway. He was still a ward of the state, but with three months left until his eighteenth birthday, he didn't think anyone was going to push the issue. Bruce wasn't home. Pete and Grouch, the two guitarists in Bruce's so-called band, were passed out in the living room. Nikki and Scotty went to Scotty's room, to play music and get high. Richie took custody of Melinda and he and Angie went outside, to shoot baskets in the small driveway into an old rusty rim that Scotty had found in someone's garbage. They passed the basketball back and forth as Melinda played in the weeds. "I'm starting school next week," Angie said. "What kind of school?" "Secretary school." "How come?" His shot went straight through the rim. Angie took the ball and threw from a dozen feet away. Missed. "So I can get a job that isn't a night clerk or a fast food waitress." "What do you study in secretary school?" "Typing. Computers. Stuff like that." Angie caught the ball on Richie's rebound and stopped for a moment. "Richie, I think you should take the GED. And go to college. Don't listen to what those guys say." He gazed into her dark eyes. They'd met the first day of high school, and although she wasn't obviously pretty, he found her attractive in a subdued sort of way. She was smarter than most of their friends. She was smarter than he was. "Angie, I need to tell you something. It's a secret, though. You got to not tell anyone." "What is it?" "I saw a guy kill someone else." Doubt crossed her face. "I'm not making it up," Richie swore. "Honest." "Who killed who?" Angie asked. Richie turned and threw. The ball bounced off the backboard and came back to him. "I can't tell you." "Why not?" "Because you don't want to get involved in this. Trust me. You don't want to get involved." "So what are you going to do?" Angie asked. "You going to tell the police?" "I doubt it." "Richie, murder is like a serious crime. What if the killer comes after you?" Richie noticed Melinda was wandering too far down the sidewalk. "Get her," he said, and as Angie retrieved the little girl, he gave serious consideration to the memory of MacLeod coming to see him at the police station. MacLeod hadn't overtly threatened him, but there's been a definite element of malice in his dark eyes as he laid down the conditions of Richie's release. Richie believed then, as he did now, that it would be a serious mistake to make an enemy of Duncan MacLeod. Well, hadn't he just done that? He'd told Angie he'd witnessed a killing. And a resurrection, if he counted Connor MacLeod walking away from the river after taking a rocket in the chest. "I can take care of it," he told Angie. "Don't worry." "Someone's got to worry about you, Richie," she said, bouncing Melinda off her hip. "I've done fine without it," Richie said firmly. "Come on. Let's find something to eat." "We just ate," Angie protested, but she followed him up to the house. The kitchen was clean - the only house rule Bruce insisted on, no dishes in the sink, no leftovers caked to the stove - but the refrigerator was empty of everything but relish, mayonnaise, mustard, stale pizza slices, two cartons of orange juice, and a hardened stick of butter. Richie was wondering if re-heating pizza made it soft again when Bruce came in with his best friend Joey and Joey's girlfriend Liz. They'd brought groceries, which cheered Richie's heart but reminded him of his nearly empty wallet. Richie liked Bruce all right, but Joey and Liz gave him the creeps. They looked sort of like Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love, but even more zoned and grungy. Bruce wanted to talk to Richie. Richie guessed he knew why. They stood on the back porch, looking at the ugly yard. Richie had tried to cut the lawn once, but Joey and Grouch had laughed and embarrassed him out of doing it. "You need to come up with some rent money," Bruce said. "I know times are tough all over, but you've got to help out, you know?" Richie nodded. He did know. He appreciated that Bruce had let him stay for as long as he had. Bruce was tall and stocky, rough around the edges, another man he didn't want as an enemy. But he'd been fair, so far, to Richie, and Richie did owe him. "I'm sorry," Richie said. He was so broke he'd let Angie buy his lunch. "I'll come up with something." "How soon?" "Tomorrow." "Yeah, tomorrow. Why don't you think about selling that bike of yours, huh?" Richie knew it would come down the bike. He'd saved his way through two summer jobs for his motorbike. His placement that year, with a family whose name he'd forgotten, had been awful. The bike was the only good thing to come out of it. Bruce squeezed his shoulder. "Alright, forget about the bike for now. But don't let me down, Richie." Angie went home, and Scotty and Nikki started mixing booze with the pot. Joey, Bruce and Liz joined in with some heroin. Richie hoped Scotty was smart enough to stay away from the heroin, but he didn't interfere. He and Melinda watched television for a couple of hours - Grouch had stolen a cable box, and run a line from the street - and then he shrugged into his jacket and banged on Scotty's bedroom door. "I'm taking Melinda home," he told Scotty and Nikki. "My mother's going to be pissed," Nikki said, her eyes dull, her words slurred. "I should go, too." "No," Scotty said. "You stay here. Richie can handle it." Maybe that would be his job for the rest of his life. Watching Nikkei's kid. Richie put Melinda on the bike with him, making sure the child-size helmet he'd stolen from a shop two weeks earlier fit around down over her smooth hair. Nikki's mom, who was sick with leukemia, took the child from him with no question as to where her daughter was. Nikki and her mom were barely on speaking terms as it was. Richie checked his watch. Nearly six o'clock. He drove around for awhile, then reminded himself he didn't have money to pay for gas. He wondered if MacLeod expected him to dress up. He'd owned one suit in his entire life, worn for the funeral of a friend killed in a drive-by shooting, and he'd outgrown it within months of his sixteenth birthday. It seemed to Richie that when people came to dinner they brought flowers or wine or something, but he didn't even have enough money for a carnation from the blind florist on Saratoga Street. He parked the bike and started walking along the parked cars, just walking, a young man on his way somewhere, and found a Nissan Sentra with its passenger door open. He slid inside in the growing dusk, pocketknife in hand, and quickly and efficiently relieved the owner of the burden of owning a car stereo. A traveling case of compact disc clued him in to the disc player in the trunk. He lifted both, stashed them for safety in some garbage cans, and lifted two more stereos before he checked his watch and found it was almost seven o'clock. It was seven-twelve when he rang the shop's buzzer. MacLeod answered with displeasure on his face. "You're late." "Not by much. I had stuff to do," Richie said. MacLeod was dressed in expensive black trousers, a white shirt, polished shoes. No one Richie knew dressed like that. His own clothes felt and looked shabby, and he was seized by a sudden sense of unworthiness. He shouldn't have come, and thought about making up a spontaneous excuse for leaving. "Come in," MacLeod said, with a critical eye on his attire. "Tessa's waiting." Against his better judgment Richie following him into the darkened antique store and past a suit of armor, various framed portraits on easels, glass cases of crystal and swords. The apartment in the back of the shop was warm and well-lit, decorated in clean lines and subdued colors. The dining area table was set with white dishes, baskets of bread, and silverware tied up in blue cloth napkins. The knockout blonde he remembered from his last time in the store was there, in a red dress that emphasized the gold in her hair. "Tessa," MacLeod said, "you remember Richie. Richie, this is Tessa Noel. She's an artist." She reached out and shook his hand. Not many women did that to Richie. "Pleased to meet you," she said, her voice accented, but there was something held back in the way she smiled that Richie recognized in an all too-familiar way. Tessa Noel didn't like him. Or at least, she didn't trust him. Which made her smarter than MacLeod, Richie decided. MacLeod took his coat. Richie actually preferred keeping it - he wanted to be able to bolt at any time - but he let it go without complaint. Tessa moved to the counter. "What would you like to drink?" "Um, wine?" Richie asked hopefully. "You're too young," MacLeod called from the other room. Tessa offered him juice, milk or seltzer. He chose seltzer, which he hoped was like regular water. He said, "Can I ask what your accent is?" "I'm from Paris," she said. "Actually, just outside of Paris. Pontoise." "Paris as in France?" he asked, then blushed at how stupid he must sound. "Paris as in France," she confirmed, and handed him a glass. The water had bubbles. He could live with that. MacLeod came back in and sipped from a glass of dark wine. "You like pot roast?" "Whatever," Richie said. "Good, because it's getting overdone." Tessa and MacLeod busied themselves cutting up the meat. "Why don't you get the salad from the refrigerator?" Tessa asked kindly, and Richie obliged. He needed to make himself useful. MacLeod's fridge was stocked with more food than Bruce's had ever seen, including a large glass bowl of lettuce on the second shelf. "You want me to put stuff in this?" Richie asked. He wasn't big on salad, but figured tomatoes or carrots or maybe cucumbers would do something for it. "It's a Caesar salad," MacLeod said. "You don't need stuff in it." "Sorry," Richie said before he could stop himself. "I guess you guys are just a little highbrow for me, you know?" MacLeod and Tessa exchanged looks. MacLeod said, clearly and firmly, "Salad is not too highbrow for you, Richie. Relax, will you? You're the guest. You don't have to do anything but eat and make polite conversation." Richie crossed his arms. "Maybe I'm not good at that, either. How come you wanted me to come, anyway?" MacLeod transferred slices of the pot roast to a china serving platter and then to the table. "Because I owe you some explanations. Remember? Swords and men fighting and a Quickening?" "What's a Quickening?" Richie asked. Tessa put her hand on MacLeod's shoulder. "Can we sit down to eat, first?" In addition to the pot roast and salad, Richie found steamed carrots and broccoli, hot buttered bread, and buttery spinach. He passed on the spinach but loaded up on everything else. Tessa's eyes widened slightly at the amount of food he piled on, and he added another roll to watch her reaction. "Let me ask you what you think you saw," MacLeod said, once they'd started eating. "What I think I saw?" Richie asked incredulously. "I think I saw the big ugly guy with the hockey mask go after your friend Connor with a rocket in his sword. You don't see that every day around here. Connor goes over the railing - splash! - and then you come on like Zorro. Then the whole place is lighting up like a Christmas tree on acid." "How did you get to the bridge in the first place?" Richie shrugged modestly. "Stowed away in the T-bird trunk." "Why?" MacLeod asked. No reproach in his voice, which Richie found both curious and reassuring. "Wanted to see what was going to happen," he offered. "I saw you guys practicing fighting, too. You didn't see me that time." "We saw you by the river. What made you think we were going to survive the water?" Richie had to think about that one. He was aware of Tessa's eyes very bright and focused on him. "I don't know," he admitted. "You just look like the kind of guys who keep coming back." "Like a bad penny," Tessa said, "Duncan keeps turning up." It was obviously some private joke between them, because they shared a smile that was so warm, so familiar, that Richie felt as if he'd been banished to another room. The look excluded him, as he'd been excluded so many times before. He shoveled into his plate with a lessened appetite, and wondered what Scotty was up to. MacLeod might have sensed his discomfort, because he said, "You were pretty curious about us, weren't you?" Richie shrugged. "As it turns out," MacLeod said, "you're right, in one sense. Connor and I are both very hard to kill. The only way to do it is to chop off our heads." "Like Jason with the hockey mask?" Richie shot back. MacLeod seemed at a loss to make the connection. He must not have been much of a movie fan. "Quince? Yes, like him too." "So you guys think you're invincible, huh?" Richie asked. For a whacko, MacLeod actually sounded plausible. "Not invincible. Just very hard to kill," MacLeod said. "You saw me drag Connor out of the river. Did he look dead to you?" "Not exactly," Richie admitted. "And he's not dead now." Richie squinted at him thoughtfully. "So what's a Quickening?" MacLeod looked at his wine glass in deep contemplation. "Some say it's our life force. The power that keeps people like me alive, through the years. When we're killed, our enemy takes our Quickening. It's very powerful - you saw that." "And people like you are . . . what? Martians? Vulcans? You don't look like an alien to me." "Not alien," MacLeod said. "But not . . . mortal." "Mortal," Richie repeated dumbly. He shot Tessa a look, but she'd developed an interest in buttering a roll, as if this information were nothing new. "Mortal like . . .what? What's not mortal?" "Immortal," MacLeod said. "Live forever." Richie laughed. "You think you live forever?" MacLeod didn't even smile. "Until someone takes my head." "You sit around and think up these things all day long? Because you could write a book, you know, maybe a movie for Stephen Spielberg - " "Richie," MacLeod said sternly, cutting him off. "It's not a fantasy, and it's not a wild tale. It's the truth. And you've landed right in the middle of it." Richie's heart started to beat double-time in his chest. He could very clearly imagine MacLeod going for that sword again. "Well, un-land me," he said, fear fueling anger in his voice. "I don't want to be in the middle of it. I got enough problems of my own, you know, besides the floor show at the state asylum." He couldn't eat another bite. What he had swallowed threatened to come back up again. "Look, dinner was great, okay? I mean, no one's cooked for me in a long time. So I appreciate the gesture. But you two have your lives, and I've got mine. Yours has got the cast of the Three Musketeers and Camelot running around in it, and mine - " He stopped. Not because of Tessa and MacLeod's twin expressions of shock across the table, but because he couldn't think of any adequate movies that meet the peculiarities of his life. "Mine doesn't," he said. "I gotta go." He was all the way to the street before MacLeod caught up with him. "Richie," the man said, catching his arm, "wait." Richie shrugged free. "I can't," he said, and then caught sight of a shadowy form bent over the outline of his bike parked in the mouth of the alley. "Hey!" he shouted. "You!" The figure took off at a sprint, Richie's gym bag and the stolen stereos in hand. Richie dashed after him and grabbed at the bag. It ripped open, spilling the electronics into the street and sending Richie stumbling hard to the concrete. The flesh of his palms and knees tore open, but adrenaline and fury sent him back to his feet and into MacLeod's firm grasp. "Let him go!" MacLeod ordered. "Son of a bitch stole my stuff!" Richie said, trying to break free, but MacLeod was too strong. end of part 1 =========================================================================