When they got back to the barge, both still tipsy from three- hundred year old cognac, Richie snuggled happily into a pile of blankets on the sofa and slept for almost eighteen hours. After being hunted and chased across Europe by that maniac Martin Hyde, imprisoned in a nasty cell with hulking French criminals intent on making mincemeat out of a certain young American, and spending most of the night waiting to see if Duncan would survive his swordfight, he needed to catch up on his sleep. Or so he told his slightly guilty conscience when he woke to the sound of the clock chiming midnight and saw Duncan sitting in the armchair, staring at the burning logs in the fireplace.

"Is it really that late?" Richie yawned, sitting upright and rubbing his hands through his hair.

"Or that early, depending on how you look at it," Duncan returned with a small smile, although he didn't look away from the warm red glow.

Richie scratched his stomach. His gaze slid to the table, and to the formal china and silverware that had been set out on it. A basket of rolls sat covered by a napkin, and an unopened bottle of wine stood in a silver bucket of melted ice. Duncan had obviously put thought and effort into their first real meal together after so many months of painful separation.

"Oh, man," he winced. "I guess I slept right through dinner, huh?"

Duncan shook himself slightly, as if pulling away from deep thoughts. "What? Oh, dinner. No, it's fine. I haven't even cooked the steaks yet."

While Duncan saw to that task, Richie padded to the bathroom and returned with an odd feeling in his gut. He'd lived on the Nobile for almost six months, up in a tiny cabin under the wheel house. Being back onboard felt simultaneously strange and familiar. Duncan had remodeled the interior, replacing sketches and white statuettes with darker pieces. Lighter colors had shaded into more earthy tones of brown, green and cream. Even with the change in decor, however, Richie detected something missing.

Or someone.

Tessa.

He sucked in a sharp breath. How could he be so stupid? Of course things would seem different. The last time he'd been in Paris, on the barge, they'd all been together. The three of them. A happy little family. She'd been dead for almost eight months now, murdered in the middle of a quiet suburban street by a punk looking for drug money. Her honey-colored hair glowed in his memory, accompanied by the delightful sound of her laugh. Grief stabbed into his chest, along with guilt that he hadn't given her much thought at all recently.

He hadn't *forgotten* about her - he would never do that - but in the weeks after her murder he'd woken up every day with the memory of her corpse in his head. That heavy anguish had gradually faded as he became sucked into the drastic changes in his own life. Duncan sold the store and apartment, leaving Richie to rent an apartment of his own for the first time in his life. Duncan assumed responsibility as his teacher, pushing him into grueling routines that included running, weight training and martial arts. Their relationship became harder, tougher, more demanding. Nothing could ever be the same again.

Richie needed to learn how to fight with swords. He needed to understand and live by the rules of the Game. He had to be ready for men coming to murder him in the night. Crossing the gap between mortal and Immortal meant the face he saw in the mirror every morning would be the same for the next year, decade, century. He would never look older than nineteen. Legions of future wives and girlfriends were going to give him grief about that. On the plus side, though, he could ram his bike into a wall and live to tell the tale. Even if he died, he'd live to tell the tale. Unless, of course, he managed to foolishly decapitate himself in the process.

Somehow, as his own life re-shaped itself, he'd lost track of his grief. He found himself going a whole day without missing her so much he wanted to cry. He discovered he could smile and laugh at movies. The world no longer seemed as bleak, hopeless or futile as he'd thought. He didn't want to lose Tessa's memory, though, and kept a photograph of her, Duncan and himself in his wallet at all times. Sometimes he would just sit quietly with it in his hand. As the weeks turned into months he pulled it out less often, and let it stay neatly wedged between his driver's license and ATM card.

Five months after Richie's Immortal training began, Duncan turned him away because he killed Mako. The swift, severe parting hurt almost as much as Tessa's death. Duncan had told him that on the day he took his first Quickening he'd have to leave. Richie accepted that in his head but never stopped to consider the full implications. He certainly hadn't expected Duncan to not even look at him. To not offer him a hug, handshake or even good luck. Stumbling away from the dojo in cold shock, Richie pulled the adored picture from his wallet and threw it in the nearest dumpster.

He regretted that more than Mako. More than Duncan's dismissive farewell. More than almost anything else in his short life.

"Richie? Where are you?"

Richie blinked at the Highlander, the barge and the twin filets that sat, sizzling-hot, on the table. "Huh?"

Duncan smiled at him. "I've been calling your name."

"Oh." Richie had no intentions of telling Duncan where his thoughts had been. He eyed the table and raised an eyebrow. In his cockiest voice he said, "Well, it's about *time* you put some food on the table. I'm starving!"

"You always are, tough guy."

Over the steaks, salad and potatoes au grautin they discussed fairly safe topics. Richie described his adventures after he'd left Seacouver, although he heavily edited some of the trouble in which he'd landed. No use bothering the Highlander with events the police back in America should have already forgotten....or worrying him about protective fathers convinced that Richie had stolen the affection of their winsome, virginal daughters. Duncan touched upon some nastiness with Xavier St. Cloud and James Horton, but seemed reluctant to tell the whole story. He volunteered a little more information about an Egyptian Immortal named Nefertiri who'd been entombed for three thousand years.

Richie shuddered at the thought. "Three thousand years is a pretty long time to be locked up in the dark."

"She wasn't aware of most of it, thank goodness."

"So where is she now? When do I get to meet her?"

Duncan's face took on a swift, sudden expression of evasiveness. "Let me put this salad away before it wilts."

Richie speared the last piece of steak on his plate and twisted it on the edge of his fork. He almost called to the galley and asked if Duncan had whacked her or if someone else had, but bit down the words. He hated that death had become such an integral part of his world. So casual. So expected.

After dinner they stayed up and watched one of Richie's favorite movies on television. He didn't understand the dialogue dubbed in French, but had memorized most of "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" anyway. Duncan went to bed at four a.m., teasing about having spent his own productive day doing laundry, cleaning the barge and doing other chores while Sleeping Beauty hogged the sofa.

Richie turned off the lamps, content to sit by the flickering light of the fireplace. He waited until the Highlander started snoring before tiptoeing to the steamer trunk by the bookcase. He eased the heavy lid open and began rummaging for Tessa's photo albums. He found sweaters, blankets, a velvet cloak. A small vase wrapped in tissue paper. A library book which, if the stamp inside could be trusted, appeared to be forty two years overdue. But no photo albums.

He leaned back on his haunches, frowned, and scanned the nearby shelves. He clearly remembered the existence of four small, gold- framed photographs - Duncan and Tessa at a grand ball, Tessa with her parents on their wedding anniversary, Tessa in a cute tour guide outfit, and Tessa, Richie and Duncan on a vacation in Italy. All four had disappeared.

A cold twinge spiraled through his gut. The statuettes that had been removed in the remodeling of the barge had been her work. The missing sketches had come from her fingers, her pens. Duncan had instructed Richie to sell the contents of the antique store and he had, but kept a good portion of Tessa's personal works crated and in storage.

He went back to the sofa, curled up with a pillow in his lap, and tried to fathom why Duncan would get rid of every trace of Tessa's existence. Did the memories hurt so much that he couldn't even bear to be reminded of her? They'd been together for over twelve years. They'd planned to marry. How could he just turn his back on her?

The deeper implication didn't escape his attention. Richie himself had to be a reminder of the last year of Tessa's life - the good times the three of them had enjoyed, the fights they'd had, the vacations and parties and nights spent just watching movies and munching popcorn. Richie had taken up time Tessa could have spent with Duncan. The missing photographs included him, as well.

He curled up tighter. In a small way he'd done the same thing Duncan had. Thrown out his favorite photograph out of grief and hurt at the both of them. Maybe anger, too. Anger at Duncan for turning him away as if they were strangers. Tessa for being dead in the first place. Unjust anger, surely. Ridiculous in retrospect. But if she'd handed her jewelry over quicker - if she'd stepped behind Richie - if she'd stayed in the house -

He was the one who had failed her. He was the one who should have stopped the punk. Duncan and Connor had both tried to convince him otherwise, but in a small, dark part of his heart he would always blame himself.

Dawn lightened the sky. Richie dressed quietly and grabbed his wallet, jacket, and keys. He took Duncan's cordless phone up to the top deck and made a phone call back to the States.

Joe Dawson was every bit as helpful as usual.

"Why are you asking me?" he growled once Richie finished making his request. "Ask MacLeod."

"I'm asking *you,*" Richie said. "You're his Watcher. You know."

"You're a pain in the ass, Ryan."

"Come on, Dawson. Just one little bit of information."

Joe sighed and put the call on hold.

Richie didn't want to ask Duncan the location of Tessa's grave for several reasons. He didn't want to see dark hurt flash in the Highlander's eyes at the very mention of her name. He certainly didn't want Duncan to feel any responsibility to accompany Richie to the cemetery. Richie planned on making this pilgrimage all by himself. Joe came back with the information a minute or so later, and the teenager wrote it down hastily on the scrap of paper he'd brought with him.

"Thanks, Joe. I mean it."

"Yeah. I know. Do me a favor."

"What?"

A moment's pause. "Buy some flowers and put them there for me."

Richie shoved the address in his pocket and turned to gaze at Notre Dome. The ancient cathedral glowed golden in the early morning light. He smelled his favorite odor in Paris - freshly baked bread from hundreds of corner bakeries. "Joe, you never even met her."

"I watched her and MacLeod for twelve years," Joe reminded him. Wistfulness entered his tone. "She was a beautiful and talented woman."

"Yeah," Richie agreed, a lump rising in his throat. "I know. Thanks."

He hung up, returned the phone back to its cradle below, and took off on his motorcycle to visit Tessa.

As it turned out, Tessa's final resting place lay less than two miles east of the barge. After a quick stop at a corner florist's stall, Richie crossed the Seine at Pont de Sully, zipped around the site of the old Bastille, cut through the uncrowded streets of the eleventh arrondissement and reached the Cimitiere du Pere Lachaise without a single wrong turn. A large plaque at the gates commemorated the cemetery as the resting place of famous mortals such as Oscar Wilde, Moliere and Chopin. Richie didn't care about anybody famous. He cared only about the best artist he'd ever known, a woman whose work would tragically fade into time and history without notice.

He wandered through row after row of ornate headstones, massive sarcophagi and immense mausoleums. Heavy crosses loomed over him at every turn, looking stern and unforgiving in the cold sunlight. Stars of David dotted others, and he saw one impressive tomb that immortalized those who'd died in German concentration camps. Gargoyles and angels poked out of marble, iron and granite. They stared with unseeing eyes and frozen faces, trapped forever by wings that would never fly. He'd never much liked cemeteries, and a quick calculation of how many skeletons lay beneath his boots and the still-frozen ground made him shiver. Thousands upon thousands of dead lay in eternal repose, crowded next to each other for as far as his eye could see.

He got twisted and lost among the dead, and stumbled upon one unfamiliar name and another. Beloved wives. Beloved husbands. Dead children, dead parents. Quotes from scripture hung in his vision, promising salvation and life everlasting. Dying flowers stirred in the chill breeze, their colorful petals fading. The cemetery seemed peaceful and quiet enough, but he sensed a strong undercurrent of ominousness. Death at every turn. Death, the final end of the ride. It leveled everyone to dust, no matter how much they'd been loved or cherished.

He shouldn't have come. But he didn't turn back. He finally found Tessa's small, unassuming grave wedged between two older and more ornate ones. A slab of granite covered the ground, and a black plaque with the dates of birth and death rested atop it. Nothing more, nothing less. Anti-climactic compared to the surrounding heavenly fervor, but as serene and beautiful as she had been in real life.

"Oh, Tess," he whispered. For a moment he could only stare down. He expected to hear echoes of her screams in his head, hear the shots that had killed her. Instead a deep aching hollowness opened inside his chest, as quickly and ruthlessly as if someone had just carved the middle out of him.

What did one say to the dead? To the only adult woman in his life who'd accepted him for who he was?

"Hi," he said. "I came to see you. Here you are."

The flowers in his hand - red roses from him, blue irises from Joe - seemed woefully inadequate. Richie put them by her plaque, stood back with a critical eye, and bent to re-arrange them once, twice, and three times again. It got harder to see the flowers the more his eyes filled up.

Shit. He'd promised himself he wouldn't cry.

He sat on the ground beside her and took a deep breath. Such a wonderfully sunny day - cold, but with a sky so deep and perfectly blue that he wished it could stay that way forever. His mind tried to work around the fact that she was there, buried in the ground, enclosed in a coffin only six or so feet beneath him. Never to walk or breathe or laugh again; never to turn her sharp gaze on him and reprimand him for his numerous wrongdoings; never to share another midnight chocolate sundae as they traded hopes and fears about the future.

He remembered hugging her in the shop one day, just a few weeks before her death. Duncan had gone off to find the psycho hunting Michael Moore - the psycho who'd turned out to *be* Michael Moore - and Tessa had been crazy with worry. Holding her tight and reassuring her seemed like the one thing Richie had ever done right. She'd been warm and firm and breathing. She'd smelled of lilacs. She'd laughed in his ear, and squeezed him hard, and let go of some of her worries.

Never again. Not in this world.

"I really, really miss you," he said, and before he could stop himself burst out into tears.

***

Much later, when he'd calmed down and wiped his eyes on his sleeve, the aching grief shaded into something kinder, gentler and softer. He almost believed she was there, comforting him in some ethereal way. A fantasy, perhaps, but the sun warmed his face more and his mind drifted on its own to happier days. Her death had been devastating, but her life had been amazing. Not because her lover was a four-hundred-year old man, but because she saw inspiration in the most mundane aspects of every day life. She had taken the raw energy of love, hate, passion and pride and molded them into creations of her very own. He didn't know much about art, but he knew some of Tessa's works had moved him in ways he didn't understand, and that had to be some measure of talent.

"I guess you know I'm Immortal now," he said. "It's not what I thought it would be. The first time I saw Mac swinging his katana, I thought he was nuts. When I saw him and Connor fighting each other for practice I thought it looked really cool. Swords, secrets and adventures, all wrapped into one big bright package. But you know what? It really kind of sucks.

"I'm scared every day. It's them or me, Tess. Guys better with swords, who've been around for hundreds or thousands of years, and little old me. Richie Ryan, boy Immortal. One day I'm going to lose. There's no Prize in my future. I'd like to live a couple of hundred years maybe - just enough to see what happens, you know? - but I don't know if I can keep killing people to do it."

The breeze stirred Tessa's flowers. A robin flapped overhead with a cheerful chirp. Richie studied the plaque, his eyes going around and around the smooth grooves of her life. 1958. 1993. Why hadn't Duncan added anything more? A name. Dates. She could have been anyone.

"You know what's the worst thing?" he asked. "The worst thing isn't waiting to be killed. I hope it doesn't hurt, you know - I hope whoever does it is real quick and clean. That'll be okay. I hope he's not some big jerk, but I guess it won't matter much. But the worst thing . . . the worst thing is that no one is going to care that I'm gone as much as I care that you are."

A painful thing to admit to himself, but true.

He stayed by her grave for hours, sometimes talking, sometimes just sitting. He started to cry again when he asked for her forgiveness for throwing away the photograph from his wallet. But even those tears dried, and by the time he sensed the approach of another Immortal he'd been calm, and contemplative, for quite some time.

"How'd you know I'd be here?" he asked as Duncan stopped a few respectful feet away.

"You didn't bring your sword. The only place you don't need your sword is Holy Ground, and you weren't at Darius' church."

Richie nodded. Duncan's gaze shifted to Tessa's grave. He looked calm if somber, with his hands deep in the pockets of his gray cashmere coat and his hair pulled neatly back with a black band.

"You miss her a lot," Duncan said after some minutes of silence.

"Yeah." Richie chose his next words carefully. "You too."

Duncan's brows knitted together almost imperceptibly. "You don't sound so sure."

He should have found a way to say it more tactfully, and probably shouldn't have brought it up in front of Tessa, but he couldn't help himself. "Mac, you threw away all of her pictures! All of her stuff. It's gone."

Duncan opened his mouth. Closed it. Sorrow crossed his face. "She's never gone, Richie. As long as we remember her, she's never gone. Material possessions mean nothing."

"I know. I lost enough of my stuff moving around year after year to have learned that lesson real early," Richie said, without bitterness. He stood up stiffly - how long had he been sitting on the cold ground? "Saving just a picture or two would have been nice, though."

Duncan stared at Tessa's grave, frowning.

"I'm sorry," Richie said, instantly contrite. "I just . . . it's only . . . forget it. It's none of my business. I should learn to keep my mouth shut."

Silence.

He kissed his hand, pressed it gently to the granite slab, and started to walk away. The Highlander's hand snagged him and kept him in place.

"I have every single picture I could find of her in a box under my bed," Duncan said quietly, meeting Richie's gaze squarely. "That way, when I sleep at night, I know she's with me."

Richie wanted nothing more at that moment than for a big giant hole to open in the ground and suck him into it. "Mac, I'm sorry - "

"You didn't know."

"I'm a jerk - "

"You are not." Duncan pulled him into a fierce embrace. Richie relaxed gratefully into the older Immortal's grip, glad for the contact, and returned the tight hold. Unlike their brief, awkward hug when Richie had first arrived in Paris, this one promised of resolution and strength and shared affection.

When they broke apart, Richie said, "Can I ask a huge favor?"

The corner of Duncan's mouth quirked. "How huge?"

"If I should get killed before you do - "

"Rich, you can't think like that - "

Richie punched him playfully on the arm. "Let me finish! This isn't something morbid. Or anything *really* morbid." His grin faded and he studied the top of his boots. "If I should go before you do, will you make sure I get a nice place like this? Somewhere quiet and calm? Maybe I'll have a family who'll know what to do with me, but just in case you're the only one who cares?"

Silence. Richie glanced up, afraid he'd committed another serious error, but Duncan looked more understanding than disturbed.

"Do you want to be buried here, with Tessa?" he asked.

Hope flared in Richie's chest. "Is that possible? It looks kind of crowded around here already."

Duncan nodded. "They can stack the coffins on top of each other."

Richie's voice caught in his throat. "That would be really nice. I appreciate it. But I should go on the bottom, okay? Tessa should be closer to the sun."

The two men gazed at the plaque, her name, the dates of her too- short life. Richie knew that when his day came, the chances of his body ever being recovered were slim. Most Immortals didn't leave the remains of their kill out for the police or media to find. Duncan might not even know he'd been killed for ten, twenty, thirty years.

"What about you?" Richie asked, stricken by a terrible thought. "I didn't just take your place or anything, did I?"

Duncan shook his head. "No, you didn't take my place. There's room for all of us in there. If I should go before you do, you put me there, okay?"

"Okay," Richie said. "Deal."

"Deal."

Duncan seemed reluctant to leave, and Richie suddenly understood why. "You probably want some time alone. I'd better get going. I'll meet you back at the barge. If you're lucky I'll cook breakfast for you."

"Make it lunch," Duncan said.

Richie looked at this watch. Nearly noon. No wonder he felt hungry clear down to his toes. He started walking away.

"Richie - "

"Yeah, Mac?"

"Thanks."

Richie nodded and left. He'd come to a peace, again, over Tessa's death. Not that he'd ever forgive the bastard who'd done it, but cherished memories of their time together could outweigh the last few horrific minutes of it. Duncan hadn't turned his back on her memory, but instead brought it closer. And no matter what happened, when his own time came, he had faith Duncan would find a way to bring him home again.

THE END