"Good job, but we won't be needing the jeep," Duncan MacLeod said.

Richie nearly jerked up against the steering column. "How come I can never hear you coming?" he complained as he slid out from under the dash and down to the gravel of the driveway.

"Practice," Duncan sighed.

Richie looked at him closely. Duncan appeared tired and sweaty, as if the day's events had finally taken their toll on him. "You okay? I didn't hear a Quickening or anything."

"There wasn't one," Duncan said. "Everett's gone, his daughter with him. Mark is dead."

Richie supposed he should feel sorry, but he didn't. Mark Rothwood had been a complete jerk, his nose jerked so high toward the sky it was a wonder he didn't have a perpetual nosebleed. Worse than a jerk, he'd also been a rapist and a coward, and his actions had jeopardized everyone in the chateau during the day's long siege. Just a short time ago he'd smashed a pipe or something into the back of Richie's skull, and his brains still felt scrambled.

"So what happens now?" Richie asked, gingerly probing the bump on his head.

Duncan palmed Everett's liberated cellular phone and started up to the house. "I'm going to call Alan's consulate. They'll have someone on staff who can deal with this mess."

Mess was one way of putting it, Richie reflected grimly as he tagged behind Duncan. At least seven men lay dead in the empty rooms of the ruined chateau or just beyond the tree line, where thick fog hugged the ground. He listened to Duncan give someone at the consulate a terse, heavily-edited summary of the problem and then stopped at the sight of a charred, blackened corpse outside one of back doors. The man had been burned alive. Richie's gut twisted, and he didn't protest when Duncan firmly steered him around the corpse and into the foyer. The next room wasn't much better - the mercenary there had died between the vicious steel jaws of an animal trap, and Richie was the one who'd sent him skidding into the deadly device. He'd never killed anyone before, and the enormity of the deed made the world spin a little beneath his sneakers.

"Steady," a voice said, and Richie realized the sudden iron grip on his elbow was Duncan's hand. "Come on, sit down."

"I'm fine," Richie protested, but let Duncan maneuver him to a chair and ease him forward until his head was down between his knees.

"That's it, breathe deep," Duncan said. "I don't have time for you to faint, Richie."

"I'm not going to faint," Richie said, irritated at the matter-of-factness in the Highlander's voice. The breathing help, and after a minute he was able to lift his head. He glanced at Duncan's impassive face, then to the corpse, then to his own ragged fingernails. "I just never . . .killed anyone before."

"You did what you had to do." Duncan had no time for Richie's crisis of conscience. So far no passing traveler or strolling neighbor had alerted the police to the gunfire on the Rothwood estate, and if they were lucky it would stay that way. If the police came the media would follow, and soon all their names with be plastered across France in lurid headlines. Neither Richie nor Tessa deserved to face criminal charges, but it would be several tense and painful months before they could be acquitted on the grounds of self-defense.

"Better?" Duncan asked. Richie nodded, although his face was still pale and his lips drawn into a tight line. "Stay here, then. I'll be right back."

He found Tessa where he had left her, tending to Alan in the library. She stopped mopping his forehead with a warm cloth and turned to Duncan with hope in her eyes. "Is it over?"

"Yes," Duncan said. Tessa came to his arms and he held her tightly, kissing the top of her head for her comfort as much as his. He hoped Tessa and Richie never realized how close they had all come to slaughter. "It's over now. Help is on the way."

Thirty minutes later a black Volvo pulled into the house, carrying two men. The doctor was a small, trim man who smelled strongly of aftershave and afternoon libations. He took one look at Alan and broke out his medical kit. The doctor's brisk companion was a bureaucrat whose face wrinkled into long-standing suffering as he took in the house's wreckage. He told Duncan in no uncertain terms that he should leave immediately, and take his friends with him.

Richie wasn't where Duncan had left him - no surprise there. Duncan found him in the servant's bathroom off the kitchen, rinsing his mouth. "You okay?"

Richie nodded but didn't meet his gaze. "Yeah. Fine."

"We have to go. Come on."

The doctor and Duncan carried Alan to the Volvo and installed him in the back seat. Tessa wanted to be with Alan when he found out about Mark, but Duncan reminded her they had to be going. He swung the Citroen down the long drive, past the iron gates that marked the main entrance, and onto the road. The thick fog had grown colder and denser during the afternoon, with none of the weak patchy sunlight that had broken through earlier. The trees on either side of the road seemed to loom towards the car, reaching out with stark branches. Tessa complained of being cold and wrapped herself in a blanket while waiting for the heater to kick in. Richie leaned carefully against the back seat, his eyes closed and arms wrapped over his chest.

Duncan checked both of them a few minutes later, wondering at their state of mind. Neither of had ever fought in a war before - thank God - and it could be very unnerving, to suddenly have to kill or be killed. He'd been accustomed to violence and war since his early years, inured by centuries of battle. But neither of them, until today, had needed to cripple or kill an enemy with destructive tools like boiling oil or steel jawed traps.

He had protected them, as best he could, and gave a silent prayer of thanks that they were both safe and sound.

They had barely gone five miles before the Citroen's engine sputtered out. "What is it?" Tessa asked, poking her nose above her gray blanket.

Duncan tapped the plastic over the gas light. "We're out of fuel," he said, perplexed. "That's impossible. It was full when we arrived."

He coasted to the side of the road and then circled around the car to investigate. A trail of fluid marked the highway before disappearing into the fog. Careful not to cut himself open with the katana in his coat, Duncan wriggled beneath the car and found the severed fuel line and other damage.

"Must have been a stray bullet," he reported when he pulled himself out. Tessa stood over him, shivering. Richie had also exited the car, and was walking a few feet up the road as if something interested him in the woods. Duncan eyed the grime on his hands with some distaste. "We're lucky the whole thing didn't blow up back at the chateau."

"So what do we do now? Walk?"

"Well, it's only about five miles back to the house, four to the village. Any neighbors around?"

Tessa's forehead wrinkled as she tried to remember the neighborhood. "No. The Gambrault and Pascal estates are on the other side of Alan's."

"Then I guess we're walking," Duncan said. Any answer Tessa might have made was forestalled by a harsh, hacking sound from up the road. Duncan turned and saw Richie throwing up, his hands propped on his knees and head bowed.

"It's the killing," he told Tessa. "Let me talk to him. Get the Thermos, will you?"

Richie had finished by the time Duncan arrived. "Are you okay?" the Highlander asked casually, keeping his focus on the trees to spare Richie more embarrassment.

"Mmm," Richie said raggedly. "That didn't taste so good."

"I suppose not," Duncan agreed. He hesitated over his next words. "Richie, I know it's your first killing, and it's no easy thing. But you did it in self-defense. You had every right."

"I know." Richie tried to straighten, and his legs turned to water. Surprised, Duncan caught him before he sagged fully to the ground. They went down together, Richie half-propped against Duncan's chest with one hand held to the back of his head.

"Man, that hurts," Richie groaned. "When did the world . . . turn into a carousel?"

"It didn't," Duncan said. His hand followed Richie's fingers and found a solid lump under the blond curls. "When did this happen?"

Richie's eyes screwed shut with a grimace. "Near the end. Ouch. Don't touch it."

"I need to see if you're bleeding."

"I'm not."

No, he wasn't, but the unnatural pallor to Richie's face and the clamminess of his skin alerted Duncan that the blow to the head was serious. He could feel Richie shivering beneath his jacket and jeans. "Why didn't you tell me earlier?" Duncan demanded. "You should have seen the doctor."

Tessa arrived with her blanket and Thermos. Duncan wrapped the rough material around Richie's shoulders but shook his head at the offered cup of water. Tessa examined the bump and said, "Richie, you might have a concussion. Why didn't you say anything?"

"It wasn't that bad earlier," Richie protested.

"Come on, let's get you back to the car," Duncan said.

Duncan and Tessa supported him back to the front seat of the car and he curled up loosely against the smooth upholstery, still shivering. Richie's pulse was strong and steady, and when Duncan finally got him to open his eyes the pupils seemed equal sized and responsive. But the dizziness, vomiting and headache convinced Duncan the teenager shouldn't be taking any long hikes in the woods.

"How many fingers am I holding up?" Duncan asked as Tessa tucked the blanket tightly around him and added another from the trunk.

Richie gave him a dour look. "No math tricks, okay? My head's about to explode out my ears. Oh, crap. Who's got the aspirin?"

"No aspirin, and no water for now," Duncan said. Nothing that would interfere with Richie's symptoms, and nothing he might aspirate. "Just relax, and I'll be back soon with some help. Take an eye on Tessa for me, will you?"

"Whatever," Richie mumbled.

Before he left, Duncan helped Tessa light a series of flares around the Citroen, to flag down help or warn any driver barreling down the road in the thick fog. Utterly exhausted from the events of the day, Tessa wrapped her arms around Duncan and gave a heavy sigh. He stroked her back in understanding. "Next time I want to come to the countryside," she groaned into his shirt, "just say no."

Duncan forced a smile. "Deal."

He left her with a kiss and a promise to be back as soon as possible. When Tessa returned to the car Richie opened his eyes and squinted at her blearily. "Where's Mac going?"

"To get help, remember?" She didn't like the sound of vagueness in his voice, or the waxiness in his complexion. She and Duncan had decided that keeping Richie awake and alert was the best courses of action, and Tessa took one of his hands. "Richie, I want you to tell me a story."

"A story?"

"Yes, a fairy tale. Your favorite one when you were a boy."

"Never had a favorite fairy tale. Had favorite movies."

"Like what?"

Richie started rambling about a spaceship with a crew being eaten by a monster, and the grisly special effect of a baby alien popping out of someone's chest. Tessa only half-listened, keeping an eye on the darkening day and swirling fog. She thought of Duncan, all alone on the road out there, and wondered if he felt as tired and defeated as she did. He'd saved all their lives. Mark might be dead, but that was through his own fault and misdeeds. At least Alan would live. Hopefully he would get over Mark's death, and build his shattered life back up again.

"But then she goes back for the cat," Richie yawned several minutes later. "And it nearly gets her . . . "

His words drifted off. Tessa pinched his cheeks. "Richie, stay awake."

"I am awake," he said crankily. "That's the problem. Let me sleep. . . just a little nap."

"No," Tessa said. She heard a whooshing sound on the road, and a shape barreled past in the dusk. All she could see of it were twin brake lights that lit up as the automobile screeched to a stop. "Stay here. I'm going to see if that driver can help us."

Richie cracked open his eyes. "Tessa, it might not be safe - " he said, but she was already out the door. He sat up, fighting the wave of dizziness that crashed into his head, and tried to focus on her shape heading towards the other car. The fog swirled in, taking away any sign of her, and Richie remembered with a lurch that Duncan had told him to take care of Tessa. He fumbled with the door latch and pulled himself out of the Citroen.

"Tessa?" he asked. No reply came. Richie made sure his legs would hold him before venturing forward of the car, into the swirling fog. "Hey, where'd you go?"

He saw no sign of the car's tail lights, and couldn't hear its engines. Surely if Tessa were in trouble she'd call out to him. The hair on Richie's neck rose at the eerie quiet, and he put more strength into his voice. "Tessa, this isn't funny! Where are you?"

Pain burst along the back side of his skull, warning him that shouting wouldn't do him any good. Richie turned back to the Citroen but found that it too had shifted in the fog. He took a few cautious steps towards where it should be, groping for the hood, but all he came up with chill air. He walked for a count of ten but found nothing. Turned, retraced his steps.

"Lost in a fogbank," Richie mumbled to himself. "Man, is Mac going to laugh at me . . ."

The world was nothing but chill grayness, encompassing him completely. Richie's left foot stubbed against something hard, and he crouched down to feel a half-buried boulder the size of his suitcase. He'd wandered off the road, onto a narrow dirt trail.

"Tessa!" His voice sounded shaky and fearful to his own ears. "Is anybody here?"

Silence. Then something like the pounding of a heart, strong and rhythmic and reverberating beneath the soles of his sneakers. Richie turned, trying to locate the drumming beat. It sounded like it was coming towards him - paralyzed, he watched as an impossibly large horse with a dark rider on it thundered towards him. At the last possibly moment he found the strength to throw himself aside with a startled yelp, and heard the shout of the rider as the horse pulled to a stop.

"Christ!" the rider swore at him, dismounting and striding towards Richie in full wrath. "Ye verra nearly got yourself killed, you damned oaf!"

Dazed by the fall, Richie peered up at the man from a muddy bed of scratchy bushes and unforgiving rocks. He couldn't see very clearly in the diminishing light, but the man had long dark hair, a plumed hat, brown satin breeches, a long golden overcoat, and a mustache that curled to ridiculous lengths around his mouth. He looked like a dandy out of some Saturday afternoon movie. He sounded Scottish.

"Mac?" Richie squeaked in disbelief.

The rider glared at him suspiciously. "MacLeod's my name, just who might ye be?"

"Oh, man," Richie groaned. He eased himself backwards and took a deep breath. Surely this was a hallucination. The hallucination took a step closer and surveyed him from head to toe.

"Are ye hurt?" it demanded.

Richie closed his eyes and opened them again. The hallucination didn't disappear. Duncan MacLeod, dressed like he'd just dropped out of a Three Musketeers movie - the version with Chris O'Donnell, Richie liked that one - and scowling at him as if they were total strangers.

"Hit my head," Richie said faintly. "Before."

"Weel, there's no use just layin' there, lad, sit up." Duncan grabbed him by the arm and ruthlessly hauled him upright. The world grayed out for a few minutes, and when Richie could focus again he found himself back on the ground, turned on his side with a saddlebag beneath his head . The deepening dusk made it hard to distinguish Duncan above him. Duncan's gloved fingers probed the back of his head.

"Ye've get a wee little bump there," Duncan admitted. "How did it 'appen?"

Richie shivered and tried to think of an appropriate answer. "Attackers," he finally supplied. "They came after me and my friends back in the woods."

Duncan began gathering something in the darkness. "Ye speak wit' a verra funny accent. Where's your home?"

"America."

Duncan snorted. "America! Ye are far from home, aren't ye?"

Richie didn't answer. He tried to think of a clever way to ask this Duncan where it was they were, exactly, or what year it was. He supposed he might be able to think of something clever if his head didn't ache so much, or he wasn't so cold and lost, but at the moment he felt decidedly stupid. He watched Duncan take something down from his saddle, unwrap it, and then strike it against a small mound of twigs. Within minutes a brisk fire was warming Richie's face and shedding a small circle of light.

Duncan unpacked more items from his second saddlebag, including a long cloth canteen, smoked beef and a leg of nasty-looking meat wrapped in a grimy cloth. Richie passed on the food but propped himself up on one elbow to take the canteen. The alcohol that came rushing out burned its way down his throat, making him cough and choke with reverberations that pounded through his skull.

"Careful!" Duncan scolded. "That's good French wine. 'Tis the only thing the French really know how to do, if ye ask me - make wine."

"Sorry," Richie offered faintly, wiping the back of his mouth. Back in the real world, he wasn't even allowed to drink beer at home yet. Duncan perched himself on a rock across the campfire and proceeded to devour his dinner, forming one question after another around the chewed mess of charred meat in his mouth and grease on his chin. The Duncan that Richie knew would have unpacked a full set of polished silverware and linen napkins before delving into something that nasty.

"Where'd yer friends go?" this Duncan asked.

"To get help," Richie improvised.

"Help around here? Yer a long way in the middle of nowhere, didn't ye know that?"

"Actually, I'm a little lost."

"I'd say ye are," Duncan agreed. "I dinna think your friends will be able to find you in the dark."

"They'll come." Richie absolutely believed that. Unless, of course, this really was some weird time travel thing and he was stuck in the past. He'd always been horrible at history, how could he survive back in the 1700's or whenever they were? This might be an alternate universe or something, like in Star Trek.

And like in Star Trek, he knew he shouldn't tell this Duncan about the future. He might let something slip, and change the course of the Highlander's life. Richie's headache grew worse just thinking about it, and he missed Duncan's next question.

"Huh?"

"I said, why were ye attacked? By who?"

"I don't know," Richie said. He pulled his jacket tighter, still cold along his back and legs. Duncan must have taken some pity on him, because he went to his horse and came back with a thin blanket that he tossed to Richie.

"Ye look like ye could use that."

"Thanks." Richie sat up carefully, coped with a brief minute of spinning, and then wrapped himself in the blanket. It was rough and scratchy, and smelled like a horse. He eyed the greasy bone and flesh in Duncan's right hand.

"Sure yer not hungry?" Duncan asked.

Richie was hungry, which surprised him, but he wasn't sure anything that went down would stay down. "I'm okay."

"Okay . . .?" The word made Duncan's brows knit together.

"Fine," Richie amended. Looking at the fire made his eyes hurt, but he could watch the small sparks drift up towards the trees above. Startled, he realized the fog had dissipated, leaving a scattering of bright stars in the clear night sky.

"Are ye a farmer?" Duncan asked, and took several deep swallows of the wine.

"No."

"Ye've got strange clothes, to go with that strange way of speakin'. Does everyone in America dress like you?"

"Sometimes," Richie said. He took a stab at getting some information. "Does everyone around here dress like you?"

Duncan snickered. "To be truthful, not many, in these poor parts. I'm on my way to Paris, to see an old friend."

Richie almost asked if the old friend was Darius, but wisely kept his mouth shut. The mention of Paris, however, gave him a different idea. He'd vaguely remembered hearing about the storming of the Bastille in history class, and Tessa had taken him to the site a few weeks earlier. The infamous prison no longer existed, but Duncan had remembered it well and told Richie fascinating tales about that long, bloody summer of 1789.

"I hear there's been a revolution in Paris," Richie hazarded, watching Duncan closely for a reaction. "Crowds took the Bastille . . . public guillotines were set up in plazas . . . that sort of thing."

Any trace of amusement left Duncan's face. "Weel, I canna say I've heard that, though there's rumors of unrest."

Before Richie could be disappointed, though, Duncan added, "Fact being, the last revolution I heard tale of was in your land, the Americans against the British. Ye won, I think. Don't ye remember?"

Richie groped for some appropriate historical facts. "I remember," he said. "Battle of Bunker Hill. My . . . dad fought in it. And the battle of Gettysburg."

"Aye, I've heard of Bunker Hill. Never heard of Gettysburg."

Maybe Gettysburg was the Civil War. Richie covered with, "It was kind of small."

"Humph," Duncan grunted non-commitedly. He warmed his hands by the flames. "Have ye ever fought in a battle, lad?"

"Just a little one," Richie said. The image of burned and bloody mercenaries came unbidden to mind. The topic of war twisted a knife in his gut. "Not too long ago."

"Ye did verra well, then. You survived."

Richie shrugged carefully. Maybe Duncan was right. Maybe both Duncans, separated by centuries, were right. Some small part of him remained convinced that the nuns in one of his orphanages had been right - little Richie Ryan was going to hell one day. The other part accepted that what he'd done that afternoon, in the name of self-defense, might actually be something that wouldn't haunt him the rest of his life.

The hard part done, Richie realized exactly how tired he felt. Time travel, mixed with a concussion, truly had taken a lot out of him. "At least I kept my head," he said carelessly, and saw Duncan's expression tighten.

"That's an advisable course of action for anyone," Duncan said somberly. "Especially men like us."

"Why us?" Richie yawned, settling down against the saddlebag. He couldn't see very clearly at all, and it might have just been his imagination, but something wistful and sad crossed the Highlander's features and made him hesitate over his answer.

"No special reason," he finally answered.

Richie let his eyes close. He had to sleep. Hopefully his brains wouldn't leak away or doing something he'd regret in the morning. With one hand clutching the blanket he murmured, "When my friends come . . . let 'em know I'm okay, okay?"

"Fine," Duncan answered, or maybe it was just the wind.

****

"Richie!" a voice called, dragging him from sleep. Richie tried to answer, but his throat was clogged and he was still very disoriented. A gray sky overhead, the bare branches of trees, the muddy ground beneath his body . . . .he was on the ground for some reason, distinctly cold and uncomfortable.

"Over here!" someone called back.

Hands descended out of nowhere, and a looming shape blocked Richie's vision. He blinked up into a worried face and a halo of golden hair. "Hey, Tessa," he croaked out, trying to sit up. "Where have you been? Mac was here."

Tessa tried to pin him to the ground. "Stay still," she advised. "Help is on the way."

"No, I'm okay," Richie protested. He sat up, expecting dizziness, but only the faintest twinge of pain ran along the back of his head. He felt the lump gingerly. "It's a lot better. What happened?"

"You got lost in the woods all night, tough guy," a gruff voice answered.

Richie focused on Duncan's worried, tired face as the Highlander crouched beside him. "Mac, you shaved!"

"He's still disoriented," Tessa reported. French paramedics behind Duncan sat down a medical kit, and Tessa and Duncan moved slightly aside as one started fastening a blood pressure cuff around Richie's arm.

"No, I'm fine," Richie said, trying to dislodge the cuff. The paramedic spoke sharply to him. Tessa answered in French, but Richie didn't even try to understand what she was saying. He focused on the Immortal. "Mac, you were here - but it was an old you. I mean, a young you. Younger than now."

"I'm sure you thought there was," Duncan soothed.

"No, really!" Richie said. The second paramedic shone a pen light into his eyes, and Richie swatted it away. "Mac, you were here, you built this fire."

Duncan examined the scattered ashes. "Richie, this fire could be weeks old. Some kids probably had a party."

"There was a horse! And you had wine, some really nasty Kentucky Fried Chicken, horrible table manners - "

Tessa said something else to the paramedics.

"Just relax," Duncan soothed, as if he were a little kid. "We can sort it all out later."

"You were on your way to Paris, and the year was sometime between the American Revolution and French Revolution. You had a gold coat and big boots - " Impatiently Richie broke off and said to Tessa, "Will you tell these guys to cool it? I feel fine!"

Tessa took one of his hands and squeezed it. "Richie, you wandered away from the car last night and somehow got lost in the woods. We've had people searching for you all night long. The least you can do is let the doctor check you out."

Richie sighed. He knew when he'd already lost. At least they might have food at the hospital to feed his ravenous appetite. But he kept to his story even as the paramedics walked him back to the road. "I'm telling you, it wasn't a hallucination, it was real . . . "

Duncan stayed behind for a moment, shaking his head at Richie's wild tales. The kid either had a whopper of a concussion, a very vivid imagination, amazing dreams, or all three. Thinking back, it seemed entirely likely that Duncan might have passed through the area on his way to Paris in the late seventeen hundreds - he'd done extensive traveling back and forth across the continent, occasionally going to Paris to meet up with Connor or Segur. But Richie's tale was impossible.

Or was it? Duncan thought back, his mind vaguely tickled by the faint wispy memory of once encountering a strange lad lost in the woods.

Nonsense, he told himself. Four hundred years of memories often jumbled together. Besides, he didn't believe in time travel. Duncan shook the notion out of his mind and started after Richie, Tessa and the paramedics.

And stopped once, to wipe fresh horse manure from the bottom of his shoes.