Duncan's foot slipped slightly on a bit of stray paper, but he recovered quickly and adjusted the angle of his cut.  His opponent parried, feinted high, and while Duncan's weight was still slightly off center lashed out suddenly with his foot, sending him to one knee.

Duncan felt the blade slice across his back in a searing line, severing the vertebrae.  All sensation in his legs and thighs cut off like a light switch, and he dropped heavily to the ground.  Somehow he managed to hold onto his sword, but a moment later a foot came down on his wrist with enough weight behind it to threaten the bones.

"He's mine to deal with.  Your word, Highlander."

Duncan was silent, clinging to moral certainty as shock blurred his thoughts.  Then a sharp edge tickled the back of his neck.

"Your word, or I will take your head."

Duncan heard steel behind the words, and drew just enough breath to make himself audible through clenched teeth.  "I swear."

The pressure on his wrist lifted, and his opponent sighed.  Duncan loosed his sword with a dull clatter and gently flexed his wrist.  Warm blood puddled under his chest.  The silence stretched as if the other immortal meant to say something more, but then abruptly he turned and walked away, sharp foot falls receding into the quiet afternoon.

Richie kicked the door open with a burst of adrenaline, but Tessa slipped in before him, then stopped.  Richie looked over her shoulder.  The warehouse was dim and silent, lit only by sun light filtering through high, dirty windows.  He had expected to hear swords clashing, or even the violent flashes of a quickening.  Instead -

Tessa saw MacLeod first, lying on the ground surrounded by a dark pool.  "Duncan!"

Richie followed as she rushed toward him, relieved to note that MacLeod's head appeared firmly attached to his shoulders.  His eyes were open, but he didn't respond when Tessa shook him.

"Is he, uh - " Not dead, exactly, since apparently Mac couldn't die without losing his head.  But the gash across his back looked pretty nasty, and he'd certainly lost a lot of blood.  Richie didn't know much about sword fights, but he'd seen one or two people killed with knives.  It didn't look good.

Tessa knelt beside Duncan, a hand on his back.  "No.  He's breathing.  He must be in shock."

"So what to we do now?"

"Let's get him home."  Tessa rolled Duncan onto his back and tried to help him up.  He was limp as a soggy pretzel.  Richie wondered if it might be better to just let him lie until he healed, but the tone in Tessa's voice didn't exactly invite his opinion.  He picked up Mac's sword and looked around for his coat.

Finally Duncan stirred in Tessa's arms, murmuring something incomprehensible.  Richie wondered if he reverted under stress to ancient Scottish or something.

Richie put Duncan's arm over his shoulders and with Tessa's help staggered up under his weight.  Duncan gasped a little at the movement, and Richie could feel him shaking.

Duncan's legs dragged uselessly behind him as they lurched toward the car.  Richie thought about the gash across his back and realized what must have happened.

Somehow they managed to prop him up in the passenger seat.  Tessa didn't seem to mind that they were smearing blood all over the upholstry.  Duncan's jeans were wet where his bladder had released, but Richie guessed that he still hadn't noticed, and he sure as hell wasn't going to mention it.  He got in the driver's seat and started the car.

Tessa pulled a blanket from the back seat and covered Duncan against the wind whistling past them as they drove off.  Half way to the store Duncan's legs twitched beneath it, and minute later he straightened slowly.  Tessa wordlessly put his sword in his lap and took his hand in hers, but did not look up at his face.  Duncan closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the seat.

When they got to the store, Duncan stepped out of the car as if he'd never been injured, unlocked the back door, and went upstairs without a word.  Tessa started after him, but Richie tried to detain her, knowing that if she followed Duncan to the privacy of their bedroom he'd never hear anything.

"What do you think happened?" he asked in his best low, urgent voice.

Tessa stopped, looked at him and then back up the stairs, and turned reluctantly toward the kitchen.

"I can't imagine.  If Duncan lost he should be dead, but I didn't see Diego's body either."  Richie saw her shudder a little as she said it.  Absently she poured water in the tea kettle and set it on the stove, but failed to turn it on.  Richie reached over on did so as casually as he could.  From upstairs the came the sound of the shower running.

He tried a reassuring smile.  "He'll be OK."

Her half smile acknowledged his attempt, but it didn't reach her eyes.  "And what about that boy?"

Richie couldn't think of a good answer to that, and kept his silence until the water began to boil.  Just when he was certain Tessa wasn't going to hear it, she got up and pulled it off the stove.  He grabbed three mugs from the cupboard.  "Hot chocolate?" he asked uncertainly, wondering if she hadn't meant to put on a pot of coffee instead.

"No.  Do you see that jar in the back of the cupboard, pink and blue and red with a gold pattern?"

Richie dug around until he found a jar that matched her description, and handed it to her.  "What is it?"

"It's a Japanese tea.  I've noticed that he drinks it when he's troubled or upset," she added self-consciously, as if not sure if Duncan himself had noticed the connection.

She unscrewed the deep lid, measured some brown powder into it, and poured it into an odd blue pot Richie had not seen before.  She started to pour the water in but stopped.  "It's still too hot."

Richie sniffed at the contents of the jar doubtfully before screwing on the lid and putting it back.  All teas tasted like dead weeds, and this didn't smell much better.  He spotted a pouch of instant hot chocolate in the cupboard, but didn't pick it up.  He didn't want to give Tessa any reason to be annoyed with him just at the moment.  Of course, he wasn't sure she noticed that he was there at all.

After a minute or two she apparently decided that the water had reached an acceptible temperature, for she poured it in and put a lid on the pot, then put the pot on the table.

Finally Duncan came down the stairs in fresh clothes with wet hair hanging loosely over his shoulders.  Tessa poured tea into the mugs as he joined them at the table.  No sugar, no milk, no honey, it seemed.  Richie blew on his to cool it some more, working up the nerve to taste it.  Duncan started sipping when Richie judged it should have scalded his lips - perhaps he didn't mind, since they would heal within seconds.

"Are you going to tell us what happened?" Tessa prodded gently when he'd consumed half of the dark liquid in silence.

Duncan finally looked up at her.  "Diego wasn't there.  It was Rhodri ap Trefriw."

"Who is Rhodri?"

Duncan stared into his mug as he swirled the tea around and around. "Rhodri is Diego's teacher.  Diego left him a few months ago, but now he's managed to track him down."

"Did you know him?"

"Briefly.  He's been a shepherd on the hillsides of Wales for most of my lifetime.  I didn't know he'd left the old country."

"And you fought?"

Duncan nodded.

"But it wasn't his fault that Diego killed Esteban.  Would you have taken his head if you'd won?" Tessa's voice rose with indignation, and Richie stared at the table, trying to disappear while keeping his ears wide open.  He hadn't realized how angry Tessa was beneath her concern.

Duncan seemed to keep his voice level with effort. "No.  But then I'd have been free to challenge Diego."

"Challenge?  What kind of challenge would it be for you to fight that boy?  He's only twenty years old."

Duncan looked up finally, anger in his own voice now.  "Old enough to take a head.  The head of another boy who'd barely figured out what he was."  Richie's stomach lurched suddenly at the memory of Esteban's head lying two feet from his body in a tornado's path of toppled antiques and shattered display cases.

"They were ememies before, from rival gangs who teach each other to hate.  He's following the only code he knows." She leaned forward.  "How many enemies of your clan did you kill in your youth?  How many heads have you taken in anger, or for revenge?  How long did it take you to learn to walk away?"

In the silence Duncan shifted as if struggling against a knife shoved deftly between his ribs.  "You and Rhodri think alike," he said finally, his voice rough.  "I felt differently.  In the end we let our blades decide."

"And being quicker with a sword makes you right and him wrong?"

Duncan's jaw clenched.  "Tessa -" He let out a quick breath and then looked her in the eye.  "Tessa, I lost."  His voice was almost calm, but somehow it still sent a shiver through Richie's chest.  He'd always thought that Duncan could never lose.  The day he did, he'd die.

"But Rhodri didn't take your head."

"It wasn't about that.  But he would have, if I hadn't given my word to leave Diego alone."

"Then you're not going after him."

"No.  He took Esteban's quickening - what he was is part of Diego now.  He'll have to live with that for the rest of his life.  And whatever he does now is on Rhodri's head."  Abruptly the Highlander drained his mug and stood.  Richie felt a tiny stab of jealousy that Duncan could move so easily when he himself was just starting to feel the muscles he had pulled trying to carry him. "I'm going out for a while."

Tessa nodded.  With Duncan's going tension drained slowly from the room.  Richie thought of Esteban, who's death now meant nothing.  Just like all the other friends whose lives had been snuffed out in stupid, pointless hatred.  He'd really thought it might be different this time.  To his chagrin, his eyes pricked suddenly with tears.  He tried to blink them away.

"Esteban," he said softly, scarcely aware he had spoken until he heard it in his own ears.

Tessa laid a hand on his arm.  "Killing Diego wouldn't have brought him back."

Richie couldn't look at her, but he was keenly aware of her touch.  "I know.  Oldest platitude in the book."

"Maybe that's because it's true.  Everyone has to have the chance to learn from their mistakes."

"What if he doesn't?  What if he just goes around killing more people, taking more heads from immortals who aren't strong enough to fight him?"

"Then someone like Duncan will come along and beat him.  But now he has a teacher - and I have a feeling that Rhodri is a good man.  Maybe Diego has a chance to find a different way of living."

Richie swallowed, and tried to smile.  He wondered if Tessa realized she was part of giving him the same chance.  "Then maybe there's something to this immortal justice after all."

Tessa shook her head and pulled her hand back to run it through her hair.  "Richie, don't ever fall in love.  I ache for him even when I'm so angry I could scream."

Richie nodded, remembering the chill he'd felt when Duncan said he'd lost.  "It must have been pretty tough for him to give his word not to do what he thinks is right."

"He can be so damned stubborn," Tessa said fiercely.  "But that's part of why I love him.  I don't want to see his passion for justice damaged."

Richie sat back, trying to lighten his mood and hers. "You know what?  I bet he hasn't lived four hundred years without ever being wrong before.  He'll get over it."

"But I don't want him to just get over it.  It want him to learn -" she stopped abruptly.

"You want him to be perfect," he said, grinning widely to take the sting from his words.  "A knight in shining armor, his sword never stained with the blood of anyone who's not impossibly wicked and completely deserving of a swift and merciful death."

Tessa's lips drew together in a rueful smile in spite of herself, and Richie felt a tiny surge of satisfaction.

"I sound like his teacher.  Or worse, his mother."  She stood up decisively and began gathering the mugs.  "I'm going to work in the studio."

She didn't seem to mind that Richie had drunk only a quarter of his tea, which he sincerely hoped to avoid in the future.  She left the rest in the pot, the mugs in the sink.  It didn't take long before he heard the blow torch being lit.

Sitting alone in the kitchen, Richie wondered what it was he used to do in his spare time when he didn't want to think.  Before he'd cut a hole in the very window he could see through the kitchen door and his life had taken such an unexpected left turn.  He wondered if any of Esteban's other old friends would be hanging out around the rusted basketball hoop in the alley behind the laundrymat, where they used to play if anyone had stolen a ball lately.  No doubt MacLeod had a baskeball somewhere.  Or if not, Richie might actually have enough money to buy one.  Within ten seconds he was out the front door.