The night passed uneventfully. Peter woke to find that neither his mother nor his father had moved since the night before. His eyes flicked back and forth between Annie, who was asleep in the chair next to his bed, and Caine, who was sitting on the floor next to his bed in a meditative state.
Caine stirred first as he felt his son's eyes upon him.
"Good morning, my son. How are you feeling?" Caine asked quietly, briefly checking Peter over with his Shaolin senses.
"I'm fine, Pop. In fact, I think I slept better last night than I have in a long while. Now if I can just get out of here and back to my own place..."
"Oh no you don't," Annie interrupted. She'd woken up just in time to hear the last part of the conversation between father and son. "You are coming home with me. No arguments, remember?"
Peter rolled his eyes.
"And don't you roll your eyes at me, either."
Peter stifled a laugh. He had absolutely no idea how she did it. He looked up at his father and got only a raised eyebrow in return. His doctor chose that moment to enter the room with one of the floor nurses.
"Good morning, Peter. How are you feeling this morning?"
"Fine, doc. Uh, when can I get out of here?"
The doctor smiled, "What? You're tired of our hospitality already? And we were
The nurse snickered at this bit of sarcasm and proceeded to take her patient's vital signs. Caine and Annie laughed as Peter adopted a look of playful outrage.
"Seriously, though, I will discharge you this morning. But I fully expect you to adhere to the terms we discussed yesterday. Got it?"
"Yeah, yeah. Lots of rest, no going to work...I got it. Now how about those release forms, doc?"
The doctor chortled and walked toward the door...and literally ran into Kermit, who was on his way in.
"You being difficult this morning, Kid?" He grinned at his young friend, who gave him an innocent 'Who, me?' look in return.
"Annie, Caine," Kermit greeted.
The nurse finished taking Peter's vital signs and quickly followed the doctor out of the room. She followed him down to the nurses' station, wanting to do anything possible to rush this particular discharge.
*******
Laura woke up feeling very strange. Looking around, she found herself in a small hospital room. She reached up to touch her face and was surprised when her hand came away wet.
'Tears?' she thought. 'I never cry. What on earth happened last night?'
Thinking back to the past, it hit her that she had not actually cried since the day of her "funeral".
"My funeral...Kwai Chang...Peter...that's it!" Memories of the past few days came crashing down on her.
Recalling the pain she had seen in her son's eyes the previous night fueled her anger. It was all Braeden's fault; Braeden's and Kwai Chang Caine's. She could no longer do anything to the former, having blown him to hell years ago, but the latter was still unpunished. But as angry as she was at him and as badly as she wanted to see him dead, it was nothing compared to the fury that consumed her when she thought of
her newest enemy - Annie Blaisdell.
'Mere death is too good for her,' Laura reasoned. 'She stole my son from me, made him forget all about me, and took my God-given title as her own. Before the bitch dies, she will suffer as I have suffered."
Her goal clear, Laura set her mind to planning sweet revenge.
*******
"I don't need a wheelchair," Peter stubbornly insisted. His pleas had been falling on deaf ears for the past five minutes but he was still not ready to give up. "I'm perfectly capable of walking out of here under my own steam."
Annie had gone with Kermit to get the car and had left Caine to deal with their headstrong son.
"Detective, it is procedure," the nurse argued once more, "you just need to let me wheel you out the curb and then you are free to do whatever you want."
"But I am fine, I don't need anyone wheeling me anywhere."
Caine had already tried and failed to entice his son into the wheeled contraption. He knew a lost cause when he saw it and had disappeared from the room, minutes into the 'disagreement', to retrieve backup. He
returned, Annie in tow, to hear the same irrational reasoning played over again.
"Peter, get in the wheelchair and stop harassing the poor nurse."
Peter stopped in mid-argument as his mother's voice penetrated. He turned toward her and caught 'The Look' on her face. Sighing in defeat, he dropped into the waiting chair without another word. The nurse froze in stunned disbelief.
"Oh my. Mrs. Blaisdell, you have got to teach me how to do that. Please!" she begged.
Annie smiled, "It's a mother thing."
The nurse looked down at her glowering patient and started pushing the wheelchair toward the exit.
"Oh, and Peter, sweetie, stop pouting."
END Part 4
