Paul Blaisdell directed traffic.

Forensics people were stumbling over lumber and tarps.  Uniformed officers were picking their way through debris, looking for anything they might have missed so far in the candle-lit room.  Merrily burning tapers did wonders for ambiance, but they weren't much help in conducting a search with any semblance of thoroughness.

The Coroner's wagon had already hauled Tollis' body away after the M. E. pronounced him dead at the scene, cause of death a single bullet wound between the shoulder blades.  So far no one had either thought to, or dared to, ask how one player had been shot when the only one present was the Shaolin priest.  Paramedics still crouched over the unidentified male who persisted in remaining unconscious.

The medical team was ominously mouthing theories about skull fractures and brain injury.  Paul found it difficult to summon up any sympathy for the man.

Clarence had been cuffed and removed by the pair of uniforms who had arrived minutes before the captain.  The usually arrogant young man had been uncharacteristically quiet as he was led, staggering and slightly disoriented, from the half-renovated studio.  The sergeant in charge of the uniforms still huddled in the shadow-heavy corner of the room, bent diligently over his pad and pen, recording each softly spoken word he could entice out of Kwai Chang Caine.

Tom Lyle, blood dried in his hair, a hastily applied bandage over his temple, was led past Blaisdell.  He tugged against the handcuffs, and the cop with him hesitated.

"It ain't over, Captain," Lyle said in an undertone.  "It's far from over."

Blaisdell speared him with a heavy-browed glare.  "If you want to say something, Lyle, just say it.  I've got no time to waste on dirty cops."

"How about junkie cops?" Lyle sneered back.

"What are you talking about?" the uniform demanded, one hand still on Lyle's elbow.  As if the man would attempt an escape in a roomful of policemen and department techs.

The prisoner smirked at the captain, ignoring the question.

"Get him out of here."  Blaisdell snapped the order with an impatient bark.

The cop looked at him, confused.  Then Lyle said, "He knows what I'm talkin' about, don't you, Captain?"

"I said, get him out of here," Blaisdell repeated.

Another ten minutes passed before the paramedics moved the as-yet unidentified man out, still unconscious.  Another fifteen before the sergeant finished attempting to question Caine.  Blaisdell waited until he saw the flip of the steno pad that signaled the end of the interview.  Then he crossed the littered floor to question the pair.

"You got everything you need, O'Toole?" he asked.  His tone betrayed none of his impatience and concern.

"Sure, Captain.  You already said you'd vouch for Mr. Caine here, and that's good enough for me.  This is just routine stuff, you know?"  The question/ statement had an apologetic ring to it.

"Fine," Blaisdell said.  "I'll be back at the station in a little while.  I want to check out a few things first.  Have your notes typed up for me when I get back, and we'll get this thing filed and in the works."

"You got it, Captain."

Blaisdell watched the man pick his way carefully through the darkened room, stepping gingerly over discarded tools and rotted pieces of lumber.  When the door closed behind O'Toole, Blaisdell turned to face the silent priest. He studied the impassive face, indulging in the moment's diversion of searching for some sign of his foster son in this enigmatic and mysterious man.

He found nothing to underline the claim of parenthood Kwai Chang Caine had levied on the young cop.  Where Peter wore his every emotion and mood in his face, Caine was a blank slate of serene quiet, unmarked and unreadable. Paul shook off the digression.

He glanced away, focused for a fraction of a second on a shard of splintered wood, then looked back into the priest's face.

"Where is he?"

Caine didn't pretend ignorance.  He simply answered, "He is with the Ancient."

"Why?"

"He is...ill."

"Ill?"  Paul turned the word over on his tongue as if it were foreign to him, and he wanted to taste it as it came out of his mouth.

"These men wanted to kill him because he was protecting me."

"All right," Paul said.  "I can understand that.  They're the ones who planted the bomb here."

"Apparently."

"Apparently?  What do you mean, apparently?"

"I did not see them put the bomb here.  I cannot swear they were the ones."

"You've read too much Heinlein," Paul said sourly, then shook his head at the questioning look he received for the jibe.  "What do you mean, he's ill?"

"They asked for his help, then injected him with an overdose of narcotics. He was left to die."

Pieces fell into place.  The veiled references in the squad room, the half-formed accusations.  A carefully worked scenario that the priest had somehow complicated.  Even as he accepted the information, Paul felt a tiny thrill of vindication.  He'd known

Peter was clean.  He'd never doubted it.

Had he?  A nagging whine of conscience prodded him.  No, he decided, I didn't doubt Peter.  I have never doubted him.

Then the implications of what Caine had just told him sank in beneath the relief.  "Overdose?" he demanded.  "Overdose of what?"

"Peter called it a 'speedball'."  The words came illustrated with an almost imperceptible shrug of one shoulder.

Paul brushed a hand against his mouth, then rubbed at his face as if that would clear his thoughts.  He echoed the earlier statement, "He's at the Ancient's.  Why the hell didn't you take him to a hospital?"

A repeat of the shrug indicated that the question could be considered an unreasonable one.  "There was no time.  He would have died."

"You had time to bring him here!"  Paul nearly shouted the words, an accusation honed to a razor edge by sudden fear as the reality of losing Peter penetrated through his search for information.  "If he was overdosed... Hell!  Even if he was simply drugged, he needs medical attention."

"I was treating him when they arrived," Caine answered, his quiet voice a direct contrast to the sharpness of Paul's tone.  "The Apothecary is caring for him now."

Paul forced an artificial calm on himself with an effort of will.  "I want to see him."

"Of course," Caine said simply, without hesitation.  "I will take you there."

*****

At least the Ancient believed in lamps, Paul observed as he followed Caine into the cramped apartment.  Though the room wasn't bright by any measure, a couple of small desk lamps helped to penetrate the gloom.  He caught a glimpse of the tiny, Oriental girl curled up asleep on the couch, a crocheted afghan spread over her small form.  One hand twisted into her hair.  Exactly the way Kelly slept at that age, he thought irrelevantly.

The wizened, frail form of the Apothecary preceded them through the jumble of furniture, leading them toward a bedroom down a short hallway.  Not a word had been spoken between either priest.  Paul found himself unwilling to break the heavy silence that pervaded the dusky apartment.  All he wanted was to see Peter and find out what the hell was going on.  The proverbial shit was sure to hit the fan if Lyle followed through on his implied threat. Peter couldn't be so naive as to think that he could keep this from coming out, could he?  By not going to the hospital, he had only compromised himself further.  What other reason to avoid emergency medical help for an overdose than guilt?  At least, that was the way Internal Affairs was going to look at it if charges were brought.

And Lyle was the kind to try just that.

Peter had best be pretty damned 'ill' if he didn't expect to get the ass-chewing of his life about this one.  Chinese herbal sleight of hand might have saved his life, but there was every possibility that nothing was going to save his career.

The first thing they had to do....

The proposed, mental plan of action vanished with a single glance into the room.  Paul froze in the doorway as the tiny herbalist moved aside to let him pass, and he got his first sight of Peter.  The young detective was doubled over in the twisted, sweat-dampened sheets, his back to the door. Even through the murky semi-darkness, Paul could see the trembling of his coiled body.

"He is better," the Ancient offered, one hand touching Blaisdell's sleeve for emphasis.

Paul glanced down at the thin fingers, and the unwanted image of a bird's claw clutching at him flitted through his mind.  Then the words sank in.

"Better?" he protested.  If this was 'better'....

Peter's body twitched at the sound of his voice.  Paul wasn't sure if it was reaction or simply a spasm, but he stepped toward the bed without waiting for a reply.

There were questions that had to be answered.  Things that couldn't be put off, not even for a few minutes.  It was up to Paul to see that this situation was turned around into something salvageable.

He didn't have time to sit at a bedside and indulge in the luxury of reassuring himself that his foster son was still alive, and likely to remain that way.  The urgency of the circumstances demanded that he begin doing something right away.

His emotional reaction to seeing Peter shivering in the agonizing withdrawals of a forced overdose wiped any such resolution from his mind. He dropped to the edge of the mattress, sinking to a seat at Peter's hip, absorbing the trembling of his fevered body through the rough material of his clothes and the thin sheet that covered his foster son.

Motion of the bed stirred Peter from his stupor, and he twisted out of his curl, rolling onto his back.  Unfocused brown eyes searched through the blur that was Paul's face, found the image, and registered it on a sluggish mind.

Paul ran an automatic mental check-list of Peter's condition without giving it a second's thought.  He recorded the fever-brightness of his glazed eyes, the sweat beading Peter's upper lip and forehead, the flush of red across his cheekbones.  He didn't have to be told the site of the forced injection. A huge, garishly purple bruise stained his heaving stomach just below the ribs, revealed by the shift of the sheet with Peter's move to face him. Before Blaisdell could force any of the inane reassurances he had been silently rehearsing in the last few seconds, Peter reached for him.

Paul met the gesture and drew the young man up to his chest, his arms wrapping naturally around his sweat-slicked body.  Relief weakened him, and everything he had intended to say died and slipped unspoken from his mind. He simply let his foster son cling to him with a natural intimacy that neither had shared in far too long.

*****

Caine stood at the curtained doorway, faintly surprised at the tug-of-war his spirit engaged in as he watched Paul rock his foster son in the cushion of his own body.  He could see the glimmer of tears seeping out of Peter's tightly shut eyes, the clench of his fisted hands in the material of Paul's shirt.  It had taken the arrival of the man who had been Peter's father for the past twelve years to loose the tide of tears that had been suppressed through most of his ordeal.  In spite of his innate generosity, Caine suffered pulsing twinges of jealousy at the usurping of his place at his son's side.

There was an ease between Peter and his foster father that still hadn't returned with Caine.  It will take time, he gently reminded himself.  For the present, he would have to be satisfied with gratitude for Paul's stabilizing influence in their son's life.

He brushed aside the beaded curtain, deliberately announcing his presence by the faint popping of wooden beads colliding with each other at his passage.  Paul straightened and glanced up at him, the glint from his own eyes catching the reflected candlelight.  Then he carefully eased Peter back to the cot.  The rush of tears and the exertion of being moved to the Ancient's apartment had drained the last of Peter's energy.  He was nearly asleep before his foster father had lowered him to the pillow.

Paul tugged the blankets up, brushed damp hair away from Peter's forehead, then got awkwardly to his feet.  His knees creaked in protest, and he bobbed once on his heels to push away the stiffness.  He'd had no idea he'd been sitting there in the hunched position long enough to freeze up his joints. But a glance out the window told him the sun was finally making its entrance, shooting out fingers of orange through the jumble of buildings and awakening streets.

Caine moved silently past him.  He set an intricately designed cup on the nightstand beside the bed.  Paul caught the hint of exotic aroma wafting up from the dark liquid.

"When he wakes, we will have to make him drink it," the priest said, with a conspiratorial sidelong glance.  "Peter never chooses to eat or drink anything that might be good for him."

Paul grunted his agreement with the statement.  There was no arguing that, as Annie had pointed out more than once in affectionate irritation.

Annie.  He still hadn't called home.  He followed Caine out into the small, cluttered living room, thinking that he'd seen a phone somewhere in there.

Thoughts of a phone call to his wife were whisked away when the priest stopped and turned to face him.  "I have not had the opportunity to tell you how much I appreciate your caring for our son," Caine said, with the first hint of uncertainty Paul could ever remember seeing in the motionless features.

His own reservations firmly in place, the captain raised one hand, but dropped it short of actually touching the other man.  "I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean--"

He gestured vaguely at the other room, not sure what he was apologizing for, angry with both himself and the priest because he felt he had to apologize for acting like the father he had been for years.  It took a heartbeat of unearned guilt to realize that Caine was thanking him, not censuring him.

Nor did Paul expect the reaction to go unnoticed.  It didn't.

Caine tilted his head in a way that Blaisdell was beginning to recognize as habitual, a faint, if rueful, smile twitching at his lips.  "Peter was with me for twelve years.  He has been your son for another twelve.  It is natural that he would turn to you.  Would you deny him your comfort for fear of my reaction?"

"Of course not."

"Nor should you."  Caine shrugged.  "He turned to you as a son to a father. You responded to him.  It is as it should be."

"This is going to take some getting used to," Paul said wryly.

"For all of us," Caine agreed, the smile finally spreading and lightening the planes of his face.

Paul answered the smile, but his quickly faded.  He glanced over Caine's shoulder to get a glimpse of the tiny apothecary, seated silently in a huge chair that dwarfed his gnome-like frame.

"I don't mean to minimize your...medical abilities, either of you," Blaisdell said with forced evenness.  "But he needs to be in a hospital."

Caine shrugged.  "He did not wish to go."

"Then he needs to be taken..." Paul caught the imperative tone and stifled his reactive anger.  It was bad enough to have to counter Peter's inability to grasp simple logic.  He hoped it didn't run in the family.

"He needs to be seen at the hospital.  Lyle--the cop we took into custody--was making noises about cops on drugs.  I wouldn't put it past him to try something.  If nothing else, to use Peter as leverage against me. They were already laying that trail before this went down.  I don't know how far they went with it."

"You wish it verified that this was done against his will," Caine said softly.

"We need it verified," Paul countered.  "If it looks like he's dropped out of sight, it only puts the seed of doubt there."

Caine agreed with a shrug of one shoulder.  "Then, we must take him to the hospital."

Doesn't run in the family, Paul thought gratefully.  "You said he refused to go..."

"Yes."

*****

Frank Strenlich put it off as long as he could.

There really wasn't any way he could refuse to talk to Lyle.  After all, the man had been, up until that night, one of his detectives.  Whatever had possessed Lyle and Tollis to try to take out the Shaolin priest was beyond the chief's occasionally-limited imagination.

Clarence was another thing, altogether.  The young hood had high hopes of stepping into Tan's recently vacated shoes.  The priest and his cop son stood firmly planted in the way of fulfilling those aspirations.  There wasn't much doubt who had set up the bomb in the nearly-destroyed kung fu academy building.  No doubt, but no proof either.  Until Clarence and his tainted cops had made the frontal assault on Kwai Chang Caine, it had been a moot point.

Frank hadn't ever liked either Tollis or Lyle very much.  Neither was a real loss to Metro.  He resented the hell out of their dirtying up the image of the One-Oh-One, though.  Crooked cops were like a coating of slime on the underside of a rock.  You got some of the shit on you just by being near them.

Tollis had already paid the ultimate price for his treason; Lyle wasn't going to walk away from this, either.  If nothing else, Frank Strenlich would see to that.

The request made by Lyle to talk to him had been ferried up by a uniform a full two hours earlier.  Frank had sat on it for that long, trying to get the foul taste out of his mouth.  It would require a lot more control than he felt capable of exerting just then, to talk to Lyle without resorting to some use of body language.  And it was hardly fitting for the chief of detectives to rip out one of his own men's tongues and feed it back to him.

Three cups of coffee later, he finally felt as if he could face the conversation, though something still nagged at him:  When Caine was attacked, where the hell was Peter?

*****

"'M not goin'."

The words were slurred and vague, with an edge of petulance in them.  They hardly came as a surprise.

Caine didn't bother arguing.  "You are," he said, simply.

"Even if we have to carry you," Paul added.  "You got a choice, kid.  You can go willingly, or we haul your naked ass out of here and carry you straight through the emergency room doors.  You cooperate, and we'll at least get you dressed first."

Peter squinted up owlishly at them, still trying to focus through a blur of drug-induced haze.  "You're kidding," he protested, then shook his head.

"No, no one does any of that any more."  With a grunt at the effort it required to move even a little, he pushed himself up on one elbow and considered the three solemn faces staring at him, waiting on his decision.

Only the Ancient showed any hint of expression, and that wasn't reassuring. A faint lift of the old man's lips creased the parchment-thin skin of his face.  Even though the smile was tinted with honest affection, there was little doubt who was going to win this one.

"Okay."  Peter conceded with a resigned sigh, swinging his legs over the side of the bed.  "But I can walk."  He pushed up, swayed, and barely felt his father's arms catch him, as he pitched forward into an endless well of blackness.

*****

Peter had been settled into a hospital bed and connected to the requisite tubes, catheters, and monitors.  The nursing staff directed more than one sidelong glance at the police captain and the Shaolin priest.  They had offered a somewhat vague explanation of the detective's condition.

Fortunately, the trip to the hospital had exhausted Peter beyond any effective protest.  He couldn't muddy up already well-stirred waters with a running argument while tubes and needles were inserted into various orifices of his body.  The first attempt at resistance had died only half-voiced when his system rebelled against the abuse he had already suffered, and was then being subjected to at the hands of solicitous nurses.  His eyes flickered shut and stayed that way.

Paul stood back away from the bed, feeling suddenly out of place, but reluctant to leave.  Caine was perched illegally on the side of the bed --why was it that no one ever challenged the enigmatic priest about hospital procedures and rules?--his hand clasping one of Peter's in a hold of exquisite gentleness.

Pain and stress had vanished from Peter's features in deep sleep.  He looked fifteen years old again, lying against the snow white pillow.  An ache that Paul hadn't felt in years clenched at his heart as he registered the tenuousness of his hold on his children.  How easy it would be to lose any one of the three of them.  Even the one who's not really yours, he thought with a bittersweet smile--and a twinge of envy, as he watched Caine stroke a caress across a pale cheekbone, his thumb following the angular line of Peter's face.

He turned to you as a son....

The words came back on a feather of guilt.  Caine had not tried to lessen the impact of Paul's influence on the child they shared.  Why was it so hard to be comfortable with his presence?

Paul shook off the nagging thought and forced himself to step up to the bed.  "I'd better get back to the station and see what's going on there," he said, whispering even as he realized it was hardly necessary.  It would take more than the sound of his voice to drag Peter back to consciousness.  "Do you want me to take you home?"

"I will stay with him," Caine responded.

Paul was absurdly pleased that the priest kept his own voice to an unnatural low, just as he had.  Somehow, it made it easier to leave knowing that even Kwai Chang Caine had some of the same responses he did, himself. It didn't hurt to not feel like the only fallible parent in the room.

He smiled and gave the priest an awkward pat on the shoulder.  "I'll be back as soon as I can."

*****

"Don't you think it's kinda odd that the only one there was the priest? And Tollis had a rather conspicuous hole in his back?"

Tom Lyle dropped the words into the air between them.  Then he slumped down in his chair, his manacled hands worrying at the lit cigarette clasped between nervous fingers.

Strenlich watched the curl of smoke wend its way through the murky air of the interrogation room.  He wanted nothing more than to snatch the cigarette out of Lyle's fingers and drag in long, soothing draughts of nicotine. Somehow, it didn't seem appropriate to drop himself to Lyle's level and pull out his own pack.  He sighed off the nagging thought.  Phyllis was after him to quit, anyway.

"You explain it to me, Lyle," Strenlich suggested.  Folding his hands over his belly, he entwined his fingers together at his belt.  "Maybe one of you idiots shot Tollis instead of the priest."

"That's not the way it went down, Chief," Lyle retorted.  He leaned back and raised his cuffed hands to his face, drawing in a slow, deep lungful of smoke from the cigarette.  "You want to play it that way, fine.  Ballistics will show where the slug came from."

A thought crossed his face as if written in his bland features.  "Unless, of course, it gets lost.  Guess that's been known to happen before.  Reports get misfiled when it's convenient."

"Look, I got no time for games.  Tell me what you want or get your ass back in the holding cell."

"I asked to talk to Captain Blaisdell."

"He's not here.  You got me instead."

"And you don't think it's kind of unusual that he just disappeared?"

Strenlich leaned forward, jaw clenched and hands knotted in his lap.  "What I think is unusual is that I'm bothering to sit here and play twenty questions with you." he snapped.  "What I think would be normal would be to let you sit in that cell with about thirty or forty bikers and see what the outcome was.  That's what I think.  Now, unless you got something to tell me, I've got better things to do with my time.  Capishe?"

Lyle straightened just enough to shift position, the cigarette poised halfway to his lips.  He watched the round face of the other man long enough to become nearly mesmerized by his flint-hard eyes.  The ash grew on the end of his cigarette, bobbled, then fell into his lap.

Brushing it away gave Lyle the second's distraction he needed to break eye contact.  Maybe the time for games was over, after all.  He had one ace up his sleeve, and only one.  It was time to pull it out.  If he couldn't get the attention of the captain, he'd have to settle for the chief.

His voice dropped to a confidential low, as if they were conspirators rather than adversaries.  "Caine shot Tollis and you know it."

"You want me to believe the priest shot someone?"

"Peter Caine."  The words spurted forth on a breath of air.  "Peter was there.  He killed Tollis.  Ballistics will prove the bullet came from his gun.  Unless he's willing to pin it on his old man, there's only one way that could have happened."

"If Peter was there, he'd be the one filing the report."

"Maybe he has a reason for disappearing."

Frank huffed out an impatient breath and rocked back into his seat.  "When I want to play word games, I go home and break out the 'Scrabble' board.  If you're making a point, make it."

Lyle did.  "The priest had to take some of us out because we were there to make an arrest.  He was protecting his kid.  You find Peter, you'll find that he's still strung out from his latest high.  We were there on a righteous bust, and the priest got in the middle of it.  Peter killed Tollis when we tried to take him into custody."

Sounding like a very slow parrot, Frank repeated, "You tried to take Peter Caine into custody for drugs?"

Lyle nodded, his button-black eyes never leaving Strenlich's stare.  "We tried to let the captain know Peter's been doped up for the last few weeks. He wasn't interested in hearing that his precious kid had problems.  He shut us up.  Now he's covering for Peter, hiding him out while Tollis lies in the morgue, and you try to pin this on us."

More than once, Peter Caine had driven Strenlich into a frenzy of often-impotent rage.  The kid had a way of dropping all the rules into the nearest corner when it was convenient.  He got himself into more trouble than any detective Frank had ever supervised--usually with his tendency to allow his mouth to engage prematurely.  But Peter had never lied, not to Frank, not to anyone Frank knew--not successfully.  The idea that the kid was guilty of using, or even of possession, was ludicrous.

"You want me to believe that you went to the kung fu academy to arrest Peter Caine for possession, and he opened fire on you."

Shrugging, Lyle slipped his innocence into his face with a natural ease that had served him well for years.  He could see that the chief wasn't buying any of this.  But he was also well aware that Strenlich was remembering that Tollis had a rather large bullet hole in his back, and that the report had said the priest was the only one present.

The tiniest seed of doubt...that was what Tollis had always preached.  Lay the foundation, and let the other guy build on it himself.  Worked every time.

"Ask Clarence."

Strenlich snorted.  "Now there's an impartial witness.  I could take that right into court.  You gotta do better than that."

"Then find Peter.  See what kind of shape he's in.  Unless you're part of this railroading job, too."

*****

Caine glanced up at the pneumatic wheeze of the opening door.  He nodded silently at Blaisdell, who sidled into the darkened room.  He had been gone less than an hour.  No longer than it took to go by the station house, find that Strenlich was interrogating Lyle, and leave a message informing the chief that he would be at the hospital.  He had carefully made no mention of the patient's name.

Slumping into the rock-hard chair beside the bed, Paul searched Peter's face for reassurance.  A ghostly pallor tainted his fair skin, providing a pasty contrast to dark hair and lashes.  Peter slept, but it was restless, uneasy sleep.  The silence remained unbroken except for the shallow rasp of his breathing.

In his years as a police captain, Paul Blaisdell had become accustomed to receiving varying degrees of special treatment at places like hospitals. But he was hardly ready to find out that the reticent priest seated on the other side of Peter's bed was the one accorded the V.I.P. handling there at General.  It was a bit disconcerting when, from the moment they delivered a semi-conscious Peter into her care, the doctor had virtually offered carte blanche to Caine.

The requisite i.v. drips, monitors and tubes had been attached and inserted, but past that--and a mumbled consultation between Caine and the attractive doctor over in one corner of the room--the young detective's care seemed to have been relegated to his father.  Caine continued to administer his mysterious herbs and teas, with an occasional, unobtrusive check-in by an intensive care nurse.  Peter, however, became less and less responsive as the time ticked slowly by.

The funereal silence was finally too much.  "Shouldn't he be better by now?"

Paul cleared his throat, sorry for the demand implicit in both his voice and the ill-chosen words.  If Caine noted any censure, he ignored it.

"He will be worse before he is better," he said softly, with a slight cant to his head.  His eyes never left his son's face, as if there were some tenuous hold in his gaze to anchor Peter to this side of reality.

The gently spoken words were an omen.

Peter's breath caught, a hoarse gasp of air that choked him.  His body spasmed, then his back arched, and Paul was introduced to his first full-scale convulsion.

In his thirty years as a cop, he had witnessed death, torture and many of the other forms of mayhem that people seemed intent upon inflicting on each other.  He had thought himself immune, or at least hardened.  He was neither.  Bolting to his feet, he reeled as the blood rushed from his face, and he swayed dizzily, barely catching himself on the metal bedrail.

He was only vaguely aware of Caine's reaching across Peter's writhing body to cocoon his son into the shelter of the strategically-placed pillows. Even as he was appalled at his inability to do anything, Paul dropped back down.  Riveted into his chair, he heard the low, keening moan breathed out of his foster son, wanting nothing more than to hold him through the terrible seizures that wracked his body.

"Should I get the nurse?"  The words jerked out on a hoarse croak of sound.

Caine glanced up, amazingly calm, his arms gently wrapped around the spasming body of his son.  He answered as if Peter weren't thrashing uncontrollably within his embrace.  "There is no need.  It will pass."

Again the words seemed to signal a change, and Peter slumped into motionlessness.  The sudden collapse was even more frightening than the convulsion.  His young face was white, bloodless, trapped in a stillness totally alien to Peter's features.  A line of spittle drooled from one corner of his slack lips.

Caine settled him back to the mattress, and wiped away the moisture with a callused thumb.  His other hand smoothed tangled, damp hair off Peter's forehead.  He tugged the blankets up beneath his chin.  Without a word, he checked the i.v. line and the rest of the baffling paraphernalia attached to his son's body, then sat back down on the side of the bed.

"How..."  Paul cleared his throat.  He'd give anything for a drink of water, but he was terrified of the idea of leaving the room.  "How many times has that happened?"

For a moment, the tilt of the priest's head was the only response.  Then he said, "A few times.  During the first hour at the studio, it was...more intense."

"Can't they give him anything to make it easier on him?"

Impotence wasn't something to which Blaisdell could reconcile himself.  Not when it concerned one of his children.  He was afraid to even touch Peter's hand for fear of shattering the balance that kept his foster son poised between life and death.

When the decision had been made to move to the hospital from the Ancient's apartment, Blaisdell had been lulled into some semblance of security by the fact that Peter was conscious and argumentative.  It wasn't reassuring that he had gone steadily downhill since being placed in the hospital bed.

Caine looked up at him, his hands absently stroking Peter's lax arm with tiny, circular caresses.  That was the first time Paul really registered the pain and worry in his usually serene, hazel eyes.  Kwai Chang Caine was just as concerned about their son as was his foster father.  Somehow, that only made Peter's chances seem more fragile.

"They will not introduce more drugs into his system.  He...we...will have to endure the symptoms as they run their course, until the poison leaves him."

A smile barely touched the priest's lips, a flicker of light passing across his face.  "We share our strength with Peter by being with him.  He can draw from us as he needs."

"Draw...what?"

One shoulder lifted into a shrug, and Caine looked back down into his son's face.  "Whatever he needs."

Paul laughed.  "You're losing me, my friend."

Caine echoed the laugh, a light skitter of sound that brightened his face. Somehow, it transformed him into a man much more approachable than the enigma he generally presented to the world.

"I meant that between us, we shield and strengthen our son until he is able to do so for himself."

"Now, that I can understand," Paul said.

A scuff of sound at the door turned their attention.  Frank Strenlich poked his head inside and, in the sotto voce whisper usually reserved for hospitals, asked, "Safe to come in?"

"Yeah," Blaisdell said, mentally squaring his shoulders to face what he knew was going to be a rather large slate of questions.  "Nothing contagious."

"Figured it had to be Peter," Strenlich said quietly.  He crossed the room to stand at the foot of the bed.

"He looks like hell, Paul.  What happened?"

"He was overdosed."

Strenlich inquired with an arch of one eyebrow, "'Was' or 'did'?"

Blaisdell instantly forgot that he intended to deal with this situation in a detached and professional manner.  "What's that mean, Frank?"

"I mean that Lyle is making noises at the station.  Says Peter's an addict, and they were coming to arrest him for holding when he and his father attacked them.  Then Peter shot Tollis in the back."

Strenlich's tone made his feelings clear.  But Blaisdell had to demand for his own peace of mind, "Anyone down there buying that?"

"No one has heard it except me.  And I hope you're not asking me that question."

Paul shook his head.  "No, not you, Frank.  Thanks."

"So what really happened?"  The chief of detectives dropped into a straight-back chair and folded his hands over his stomach, obviously prepared to wait out the explanation.

Paul sighed.  "Clarence made his move through Peter.  They set him up and pumped him full of drugs, then left him for dead.  They didn't know he has a Shaolin shadow."

"How bad is he?"

"By all rights, it should have been a fatal overdose.  He's got a concussion from a blow to the base of the skull.  Fortunately, Peter's a little more hard-headed than your run-of-the-mill cop.  Or maybe he's just lucky he has a rather unique father."

"He will recover," Caine inserted.  "But he will not be able to stand up to questioning for awhile."

"He won't be subjected to it," Blaisdell snapped, then immediately apologized.  "Sorry.  I'm a little on edge."

"As are we all," Caine sympathized.

"Lyle claims that ballistics will prove it was Peter's gun that killed Tollis."

"Probably," Blaisdell conceded.

"He also figures if I run across Peter, I'll find that he's got a system full of drugs.  Also, probably.  Can the doctors prove it was administered against his will?"

"That was the reason for bringing him here," Paul said.  "Now there's a record that he's not got any scars from prior use.  There's also the concussion, and serious bruising at the injection site."

"Then all we have to do is call Lyle's bluff."

The priest surprised them both by asking, "Is it possible for this man to jeopardize Peter's career?"

Blaisdell started a reactive protest, then caught the impulse.  "It's possible for him to make enough noise to throw some suspicion on him, yes. There might always be a question about whether or not I covered up for him. But I don't know what can be done about that.  The people who matter will know it's not true."

"Peter will not be able to accept that."

"He'll have to."

"He cannot."

Paul rocked back in the chair, feeling a familiar irritation stirring up the acid in his belly.  Stubbornness appeared to be, after all, a family trait.  Peter had the same frustrating habit of simply making statements as if they were some irrefutable truth. 

Compromise had never been one of the kid's talents.

It didn't help that Paul's own concerns about his foster son's future were a little shaky at the moment.  Peter could make enough politically incorrect moves on his own, without having someone else do it for him.

"What do you suggest?"

"Perhaps you could make a 'deal'?"

Paul swiveled around in the chair, noting at the edge of his vision that Frank quite neatly mimicked his movement.  He could only imagine that his expression was mirrored in Strenlich's face.  To hear the Shaolin priest bandy about words more suited to pre-trial negotiating sounded absurd.  With a twinge of conscience, and not a little guilt, Paul realized that it was the father in Caine talking just then, not the aloof priest.  Kwai Chang Caine was reacting exactly as Paul, himself, would when his child was threatened.

He shook his head.  "All Lyle wants is to save his own ass.  If he gets turned loose, Peter's still a target, and Clarence will only redouble his efforts to remove you from Chinatown.  He's lost face.  There's only one way he's going to salvage any power."

"Clarence is already back on the streets," Frank said with a weary sigh of air.  He scrubbed his hand over his jaw.  "He made bail right before I left the station."

Two pairs of eyes settled on him with the weight of accusation, and he shifted in the hard seat.  "There wasn't anything I could do," he insisted. "No one bothered to say anything about the attack on Peter.  There was only a disputed story about why they were in the studio.  You know they had to go before the magistrate, Paul.  There was no reason to set a high bail.  And I'll bet that Lyle is out of there, too, before we get back to the station."

"He's right," Paul conceded with a nod toward Caine.  "So far, it's a two-way story.  Until Peter's able to make a statement, there's no other charge we can levy."

Caine canted his head toward his son.  "They will come for him.  He is still a threat."

"Then they'll come through us," Paul returned, steel roughening his voice.

"You want a guard put on the room?" Frank offered.

Paul smiled, a grim line of expression hardening his features.  "I think we can handle it."

"IAD will want to talk to him."

"They can wait."

"It might be better if they see him in this condition," Frank countered.

Paul's mouth hardened, a small tic of muscle working at his jaw.  "They can wait."  The words came through clenched teeth.

Frank nodded easily.  "I'll see what's going on back at Metro.  Want me to bring Annie?"

"No," Paul said, "I don't want her to be around him while he's like this. I called her.  Carolyn's going to bring her over...."  He glanced at his watch and grimaced. "Tonight."

"Let me know?"

Frank caught Blaisdell's eyes, saw the weariness and lingering fear in their blue depths.  He wanted to reach out and touch his friend's shoulder, infuse him with some of his own strength.  Only, he didn't feel very strong, himself, just then.  His own children were growing up, getting to the age where worry and dread seemed to be a constant parental companion.  His son was already making noises about 'following in Dad's footsteps.'

God forbid, he thought suddenly.  He wanted nothing more than to make reassuring sounds of comfort; promise to keep Peter safe from anything that might threaten him; assure Paul that all he had to do was relax, and everything would be okay.  He wanted a cigarette.  And just then, he wanted more than anything to get the hell out of that depressing hospital.  He and Paul had spent more than their share of time in similar rooms when they were young cops, themselves, out to save the world.

They'd done their time.  It hardly seemed fair to have to relive it through their children's pain.

He barely heard Paul's absent, "Thanks," when he made his escape.  He was out in the hall before he admitted to himself that it was, indeed, an escape.  A thin trail of guilty self-recrimination followed him down the hall and all the way back to his car, where he finally dared to light up a cigarette.

It tasted like shit.

*****

"You as hungry as I am?"

Caine looked across the bed at Blaisdell, noting the lines of weariness that lengthened the man's face.  He could well imagine that the same exhaustion was evident in his own features.  Neither of them had left the bedside through the long hours that Peter slept through his drug-induced stupor.

The only consolation was that the convulsions seemed to have run their course.  Caine's stomach rumbled in answer to the question, and he smiled at the involuntary response.

"I'll get something," Paul agreed, pushing himself up out of the chair. His joints creaked a protest at the movement, and he found himself shuffling on feet that felt like wooden blocks.

Caine watched him leave the room, then settled back in his chair and closed his eyes.  His body was demanding more than food.  It had been a very long time since he had slept.

His head had fallen forward, chin to chest, when he started awake at the first sense of change in Peter.  Caine's eyes were gritty with exhaustion. He blinked through a murky fog of half-sleep before he could find a focus.

Peter's eyes were open.  He stared at his father with an alarming blankness.  Then the hollow stare shifted, and he smiled.

He forced words past a dry throat.  "Still here?"

Caine lifted a cup from the bedside table, and held it to his son's lips. "Where else would I be?"

The water helped.  Peter dropped back to the pillows and said, "You should go home, get some rest.  You look awful."  He glanced over to the other side of the bed, his eyes seeking the other chair, finding it empty.  "Paul?"

"He has gone to get something to eat.  He will return."

"Pop...." Peter winced and hitched in a breath of air.

Caine read the reaction in that nearly preternatural way of his, and he tugged the blankets aside.  His hands, callused yet remarkably gentle, worked the calf muscles of Peter's leg, massaging the cramp out with strong fingers.  He worked at the pain, seeming to sense its path, pushing it down into the ankle, then out through the foot.

By the time his kneading fingers had reached the toes, Peter had relaxed into the bed.  Caine replaced the blankets, then stepped around the mattress and, wordlessly, began his magic on the other leg.

"Pop."  Peter's voice sounded vague, muffled.  "I had to do it.  There was no other choice."

His fingers still busy, the priest countered softly, "There is always another way, Peter.  Had you done as I told you and remained where you were, perhaps there would not be a man dead now."

"You don't understand!"  Peter pushed up onto his elbows, his face flushing with the heat of anger.  "He would have killed you.  He had a gun."

Caine shrugged one shoulder.  "As did they all," he pointed out.  His hands seemed to work independently of his mind, seeking, finding, then smoothing out the muscle cramps that twitched a path through Peter's legs.

"What were you going to do, take them all on?  Even though Tollis was shooting at you?  Who the hell do you think you are?  Super Shaolin or something?"

"I would have protected you, Peter," his father said with a simplicity that accused his son's doubt.

Without losing the rhythm of his hands, he looked into eyes that were still unfocused, the pupils dilated, a layer of vacancy in their dark depths.  The argument was coming from a restlessness that was part drug-enhanced and partly a resentment that Peter had not overcome.  His mind knew what his heart still could not accept.

Peter shook his head, feeling as if he were poking up through a cobweb that confused his thoughts.  His head ached, a low, rumbling pound of muffled pain.  For some reason he was angry, though it was a muted anger that faded in and out of his mind.  The thoughts focused, then blurred, stirring through long-buried memories and images he had thought he lost years ago. Time became a shadow that trapped him, and wavered beyond the edges of reality.  Dreams intruded on waking images, and he couldn't grasp why he was so furious, knowing only that the feeling wouldn't leave him.

"Protected me?" he repeated, the words vague, then solidifying.  "You were shadowing me.  You can't do that.  You can't protect me."

Caine countered, his voice a soft blur of sound. "It is a father's right, Peter, to strive to protect his child."

"I'm not a child anymore."

Caine didn't bother arguing that point.

"Besides," Peter continued, trying to hold onto at least that coherent thought, "you should know, especially after the Temple, that you can't protect me."

"My son.  You cannot expect me to ignore when you need my help.  It is a response beyond your control."  Caine shrugged again, his head canted to one side.  "Beyond my control as well."

As the pain of cramping muscles ebbed and died, Peter sighed and surrendered to both the ministrations of his father's hands and the workings of his version of the bond between them.  It was going to take some getting used to, this having a father around and determined to participate in his life.  They'd have to deal with the differences each demanded of the other later, in their own time.  At least, finally, they would have that time.

"I'm glad you're here, Pop," he said, his voice fading into a whisper of air.  The pain vanished beneath his father's fingers, and sleep stole over him again.

He didn't hear the near-silent answer.

*****

Caine had lost track of the passage of time as he kept the silent vigil at his son's bedside.  Peter had slept for much of the afternoon, albeit restlessly.  The priest began to hope that the worst was truly over.

A swish of displaced air drew his gaze to the door as it swung inward.  The smile vanished before reaching his eyes, and he stood to face the tiny figure of the Ancient.

Sensing the distress in the old man's mood, Caine asked, "What is wrong?"

"Clarence has returned to Chinatown," the Ancient told him.  "He has taken my granddaughter."

Caine's sharp intake of breath was the only apparent response to the old priest's announcement.  He waited until the Ancient reached Peter's side before placing a comforting hand on his frail shoulder.

"I will find her, my friend."

"Your son," the Ancient countered.

Caine softly interrupted.  "Is safe, for the moment."  He looked down at Peter, seeing some of the pain eased from the young face.  His heart admitted in that single glance that he was still very much afraid to leave Peter's side.

"Perhaps we should simply tell the police.  Then you would not have to leave him," the Ancient suggested quietly, as if he had heard the whisper of doubt that troubled his friend.

Caine stated without hesitation, "They would not find her."  In voicing the truth, he could no longer deny it, and knew his decision had been made. Before he could say anything, the touch of Peter's hand on his arm drew down his gaze.

"F-find...who?"  He pushed the two words past his lips with more effort than he would have ever thought necessary for such a simple act.  Peter felt the sluggishness wash over him again, making his consciousness fade in and out as he fought to come out of the fog that lured him back.

Caine avoided answering the question.  "You must rest."

"What aren't you telling me, Father?"  He tried to make the question a demand, and ended up gasping from the effort.

The lack of cooperation from his body didn't stop the need to have an answer to his question.  Peter waited, dark eyes demanding more effectively than had his words.

Caine's hesitation was unnerving.  When his father maintained his silence, Peter turned to the Ancient.  The old man met the challenge with a sad smile.

"Am I interrupting some kind of family reunion?" Blaisdell asked as he came into the room.

The atmosphere was unmistakably tense.  Paul cast a questioning look in Caine's direction as he let the heavy door swish shut behind him.

"There is a personal matter I must attend to," Caine told the captain.

Paul's heavy brows rose.  He stopped at Peter's bedside, hands buried deep in his pockets before he made the obvious inquiry.  "This has something to do with Clarence?"

"Yes," Caine admitted, his eye contact locked firmly with his son's suspicious glare.

"He's out?" Peter snapped.  "You let that bastard back on the streets, Paul?"

The demand didn't make a lot of sense, nor was the accusation fair.  At that moment, neither mattered.  All the detective could respond to was the perceived threat Clarence represented to the Shaolin priest.

"Peter."  The soft word was an admonishment--and went unheeded by his son.

"You know the rules, kid."  Paul answered the tone with one that was police captain-to-officer, with no trace of the father who had entered the room moments earlier.  "He's been charged, and he was released on bail."

The Ancient was in the process of withdrawing when Peter caught the flicker of movement.  "You came here to ask my father for help," he said, straining to keep his voice steady.  "Why?"

After a shrug from Caine, the old one stepped to the foot of Peter's bed. His hands disappeared into the voluminous folds of his sleeves.  He bowed his head.

"My granddaughter has been taken," he told Peter.  "Your father is the price they are asking for her safe return."

Peter nodded.  He didn't bother questioning why the old man had come to them. It had nothing to do with complying with demands.  The Ancient knew Caine would be the only one able to find the child within Chinatown's hidden world.

His eyes misted as his memory filled with the sweet image of the beautiful child who had stayed so close to him in the burned-out brownstone.  She hadn't uttered a sound, under circumstances that would have frightened most grown-ups.  If Clarence hurt her....

"I'm going with you, Pop," he whispered.  He barely heard Paul's bark of disbelief as he flung the sheets aside with more strength than he'd shown all day.

His energy didn't extend to sitting up.  Gasping, Peter fell back to the bed, and a fit of coughing left him twisted in pain.

Caine was at his side instantly, his hands soothing relief across his son's feverish brow as he slowly eased Peter back into the bed.  The young man remained on his side, curled into a shuddering ball of nerves and anguish. Sweat poured from too-warm skin, and Caine felt again a moment of genuine fear for Peter's recovery.

"I can send a team into Chinato--"

"No."  Caine cut Blaisdell off with uncharacteristic rudeness. He immediately apologized for the lapse with a soft smile.  "Your men would not find her."

Blaisdell knew the priest only spoke the truth, but it rankled him, nonetheless.

"You have to go, Father."

Caine looked from the pleading eyes of his son to the less openly anxious gaze of his friend.  Blaisdell made the decision for him.

"I'll stay with Peter, Master Caine.  And, we'll have a unit standing by to pick things up in Chinatown."

Caine sighed inaudibly, then nodded.  He patted his son's shoulder and was about to turn, when Peter's hand gripped his.  He turned to look down into the over-bright eyes.

"Be careful, Father.  He's got more reason than ever to hate you."

"I will be careful," Caine agreed.  He gave Blaisdell a grateful nod.

Seconds later, Blaisdell and Peter were left alone in the quiet room. Peter settled back with a shaky sigh of relief, and Paul lowered himself into a chair to wait.

"Where've you been?" Peter mumbled, his voice already blurred with sleepiness.

"Taking care of a possible problem," Paul remarked with a small smile.  He saw the next question coming and shook his head before Peter could find the words.  "Go to sleep, Peter.  I need the rest."

A fleeting whisper of smile curved Peter's lips.  He nodded, then settled back into the pillows.  His mind refused to let him sleep, but it was comforting to know he wasn't alone in the room to worry about his father.

*****

Caine walked away from the young woman called Renee, his expression thoughtful when he neared the Ancient.  He linked his hands in front of him, and stared deeply into the old one's eyes as he nodded.

"She is unhurt," he said softly.  "He wishes me to go alone."

The taint of irony laced the statement.  Caine's shrug provided eloquent testimony to his opinion of the need to make such an obvious threat.

"Do you know where they are, Kwai Chang Caine?"  The Ancient fell into step beside the other priest.  They headed toward the kung fu academy.  "Clarence has many places where he may hide."

"He does not wish to remain hidden," Caine assured the small man.  "That is why he has allowed us to know his location."

"I will go with you," the Ancient told him.  "She is my granddaughter.  My responsibility."

Caine nodded.  His smile returned.  "I had not intended to leave you behind, my friend."

*****

The curtains drawn tight against the sunlight made it hard to remember that it was day.  Paul sat in the silent gloom beside the bed, and stared at the too-white face of his foster son.  Peter slept fitfully, but there had been no more convulsions.  The light bothered his eyes, waking the vertigo and nausea that continued to plague him, so the drapes had been drawn against the intrusion of the sun.

With the darkness seemed to come a weighted silence.  Paul found himself drowsy and drifting.

Dr. Blackwell had been in twice since Caine and the Ancient had left, but she had done little more than check the nursing notes on her sleeping patient.  Both times, she had smiled at Paul, said, "He's doing fine," and slipped back out of the room.  The police captain couldn't shake the feeling that she was merely a consultant to Kwai Chang Caine the physician.  He smiled, and let his head drop back against the cushioned chair.

He was nearly asleep when a twitch of movement rustled the sheets.  Paul jolted out of his slouch, and shook off the drowsiness that pinned him to the chair.  Peter wasn't awake; merely restless.  He turned his head away, then rolled it back on the pillow, dark lashes fluttering against pale cheeks.  His fingers flexed, then clutched at the blanket.  His knuckles went white beneath the tension of the grip.

Paul scooted the chair closer to the bed.  He placed his hand over Peter's, absorbing the coldness of its fingers.  Absently, he stroked the hand until its clench lessened and Peter responded, barely, fingers groping.  Paul enfolded his foster son's hand between his own, feeling the warmth leeched out of his skin at the contact.  It took a moment before he realized he was imitating the massaging strokes he'd seen Caine use.

He was the one who should be out chasing down Clarence and Lyle, not a civilian.  Certainly not a civilian so vital to the young man who lay in that bed.  Paul had been a cop for more years than he cared to admit.  The reversal of roles wasn't natural to him.  After all, Caine was Peter's father; Paul was the police captain.  Here he sat again, unintentionally usurping Caine's rightful place at his son's side.  Just as he had when a car accident had nearly taken Peter away from them all.  Just after the boy had graduated from the Academy....

Annie was home getting some badly needed sleep.

She had spent the past twenty hours parked beside Peter's bed, afraid to leave him.  She hadn't had to tell Paul that she felt personally responsible for maintaining the tenuous bond that kept their son from slipping too deeply into sleep...from falling the wrong direction in his teetering stance between life and death.  Paul felt exactly the same way.

He hadn't had the luxury of being there, though.  Two hours earlier, Frank had stepped in to relieve him at the station, so that he could steal a few hours to stand his silent vigil at his son's bedside.

The hospital was bathed in the muffled noises that accompanied intensive care units.  Yet it all seemed slightly out of the realm of Paul's consciousness.

Peter moaned, and stirred on the starched white bed linens.  Paul reached instinctively for his hand.  Only the right was available.  Plaster encased the broken left wrist, which was anchored to the bedrail.  His right leg was also in plaster, suspended in a sling-like affair that brought to mind torture implements rather than any tools of healing.  One dark eyelash fluttered, but didn't open.  The right eye was swollen shut, dyed an angry purple by bruising that extended over that entire side of his face.  He hadn't yet regained consciousness, except for a few moments of confused conversation with his mother.

Peter had been still and silent much too long.  From the time he'd become part of their lives, the one thing he had never seemed capable of mastering was any sense of stillness.  If his mouth wasn't moving, his body was, and usually the two went together.  The vision of Peter, lying motionless, pale and mute, appeared its own physical oxymoron.

There had been more than one argument over Peter's choice of profession. When Peter had approached him with his intentions to go to the Police Academy, Paul's paternal pride had collided head-on with his father's fear for the safety of his children.  He didn't miss the irony.  Peter hadn't even been on duty when the accident happened.  A drunk driver had ended his own life in the tragic crash, and nearly taken Paul's son and his best friend with him.

He shifted in the chair, cradling cold fingers between his own hands, idly massaging some of his own heat into them.  He wasn't about to lose Peter then.  He unconsciously made the decision to hold tight to the chilled, motionless hand--no matter how long it took.  Somehow, he could infuse his own strength into the limp fingers.

A single tear tracked unnoticed down his face.  He nearly missed the hoarse whisper that carried his name to him.

"...Paul."  The word rasped from a dry throat.  Peter tried again.  "Paul, are you okay?"

Blaisdell jerked out of his slump and reached for the glass of water on the bedside table.  With his support, Peter managed a swallow, then collapsed back to the pillow.

"You know, kiddo," Paul said slowly, his voice rougher than he expected. "You're not real good for my blood pressure."

Some of the pallor seemed to shift out of Peter's features when he smiled. "It's not my fault you're a bad example," he said.  "All I ever wanted to do was follow in my old man's footsteps."

"Yeah, so you've said before.  What about now, Peter?  How's it feel to try to walk in two such different directions?"

The smile deepened.  "No sweat.  I'm becoming ambidextrous."

Paul shook his head and sank back into the chair.  "No, it's just that you're twice as much trouble as any normal kid.  That's why you think you can handle it."

"I've got a lot of help."

For the first time in hours, a minute sense of peace settled over the captain.  "You always will," he said.

"How do you feel about...." Peter reddened, the flush a stark contrast to the pale white of his face.  "About my father being here?  After all these years?  I get so involved in my own uncertainty, that I keep forgetting that it's got to be hard on you, too."

A glib answer begged to be spoken.  The brown eyes waiting so expectantly for that answer prevented Paul from trying.  He succumbed to the plea for honesty, and said, "I'm torn.  I want what's best for you.  On the other hand, I resent sharing you."

"Does Mom feel the same way?"

That brought a spurt of genuine laughter.  "Your mother has a much more generous spirit than I do.  She knows that sharing you doesn't mean there's less of you to hold onto.  I'm working on it, but it's not easy."

Peter's voice dropped, fading as he turned his head away.  "I get so lost. I don't know what to say to him.  How to ask the questions I need answered. Then, when I try to talk to him, I lose my temper and say all the wrong things."

"Peter, you've got to give it time.  You're trying to recapture fifteen years in a couple of months.  If you hold on too tightly, you'll only risk losing him again."

"You know, that's what scares me the most."  Peter brought his gaze back around to meet Paul's eyes.  "It's almost as if it would hurt less if he'd never come back into my life.  I lost him once.  I don't know how to face it again."

"You can do one of two things."

"What?"

"You can spend your time anticipating another loss, or you can use this chance to grow closer to your father, fill in those gaps in your life--the part of you that's been incomplete.  You've been given a rare gift."

"And I could blow it."

"You could."  Paul warmed the response with a smile that tugged some of the weariness out of his face.  "But I don't think your father will let you. He's a...unique man."

"So are you."

Behind him, Paul heard the door hiss open.  The thought that it was a little early for the doctor to be making her rounds again had only touched the fringes of his mind when he registered the alarm widening Peter's eyes.

Paul didn't wait for anything else.  He rose out of the chair in a graceful spin that would have done justice to a Shaolin priest.  His momentum propelled all his weight behind the fist that caught the white-clad orderly in the center of his chest.

Blaisdell didn't recognize the man.  But he ran a mental checklist even as he withstood the impact of the merciless blow he was inflicting on the stranger.  Tall, well-muscled, wearing glasses, with thick, rust-colored hair, the man doubled over with an explosive grunt of pain and surprise. Awareness went out of his eyes instantly, and he dropped at Blaisdell's feet, nearly tripping a second man who was trying, unsuccessfully, to shoulder his way through the door.

It was over in seconds.  Paul recognized the second man immediately.  Peter had earlier identified him out of the mug book when he was trying to track down the men responsible for the attempted bombing of the kwoon.  Frankie Slocum, part-time National Guardsman, full-time drug dealer in the back alleys of Chinatown, pirouetted in the doorway and almost out of the room before he ran into Frank Strenlich.

The chief of police didn't bother asking questions, either.  He broke Frankie's nose with an elbow to the fleeing man's face, then felled him with a very credible half-hop kick.

Paul hitched in a gulp of air, then grinned at his oldest friend.  "Been taking lessons, Frank?"

"Been workin' out," Strenlich retorted, hiking his pants up over his considerable paunch.

"Now you see why I don't like cops in my hospital."

Strenlich and Blaisdell turned toward the new voice.  Dr. Blackwell stood in the corridor a few feet away, hands on her hips.  She nodded toward the groaning man sprawled in the doorway.  "Good help is so hard to get these days, and here I find you assaulting my orderlies."

For just a second Paul had a sinking premonition of lawsuits.  "Please tell me you're kidding."

"Never saw them before in my life," she said with a shake of her golden head.  "But if they regain consciousness before shift change, I can probably put them to work.  How's my patient?  I ordered rest, gentlemen.  I hope you haven't got him up brawling with the two of you."

*****

Clarence paced the floor and watched the window.  His continuous flow of motion unnerved the younger men who occupied the abandoned building.  He could feel their scrutiny, and tried just as hard to ignore it.

He was uneasy, to say the least.  His last encounter with the priest had proven he wasn't quite the match he had believed himself to be.

This time is going to be different, though, he silently promised himself. This time he'd finish it, one way or another.

"Is that your priest, Clarence?"

Caught on the wrong side of the room, Clarence whirled and strode to the window his comrade indicated.  He peered out, and a smile lit his features.

"Spread out and make sure no one else is waiting nearby," he ordered.  He headed into the tiny room that adjoined the empty, rubble-strewn living room they occupied.  The little girl looked up from her crouch on the floor.  As he loomed over her small form, she clutched her doll tighter.

"C'mon, little sis, we're gonna see the priest."  When she shook her head, Clarence grabbed her arm.  He all but lifted her from the floor, then hauled her behind him as he went back to wait for Caine.

*****

Caine sensed the Ancient's circling from the other side of the decaying building's imposing hulk.  He knew his friend would go unnoticed because his own open approach would absorb the attention of the men inside.  The image of the tiny girl bravely coming to warn them of Clarence's impending assault spread a wave of warmth over him.  This child was truly of her grandfather's heritage.  Peter had been enchanted by the girl, and had protected her with all the fierce courage he had used to defend so many others throughout the years.  It angered Caine to think that the child was being used to lure him, that she would be placed in such danger because of an egotistical young peacock's need to establish a power he could never wield.

Caine waited at the door.  Minutes later, he was ready when it opened, and a boy of about eighteen beckoned him into the shadowy interior.  His eyes adjusted quickly.  He followed the youth up several flights of stairs.  Only the squeak of ancient floorboards told of their passing.

"I am here."  Caine spoke quietly when he was left in the darkened room. He could not immediately discern Clarence's location, but his presence emanated through the heavy silence.

"You should have left Chinatown, Priest," Clarence snapped.  His venomous tone made the word "priest" closer to a curse than a term of respect.

Caine's expression revealed nothing, merely a patience that further angered the young hood.  When Patty's eyes sought his, Caine allowed a smile for the child.  It returned to his spirit when she nodded with the same quiet bravery she had shown in the brownstone.

He took a cautious step forward and held out his hand.  His eyes rose to Clarence as he made the gesture, and he waited for a reaction about which he was truly uncertain.

To his relief, Clarence let the girl cross the room.  Caine dropped to one knee and smoothed a comforting touch over the raven-silk of her hair.

"You are safe now, little one," he softly assured her.

"Which is more than we can say for you, old man."  Clarence spat the words out as he launched himself at the distracted priest.

Caine pushed the child aside and turned in his awkward crouch.  His hand rose.  He connected solidly with Clarence's midsection when the young man reached him, then spilled into a graceless sprawl.  The child moved instantly to Caine's side and began tugging on his sleeve.

"Please.  We must leave," she urged, pulling futilely at his brown coat.

"Stay back," Caine directed, indicating the far corner as the haven he chose for her to seek.

Clarence laughed as he made his way to his feet and faced the Shaolin priest.  Beyond the room where they stood, the sounds of running feet informed the two combatants that they were not alone.  Clarence, assuming the approaching men were his backup, turned a smug smile to Caine.  The glimmer of amusement in the priest's eyes unnerved him.

*****

The Ancient made an impatient noise as he tossed aside the second man who rushed at him in an effort to block his passage.  He'd heard the scuffle on the floor above, and was determined to assist Caine in the safe recovery of his granddaughter.  Clarence had taken the added, and useless, precaution of placing several men throughout the cavernous building.  The old one had encountered two such thugs so far.  Neither would be conscious to discuss their injuries for awhile.

He neared the stairwell, where he met up with the third man he'd seen since entering the shadowy halls.  "Go home, old man," the boy taunted, his sardonic tone oblivious to the threat the fragile-looking priest truly presented.  "Clarence wants to talk to the cop's father.  Work out a deal where we can all do business."

"Stand aside," the Ancient commanded.  He stepped directly in front of the tall youth.

"No can do," the kid said with a shake of his head.  "Now, why don't--" He placed his hand on the Ancient's arm as he talked, emphasizing his suggestion for movement with a gentle push.  His words ended abruptly when the small man's claw-like hand closed on his wrist, exerting a strength that made him gasp in pain.

The Ancient applied pressure on the trapped limb until he forced the young man to his knees.  Only then did the old priest shift his hold.  He applied a different pressure to the back of the trapped man's neck.  Within moments, the kid collapsed with an audible sigh of air.

*****

Caine spread his hands in a gesture of appeal as he waited for some indication of what Clarence would do next.  "This need not continue," he told him quietly.

"You stood in my way, old man," Clarence sneered.  "You and your cop son. I don't know how the hell you did it, man.  He should be dead.  He will be dead.  And you with him."

Clarence shifted his eyes to the door, expecting to see some of his men coming into the room.  When the Ancient appeared at the threshold, instead, then slipped silently into the room, he realized he was now alone to face not one, but two Shaolin masters.

Caine felt the shifting emotions emanating from the young man, sensed the transition from arrogant assurance to barely controlled fear.  Clarence reached behind his back.  Caine uncoiled like a panther.  His left foot struck Clarence's wrist, knocking aside the gun he'd drawn.

Momentum carried them forward.  Clarence crashed into the wall with a groan of pain, just as Caine dropped lightly to his feet.  The Shaolin priest took the last step forward and placed a hand at the young man's throat.  He allowed his fingers to tighten until, eventually, awareness faded from the dark eyes that stared at him in mute astonishment.  Only then did Caine back away and watch with almost sad detachment as the man slithered into an unconscious heap at his feet.

Seconds later, a soft cry of happiness behind him drew his attention.  He turned, his smile flowing into his features.  The Ancient scooped Patty into his arms and held her close.

*****

"I can't do this."

Paul was ready when Peter lunged up in the bed, starting to swing his legs over the side.  He'd seen the decision working itself up in his foster son's face for the last few minutes.

It was dismayingly easy to force Peter back down to the mattress.  The lack of effective resistance worried him.

Paul covered his own anxiety with, "You're not going anywhere, kid."  He pulled the blanket and sheet back into place.

Peter was gasping with the effort of even that much exertion.  But he had barely caught his breath before he again pushed against Paul's restraining hands.

"You don't understand--" he began.

"I understand much more than you know, Peter.  You've never been able to wait for anything in your life, and I have to admit I didn't expect you to be able to hold out this long.

"I know you're worried.  I know you're afraid you won't see your father again.  But you don't have any choice this time.  You have to trust in his skill.  You gotta have faith, kid, plain and simple."

Peter protested, "It's not that."  Shifting up against the mound of pillows at his back, he tried to force at least that much leeway to his position.

Paul allowed the minor victory to go unchallenged.  He blocked anything further by propping one hip on the mattress' edge and scooting to take a seat on the bed.  The kid would have to literally go through him to make it to his feet.  Paul figured that was a safe bet for a hopeless case as he watched more color drain out of Peter's already ashen face.

"I gotta know, Paul."

There was such a lost quality to the simple statement that Blaisdell almost relented.  But somebody had to be the adult there, and Peter sure wasn't trying out very hard for the part.

"We'll know as soon as he comes back here, Peter.  Don't you have any faith in him at all?"

"That's not fair."

"Not much is."

"I'm afraid to lose him."

"I know.  I've felt that way about you more than once."

Peter's eyes widened.  He opened his mouth, then closed it, for once caught without an instant response.  He shook his head, looked away, and then back.

"I'm sorry, Paul.  Sometimes I just...I don't think.  I get so caught up in how I'm feeling that I...I'm sorry.  I guess I push your buttons, don't I?"

Paul reached over and ruffled Peter's hair, the gesture both affectionate and awkward.  "Only because I let you."

"Because you care enough to let me."

"That's why Annie puts up with so much.  She's your mother.  Mothers do that sort of thing."

"What about you?" Peter countered with a trace of his usual banter.  "Why do you put up with me?"

"Because I'm your--" Paul broke off, seeing the trap.  He laughed.  "It doesn't matter what I am or what I'm not, Peter.  I love you.  And love goes way beyond any labels you might put on it."

Peter's smile flickered and faded, then settled back onto his face.  He raised one hand and ran shaky fingers down the side of Paul's face.  "I know," he said.  The words became a whisper of sound shifting over a layer of unreleased emotion, as if he could give voice to his uncertainty.

Paul caught the trembling hand in his own, held it and rubbed some warmth into the cold fingers.  He was still searching for some way to smooth away the apprehensions when he heard the door wheeze open behind him.

Patty hesitated in the shaft of light from the corridor only long enough to identify the occupant of the bed.  Then she released her grandfather's hand and scampered across the room.  Blaisdell moved aside and lifted the child to the mattress.  The little girl developed a sudden case of shyness.  She giggled when Peter grinned in relief, and reached for one of her tiny hands.

"She wished to see you," Caine said, with a modified bow toward his son. "She was most anxious to know that you are getting better."

"I am now," Peter agreed with a release of held-in air.

"Your father says I can be in one of his classes," Patty said, her voice a bubble of barely suppressed excitement.  "Then I can protect you next time."

"Oh, great," Peter mumbled.  "I've been looking for a woman who can take care of me."

Huge brown eyes widened still further with serious concern.  "But, Peter, it will be awhile before I can take care of you.  I haven't started my lessons."

"That's okay, sweetheart.  I'll wait for you."

She smiled, a wreath of radiance on the tiny, beautiful face.  "Good," she said around the grin.