The day started out with a bang. Actually, for Peter Caine, it started out with being broadsided by a hit-and-run driver.
Pulling out of the apartment complex's parking deck into the morning traffic was easy. Cars flowed smoothly between traffic lights; rush hour was still 45 minutes away.
"I bet I can even stop and get Paul and me a donut."
Thinking of the cherry-filled pastry took Peter's mind away from the intersecting traffic; he didn't see the speeding Ford pick-up coming up the cross street.
A scream and thump, and a blur of blue, were all Peter noticed before the truck impacted with his black Corvette.
Paul Blaisdell pulled into the parking lot behind the 101st Precinct, scanning the lot for his officers' vehicles, preparing himself for another day of crime and politics. 'Funny how those two fit so well together,' Paul mused as he opened the door of the station, to be greeted by the maddening chaos at the front desk.
"Captain!" Desk Sergeant Broderick called out as he hung up the phone, ignoring the cursing and demands of the civilians lined up at the desk. "You're needed at Glenn-Cross Hospital. Peter's been in an accident."
The news hit Paul hard, stunning him briefly. Years of habit and training, though, broke through. "How bad is he?"
"Officer on the scene said he was broad-sided. Impacted on the driver's side," Broderick relayed, trying to hide his pessimism from the captain. "You need someone to drive you?"
"I'll go," a voice said behind Blaisdell. "Come on, Paul. We'll take my car."
Turning, Paul looked at the familiar face of his second-in-command. Chief of Detectives Frank Strenlich had been under Blaisdell's command for many years now, and had shown early the ability to handle the many crises that came through the door every day.
Nodding in answer, Paul followed Frank back down the steps for the trip to the hospital.
Showing his badge, Paul went past the receptionist and directly into the emergency room area. They knew him; he was the one who came when officers were injured in the line of duty or when one of his three children was hurt. Most often, it was Peter. Being a cop had increased Peter's chances of being injured on the job, but being a typical teenage boy had introduced him to the hospital years earlier.
The hiss of the automatic doors signaled the concerned visitor's entry into the ER. Paul looked briefly into each room, looking for his officer, his son.
Finding Peter did not taken long. A flurry of movements in the second room indicated a critical patient. Dark hair and familiar boots caught Paul's attention as he looked into the room. Doctors screaming out orders for suction, pressure, and lab met Paul's ears. He dared not go into the room, only stood at the door, watching as tubes were inserted into Peter's flesh and wires attached to his chest.
Paul felt a presence behind him. Turning, he looked into the hazel eyes of Peter's real father, Kwai Chang Caine. The man's only evidence of emotion was in his very expressive eyes.
"I'm sorry, you both will have to wait outside," a petite nurse stated as she came out of the room in which Peter lay. "The doctor will be out with you in a minute."
Both men stood still, neither wanting to move, but knowing they had to.
Strenlich watched as the two fathers were ushered out of the ER, into the waiting room where Strenlich had opted to stay while Paul found out about Peter.
It seemed like hours before the doctor met Paul, Caine, and Strenlich. Sweat stained the doctor's shirt, along with blood from his patient. "I'm Dr. Benson. Which one of you is Mr. Caine's father?"
Before Paul could speak, Caine announced, "We are both his father. Please, how is he?"
Dr. Benson didn't react to the information. In his line of work, he heard everything. "Right now, Mr. Caine is critical. He needs blood. Because of the rash of disaster's we've been having, our blood supply is strained."
Both Paul and Frank rolled up their sleeves. "We'll give," they said in unison.
"That's what I was hoping, but we need his blood type. It's rare, AB negative."
"I'm AB negative." Paul stated, ready to give his last drop to save Peter. "Caine, what is your blood type?"
"I do not know," Caine answered with a shrug.
"Well, we can type you right quick. And you?" Dr. Benson asked Frank.
Shaking his head, he replied, "I'm O positive."
"Thanks. We could still use a pint from you for someone else, though."
The three men followed the doctor to the lab.
"I guess Peter got his blood from my side of the family," Paul said, attempting to pass time while Peter was in surgery.
The lab had performed blood tests on both men, stating that Caine was O positive. Like Frank, Caine donated a pint to the blood bank, anyway.
They had returned to the waiting room with the lab technician reassuring them that more blood was coming via the state troopers from the main Red Cross at the state capital.
Caine didn't get Paul's attempted joke; instead thought about how his son could have a different blood type from his. "His mother could have been the same type."
"Peter once told me his mother looked like Rhonda Fleming, or at least that is what you had described her as to him. He never has volunteered to show me the picture he has of her." Paul changed the subject.
"Yes. She was beautiful, the love of my life. I knew the moment I saw her that I wanted to marry her."
"What was her name?"
"Laura Kathleen Michaelson." Caine said the words as a soft whisper, as though the words themselves should be cherished.
As he looked off, he didn't notice Paul paling at the name - a name he had not heard in over twenty-five years.
1964
For a thirty-year-old man, Paul Blaisdell had won the title of Colonel and the respect from his fellow compatriots with the CIA. Most honors and titles were given out to veterans in their forty's. As their top agent, with the recent promotion to colonel, he had helped to stop a possible war; now it was his chance to stop the conflict in Vietnam. With help from a few mercenary friends, Paul had stalled the United States involvement, a cause for celebration with fellow agents.
Some of his co-workers and friends decided to gather at the Wharf in San Francisco. Paul loved the city; loved the salty air and the fact that fewer bureaucrats lived in the city than in Washington, D.C. He was thankful for the transfer to California, though he knew one day he would have to go back to the nations capitol.
As Paul made his way into the restaurant, he ran into a beautiful blonde woman. He noticed she was at least ten years his junior and apparently of the new movement that was all the rage with college-aged women: going braless to demonstrate their independence. He smiled at her, getting a warm smile in return.
"Hi," he said to her as he held open the door. "Are you meeting someone here?"
Her dark green eyes had a hint of brown, with flecks of silver and black that sparkled as she spoke. "My name's Laura Katherine Michaelson. I'm here to meet a blind date, a Paul Blaisdell. Are you him?"
Flabbergasted, Paul couldn't answer for a minute. "But-but I don't have a date."
"You do now, friend." Another man came up behind Paul, having listened in the conversation. "She's your date for tonight."
"What? Jake, I think I can make my own dates," Paul objected, then turned to the woman. "I'm sorry. I-I am Paul Blaisdell. I guess my…friend…decided to set this up. Would you mind being my date?"
The conversation might have hurt her feelings, but she never let on. The tall man had enchanted her with his looks and movements. Her friends at college had dared her to take the blind date and try to lose her virginity. It was no longer cool to be known as someone without experience; free love was blooming on the college campuses. "Sure. Come on, Handsome."
Dinner, wine, and dance made up the party as it moved from the restaurant to a bar that was known for its dance floor. Paul started feeling somewhat drunk. Looking at his female companion, he knew she was well past him in that area. Her glazed eyes and constant giggling told him the last three glasses of wine had been too much for her.
"Come on and I'll drive you home."
"Mine or yours?" She asked impishly as she kissed him on the cheek, then his lips. She tasted the sweetness of alcohol on his lips, and proceeded to lick it off. Once that mission was completed, she nibbled her way from his neck to his earlobe.
Paul tried to control his urges, but it had been a long time since he had had a woman's attention. As Laura continued to place kisses along his neck and chin, Paul's body gave off an involuntary shudder. A slow groan emerged from his throat, taking in deep breaths with each kiss. He looked towards her, eyes focusing on the body before him and the soft touch of her hand as it slid between the buttons of his shirt.
"Mine is more private." He whispered, finding his arms wrapped around her small frame.
"I'll get my purse."
"Mr. Caine? Captain Blaisdell?" A man dressed in surgical garb came into the small room, reaching out to shake each man's hand.
Looking at his watch, Paul was stunned to learn that almost two hours had flown by while he was remembering the woman from that one night. "How's Peter?"
"He'll be fine. He's stable right now, and in recovery. He has a few broken ribs. His left arm is broken, but the orthopedic surgeon set the arm and said that he should have no problem with it once it mends. We got the bleeding stopped, though we did have to remove his spleen. It's not a major organ, so don't worry about that. His lung did collapse in the ER, but it should be fine. I'll have a nurse come and get you when he's moved to a room."
The three men simultaneously breathed sighs of relief as the news the doctor spoke soothed the ragged nerves of each man.
Watching the doctor turn and leave, Frank stood. "I need to get back to the station. You want me to have someone pick you up?"
Paul shook his head, "No, I'll get a cab. Annie should be here soon. Our neighbor was going to bring her over. I told them to wait a few hours, so they should be starting out. I need to call her, though, and tell her."
Caine was left alone with his memories, his hopes and fears. The fears he tried to keep hidden away. The Tao had spoken of not letting fears rule one's path, lest you fall off be unable to get back on.
By the time Paul returned Caine had collected himself. He felt Paul's own hesitation. "You are…worried…about Peter?"
Paul looked at Caine. "I knew a Laura Kathleen Michaelson. She was in college when I met her."
The stunned look on Caine's face made Paul consider not telling his secret, but a slow nod from Caine convinced him to continue. "She was beautiful, warm and charming. My friends and I went out to celebrate. One of them had set me up on a blind date - Laura. It had not been my intention to form a relationship, but the more we were together that night, the more I was interested in her. The next morning, there was a crisis on the case I was handling, and I had to leave without saying goodbye. It was almost a month before I could come back. I couldn't call, any outside signals would have gotten the team killed. When I was able to get back to her, she had dropped out of college and out of sight. No one knew where she was." Paul squeezed his eyes tightly shut; the memories were a blend of pleasant and painful moments. "I wanted to see if we could work on a relationship, but she had told her friends that she couldn't be just another one-night stand, couldn't take the college life that they had chosen. Later, I met Jill and we married. I guess Laura was just infatuation, but I will remember her fondly."
Seeing the tenseness outlined on Caine's face, Paul knew the two women had to be the same.
Caine slowly began to speak. "She was troubled when I met her in San Francisco. Laura and I met at a park. She was crying. I tried to ignore her, but her sorrow overshadowed mine. I asked if I could help her. When she looked at me, it was as if…I had found my soul mate. I had seen a movie with John Wayne and Rhonda Fleming, and she looked just like Ms. Fleming. As you have said, she was beautiful, warm. Her inner soul had been torn apart by someone, she never told me who and I never asked." Caine had dropped his usual speech pattern, the one that he used when trying to find the correct words to say. Instead, he allowed the past to come out, a past he had never told Peter about. Unguarded memories and words flowed as the two worried fathers relived a past they did not know they shared. "I knew the instant I looked into her eyes that she was the love of my life. I was not living at the temple then. My path was overshadowed with anger. It was not until after we married and became ill and died that I went to the temple to raise our son. Peter was conceived the night of our marriage. I took her to Braniff when the doctors at the hospital said they could do no more unless she aborted the child. She…she said she could not leave me without a gift from her, the gift of our son. The priest, Ping Hi, also said that the pregnancy had caused the cancer to mutate, by causing more stress on the body. We…we knew she was dying, but together, we shared the legacy of our love - Peter."
Paul watched as a silent tear crept down Caine's face. The bereaved widower made no attempt to stop the small drop.
"I had…always believed…Peter was my son." The familiar hesitation came back as Caine measured his words with the tearing of his heart. "One of the monks asked Laura…if she had…been…with anyone else. She…" Taking in a deep breath as another droplet formed, he gathered more thoughts. "She cried. She said the unborn child was what we shared. Was from our love for each other. I told her…I did not care if the child was not mine. I loved her…so much. The day he was born…was the day…it taxed her body so much…there was no hope that she would live. Peter was so small when he was born, she worried that he was…premature, but Ping Hi assured her that Peter was healthy."
A sob broke through, allowing more tears to flow. "Peter has her eyes, her smile."
Paul found he couldn't watch or hear any more. To think that he really did have a son was too much for him to fathom. To believe Peter could be his biological son after all…his heart sang with joy. But, looking at the pain on Caine's face, Paul controlled his emotions.
"I think he has your mannerisms. Did I ever tell you how I knew when he was in trouble? I would always look into his eyes. They held so much information about what was going on in that head of his." Paul paused to make sure Caine was listening. "Yours do that also."
Then, his thoughts wandered to the boy-man who lay in the recovery room; the one they had shared as a son, each for an equal amount of time. Peter had been a confused teenager, having grown up in a temple where life was so different outside the temple walls. Living in an orphanage after his father was thought to have died in an explosion at the temple had left the twelve-year-old bitter and afraid of loving.
No, he couldn't cause his son more grief than the young man had already suffered. It was enough that Peter thought of Paul as a best friend, and at times, a father.
"Caine, Peter is your son." Paul watched as Caine looked up at him. Hazel eyes moist and rimmed with red met Paul's steel blue gaze. "Laura didn't know that I wore protection that night." Swallowing hard, Paul continued with the lie, hoping Caine couldn't see the truth. "You learn early that to have only a physical relationship with a woman, you should use condoms. I knew I didn't want any children while I was out 'saving the world'." No condoms had been used. As soon as they had reached his apartment, lust had overwhelmed them. The fire that burned through their veins and bodies erupted, leaving no time for anything except the two bodies joining as one.
Caine closed his eyes, sensing the turmoil running through his friend's mind and soul. He did consider Paul Blaisdell his friend, as well as Peter's other father. But the thought that this man who had raised Peter as his own, could actually be Paul Blaisdell's son…'No. I would be able to sense something. Would I not? Would I not have felt someone else's essence when I rocked Peter to sleep? When he was sick?'
"I…need to go call Annie," Paul stated, barely able to keep his voice from quivering.
Caine nodded and watched Paul leave, noticing the slump of Paul's shoulders. "Thank you," he said quietly to himself. "Remember, my friend, you can never lie to a Shaolin."