What Could Have Been V

The Undertaker returned to the hospital as soon as visiting hours began. He entered Kane's room to find his brother still asleep. Taker made his way over to the bedside chair once again and sat down, placing the mask that he had brought on a nearby table. Looking at his brother under the light of day, he was somewhat reassured. Kane didn't look nearly as pale and fragile as he had the night before. Then the Undertaker noticed Kane begin to thrash, as if in a nightmare.

"No..." Kane muttered, almost too low for Taker to hear, "not again...please, not again..."

To hear his brother pleading like that tore into the Undertaker's heart, and he was reaching out to shake Kane awake when he heard something that made his blood run cold.

"Mark...trusted you...betrayed...why" Kane's voice was so filled with sorrow as he asked for answers that the Undertaker froze, his hand inches from Kane's shoulder.

Suddenly Kane jerked awake, and looked around him with an air of desperation. When he saw the Undertaker standing over him, his face took on a hardened look, his eyes mirroring the turmoil and anger he felt inside. "What are you doing here," he demanded, his voice quiet yet firm.

"I was worried about you, Kane," Taker began, only to be interrupted by his little brother.

"Save it, Taker," Kane harshly told him, "I'm not buying it anymore. I know the truth. You can drop the 'concerned brother' act."

"What are you talking about, Kane?" the Undertaker asked, thoroughly confused.

"I'm fucking talking about your recent addition to the Power Trip!" Kane roared, his anger taking over and giving him strength, "Hunter told me all about it when he and Austin were beating the shit out of me while you stood by laughing. And now you come here trying to convince me that you give a fuck about me? How stupid do you think I am?"

"Kane, it's not like that. I tried..."

"I said save it!" Kane yelled at Taker, "I must really be a retard, to keep buying into your scams! Time and again you come, telling me that it'll be different, that this time we'll be a family. And time and again you wind up stabbing me in the back! Well I'm sick of it! I'm better off without you! You've NEVER been there when I needed you...NEVER! And this...this is finally one betrayal too many 'brother'" Kane's voice dripped with sarcasm on the word brother, and the iron fist that had gripped Taker's heart squeezed a little harder. "Get out of here!" Kane told the Undertaker, "I don't want to see you again until that time when I send your ass straight to hell!"

"But..." the Undertaker began, as several nurses burst into the room to investigate the noise.

"Get OUT!" Kane ordered his brother, nearly pulling out his I.V. as he jerked his arm to point at the door behind the Undertaker.

"Sir," one of the nurses said to Taker, "I'm sorry, but you're upsetting the patient. Would you please leave?"

"But..." the Undertaker repeated, not wanting to believe this was happening.

"Please, sir," the nurse told him as he moved to help his coworkers try to relax Kane, "We need to calm him down before he re-injures himself, and I don't think that will be possible with you here."

"Right," the Undertaker finally managed numbly, moving towards the door. Looking back once more, he again pleaded with his brother, "Kane..."

Kane hate-filled face glared stonily back at him. "Leave," he told Taker, not even noticing when one of the nurses injected a sedative into his arm.

The Undertaker's head fell, and he made his way out of the room, then the hospital itself without seeing or hearing anything. Moving like an automaton, Taker got onto his motorcycle and drove off.

Back in Kane's hospital room, the nurses had finally left, satisfied that he was not going to hurt himself further. Feeling the sedative taking effect, Kane found his mask on the table next to his bed and put it on, adjusting the straps to fit over his bandages. He didn't need the Undertaker. He didn't need a family. He was Kane, the big red machine...an unfeeling monster. He didn't need anyone.

As he drifted off to sleep, a single tear escaped from his good eye.