The walls had been repainted. It was the first thing Peter noticed as he walked in; the second was how the outside world seemed to fade entirely as the door to the Tse Liang closed behind him. The third was that the hostess was someone familiar to him.

"Amy Liang," said Peter, smiling. "I haven't seen you in a while. How's your mother?"

"Peter Caine!" The young woman quickly glanced around the small restaurant, then came out from behind her podium to squeeze Peter's hand. "Mom's fine. The tea you brought over really helped her cough."

"Ah, I'm just the delivery boy, you know that," he said with his most charming smile. "Is, uh, Li Sung here?"

Amy nodded. "Here for business?" Peter shrugged. "He should be free in a few minutes. Why don't you go take a seat at the bar, and I'll let him know you're here."

"Thanks." He sat down on one of the chairs. "Just tap water, thanks."

Once upon a time, he'd have had enough money to order anything on the menu, even at a place like this. These days... money weighed on his mind. He hadn't had a steady job in two months, and while Blaisdell had promised to get him something soon, that hadn't panned out yet.

He didn't even have enough to cover rent for the month, thanks to the Triad buying the place. The community had been paying for things, but that had stopped as soon as the paperwork had gone through; Xiaoli was not about to give the Triad any money. Of course, Li Sung said he'd just keep track of it and Peter could pay it back when he had the cash, but he didn't like relying on that.

He sighed and rolled his head and his shoulders, trying to release the tension that was building up. He was going to need a lot more than just rent money if he was going to pay for Yuen Yee's services.

"He's ready to see you," came a soft voice.

Peter nodded and headed to the booth. He sat down across from Li Sung, trying to figure out how to open the conversation, when instead: "I take it you're leaving with Kwai Chang Caine?" Peter looked up, startled as his thoughts about money and Tan derailed. "Don't look so surprised, Peter. The man discussed it with the Ancient, and a member of the family heard. I am heartened that you decided to tell me."

"Yeah. Of course." Of course. And the fact that Li Sung knew about this before Kwai Chang Caine's own son? That was just to be expected, wasn't it.

"How long do you expect to be?"

"I'm... not sure. I don't think it'll be that long." Was Kwai Chang Caine intending on leaving him permanently? No! No, he wouldn't let the man do it. He couldn't let his father abandon him, not again. No one had seen him for months the last time he'd gone to clear his mind, and Peter was going to follow him if need be. He'd be Kwai Chang Caine's shadow, if that's what he needed to be. "It's not a problem, is it, Uncle?"

The man shook his head. "Is that all you came for?"

Peter shook his head. His father was leaving. He needed to get over there— and yet, he had two fathers that he would lose contact with if he wasn't careful. "There was something else..." Peter took a breath. "I was wondering... It's just that, Yuen Yee said it was expensive, and I... well, I was thinking, when I get back, maybe I could... help out? I don't want to hurt anyone, I don't want to be involved in, in the business, but there's got to be something...?"

"Of course." Li Sung nodded, a hint of satisfaction on his face. "There is always work to be done, Peter Tan. We will find something for you."

Kwai Chang Caine let his finger move across the surface of the blade, testing the sharpness— and himself. An obedient body would be able to guage the way that the knife would cut while not being cut itself.

"Pop? Where are you? Dad?"

He ignored his son as the bright red blood began escaping his finger, frowning at himself for his lack of control. It was not difficult to breath in and out a few times, a light meditation between breaths that would allow his body to heal itself.

"Now that's a knife!"

Kwai Chang glanced at his son, then put the blade into his sack. "Peter," he acknowledged.

"Hey." Peter walked forward. "You told Lo Si you were leaving," he said bluntly.

The priest frowned. He had not seen Peter nearby when they had discussed his preparations for the journey. "I did not teach you to... eavesdrop."

"I didn't." Kwai Chang looked at his son questioningly. "Uncle Li told me."

"Li Sung," he said unhappily. "I would prefer if you would keep your involvement with him minimal."

"I'm not going to do that." Peter shrugged, his face tightening for a moment before he smiled. "Look, it's not my fault if you broadcast what you're doing to him, or if he tells me what's going on." The older Caine shook his head at his son and reached for his hat, but Peter put a hand on it. "Pop? I don't want another goodbye letter."

He sighed. "There is something that I must find. Something that has been lost for... many years. It is a journey I must take. This is not... a farewell."

Peter looked at his father, frustration evident on his face. "Do you have to go alone?"

"You may accompany me on this journey if you wish." He took a deep breath. "But the place we must go... The memories will be painful. They will... clutch at your heart... but you are welcome to share them with me."

"Well, do you mind me asking where you're going? I know it's probably none of my business, but—"

"Sometimes... in order to face the future, one must go into the past, dark and fathomless though it may seem. One must step back into the mists..."

"... And clear them, so that we may see ahead to our paths."

Kwai Chang nodded as Peter quieted, each considering deeply the idea of Peter joining Kwai Chang on his trip. This journey would be painful enough for the priest, but for the man who had had his teenage years stolen, for a man who had been abused with fear... he was not certain his son was ready for such a journey.

But the Ancient had seen him there, and there was a natural order to this. The salmon returned to the river, the turtle to the beach upon which it was born. All living beings were bound to their pasts, and Peter was no exception. Man had the ability to overcome the great moments of tragedy, and perhaps it was better done now, while his father was here, so that he would not be alone when one day he felt the need to confront it.

"Okay. Let's try that again, without the mysterious wording. Where are we going?"

"Home."

"Home?"

"Our Temple." The spike of anxiety in his son's energies filled the room, and Kwai Chang sighed. "My son, I must return, but you do not need to."

"I don't— I don't want you to go alone, Father."

Kwai Chang put a hand on the younger man's shoulder, giving a gentle and very subtle massage to the tense muscles underneath. His thoughts turned to the practical: he ought to bring something to calm his son, in case the memories proved too powerful.

"I'll get some clothes. How long will we be there?"

The priest shrugged. "As long as it takes."

His son turned and chuckled. "Nothing ever happens on a timeline for you, does it, Pop?"

"If it is meant to happen, it will happen," he replied. "Wanting does not lead to having. Now, go. Pack lightly. I am aware of your address. I will come for you shortly."

Kwai Chang Caine had not been to his son's place of residence since returning to the city. For this reason, he was surprised— no, appalled at the dwelling. It was in one of the least affluent areas of Chinatown; the paint was peeling from the siding, the roof had quite a number of tiles missing, and several of the windows looked like they had been painted shut. But he had lived in such ramshackle accomodations before: the unkempt appearance and quality of the home was not what bothered him. It was, instead, the energy that surrounded the place that shocked the Shaolin priest to the core: a dark, oppressive feeling of death, of things left undone and unsaid, of fear that permeated the area.

His son had a sensitive spirit, hidden under the many layers of bravado. The boy had always been so, and the man Peter had become had shown joy in the connections he felt. To live in this place of darkness and shadows... How did his son manage?

He knocked on the door, and a young man answered. A triad tattoo peeked out from under his neckline, and a nasty aura of violence surrounded him. Kwai Chang bowed slightly. "I am looking for Peter Caine," he said quietly.

Eyes evaluated him, head to toe, pausing on the brands that showed at his wrists. "Right. I heard his dad was a priest." The young man shrugged. "Up the stairs, third door on the right."

"Thank you." He walked in, closing the door softly behind him. The stairs were not far from the door. They creaked on his way up: the dirty green rug that covered them was not enough to muffle the noise.

First door, second door, third— he knocked again— Peter opened the door and ushered him in. His son's private space was clean and neat, at least, and looked much like a student's might. A desk against the wall with a small bookshelf above it, with books about law and investigations— "Zen in the Art of Archery?"

Peter shrugged. "The library was giving books away."

His words were dismissive, but Kwai Chang sensed a note of pain in his son's voice. But why? Was it the implied charity, or a loss of another kind? The Shaolin looked around the rest of the room. It was smaller than the apartment that Tan had kept him in, and seemed no more Peter's than the other had been. He wondered, though: did his son feel free, keeping himself in this place, or, having lost the material comforts that Tan had provided, did his son feel neglected?

Such questions were too difficult to ask.

Instead, he turned his attention to his son's belongings. A dufflebag on the bed stuffed with a few changes of clothing. His son had thrown toothpaste, a razor and a few other personal care items into the bag. No bedkit of any sort...

"How are we getting there? I don't have the money to get a flight." Kwai Chang smiled. "Tell me we're not hitchhiking?"

"No." The Shaolin priest put a hand on his son's shoulder. "We will take... the train? And also a bus. The journey itself will take several days." His son nodded and zipped his bag. "I suggest a blanket. I do not know what shelter we will find at our Temple."

"Oh. Yeah, I guess a hotel would probably cost a bunch."

His son said it as though he'd never considered the idea before. This would indeed be a new experience for the younger Caine. He opened his bag and began trying to put the blanket from his bed into it; the Shaolin priest stopped him. "Do you have string?" he asked, putting his son's pillow in the center of the blanket and rolling it carefully into a compact bundle. "And perhaps a rain jacket?

"Sure. Mr Sung didn't want me to catch a cold..." His son watched curiously as Kwai Chang tied the blanket on the ends, then as he placed the jacket around the bundle. "Will that actually keep it dry?"

The priest shrugged with one shoulder. "When one does not have a groundsheet, one... makes do?" He stopped before tying the final pieces of string— shoelaces!— around the jacket. "Do you remember the knots you were taught in the Temple?"

Peter looked at him, then at the pack, and shook his head. "Sorry."

The father inclined his head, held the bundle in place and demonstrated, then motioned for Peter to try. A few false starts— it was expected, clearly Tan had not taken Peter on these sorts of journeys, so he would not have practiced this since he was a child. Still, his son had practiced as a child, had been relatively proficient in it, and while his brow furrowed and his eyes had the faraway look of a man trying to remember something, his fingers had found a muscle memory and completed several of the knots flawlessly.

Kwai Chang smiled at his son. "You are ready?" Peter nodded. "Then... let us go."

As promised, the journey took several days. Father and son made halting starts to speak to one another, but there was little substance to their conversations. Kwai Chang Caine would attempt to speak of his memories of the boy in the Temple; his son would quietly shrug his shoulders. Peter Caine would attempt to speak of his time in Hong Kong, but whenever he ran up against a memory that included his family there, fell silent.

They hit on a better formula once they began speaking of inconsequentials: what part of China had the best food? What weather was best when one was feeling ill? What sort of geological processes had created the rock formations they were passing by?

It was too late to get the bus by the time they arrived in Truckee, so they spent the day together exploring the small town and the railroad museum, Peter's excitement at the history of the trains causing his father great joy.

They put their bedrolls to good use that night, sleeping in the forest under the canopy of stars. Kwai Chang recounted the old folktales: Tschen and Shen, the two stars of morning and evening who had sworn to never meet after an argument; Zhinu and Niulang, the lovers banished to opposite sides of the sky; the story of the Ten Suns, who had broken themselves into pieces to save the world.

In the morning, while he bought their tickets for the bus, the father watched as his son spoke to a young boy. There was a kinship there, though Kwai Chang Caine didn't understand it; not until Peter glanced at a man who must have been the child's father. He quickly showed the boy how to deflect a blow, but then, more tellingly, showed him a move that could only be used to take the blow with minimal damage.

The priest's heart wept.

The bus ride to Braniff was silent.

"It smells like... pencils." Peter stopped suddenly on the path up to the Temple, eyes wide as he turned around, looking at the trees. "I remember this smell. Why do I remember this smell?"

"Incense cedar." His father was looking at him with a slight smile. "When you were younger, you enjoyed helping me pick the leaves... they are used to combat congestion. Once, when you were very small, you sat on my shoulders and picked them for me."

Peter frowned. He couldn't remember that, couldn't remember sitting on his father's shoulders, couldn't remember picking the pine needles, but— but he could remember smoke. "There was a fire. Not the fire, just... a fire..." He closed his eyes and walked forward, fingers brushing against the bark of a tree. "Me and another kid... Daniel? Dexter?"

"Ah. Your friend, Dennis."

"How can you remember his name if I don't?" Peter shook his head, and his father's drooped slightly. "It wasn't here, it was..." He moved forward, off of the path that led to the Temple. He was unsure of the direction, but his feet had some certainty to them.

"Peter—"

He shook his head. This was the first new memory from that time that he'd had in— in years. He had to follow this memory, he had to!

They'd been this way, heading off of the path, looking for adventure, him and Dennis. It was early spring, and there were herbs on the ground but the pair were running through the forest, crushing the new growth along with the old as they played.

"Tag! You're it!"

Their laughter filled the forest, until they stopped short—

Peter stumbled over a branch, and his eyes opened slowly, the intensity of the memory leaving him, but he smiled and crouched down. "Here, Pop! We lit a fire here!"

"Indeed?"

Twenty years later, the stones had been scattered, but Peter could remember it. It was flooding back to him, a memory in full technicolor, full audio, like the flashbacks of fire and smoke, only positive!

"The priests will be angry. My father will be angry..."

"Who cares what some old men say, Peter? Don't be such a stick in the mud. We're the future, not them." Peter frowned, and Dennis chose a different tactic. "Aren't we supposed to be self-sufficient? It's just a little fire."

"I remember this! He lit the fire, and we sat around it for hours." Peter knelt down and touched the ground. He looked up at his father. "I haven't thought about him in years." His face fell and he looked in the direction of the Temple. "I haven't thought about any of them. Where they went, what they did with their lives. I used to think about them all the time, after the Temple burned down."

And then Tan had come, and he could only seem to remember thinking about thinking about them. About the Temple, too. Thoughts of the Temple had become mired in pain and grief and fear, and Tan had helped him turn it all into rage, because his anger was so much more productive.

But if he used his anger to support him now... he didn't want to hurt his father, but it was so easy to take the hurt and anger and transform it into blame. Blame for his father turning away— if the man had just taken a step or two towards his son, Peter would not have been separated from him. He would not have grown up with Tan. He would not have been the Dragon's Son. His hands would not be covered in the dirt and blood and sick of murder.

If Kwai Chang Caine had taken two steps.

"Peter? Are you unwell?"

Peter looked up and shrugged. "I'm fine, Pop. Just a memory clutching at my heart."

"Then shall we continue to the Temple?" Peter nodded, and stood, letting out a breath. His father paused for a moment, and raised a hand. "Peter? Don't call me Pop."

Peter stared up at the Temple, bag slung over his back. It had definitely looked bigger, once upon a time, but the high walls still towered over both Peter and his father. The way it hugged the cliffs made it look more like fortress than a Temple. "So... this is it. A desecrated memorial to everything we had back then." He almost wished they were still at the bottom of the hill; looking up at it from below, he could almost imagine that it was still the way it had once been. He looked around at what had once been smooth plaster over strong concrete walls. There obviously hadn't been much of an effort to repair the holes in them. "Probably a cliche, but... it looks smaller than it did back then."

"You were smaller," said his father with a smile.

He dropped his duffle and bedding beside the entrance and just walked through the door to the ruins. Stone and concrete. Burned wood. This place had been a home once, a place where he and his father and other monks and students had lived. The ghost of Ping Hai seemed to float beyond the entrance, as if the old man weren't sitting in his room back in the city.

His wasn't the only ghost: a shiver passed through Peter as he thought of the priests and the student who had died in the fire. He couldn't help but remember the flames. The smoke and the incense were long gone, but as he stood, he felt like he was back there, struggling in that one infinite moment.

The sound of his father dropping his own pack beside Peter's broke him out of his thoughts. "You taught me so much here."

"It was you that taught me."

Peter put a hand on one of the blackened wood pillars, fingers tracing up and down the charcoal. There was something painful about it all.

"Do you remember any of my lessons?"

He shrugged and looked around as they pushed the heavy metal doors open enough for each of them to move through, single file. The floors were still covered with debris. "Sometimes, I think I do. But... I'm never sure if it's you, or just... just what I want to remember." He pulled a leaf off of one of the vines that had grown over the door and walked with aimless steps through the entrance hall.

His father paused by the doors and sighed, then walked forward.

"For a long time, I wanted to hear your words again. I'd have given anything. I dreamed of you telling me you would find me, rescue me from the foster homes, from the orphanage. And then Tan came, and for a while, I wished you'd never said anything at all." He glanced back at his father with a small smile. "And now, I wish I could hear your words again. It's strange how things go." He looked at the fallen masonry, looked through one of the holes in the walls. He knelt down, and a moment of doubled-vision came upon him. The flames burning through that hole— a man turning away... "My childhood has always been unclear, like trying to see through the distortion of a fire's heat and smoke. I remember the cries of the priests and the children... the footsteps of everyone who ran away..."

Pop placed a hand on Peter's shoulder, and took hold of his pendant with the other. "There was much confusion and panic. Fear is only an asset when you can control it."

Peter frowned. "What, like the Chi'ru?"

The priest stopped suddenly and turned to face his son. "That fear is a weapon, not an asset. That is not the control of which I speak."

Peter shrugged and stood, moving away from the harsh tone. "Okay. Sorry for asking." He went to one of the walls and ran a hand along the damaged concrete. "What did we do here? In this room. You said you'd share, so... give me a memory I've lost?"

His father walked over to him, slung an arm around his shoulders and led him to what looked like a place of honor. "There was a statue here. Do you remember it?"

Peter shook his head. "Was it the Buddha?"

"No. It was Guan Yu."

"Hm." Peter ran a hand over the dirt where the statue would have stood. "Would have been big to fill this platform. How did we afford things like that?"

"There were benefactors," said his father vaguely. "And also, those that we helped would often help us in return. This land was given to the Shaolin by one of our members; the building materials donated by those in China and Tibet who fled the purges."

Peter nodded at his father's words and looked up, trying to imagine what it would have been like. Guan Yu, one of the patrons of Hong Kong. "He would have had a sword." Naturally. "Flowing robes under his armor." He could almost see himself, standing in awe of the statue that towered over him. "He looked so stern... so much a warrior, but..." Peter frowned and his eyes drifted closed. He could almost imagine that time. "Did he have a book in his hand?"

"Yes," said his father behind him.

"I... I remember him. He collapsed during the explosions. The hand with the book separated— over there." Peter turned and walked to a far corner. The charred remains of the statue's right hand lay where he remembered it, and he crouched down beside it, touching the book with surprise. "I didn't think I'd remember anything so... simple."

He could feel the approving smile in his father's voice. "Shall we search for... other memories?"

"This was our suite."

Peter looked at his father for a moment, then walked around. "Suite?"

"I would have had only one room, except... I had a son." The man was smiling slightly. "This small room was for visitors. Your friends..." The younger Caine looked around, trying to remember what it was that they'd had back in those days, but the memories seemed... vague. "Do you remember them?"

Peter shook his head. "It's like my memories are made of smoke. They're all swirling around, everywhere in here. I can feel them, almost see the shape of them, but if I try to grab any one, they all blow away."

His father put a warm hand on his shoulder. "When you hold a stone too tightly, it turns to dust."

Peter rolled his eyes. Just the sort of thing his father would say, a meaningless quip. What would Tan have said? Probably that the memories weren't worth finding. He looked around, trying to push his father's words away. "Hey, wasn't that set of drawers in your room?"

He paused, wondering how he'd known that. His father's hand slipped from his shoulder and the man pulled out his knife, prying each of the burned drawers in turn. Peter wondered what had been in them: papers, scrolls about kung fu, pens, his birth certificate... the possibilities seemed endless.

His father reached in to one that popped open and he pulled something out, a black oval on an equally blackened chain. "What d'ya find, Pop?" The Shaolin priest smiled and waved him over; Peter crouched down next to him. There was a glint of gold in his father's hand, fine etching where the ash had not turned the gold to black. "Is that... our family name?"

Caine nodded, but did not turn for a moment. Careful effort on his father's part worked the locket open, and he smiled, offering the small piece of jewellery to his son. "This was your mother's."

"I wish I remembered her. Her smile, or her voice..."

"You were very young." The hand was on Peter's back. "When she was alive, though she was ill, she would sit with you in the garden. You would point at the birds, and she would name each of them."

"I can't believe a picture survived in all this." Peter felt emotion welling up inside of him as he stared at the woman. "She was beautiful, wasn't she." He wiped his eyes surreptitiously. "A lot of dust still in here."

"Ah. I suppose I am... stirring that up, too?"

Peter laughed slightly. "I can keep this, right?" At his father's nod, he closed the locket and placed the dirty chain over his head, letting it dangle from his neck as he stood up. "Maybe... maybe we can visit her, later?"

"You never wanted to, before."

"Well... maybe I'm a more dutiful son, now."

"Dutiful?" Pop raised an eyebrow, but smiled. "We will visit her in a few days," he said, then returned to what he was doing, leaving Peter to explore as he wished.

He looked at the two doors as his father attempted to open a few more of the drawers. One of those had been the door to his room. He stared at them, trying to remember which of them was his, but as before, the memories floated away as soon as he tried to reach them. He felt frustrated and kicked at the dirt.

From behind him, his father spoke. "Do not try to remember them. Feel them, and the memories will come."

Peter shook his head. How was he supposed to just feel? He closed his eyes and tried to imagine himself as a boy. Sweating from the morning training regimen, he would have returned home. Some days, his father would have trailed sedately after him as he bounded through the sunlit corridors of the Temple; other days, he would have sullenly followed his father, his feet dragging on the polished floors.

But there was nothing behind it, no memory came to him, despite his efforts.

He sighed and put a hand on the door. It was wooden, darkened like everything else in this place. If only he didn't care so much about these memories. If only—

"I don't care." It had been a particularly difficult morning, with Master Dao complaining about everything he'd done. No move had been good enough, every word had been spoken with criticism. And when he'd complained? His Father had taken Master Dao's side. It just wasn't fair.

"Peter, mastery of the body includes master of the mind— it is time for school."

"Well, I don't want to go to school today. I'm going to bed, Father."

"We will discuss this—"

"No!" So what if he was being disrespectful? If he'd just been born a normal kid, with normal parents— even a normal kid in the Temple would have had it better, wouldn't have been expected to be more skilled, more effortlessly talented, than everyone else. It was too much for him! "I'm not discussing anything right now. Just leave me alone. I wish I wasn't your son!"

He saw the dismay in his father's eyes, and felt guilty for half a breath, but then walked through the door and slammed it. His father didn't understand anything—

Peter pushed the door open. The bed frame was very nearly as he remembered it, the mattress damaged by the fire and fifteen years of insects. He remembered that Ping Hai had brought him in here, let him look through his things. When the old man's back had been turned, Peter had gone into his father's room, half-expecting that the priest would be sitting there, ready to tell him that things weren't as they seemed.

He'd gone through his father's things. He'd found his father's knife. He'd found an old wooden toy soldier that had been spared by the fire, and his father's long mala, the prayer beads he'd used when meditating beside his son's bed. Ping Hai had shuffled him out too quickly for him to conduct a thorough search. If he had remained, would he have found signs that his father was alive? Would things have been different?

He sat down on the floor— he wasn't confident that the bed wouldn't collapse if he sat on it— and thought. This place... it held so many memories of his childhood friends, of Ping Hai and the other Shaolin Masters, of both of his fathers. He was here with Kwai Chang Caine, but would it be wrong to also remember Tan? Or Dao, as he had been called back then. Maybe if his memories were anchored with both fathers, it would be easier.

Or perhaps— as his father had said— he should stop trying to force it.

Peter looked up at the soft sound of footsteps behind him. "When you were young," said his father, "you would sometimes dream of dragons that came to steal you away. I would meditate there so that you were not alone."

"Dragons, huh?" Peter reached up for his father's hand, and the older man pulled him to his feet with ease. "Wonder what that meant."

"They are an auspicious symbol. I never understood why they were frightening for you," said the priest. "Come. What we seek is not here."