Hawk slung the strap of his backpack over his shoulder, rolling the knuckles of his right hand with a wince before he stepped outside the dojo. Thoughts from his lesson that day weighed heavily on his mind.

All the things Sensei had been telling him. About the origins of Cobra Kai. About fighting a war where the odds were stacked so heavily against your side. About what it meant to survive in a world full of enemies always out to get you. It was so real. Sensei really understood everything he'd been going through the previous couple of months. And he knew how to help him come out of it stronger than ever.

A figure standing outside Nestor's convenience store pulled him back to reality. The clouds dissipated from Hawk's head, and a big smile lit up his face seeing who it was standing there chugging a bottle of Powerade. "Oh shit, you're actually here!" he exclaimed, rushing up to meet him.

"Hey," Miguel greeted him back with a fist-bump. He had furrowed brows as he glanced down at Hawk's bandaged hand, and a troubled look came over his face.

But Hawk was too excited to notice. "Did you bike out here?" he asked.

Miguel shook his head. "I ran," he answered. Then, with a roll of his eyes, amended, "Well, I guess sprinted. Okay, it was more of a light jog. Gotta build the muscles back up gradually, y'know?"

Hawk chuckled, and his smile didn't waver. It was great seeing Miguel up and active. And he was beyond ecstatic to see him standing there outside Cobra Kai. One step closer to things getting back to some semblance of normal. It had been so long. "Well, you missed class. Sensei changed the lessons on Thursday to four-thirty."

"Sensei Kreese, you mean."

The corners of Hawk's mouth twitched. That sounded like a loaded observation. But he shrugged, trying not to read too deep into it. "Duh. There's only one Sensei around here these days."

Hawk could see the way Miguel's expression tightened at that. Even he was a little surprised by how barbed that comment had come out. So he tacked on, "I mean, you heard about Miyagi-Do, right? Their pussy Sensei's been too busy saving face and acting like he had nothing to do with what Keene did to run a dojo. Can you believe that shit?"

Miguel probably knew he hadn't originally been talking about Mr. LaRusso, but he accepted the opportunity to change course. He took a swig from his Powerade and replied, "Yeah, I heard about Miyagi-Do closing. Sam told me."

Elbowing him, Hawk wiggled his eyebrows suggestively and remarked, "Damn, man, already trying to get back with her? That's ballin'."

Rolling his eyes again, Miguel let out an exasperated sigh. He sounded irritated. "No, Jesus Christ, it wasn't like that."

"If you say so." It pleased Hawk to hear that, although he did his best not to show it. He didn't really care about Miguel's girl troubles. If he was done with both Sam and Tory for a while, he was probably better off for it. Plus it meant Hawk didn't have to bring up his own string of bad luck with girls lately.

News of Demetri's roast had spread to about every corner of the school. Bad enough to lose a school fight, and to Demetri of all people. Worse still to be an outed bedwetter on top of it. Who would want to be with him, knowing that? Miguel might very well have been the only soul left in West Valley High School who didn't know.

Switching the topic back to karate, Hawk went on. "But, anyway, Sensei Kreese doesn't think Mr. LaRusso is actually gone for good. He thinks he's just laying low for a while, that he's planning something big. He's probably coming up with some scheme to shut us down."

Miguel swallowed more of his drink, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "Why would he do that?"

Hawk scoffed in disbelief. "Bruh. Have you forgotten all the sneaky shit he pulled? Remember the free lessons? Or how about the time he busted into the dojo and insulted Cobra Kai in front of everyone?"

"Well, to be fair, that was after you vandalized his dojo," Miguel pointed out.

Knitting his brows to the bridge of his nose, Hawk felt tension building up in his shoulders. This wasn't going the way he'd hoped it would. He'd hoped seeing Miguel here at the strip mall meant his friend was finally coming back. But now here he was, standing there and arguing with him. "Why are you defending Miyagi-Do?"

"I'm not defending them," retorted Miguel, frustration clear in his tone. It sounded like he had something more on his mind, and wasn't coming out with it. "I just meant that Mr. LaRusso's beef was with Sensei, right? So what does he care about Sensei Kreese running things?"

"No, it was with Cobra Kai," Hawk corrected, a hard edge to his voice, pointing with his forefinger to emphasize his words. "It's always been about Mr. LaRusso's war with Cobra Kai. Beating us wasn't enough. He won't stop until the dojo's shut down for good."

Miguel had that particular look on his face. The one he did during their confrontation over the medal of honor. And Hawk willed himself to calm down some. He had to remind himself that Miguel hadn't been in Cobra Kai since the fight. He hadn't heard Sensei Kreese's lessons. He didn't understand that they were at war. This was just the lull between battles.

"How'd you bust your hands?" asked Miguel, seemingly apropos of nothing, gesturing to Hawk's bandaged knuckles. The frustration in his voice dulled into one hinting concern.

Wiggling his fingers to loosen the soreness in them, Hawk forced a smirk up the side of his face. "Sensei had me practice on a wooden block today."

Miguel's eyes widened. "What's that meant to do?"

"Gets you toughened up, so you can pound your enemy's face in without worrying about breaking the bones in your hands," explained Hawk. Jutting out his chin, he added, "I'm the only one who's worked his way up to it. Sensei Kreese said that's how they did things back when he was in bootcamp."

Looking at Hawk's hands again, Miguel raised an eyebrow. "And how'd that go?"

Miguel didn't need to hear the gritty details. How he'd been told to keep hitting the block over and over again. How Sensei helped push him past the initial pain, to find his Cobra strength within. "It takes some getting used to," Hawk said. "But in the end, wasn't a problem. Just split the skin open a little is all."

From the expression on his face, Miguel didn't believe him. "Sounds pretty intense."

"What, like this is the first time we had to break out the first-aid station in class?" Hawk deflected with a roll of his shoulders. "Remember that day when Aisha unflinched everyone? Man, that was a lot blood, wasn't it?"

"Hawk—"

"And last week, you should've seen it, my left hook went smack into Mikey's nose." He slapped his palms together hard to imitate what it had sounded like. "Pow! That guy's a total gusher, let me tell you."

A sigh parted Miguel's lips. "It sounds like Sensei Lawrence was right."

That got Hawk to stop. His stomach dropped. "Sensei Lawrence?"

Miguel squared his shoulders back, rolling the Powerade bottle between his hands. "He and I talked the other day."

Still blindsided by the news that Sensei Lawrence was now back in the picture, that he'd spoken to Miguel, Hawk could only ask, "About what?"

There was that look again, like there was way more to this than Miguel was letting on. But then, it was always like that between him and Sensei Lawrence. "Y'know, things. Where he's been. All the crazy stuff that's been happening." He shook his head and a sad smile crossed his lips. "Did you know he actually visited me in the hospital? Before I woke up? Mom actually let him in. It was after…after Robby got arrested. She let him in, and she never told me."

Hawk didn't know how to respond to that. He was surprised Miss Diaz allowed it to happen. His own parents wouldn't have, if the situations were reversed. "Well, where's he been since then?" he inquired, not in a mood to be lenient to Sensei Lawrence.

Miguel's sad smile straightened. "He's been having a really rough time. Like, he wouldn't tell me too much, but I know he's been struggling. The fight, Robby being sent to juvie, it all hit him pretty hard."

By his sides, Hawk's fists clenched on reflex. Did Miguel want him to feel bad for Sensei Lawrence? Because from the sounds of it, all Sensei Lawrence had done was show up to spill his sob story to Miguel. The one who'd paid the biggest penalty for his bad teaching.

Miguel must have seen the way Hawk's eyes narrowed, because his next statement was firm. "He also said Sensei Kreese stole the dojo from him."

There it was.

"Sensei Kreese founded Cobra Kai," Hawk defensively retorted. "You can't steal what you created in the first place."

"But his Cobra Kai was outdated," argued Miguel, repeating Sensei Lawrence's words back to him. "It had to change. That's the whole reason Sensei threw him out."

"Yeah, and look what happened after that!" Hawk sharply countered. "We got our asses kicked! He made us all into a bunch of losers!"

Miguel looked struck, like Hawk had punched him in the gut with those words. That expression stilled Hawk's tongue from letting even more of his feelings out. He had a lot he would've liked to say, but he had no desire to hurt Miguel, no matter how much he was irritating him by defending Sensei Lawrence.

"It's still not…I mean, that's not what….." Miguel trailed off and ran his hands through his dark hair, dragging them down to rub at his face. At that moment, he looked so tired, so confused, like he was completely lost and without guidance. And Hawk's previous frustration melted away, recognizing himself in him. He remembered again how long Miguel had been away from all this.

He hated seeing his friend so low. Bad enough to have had what happened at the school and end up in a coma at the hospital, where nobody even knew if he was going to survive. Then to spend weeks and weeks recovering, his whole world changing around him and being helpless to do anything about it. It must have made Miguel feel weak. And Hawk knew Miguel wasn't weak. He just needed help.

Hawk reached a hand out, wrapping it around one of Miguel's. His friend's skin was warm against his cool fingers. "Just come inside," he said, gesturing behind him to the dojo. "Sensei's still in there, he'll explain everything."

If Miguel needed guidance, Sensei Kreese could provide it. He'd been there for Hawk ever since the school fight, when nobody else was. If it hadn't been for Sensei Kreese, Hawk didn't know if he could have pulled himself through the aftermath, through all that humiliation and misery.

If Sensei Kreese could give him strength during the worst time of his life, he could definitely do the same for Miguel.

Miguel took one look at the door, then tugged his hand away. "Not right now," he said. "I should probably head back home."

Hawk's insides felt like they'd dropped again. But he was willing to put the matter aside for now. He still didn't want to fight about it. "Alright, yeah." Thumbing over his shoulder towards his car, he asked, "You want a ride?"

Shaking his head, Miguel softened the decline with a grin. "Thanks, but I really gotta build up my endurance. If I keep up at this pace, the doctors say I might even be able to cut down on the physical therapy visits by the end of the month."

Hawk grinned back. "Cool."

Miguel patted him on the shoulder. "I'll see you around soon," he promised before walking down the sidewalk. As he strolled across the parking lot, he looked behind him and called out, "And dude, be sure to put some ice on those hands!"

"For sure, man!"

When Miguel turned the corner and was out of sight, Hawk reached inside his pocket for his car keys. But he didn't remove them. He instead wrapped his fingers around the plastic clicker and metal key, squeezing them hard against his sweaty palm.

Just a short while ago, he was ready to go home and relax after his hard day at practice. But now….

The sudden rattle of bells had Hawk turning around to see Sensei Kreese standing at the door. "That was Diaz?" he asked, stepping outside.

Walking over to join him, Hawk nodded. "Yes, Sensei."

The old man raised his eyebrows, noting, "Looks like he's improved. Back on his feet already."

"He's been doing a lot better," Hawk stated. It was only a matter of time before Miguel would be back in karate, ready to rejoin his friends. Hawk had been counting down the days.

But Sensei Lawrence's return, he hadn't foreseen that. Which was dumb. He didn't know why he expected otherwise. How come Sensei Lawrence had to come back and unload his bullshit on Miguel, when everything that happened to Miguel was his fault? Why couldn't he just go drink himself into a stupor?

Hawk looked up at his Sensei. He couldn't keep this from the King Cobra. He'd want to know. It wasn't snitching. It was looking out for Cobra Kai. "Miguel told me he talked to Sensei Lawrence." If the piece of news surprised Sensei Kreese, his face made no show of it. So Hawk continued, "He told Miguel that you stole the dojo."

"Did he?" Sensei Kreese inquired.

"But I told Miguel the truth," Hawk hastily emphasized.

Crossing his arms, Sensei Kreese said, "I suspected Sensei Lawrence would reach out to Diaz at some point. No doubt, of course, to see how Diaz was doing, if only to ease his sense of guilt for what he did."

Hawk's mouth creased in anger. Under his breath, he admitted, "I wish he would just leave Miguel alone."

Sensei Kreese tilted his head the slightest, his thick brows furrowing. "Sensei Lawrence is undoubtedly still upset with how events have turned out. To see Cobra Kai flourishing in his absence, to hear about you kids getting stronger without him, it must be difficult for him to swallow. Could you imagine getting as far as you have lately under his guidance?"

"No, Sensei," Hawk answered, shaking his head.

Sensei Kreese nodded once more. "So rather than admit he made a mistake in weakening Cobra Kai, Sensei Lawrence is reaching out to the only one of you who hasn't seen for himself how things here have improved."

Of course. Sensei Lawrence knew he couldn't show his face in the dojo again, to try his bullshit on any of them, who knew better. So he'd send Miguel. Was he using Miguel as some pawn to try and undermine Sensei Kreese?

The expression on Hawk's face twisted in a mixture of fury and distress. "Do you think Sensei Lawrence is gonna use Miguel to try and steal Cobra Kai back?"

A small smirk curled up around the corner of Sensei Kreese's hard mouth. "As long as I'm here, you got nothing to worry about, kid."

That reassurance sent a wave of relief through Hawk, and he gave a half-bow. "Yes, Sensei." He could at least go home now feeling more secure that things at Cobra Kai would continue to stay on track. He didn't know why he should have doubted that, but the thought of things going back to the way they were under Sensei Lawrence before the school fight, it sent an icy chill up his spine.

When he took a couple steps toward the parking lot, Sensei Kreese reached out and grabbed his upper arm with a rough grip. Hawk almost winced. "But if Sensei Lawrence is taking advantage of Diaz's situation," said the King Cobra, "I expect you to continue looking out for him. Let me know if there are anymore problems. Don't let Sensei Lawrence continue to lead him down the wrong path. Remember, you and Diaz are Cobra Kai. And Cobra Kai never dies."

Hawk nodded again, firmer this time. "Yes, Sensei."