Disclaimer: I blame marathons of Karate Kid movies on TV for making me writing fanfic of it, haha.
Story: When Mike Barnes seeks revenge some other way, Danielle finds healing in two unlikely and unexpected saviors.
Set as a genderbent continuation of the third Karate Kid movie.
Spoilers: Yeeeessss. Yes, yes, yes. Beware?
Warnings: Age difference, initial racism towards Asians, excessive drinking, some violence and language, PTSD, gender roles and gender expectations, societal expectations…
Pairings: Eventual John Kreese/fem!Daniel/Terry Silver.

The Things I Could Do Without
Chapter Six: A Heartbreak Situation

The rest of the week had been…strange. Danielle wasn't going to say it was great, but it wasn't bad. It was even better than her earlier time with them in the mansion, given how (though their existence together had been almost peaceful before anyhow) they were now spending more time in each other's presence, rather than trying to avoid running into each other. She was making an effort. She wasn't…she wasn't trying to hide from the world, from them.

If anything, she refused to wilt away from life after what happened, no matter what. That would just mean that Mike Barnes had won over her, and she wouldn't let that happen.

She just needed to stop flinching around John and Terry (she still wasn't sure about using their first names, but they had insisted and she was making an effort. Right. An effort). Or having nightmares.

At least her door muffled her screams at night.

"Mm, are you making omelets?" she heard Terry ask eagerly.

She felt herself begin to smile, and she let herself a little bit.

"Do you want one?" she raised an eyebrow, smirking slightly.

"Only if we get to eat with you," John entered the kitchen too, taking a seat at the island counter.

Danielle's smirk faltered and she looked hesitant. The two men looked at her expectantly, but they didn't push her.

'Compromise, Danielle. You need to move on with your life.'

"Sure," she agreed. "Two more omelets coming up, huh? Everything on the counter?"

"No mushrooms for me," Terry rocked on his feet, humming slightly. "My Ma used to tell me they were rat's umbrellas when I was a kid. Never got over that."

John rolled his eyes, while Danielle giggled.

"No tomatoes please," John requested, and Danielle nodded and got to work, chewing on her lower lip in concentration.

Still, she could feel their stares at her back, making her uncomfortable. She was hyperaware of them. Always had been, really. Their combined attention was a lot to take sometimes, but they were always careful to keep a distance until she relaxed or allowed them in closer.

Sometimes though, her hyperawareness and being uncomfortable was for other reasons that made her unwilling to look into and examine within herself. It brought up thoughts of her idiotic infatuation with Terry back in those days where she wanted to be a willing student for him, and the strange fascination she had with even John back when he was just the sensei of a bunch of stupid boys she was fighting with.

A thump near her and feeling a warm body coming slightly close shocked her out of her thoughts and made her yelp, defensively lashing out with a fist. She blinked as she turned and saw Terry leaning away, his arm still up to block her. They exchanged shocked looks, before they both slowly relaxed.

"I-I'm sorry," Danielle started feeling shame and frustration with herself, also aware of John's gaze on her, even if she wasn't looking his way. "I didn't mean to do that."

"No, I'm sorry," Terry held up his hands. "I shouldn't have startled you. You alright?"

"Yes, I'm fine," she muttered, trying to go back to focusing on cooking. "I'm…working on that."

"We understand," she heard John say from behind her. "Don't worry about it."

Angrily, she turned off the stove and tossed the spatula on the counter before going to face them.

"I can't stop worrying about it!" she shouted. "I'm tired of being like this! I'm tired of being skittish and flinching all the time! I'm tired of being like some kind of…some kind of scared deer, always ready to run off! Why the hell did I learn karate for, if it wasn't to do something against jerks like Barnes and stop something like that?! What's wrong with me that I couldn't even fight back properly to stop him?"

"That is not your fault!" John stood up from his seat. "You aren't at fault for what he did!"

"I beat him in the tournament!" her voice turned shrill. "I should've been able to fight back! This shouldn't have happened to me at all!"

"He wasn't sticking to any rules and no one was there to watch or stop him," Terry said firmly, speaking up as well. "You can't blame yourself for Barnes coming at you like he did, especially at your old man's funeral."

Danielle made a frustrated noise and she just felt furious all of a sudden.

"I should've been able to fight back!" she shouted at them. "Unlike other girls, I knew how to fight back! But I didn't! I was stupid afraid of him! I always had been! That's why that asshole managed to toss me out of my car! That's why I ran, instead of hitting him! That's why I ran into that stupid forest! I should have been able to do something other than struggle and scream, even though he'd tackled me to the ground…I should have…I should have…I shouldn't have let him slam my head onto the ground or flip me onto my back…I should've done more than scratched at his hands when he was choking me…I should have…" she broke down into sobs and buried her face into her hands, sliding to the floor.

"I don't want to be numb anymore, like I was then…I don't want to be numb and unfeeling," she kept sobbing. "I should have let him kill me…" she gripped her hair tightly, curling into a ball.

"Don't say that," Terry said harshly, dropping down next to her and placing his hands against hers, trying to pry her fingers off. "Don't do this, Danielle."

John was at her other side then, helping Terry take her hands away.

"You're hurting yourself," he murmured. "Don't do that. Don't let him get to you."

"I didn't do anything to stop him. Why learn karate, when I couldn't even use it to protect myself?" she continued sobbing, though she was quieting down and finally letting them take her hands away from her hair. "I couldn't do anything…"

Terry wiped her face with his hands, while John held her hands together (firm but not too firm).

"You can learn whatever you can. Sometimes it just won't help. It still doesn't make what happened to you your fault," Terry made her look into his eyes. "Don't you think that. If it's anyone's fault, it's Barnes. And mine for being the idiot who hired him and made him come after you in the first place."

"You didn't know what he was like, or that he would do this," Danielle muttered.

"I didn't, but I still brought him in and made him part of this mess," Terry said bluntly. "Which is more of a real fault than you not being able to stop him from raping you."

She flinched at the word, having tried to avoid it. But she knew it wasn't good or healthy of her to. She sniffled a little.

"I don't want to feel numb," she said softly, staring at her lap, where hers and John's hands were. "When it happened and afterwards, all I felt was numb and empty inside. I don't want to feel like that."

"You don't have to," John squeezed her hands. "Just tell us what you need, what would help you. What would…what would be needed to make this better."

"Danielle, we're not going anywhere," Terry added seriously. "If you need to scream out your frustration, take out your anger on something…we're here. We'd deserve it anyhow, after what we did before."

She reluctantly nodded in understanding, biting her lip hesitantly.

"I don't…I don't want to be alone right now."

John nodded. "Terry works mostly at home anyway, and to be honest, the new hire at the dojo is doing fine teaching solo so I don't have to come in as much. We're here."

She sniffed a few times, shifting a little. She wasn't sure what to say or do right then.

"Let's watch a movie," Terry suggested. "I'll pop in a tape or see what's on TV, and we'll just crash on the couch with junk food or something. Or share the one good omelet Danielle managed to make."

"That was mine," Danielle felt her lips twitching.

"It's ours now."

"It has mushrooms," she warned.

"I can pick them out," Terry said smugly, which earned him a brief burst of soft chuckles from her.

"Tomatoes?" John unexpectedly cut in.

Danielle shook her head. "I don't like them either."

John smirked widely, while Terry huffed.

They grabbed a large bag of chips, microwaved some popcorn and dumped it into a huge bowl, and snacked on the lone omelet (which Terry did indeed pick out the mushrooms and shuffled them over to Danielle and John to eat). After they got all that, they went into the living room, or what Terry claimed was the living room, and put on something that was on TV. Unluckily for John and Terry, it was Dirty Dancing.

They shared grimaces over Danielle's head, but said nothing about the movie choice, especially given that she actually seemed to really want to watch it when she saw what was on and what they had managed to land the channel on.

"Your hair reminds me of Patrick Swayze's, especially in here," Danielle said suddenly, while she was watching the movie intently.

"Whose?" Terry blinked.

"John's hair…Actually, Patrick Swayze kind of really reminds me of him…"

John blinked this time, before wearing a wide smirk, tossing over a smug look at Terry, who was scowling and almost (but never would admit to it) pouting.

"It's the arms. The muscled arms that are always being showed off, and the muscled torso. And the hair," Danielle squinted her eyes at the screen. "Also, Patrick's face kind of looks like John's…"

John was going to take that all as a compliment, especially being compared to Patrick Swayze of all people. Even if, mostly the beginning part of that, it almost seemed like a jab at him. He did not show off his arms all the time…

They let her watched the movie, drafted into paying attention since they were sandwiched on the couch together and doing nothing but watching TV together and eating. By chance, when it was near the end of the movie, John looked down and found that she had fallen asleep and was leaning heavily against a stiff Terry.

He raised his eyebrows. "You okay?"

"Peachy," Terry said sarcastically.

"What's the problem then?" John watched him in confusion.

"I'm uncomfortable," Terry mumbled.

"Uncomfortable?" John felt incredulous. "Danielle's not exactly heavy. She's actually pretty light."

Terry gave him an agitated look. "It's hard to be in this position when I'm not exactly…platonic towards her."

What the hell was that supposed to mean? John gave Terry and his position a harder look, zeroing on Terry's face and the look he had, and stopping short of blurting it out. Instead, he stared at his friend in surprise.

Since when had Terry felt like that towards Danielle? On second thought…

Maybe Terry had always felt like this. It probably hadn't hit him until…until that night. The night Danielle had said something about her own feelings.

For some reason, the thought of Terry being in love with Danielle put a frown on John's face. More so at the thought that maybe she still liked Terry. Did she?

Unhappily, John wore a frown for the rest of the movie.

Terry flipped the channel as soon as the movie was over, trying to find something else to watch that would be less of a chick flick, and more something to his and John's tastes. Predator came up, so he put that on and tried not to focus too much on the warm body lying on him.

Fuck, he was having trouble concentrating.

Realizing he didn't have platonic feelings for a girl practically half his age was making this situation worse than it already was. He'd already mucked her life up enough as is. He didn't need to complicate it any more.

And he felt John's judging eyes on him earlier. Fuck that and fuck him. Besides, he'd be there when John realized how he felt about her. And then the two of them could commiserate over their stupidity in falling for a girl who probably still hated their guts.

What did that say about them?

They just…shouldn't be feeling this way. They shouldn't have let any of this get so far, and now they shouldn't have let themselves get in so far over their heads.

"I'm miserably in love with her," he blurted out in confession all of a sudden. He didn't look over to see if John was looking at him now. "I wish I could have…I wish I could have realized that a long time ago, back when none of this had happened and I was just this awesome guy in her life."

"It would've been simpler, wouldn't it?" John's voice sounded off and Terry looked over, saw him looking back with a stoic look on his face. "You and her, happy ending, right?"

Terry's jaw clenched. "Could've been."

"But it isn't. That's reality. You and I fucked up and now we have to clean up our messes."

Terry took a deep breath, looking bitterly at the TV and then at John. "I know that…" he muttered.

"After that, I guess it's just up to her though," John ended tiredly, but Terry hadn't expected that.

It sounded…a little more hopeful for the two of them, than he could have guessed for.

When Danielle woke up, she realized she was still in the living room. More so that she realized she was lying on Terry, also passed out with a troubled look on his face, and that her legs and feet were planted firmly on top of John's lap. He was also sleeping, looking tired.

She bit her lip, but didn't say anything or move. She didn't want to wake them up, and she didn't want to move away anyway.

God, she felt really stupid.

Danielle knew the two of them had hurt her before, really badly, and yet…she couldn't help how she felt about them anymore than she realized it was wrong. She knew all about them, remembered everything they had said and done to her in the past. But it was in the past and she was trying to move on, right?

Despite everything, she remembered the time she spent with Terry clearly. And she had really enjoyed it and being with him, and she missed those times herself. She shouldn't, but she wanted to spend her time with him. Even with John, who she found herself enjoying being around now. Aside from the flinches and the sudden movements, she didn't mind them being close or even touching her.

The truth was that she wanted that a little too much.

They were all sorts of wrong for her, she knew. After everything, that was clear to her. But they were trying and they wanted to make up for before. And they were doing their best to help her. Why couldn't they be the right kind of wrong?

Oh God, she just knew she was going to be making mistakes.

Started 3/14/16 – Completed 3/15/16

A/n: Whoo, it's getting really heavy up in here, yeah? So much feels going on~ Good for them XD Need to air it all out, work on everything and all, haha. Anyway, I hope everyone liked this chapter and please remember to review!

Anon Reviews:

1. Guest: Nope, I haven't abandoned Like a Boss. I'm glad you like it so much and it's one of your favorites you've ever read, but I'm just working on other stuff for, since I've finished the first arc of that fic.

2. Writeroftime: I really appreciate your words and you taking the time to review! Thanks so much! I know this (and my other Karate Kid stories) are pretty odd with plot and pairings, but that people are taking the time to read and review (and be interested at all) -especially given how it's a small, inactive fandom -I'm just really grateful. So thank you again~