CHAPTER 121

As Sarah slowly opened her eyes the next morning, the birds' gentle singing from outside rousing her from her slumber, for a few moments she forgot about everything that had happened the night before. When they had eventually gone to sleep, she and Marcos had spent the night wrapped in each other's arms, Sarah afraid that if she let go, he'd disappear again. But wait… where was he? As Sarah looked beside her in the bed, she realized with a shock that Marcos was nowhere to be found. Irrational fears began to sink in, and she leapt out of her bed, rushing out of the room, terrified that he had been taken away again.

Her fears came to nothing though, as when she ran downstairs into the kitchen, she found him sitting at the table, his back to her, drinking some water. They were the only ones in the house, as once again Sarah's parents were out of town, so there was no mistaking that it was Marcos who was at the table, reading a book.

"Thank God." She murmured quietly to herself, loud enough that Marcos turned around to see her standing in the doorway, still half-asleep but the panic was evident in her eyes, panic that slowly subsided as she accepted the fact that he was still here.

"Morning." Marcos said cheerfully, oblivious for a moment to Sarah's troubled wake-up.

Breathing a massive sigh of relief, Sarah walked over to him and almost collapsed in his arm, embracing him in a crushing hug. As they embraced, Marcos could hear her uneven, labored breathing and he glanced at her, concerned.

"You okay?" He asked. Sarah gathered herself to slap him on the shoulder.

"What the hell were you thinking?! I thought you left again!" Sarah exclaimed, unwilling to let go of him. The fears of abandonment that stemmed from just how quickly he had been whisked away in the first place were clearly prominent within her, but Marcos' presence alone was a calming one. Seeing him right in front of her, not just back but smiling in a way that he hadn't for a month before his deportation, was enough to slow her racing heart rate back to normal.

"I'm not going anywhere." Marcos replied, cupping her hand in own and pulling her into him once more, kissing her gently.

"I still can't believe you're back." Sarah murmured, unable to contain her joy. Marcos nodded. It was still just as shocking to him too. This time yesterday, he was sparring in a fight club in Rio, assuming that he'd never be back in the Valley. And yet today, he was here, his arms around the girl he loved.

"Me neither." Marcos admitted. "Feels crazy to be back here. I was starting to believe that…"

"Yeah. Me too." Sarah murmured. Admittedly, both had been beginning to lose hope that he'd ever be back. It was a miracle. One that both of them were still struggling to wrap their heads around.

"Look, I'm going to go to the dojo for a bit." Marcos told her. "I haven't been there yet, and I need to thank whoever it was who brought me back."

"Do you need me to drive you? We don't have training today but I can take you anyways." Sarah asked. Marcos shook his head.

"Thanks, but uh… I'd like to walk, if that's alright. I haven't been around the city yet since I've been back and I'd like to walk by some of my favorite places on the way."

Sarah nodded, wrapping her arms around him once more and kissing him yet again. She was being much more affectionate than normal. Losing Marcos had made her all the more ecstatic to have him back, and on the off-chance that something happened and he left again, she wasn't going to let him go without him knowing how she felt about him, how much she loved him.

"Alright. I guess I'll start studying for finals. I'll see you when I get back then."

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Success. After almost a year of turmoil, Terry Silver was back on top, and man did it feel great. Everything was exactly the way he wanted. His epic plan was nearing completion. He was back in Cobra Kai as a sensei, preparing to take on Miyagi-Do and humiliate them on the global stage, before he obliterated them once and for all. After 9 months, he was finally a free man, unshackled by the confines of prison, unwatched by the army of guards, unencumbered with the constant threat of a fight. He was now able to fully turn his attention to the punching bag in his dojo and begin to spar with it, wanting to shake off as much rust as possible before the Taikai.

He did this until all of a sudden, the doors to the dojo swung open and Silver turned to see a student step inside. Although Silver had never met him, he knew exactly who this was. He knew from the way he was built, the way he carried himself, that this was not just a student: this was a champion.

Silver smiled at him as the boy walked inside and over to him.

"Ah. Just the man I wanted to see. You must be Marcos Oliveira." Silver stated, holding out a hand for Marcos to shake.

"And you Terry Silver." Marcos replied, shaking it. He had heard all about the man, especially in the past 24 hours. "Sir, I honestly don't know what I can possibly say to thank you. I heard about what you did for me. It's a debt I'll never be able to repay."

"Yeah, well, don't sweat it. You never deserved what happened to you after what happened with you and your father. Bringing you back… it's simply justice." Silver replied. Marcos slowly nodded.

"Right. Justice." He murmured. "Why do I feel like that's not the only reason I'm back here?"

"What do you mean?" Silver asked. Marcos chuckled.

"Come on. I'm not stupid. I know there's a certain tournament next month. A tournament that Cobra Kai have a lot riding on." Marcos murmured. Silver nodded.

"We do. A tournament, from what I've heard, you want to win as much as anyone." He replied. "I could've chosen to have any student in the world flown into the Valley to fight for us but I chose you. You know why? Nobody's been through what you have, been through the struggle and hardships you have, so nobody could possibly have the same motivation as you to win. We need a champion like that on our side, someone who can win even when things look unwinnable."

"Well you came to the right person." Marcos replied, quietly confident. "And thank you again for bringing me back. Whatever the reason, like I said, it's a debt that I can't possibly begin to repay you or thank you for."

"You can repay me by winning us the Taikai." Silver replied. "Now… I've heard a lot of stories from Johnny about these infamous skills of yours. A lot of talk. I'm eager to see if any of it's true."

Marcos chuckled, taking off his shoes and stepping onto the mat.

"Well let's find out, shall we, sensei?"

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"Oh, man. That was rough." Miguel murmured, clutching the back of his head in pain as him and Robby walked towards their apartment after training that afternoon.

"Yeah, tell me about it." Robby groaned in reply. The two boys figured that as they neared the tournament, maybe the senseis would go easier on them out of preservation. God, they were dead wrong about that one. The Taikai meant a lot less to Chozen than his students' development, so he had no qualms about attacking his students with just as much strength as before. That meant for a thoroughly bruised and sore Miyagi-Do by the time they were done with training, especially Robby and Miguel.

They walked into the apartment, and as soon as they did, there was a flurry of movement. They watched as Carmen quickly grabbed her bag and her and Johnny race towards the door, pushing past Miguel and Robby on their way.

"Woah, woah, woah, where are you guys going?" Miguel asked as they ran past him.

"You guys are babysitting. Bottles are in the fridge. Instructions for temperature are written on the bottle." Carmen explained. "You've got this. We'll be back in a few hours."

"W-wait…" Robby stammered, but it was too late. Johnny and Carmen had managed to make it out in time, managed to relieve them of their baby duties and instead pass on responsibility for the afternoon to Laura's two older brothers, neither of whom had any idea what they were doing. Because in all honesty, between training and schoolwork, neither had spent as much time with the baby as they probably should've.

The two boys walked towards the child, extremely cautiously, as if the baby was dangerous. She might not have been dangerous, but she definitely was being annoying. After all of the loud movement around the house when Johnny and Carmen had burst out, the baby had been rendered in tears, and the loud crying hadn't stopped long after her parents left. Robby and Miguel knew that they needed to make her stop crying somehow, but they had no idea how.

"You have any clue what you're doing?" Robby asked. Miguel shrugged.

"No idea." He replied. "You?"

"Not a clue." Robby said. "I don't know. Maybe she's hungry?"

That was Robby's first guess. It was a reasonable guess after all. How were they supposed to know that Carmen had just fed her a few hours ago? All this meant was that Laura refused to eat and continued to sob, leaving them desperate for an alternative option.

"Shhhh. Shhhh." Miguel tried to rock the baby gently in his arms, but if anything the crying only became louder. "Go to sleep. Please."

"I don't think asking it to sleep is our best option here, Miguel." Robby laughed.

"Asking her to sleep." Miguel corrected him, but Robby shook his head.

"No. She'll be a she as soon as she stops crying. For now, she's an it." Robby replied, trying his own hand at rocking the baby to sleep but when that failed too, he gently placed her back in her cot, where she continued to cry and wail.

"You know what?" Miguel said. "Maybe we should try calling for some reinforcements…"

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"Hey, we came as soon as we could! What's wrong?! What's the emergency?!" Tory shouted as her and Sam burst into the apartment less than 10 minutes after Robby and Miguel had texted them 3 simple letters: S.O.S.

"It's the baby. We were left to babysit but she won't stop crying!" Miguel grumbled. Both Tory and Sam looked at them disdainfully.

"Seriously?! This was the emergency you made us come for?!" Sam exclaimed. "We thought you were being attacked or something."

"We are. By a wailing, shrieking baby." Robby replied. "We figured with your experience, you might be able to help us."

Sam and Tory both looked at each other, deeply confused, before looking back at Robby and Miguel.

"I'm sorry… what experience?" Tory asked.

"You're both older siblings." Miguel pointed out. "Surely you must've had experiences with your younger siblings in the past."

Upon hearing this, Sam and Tory couldn't help but laugh at the sheer stupidity of the comment. It was made by two guys, absolutely desperate and not at all thinking with even an iota of intelligence.

"Uh… Miguel? Anthony and I are 3 years apart. I was only 3 when he was born. How am I supposed to remember anything about taking care of a baby from age 3?" Sam commented.

"Yeah, and I was only 10 when Brandon was born. I'm 18 now. I don't remember anything either." Tory stated. "We're literally as clueless as you are."

"That's not true." Sam responded. "At least we have a bit of common sense."

"Yeah, like maybe you could consult Google. See what they say." Tory suggested. It was a great idea, one that the teenagers immediately went to do.

The first theory, as they had initially suggested, was hunger. But still, Laura refused to eat, forcing them to move on to idea 2. The second suggestion was to take the baby for a walk, as stimulation from her surroundings could be the perfect thing to tire her out.

Deciding to heed the suggestion, they placed Laura in her stroller, grabbed all of the essentials they needed in a bag, and decided to go outside for a walk. Who knows? Maybe the fresh air would do the baby good. Turns out, it did more good than they could have imagined. Within 10 minutes of walking, Laura was sound asleep, but they didn't dare stop. They feared that if they went home, Laura would wake up and they'd be forced to do all of this again. They just kept walking while Laura slept, all through the city, until they found themselves in Encino.

In Encino, the four of them - Sam, Miguel, Robby and Tory - debated going to Sam's place to hang out. They decided against it though. They decided to instead walk around Encino for a little while, before turning around and walking home. Just as well too, as if they hadn't decided to do this, maybe they wouldn't have found out what they had.

In Encino, around 10 minutes away from Sam's house, they found themselves standing opposite an extremely familiar sight. It was shocking to see just how closeby Sam lived from the lair of all of their enemies, even if these enemies hadn't peeked their heads out of the sand in so long. It was that fact, the eerie silence that had fallen over their rivals, that intrigued the Miyagi-Dos enough to walk closer. They didn't go inside, at least initially, but instead looked at the dojo from the outside.

"Wow. Feels wrong just being here." Miguel murmured.

"Yeah. Especially given that we have no idea what they're up to, something just doesn't feel right." Robby stated. "I can't shake the feeling that they're plotting something right under our noses."

"You might onto something there, Robby." Tory muttered quietly as she pointed at something, something that was quite literally right under their noses. As they stood just outside the dojo, Tory had been fixated on the car park behind them ever since they had arrived. Or rather, she had been distracted by one of the cars in the lot. It looked vaguely familiar, and she didn't know why for a while, and it was only when things clicked into place that her face paled.

The car looked completely out of place in the lot. It was a diamond amongst dirt. A glimmering Maserati that looked like it had just been driven out of the dealership, looking extremely out of place compared to the dirt-covered shitboxes around it. There was no mistaking the only person in the dojo who could afford a car like that. A certain man who was supposed to be in jail right now. One who was due to be getting out any day now. But one who surely wouldn't return to the dojo that was led by the man who he had betrayed, right?

"No way he's back." Robby said quietly, immediately catching on to what Tory was pointing at with the car.

To Tory, this was the man who had allowed her to be physically abused by Sensei Kim and had paid for her All-Valley win and the Taikai qualification fight. To Robby, this was the man who had brainwashed many of his closest friends for an entire summer, brainwashed Kenny so deeply that Robby still hadn't been able to get him out. To Sam and Miguel, this was the man who had single-handedly caused more terror to their dojo than any of the Cobra Kai senseis before or after him. All the teenagers knew was that although they were currently taking care of Laura, they couldn't leave here without confronting the nefarious man. And that's exactly what they did…