This is another of my one-shot stories for the Cobra Kai series which shows the scene where Jessica Andrews comes to stay at the LaRusso house and then Mike Barnes comes over to visit Daniel and gets to apologize to Jessica in person.
I don't own the characters of the Cobra Kai series or the Karate Kid franchise as this was done for entertainment.
It was only a long week and a couple of days after the events at the Cobra Kai Flagship dojo, the news of John Kreese's escape from prison and the arrest of Terry Silver was the highlight of the newsfeed as the footage of Silver's confession was unleashed on the internet and news reels.
As things were going on as they were and Amanda had become a little worried about John Kreese being on the loose, Daniel thought it right to invite his wife's favourite cousin to come and stay over for a few days so she could see Amanda and he and Jessica can catch up. So he made a call to Jessica and sent the invitation to Amanda's cousin in Columbus Ohio. Jessica answered saying that she'll be around this weekend at some time before lunch.
LaRusso Residence.
Having spent the Friday evening preparing the guest room for Jessica's arrival whilst Sam was spending time with Miguel, Daniel was looking forward to seeing her old friend again after a long time. He would have gone to Ohio at some point to visit but he didn't find the time since Cobra Kai reappeared in the valley and John Kreese returned as well before taking the dojo from Johnny Lawrence.
Today was an average Saturday, and Daniel hoped that the surprise would bring some comfort to Amanda; she was just getting ready for her yoga class this afternoon.
Daniel sitting in the lounge reading a sports magazine to learn more about the Sekai Tekai so he could bring it up with his next Karate Class when he heard the doorbell.
"I'll get it, Amanda." Daniel said, placing the magazine on the side before he stood up and went to the front door. Daniel opened the door to find that it wasn't Jessica standing at the door.
Mike Barnes was standing outside the front door with his wife Michele when Daniel answered to see them standing there so he spoke.
"Mike, I didn't expect to see you around the valley."
"Neither did I but my wife here wanted to come here to speak with you about a few things. Silver's court date is coming up and we're planning to sue him for destroying our furniture store. But I also thought it best to ask if you know any good lawyers." said Mike.
"Well I might know some people who run charity funds for rebuilding businesses but I'm not sure what my good lawyers can do to help you sue Silver, I thought you had a Rembrandt painting to repay for the damages." Daniel responded
"Wait, babe you stole that Rembrandt Painting?" Michele said turning her head to look at Mike.
"Michele it was what Terry Silver owed me since he destroyed our store. And since did sell it a few days ago, I gave you the money to help rebuild the furniture store-" Mike replied before Michele finished his sentence. "So you did all this for me and for our business."
"I'm sorry Michele but yeah." Mike replied with a grimace.
Michele looked at her husband with an angry look at first whilst Daniel stood at the door, looking at her and Mike before he spoke. "Excuse me Mrs Barnes, I'm sorry to interrupt but would you two like to take this discussion inside or do you want to take this somewhere else. My wife will be wondering who is at the door."
Michele and Mike looked at Daniel who stood back to let them into the house waiting for them to come in or leave. Michele looked at Mike before she turned to the front door entrance and walked inside, leaving Mike standing with his hands in his pockets.
Daniel watched her go in and turned to Mike before he gestured for him to come in as well.
Once Mike stepped into the house, Daniel closed the door whilst Mike looked around the place before he saw Daniel's wife Amanda come down from the stairway to see the man and woman in their house with her husband. "Daniel, who is it? Oh I didn't realise that we were expecting company." Amanda said before she approached Michele.
"Hi I'm Amanda LaRusso, Daniel's wife." Amanda said offering her hand to Michele in greeting her.
"Oh of LaRusso Auto Dealership, its nice to meet you in person. I'm Michele Barnes and this is my husband Mike Barnes." Michele replied in a polite manner, taking Amanda's hand in hers. She turned her head to look at her husband introducing him to Amanda.
"Hello Mrs LaRusso." Mike said.
"Hello, so are you old friends of my husband?" asked Amanda, looking from Mike to Michelle who opened her mouth and spoke.
"No but my husband was an old adversary of his at one time in the past."
"Oh no, Daniel don't tell me that this man used to be one of your old enemies who came back to ruin our lives again?" Amanda said looking up at Daniel who went to stand beside Mike.
Daniel was about to speak when Mike stepped in to protest.
"That was a long time ago, Mrs LaRusso and if its any comfort I did apologize to your husband when he came to my furniture store because he thought that Terry Silver might get in touch with me."
"Ah, well that explains a lot about the furniture store incident." said Amanda.
Michele nodded, recalling the incident the staff mentioned at the store.
"Yes Mrs LaRusso. Of course we did receive a firm apology from a Mr Chozen Toguchi himself when we paid him a visit at the hospital, it was certainly a misunderstanding. So he was lucky that my husband convinced me to not sue him for assault on our staff."
"I didn't want you to get mad at Chozen since he did buy a sofa from us for the two grand which is a fair enough price for damages." Mike explained looking at his wife before turning to Daniel.
"Okay I think we've had enough tension in this house, so why don't we settle the discussion over some tea? Daniel can you get the kettle boiling in the kitchen and I'll chat with our guests in the dining room and keep them from drawing daggers here." Amanda spoke out, defusing the situation that was growing.
"Yeah, it sounds good to me." Daniel said to Amanda who then went to the dining room with Michele following her. Once the ladies went off, Daniel turned to Mike.
"Do you fancy some tea or coffee, Mike?" he asked. Mike turned to Daniel and spoke.
"Well, I wouldn't mind a coffee if that's okay." Daniel nodded before Mike went forward to the dining room as well. Daniel then followed him through the hallway and turned to head to the kitchen before he went and took the kettle to fill it with water and get it heated up.
The Dining room.
It took a few minutes as Daniel stayed in the kitchen whilst Amanda was speaking with Mike and Michele about the events that occurred but thankfully Michele started to forgive her husband for what happened. Once the subject was cleared, Michele and Amanda started talking about some other subjects such as how they're co-managing their separate businesses.
Deciding to leave his wife with Mrs LaRusso, Mike went into the kitchen when the kettle boiled up and Daniel took it off the stove before he finally filled the tea pot with hot water.
Daniel was putting the kettle back on the stove to turn the coffee maker on when he turned to see Mike come into the kitchen.
Mike spoke. "So Daniel."
"Hey Mike I was going to come into the dining room to ask what you take in your coffee." Daniel said, turning the coffee maker on before he turned to look at him.
"I normally take it black." Mike replied.
"Oh good for you, I take an espresso in my mornings or a regular one." said Daniel, standing beside the counter whilst they waited for the coffee to be ready.
"Anyways as I mentioned before, one of the things I dropped by to speak to you about: it's this new Global tournament, your friend Chozen Toguchi told me you and him enrolled your students in it. Did you really enter your Miyagi Do dojo into the Sekai Taikai," asked Mike.
"Well, it was the only way to beat Silver's Cobra Kai before it expands on a global scale." Daniel explained to Mike. Understanding what Daniel meant, Mike nodded before he spoke.
"Yeah, that would have put Cobra Kai Karate in the spotlight of recognition. I get why he entered it Daniel and why you entered your dojo, believe me, I've been in a number of world-class tournaments in the past before I made the deal with Silver and got banned from Karate because of our last fight."
"Mm-hmm, so I was going to ask if you might be interested in taking up Karate again." asked Daniel.
Mike drew a grimace on his face at the proposition Daniel was offering.
"Hmm, it would be nice to take it up but I'm not sure. It is been a long time since I got banned from Karate after eighty-five."
"And there is something else you didn't hear about the ban Mike. I'm not sure if yours got lifted but it might have been since Johnny Lawrence won the case in lifting Cobra Kai's lifelong ban from the tournament at a council meeting earlier." said Daniel.
"Oh, I guess Johnny knows how to talk a council into giving out second chances. I'll have to remember to buy a small gift for him." said Mike.
"I think he'd be happy to accept a six pack of Coors Banquet or a new job since his girlfriend Carmen is having a baby with him. So would you still be interested?" asked Daniel.
Mike looked at Daniel and turned away to think things through, his eyes looked down to the floor as he thought about it and spoke. "If I was to consider, would I get fifty per cent of the credit for teaching your students?"
"I believe you can get the credit if your training is good. And if you'd like me and Chozen can teach you Miyagi Do's Defence, you can gain something from it. Believe me I didn't think it was any good when I first started out but there was more to defence than Mr Miyagi taught me." said Daniel.
"I do believe you Daniel and I might look forward to a rematch with you as a co sensei..." Mike was about to give his answer to Daniel when they heard the doorbell.
Daniel and Mike turned to where the doorbell noise was when Amanda spoke heading to the front door. "I'll get it." she said before she came to the front door.
When Amanda opened the front door, she let out a yell of delight as she was surprised to see her Cousin Jessica standing at the front door. She laughed aloud to Amanda who then approached to hug her cousin. "Surprise Amanda." she said.
"Yes that is a surprise to see you Jessica. What are you doing here? Please come in." asked Amanda.
"Daniel invited me here to stay over with you, he explained that you were going through some things and thought I could help you." Jessica replied, coming into the house with her suitcase.
"Yes. I didn't know he would ask you to be here but he did succeed in surprising me with this." said Amanda as she walked Jessica into the living room when Jessica saw that there was a woman sitting in the couch. She stood up when she saw Amanda's cousin come into the house.
"Oh I didn't know you had company today." Jessica said. Michael's wife Michele then approached Jessica before she spoke, extending her hand to her. "Hi my name is Michele."
"Mine is Jessica, Amanda's cousin." Jessica responded.
"Oh nice to meet you Jessica, Mrs LaRusso I didn't know you had a cousin named Jessica. Was the same name of a woman my husband mentioned?" Michele said to Amanda who then spoke.
"Please call me Amanda, Michele and my husband did mention that he had a history with your husband back in the 80's."
Jessica looked to Michelle and back at her cousin before she spoke. "Wait a minute, Michele. Can I ask who your husband is?" It was then that Daniel came into the living room with the same familiar face that she recognized immediately. Suddenly Jessica started having flashbacks of the times that Daniel's enemy Mike Barnes and his gang terrorised her and Daniel back in the day.
"My husband is Mike Barnes." Michele responded. Amanda nodded with a side grin before she turned to see her cousin looking so pale when she turned where Daniel and Mike were standing.
When Mike saw Jessica standing with Amanda and looking pale, he was surprised to see her but he looked down in guilt as he remembered the things that he done to her.
"What the hell…?" Jessica started to speak with a tone of anger and fear when she snapped back to reality. "Jessica, its okay: Mr Barnes is our guest."
"Hold on Jessica, before you raise your voice at Mike here you should know he's a changed man." Daniel said approaching Jessica whilst Mike stood on the spot. Michelle looked between Jessica and Mike before she looked back at Jessica and approached her.
"Okay so I take it that you have a bad history with my husband?"
"You could call it a bad history, but it still gave me nightmares since he was with Terry Silver."
"Terry Silver? You mean the man who was responsible for burning our furniture store?" Michele said, turning her head to Mike who then stepped forward.
"Michele, that guy is gonna rot in Jail when the court date comes and remember that I promised I'm going to work on rebuilding the store and then we'll financially recover from our losses." he said.
"Oh really, well I'm sure that you'll recover well enough since Daniel beat you in that tournament."
"Okay, Can we please just settle down and act civilised?" Amanda spoke out, seeing that Jessica was about to get into an argument with Mike, Jessica looked at Amanda as if she was against her. But Amanda looked back at her with a serious look before she spoke.
"Jessica, Mr Barnes came here because he wanted to apologize to you in person."
Jessica turned her head back to Mike. "Is that true?" asked Jessica.
"Well I wouldn't be standing here if I wasn't and I would have done it earlier but I didn't know where you lived. I guess it was best to leave things in the past." Mike answered.
Jessica took a moment to think about it and she spoke.
"Oh, it was a good idea Mike. If I saw you earlier in Ohio which is where I'm from, I would have run away in a heartbeat but now seeing that you've turned over a new leaf, it brings some comfort."
"Yeah, and I hope that you can forgive me for assaulting you back in the 80s. It was because of Terry Silver, I asked him for fifty per cent of Cobra Kai's ownership in exchange for harassing Daniel LaRusso and beating him at the tournament to get Mr Kreese's business running again."
"Oh now that makes a lot of sense. Look Mike I do appreciate the apology and if it makes you feel better I will forgive you because Terry Silver was the cause of your misfortune and as far as anyone is concerned, you did the right thing and put the past behind after the tournament. And it gives me some relief that I can sleep better knowing you're not in league with Silver, I still have nightmares when it comes to him anyways." Jessica explained to Mike.
"Ah now that's a relief. So if it seems the water is under the bridge between us, I'll leave you to settle in. I just need to go outside and talk with Larusso about training the kids for this world tournament." Mike replied.
"Oh yeah the Sekai Taikai Tournament, is that right?" asked Jessica.
"It certainly is Jessica." Daniel said, answering for Mike who just nodded in agreement.
With their issues now resolved, Daniel escorted Mike to the back door leading to the pool area.
Pool area, The Larusso Residence
Once the two were standing in the pool area whilst the women were talking inside, Daniel looked at Mike and then asked him. "Well I believe that went as good as expected. So now you've got to apologise to my wife's cousin, what do you say? Do you agree to get back into training?"
Mike thought about it as he looked at the pool and spoke. "I say… I promise you I will give Miyagi Do training my very best if you promise me that fifty."
That was the answer which Daniel approved of. "Great, and can you work hard in your defence training with me and Chozen?"
"As hard as I fight Daniel, I can offer you some offence techniques in exchange and if I can get the terms of this agreement in writing with your signature and Chozen's signature, you got me as a new sensei on board, and Daniel."
"Yeah" Daniel asked before Mike asked one more thing. "Don't forget to send me a copy of the contract."
"I promise you I won't. In fact as soon as I can get the terms typed up and printed, I'll send it to your Place." Daniel answered assuring Mike of his word. Satisfied with the answer, Mike offered his hand to Daniel as he spoke. "Daniel LaRusso, your Dojo just won itself a former champion."
"Thanks Mike and if your car needs any new repairs, LaRusso Auto Dealership will be happy to take a challenge." Daniel stated to Mike who chuckled at the offer.
"I'll remember that Daniel, so we get started next weekend?" asked Mike.
"Whenever you're up for it Mike, Come on. Let's go inside, I think my wife might think about breaking a deal with your wife for a new piece of furniture."
Mike laughed at Daniel's comment before he spoke. "She'll have to be ready for any hard bargain Michele drives up. She has her dad's persuasive traits. So I was wondering something else, did your Sensei Miyagi ever train anyone else?"
"Now that's another story I could tell you Mike if you'd like to stay long." said Daniel, thinking about Miyagi's other student Julie Pierce.
That's the first chapter done, but I will get started on a new chapter which will feature Mike Barnes coming to the Miyagi Do Karate Dojo where he meets Julie Pierce and learns the ways of Miyagi Do. So Stay tuned.