Warning: This is story #4 of a series. All of the stories stand alone -- sorta. But they fit most nicely if read in order.

Disclaimer: These characters ain't mine. They're just visiting for a while. They belong to the copyright holders of the television program KF:TLC (whenever TNT deigns to air it, that is). No infringement is intended.

*denotes thoughts*

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Steps Along the Mean

By Writer JC

It wasn't a day for being outside. Darkening skies warned and a picking up of the wind declared that in a very short time things were going to be nasty. Cold and nasty and wet -- just the type of weather Peter didn't like. Which did little to explain why he was out walking in it.

A perfectly good Stealth, in decent working order, was parked in the lower level of his apartment building. There was plenty of gas in the tank, and his Fuelman card was good for at least another month. Worse, his destination -- Parrs Jewelry, was almost a mile farther along the city streets. Just one more thing to add to what was becoming a very un-Shaolin-like mood.

As a particularly chilly gust blew through his hair, sending frozen slivers over his unprotected ears, Peter questioned again the feeling that had prompted him to do this on foot. Sure, he remembered how wrong it felt when he reached for the handle of the car door, and the rightness of stepping out into the elements that so matched his tumultuous mood. But thirty half-frozen minutes later, the likelihood of being drenched by freezing rain getting better all the time, peace and tranquility were the furthest things from his mind.

Coming to a stop amid the thinning flow of humanity, Peter decided it was time to reassess matters. How did he know that nebulous feeling that had come over him at his car wasn't his mind playing tricks on him? How did he know that he wasn't just doing it wrong? Maybe it was simply a subconscious attempt to be like his father. Caine walked everywhere, so Peter Caine had to walk everywhere.

Walk. Think. Commune. *Freeze my Shaolin hiney off* Was that the lesson here? The Tao of freezing, being at one with the popsicle?

"This is useless." Peter muttered to himself as he continued on, shoulders haunched forward. The next time some maybe-Shaolin inkling told him to go walking in the cold, he'd tell it to take a hike. Or a taxi. *Yeah right. I can just see Kwai Chang Caine showing up to rescue someone in a taxi.*

If anyone ever needed rescuing.

He had officially been a priest for ten days. Two hundred and forty hours. In that time, no one had come to Chinatown and asked for Caine. Even The Ancient was making himself scarce. And when he had gone out to offer his help, he had been viewed with skepticism and uncertainty. No one wanted or needed a used-to-be cop playing at priest. Maybe the full-fledged Shaolin gig wasn't in the cards for him, after all.

Yet, standing before the cauldron, he had been so sure that his destiny was to become a priest. Just as sure as he had been at the temple that his destiny was to remain a cop. It had all felt so right. But walking down W. Maison Street, returning to a jewelry repair shop to pick up a locket belonging to a woman he barely knew, he didn't know what his destiny was. Confusion and frustration was all he could see. So much for his brave words to Jordan a few days earlier.

An unusually strong gust of wind and ever darkening skies warned that his time was running out -- in more ways than one. The jewelry shop would be closing in less than half an hour. He didn't want to tell the one person that he had been able to help in his short tenure as a priest why he hadn't been able to bring her repaired locket to the hearing. It was a symbolic victory that she was sorely in need of and he wouldn't, couldn't let her down. He was all she had.

*And she's all I have*

He almost stopped again when the thought occurred to him. What if there was no one else to help? What if no one ever came? What was he going to do with the rest of his life?

Fighting down an edge of panic, he broke into a jog. A niggling sensation tickled at the edge of his consciousness and urged him to slow down. Darkening skies, ill temper and the constraints of time pushed him onward. But then something else, something deep and indefinable, told him to obey the sensation. That he would regret it if he didn't.

He found himself standing at an intersection near a run-down pawn shop. As he stood wondering if he were really and truly losing his mind, a whisper of a sound reached his ears. It wasn't exactly out of the ordinary -- like the sound of a box falling -- but it sent chills up the length of his spine.

His feet moved of their own accord in the direction of the sound, to the right along the cross street. Past the pawn shop. Past the cleaners. The next storefront bore the words Millen's Tinee Grocery on a large glass window. Inner blinds obscured his view. As he continued forward a repeat of the sound drew his attention.

Stiffening into hyper alertness, he moved toward the door. In the separation between a broken slat in the blinds he glimpsed a young man with a baseball cap pulled low over his head milling near the counter. Every instinct he possessed screamed that something was about to go down.

Straightening, he pushed the door open and stepped into the store, bringing a gust of chilly wind and the noisy jangle of bells with him. The young man in the baseball cap kept his gaze focused on the counter, never glancing in Peter's direction. Peter noted that another young man, with spiky brown hair sticking out from beneath his cap, was stationed near the dairy case, appearing equally focused on examining its contents.

A young woman and a gray-haired gentleman standing near a door marked "authorized persons only" looked up briefly before returning to an animated conversation. The woman appeared to be accepting a box laden with cereals and various other dry goods.

Using newly deepened Shaolin skills, Peter tried to sense whether there were any other occupants. Satisfied that it was just the five of them, he moved toward the gray-haired man that he had pegged as the owner. If he could convince the man that something was about to go down, maybe he could stop the party before it started.

As he drew close to the owner, he sensed a change in the two young men. The one nearer the counter headed for the door, while the one near the dairy case moved toward the woman and the owner. Peter registered the soft sound of the lock sliding into place just as the young man who had been near the dairy case drew his hand from inside his flannel jacket, revealing a 9 mm semi-automatic. Almost in slow motion, the box fell from the woman's arms and hit the floor. The sound echoed through Peter, even as he stepped deliberately between the flannel-clad robber and the store owner and the woman.

The gunman wiped carelessly at the sweat that gathered on his pale brow and glanced nervously toward his approaching partner. "Listen up, and no one gets hurt!" he said as he re-aimed his trembling weapon at Peter.

*Drug user,* Peter decided, lifting his hands. "This isn't the answer," he said aloud to the young gunman. "You don't want to do this." He cast a quick glance over his shoulder toward the robber's companion, unsurprised to find another gun trained on him.

"This is the only answer." The second gunman told him coldly. "Now you either get out of my friend's way, or I can blow you away."

"But that would be so messy," Peter said as he shifted his feet slightly so that he was speaking more directly to the newer, steadier gunman. "Wouldn’t you much rather just give me the gun? You see I used to be a cop, and if there's one thing ex-cops hate, it's being threatened."

"I don't see no gun, ex-pig. Looks like I'm the one in authority here. And I say b--"

Peter felt rather than saw the man's finger tighten minutely on the trigger. In a spinning move, driven by instinct, he kicked the gun from the man's hand, sending it flying into a neighboring aisle. In the same motion, he disarmed the nervous robber, taking the man's weapon before he could blink.

With an enraged growl, the steadier thief charged. Using the man's momentum, Peter pushed him into a large display of Dinty Moore Beef Stew. The cans were still falling when Peter turned to the second man, taking him out of the action with a flat-handed blow to the chest. Both men stayed down.

Sticking one of the guns in his waistband, Peter ordered the store owner to call the police and went in search of the other gun. The man rushed through the door without a word.

When Peter returned to keep an eye on the unconscious perps, the young woman was numbly returning items to the box of food stuffs.

"Are you all right?" he asked her, noting for the first time that she appeared to be in the early stages of pregnancy. He stooped to help her.

"Uh, yeah," she told him, turning awed eyes on him. "Just a little weak from the adrenaline rush. You would think I could handle this type of thing."

"Why is that?" Peter asked.

"My husband is a police officer. And as great as I think he is, he couldn’t do what you just did. You've very good." She brushed at blonde bangs with a trembling hand and grinned up at him. "Maybe you knew him."

Peter smiled bemusedly. "Joey Sloane."

"You do know him!" The young woman exclaimed as they both stood, their task complete.

"I've met him."

"What's your name? I'll tell him I saw you."

"Caine. Peter Caine." Peter looked up as the store owner reappeared.

"I'm real glad you came in here," the man said, looking uncertainly toward the two unconscious men.

"They'll be out until help arrives," Peter assured him. Already he could hear the sound of approaching sirens.

"I'll go let them in," the man said, moving toward the front of the store.

Peter watched the man go, catching a glimpse of the clock situated above the register. His obligations flooded back. He turned to the young woman.

"Listen, I have a really important errand to run. The officers will be here in a minute. These guys aren't going anywhere." He retrieved the guns from his waistband, and placed them on the shelf.

"How will I reach you? If I, or someone I know, happens to need help?" The woman smiled at him. There was something in her eyes that told him she had an ulterior motive, but his mind had moved to the task ahead of him -- reaching Parr's Jewelry before it closed. He couldn't focus on what it might be.

"Come to Chinatown. Ask for. . . " A grin spread his face as he found himself making the invitation. The past few day's frustration began to slip away. The was a rightness in the moment as he finished the sentence. "Ask for Caine."

"Chinatown. Caine. Got it. Odd address, though."

Peter pointed over his shoulder toward the door. "I've really gotta go," he said, already moving away. With a wave of his hand, he stepped out onto the sidewalk. As he headed along the street, a brisk wind blowing at his hair, he felt as one with the elements. Strong, capable, full of potential. It was, it seemed, a day for being outside. A day for taking steps along the mean.