A surge of joy and gratitude flooded through his being. {My son. Healing. Growing stronger.} "In here, Peter."
Peter stepped into the room and began to needlessly rearrange bottles on the shelves.
Caine smiled inwardly. {It has ever been so with Peter. The need to be casual about the questions he wants to ask.} He continued his work, frequently adding different bits of plants to his mixture. "You must be feeling better, to come all this way. You are driving already, too?"
Peter rubbed at the ache in his chest and ribs. "No. Kacie won't let me have the keys to the Stealth, and I can't say that I'm ready to get behind the wheel again quite yet, so I took a cab." He blotted the beads of perspiration from his brow and upper lip. "I had to stop and remember how to breathe four times on my way up here."
Caine stopped his work and approached his son. "Are you all right? You are having nightmares about your accident."
Peter looked startled, and nearly dropped one of the bottles he had been handling. "Pop, how did you know...? Never mind. Don't tell me." He shifted his weight restlessly from one foot to the other. "I can't remember a lot about it. Mostly I just hear Kacie screaming." He shuddered. "Just the idea of that truck bearing down on us and heading right for Kace gives me chills."
"You are better, physically?" Caine prodded gently.
"I'm supposed to take it easy yet." Peter kept toying with the jars, sniffing at the contents from time to time.
Caine placed his hand on Peter's arm. "Please. Let us sit and talk." Sliding his arm around his son's shoulders, he walked with him into the kitchen. "I will make some tea."
"Not for me, thanks, Pop. I...just needed to talk to you."
They sat down at the table together. Peter studied his hands moodily and chewed on his lower lip.
"What troubles you, my son?"
Peter sighed heavily before raising worried eyes to meet his father's. "It's Kacie, Pop."
Caine raised an eyebrow in surprise. "She is ill?"
"No. No-o-o. Nothing like that," Peter said slowly. "She's just different since I've been home from the hospital."
"In what way?"
"I don't know. She just seems so distant, somehow. It's like I reach out for her, but she's not really there. Not like she used to be." Slouching down in his chair, he drummed his fingers aimlessly on the table top. "Pop, we used to practically finish each other's sentences. We- we-we knew what the other was thinking just by looking at each other. We just don't seem to be communicating any more." He nervously twisted his fingers around, stretching and flexing the muscles there until at last he slid his wedding ring back and forth between hand and knuckle.
"You were both under a great strain when you were injured."
"I know that, Pop.I just don't know how to explain it. Something is eating at her; I can feel it. But she insists that there's nothing wrong. She won't open up to me." He blew out his breath in frustration. "She keeps saying that everything is fine, or that she's still just worried about me, but I know that's not it." He stopped speaking and lowered his head.
"There is more?"
"She-she-she cries in her sleep, Pop. And-and-and she'll say things like, 'No, I can't tell him, I can't', over and over." His voice thickened. "When I wake her up, she just says that she must've had a nightmare and that she can't remember what it was about." He gestured helplessly with his hands. "I feel this-this-this gulf growing between us."
His eyes were filled with worry and misery as he spoke softly. "She's keeping something from me. I just know it. What could be so awful that she can't come to me with it?"
Caine put his hands on Peter's wrists, both to still the restless movements and to have the physical contact with his son. Choosing his words carefully, he spoke. "Peter, before I left for China, you and Kacie were already...stressed out? You are both passionate about your work. And you give much of yourselves to the people that you help. You have needed to take time for yourselves, just as a well must be allowed to replenish itself in order to provide water for those who would drink."
"We realized that, Pop. We talked about it, the night before the accident. That's why we'd made time to go out together."
"To recognize the problem is the first step of the solution, my son."
"I just wish I had some idea of what is bothering her, Pop. We used to be able to talk about anything, and now we can't seem to find the words."
Caine smiled. "The words will come."
Peter grinned crookedly at his father. "We've had this conversation before, haven't we, Pop?" He moved his hands to grip his father's forearms, both men having a solid grasp on the other.
"Yes."
"What you're saying is to be patient and give it time?"
"Yes."
Peter opened his mouth to say something more, then stopped, blushing furiously.
"You have another question for me?"
"No. Yes. It's, well, since I've been home, we haven't...I mean...we're not...Dammit, Pop. You know what I'm thinking before I do sometimes! Can't you help me out here?"
Caine allowed the slightest of indulgent smiles to flit across his face. "Were you not warned by your doctors not to overexert yourself, my son?"
"Well, yeah, but I don't think they meant that Kacie and I shouldn't...I mean that we couldn't..."
"Your Kacie takes the words of your doctors very seriously, does she not?"
"Well, yeah."
"And she encourages you to do the same?"
"That's putting it mildly."
"Then perhaps you are reading too much into things?"
Peter stared into the open, honest eyes that were regarding him so directly and suddenly laughed. "How do you always manage to make me feel better?"
Caine shrugged one shoulder and smiled. "It is the job of a father."