Ever wonder what happened to Daniel LaRusso after the third Karate Kid movie? And to his mom, Lucille? I've seen all three of the Karate Kid movies and they were good; I liked both Daniel and Lucille; they're an enchanting, funny pair!

I always felt the second two movies didn't do justice to Lucille's character, so this story is mostly about Lucille, even though Daniel and Mr. Miyagi play a significant role as well as a friend of Lucille's that I add in here.

Just a disclaimer that Daniel and Lucille LaRusso, Mr. Miyagi and any other characters KK fans recognize are not the creation of the current author, but belong solely to Columbia Pictures and producer John Avildson.

The current author is making no cash off this and this is solely for entertainment only. Lucille's friend, Alicia and the rest of the characters do belong to the current author and have been copyrighted. Sooo, here's where Daniel and Lucille LaRusso's lives pick up after KK3. Enjoy, all KK fans!

Backlashed

By: CNJ

PG-13

Prologue

Lucille:

It was so good seeing my darling son after three months! Daniel was there at the airport when I got back from New Jersey after seeing Uncle Louis through a scary bout of emphysema.

"Mom!" he called.

"Daniel!" I rushed up and we hugged for a long minute. I stroked his dark wavy hair and just enjoyed the feel of his soft warm body a minute. Almost seventeen, I thought as we walked out of the airport arm-in-arm. He was now as tall as I was at five-four. It was hard to believe he was almost a man. It was early December and his birthday was coming up on December sixteenth.

"Daniel, I'm so sorry I couldn't be there for the match this year," I told him once we got into his car. "But congratulations on it. Mr. Miyagi tells me how wonderful you were."

"It's all right," Daniel pulled the 1960 bright yellow convertible out into the early evening traffic of Los Angeles. It was getting dark. "I know Mr. Miyagi...always thinks I'm great, but..." he seemed to drift into troubled thoughts. I reached out and stroked his arm. "I guess he didn't tell you that I was in tears at one point and almost gave up. Mike really had me scared."

"Oh, Daniel, I'm so sorry," I said softly.

"How's Uncle Louis?"

"Better. He still has it, but he's up and moving around now. Daniel...how're you feeling now?"

Daniel was quiet a minute. "I guess better. They're off my back for good now."

I knew from his letters that the past few months had been hard on him. I'd flown to New Jersey to care for Uncle Louis while Daniel stayed with his friend, Mr. Miyagi.

Mr. Miyagi is in his early seventies, is Japanese, and taught my son karate last fall when some of the bigger boys harassed him in school.

I felt a small pang of guilt when I remembered that until last year my son and I had lived in Newark. Ever since he was ten, it had just been the two of us.

His father and my husband, Frank had died and I was struggling to make ends meet in a receptionist job there.

Then the company started to lay off its workers and I feared that my job would be next. So I applied for other jobs and one offer came through. I thought it would be in New York, but when I took the job, it was moved to southern California. It was with computers doing light typing for various restaurant orders.

So I took the job and my son and I packed up our rickety old station wagon and drove west since I was really getting desperate with cash and couldn't even afford plane tickets. It was hard on both of us saying good-bye to friends and neighbors we'd known most of our lives, but made it west.

My son came face-to-face with a gang of bullies who called themselves the Cobras or something inane like that and I'm sorry to say that they made last fall hell for him. It hurt me so much when he came home in tears and it was more painful when he'd have bruises and try to convince me that they were accidents.

But then things started to look up when Daniel met Mr. Miyagi, the maintenance guy at our apartment. Mr. Miyagi became a grandfather figure to my son and taught him karate.

I guess someone from the Cobras challenged my son to a fight because my son entered a karate match and won. My son reassures me that it wasn't my fault that he had such a hard time with them last year, but still I feel a twinge of guilt just remembering the hell he went through.

I never told Daniel that my job in Newark had been in jeopardy and or really how tight with money we were...and still are in a way.

Last summer, I'd gone to Fresno to train for a management position. I'm hoping I can make it to office manager and get better pay, because the data entry I'm doing now is still just barely making it.

We'd had to live in a rather run-down apartment until it closed down at the end of the summer. I'd been in Newark caring for Louis at the time and Daniel, who'd been in Japan with Mr. Miyagi, had gone to live with him. Now we were headed to Mr. Miyagi's place.

"...and he give me big hug," Mr. Miyagi chuckled as he stroked Daniel's back as we ate dinner.

I smiled and Daniel managed a sheepish grin. Mr. Miyagi is very reserved and it was hard to imagine him hugging anyone. They'd also told me that they'd opened up a bonsai shop. Daniel was going to start college this year, but decided to put it off until next year.

"I'll show it to you tomorrow," Daniel promised. "Miyagi's Little Trees. It's starting to bring in money now."

Boy, was I proud of my son! He'd paid to help Mr. Miyagi get started on this shop and helped with sales.

Mr. Miyagi had gone to sleep at around ten and by eleven, I was getting ready to go to sleep myself. In two more days, I had to go back to work after my leave of absence.

Daniel and Mr. Miyagi were headed back to work at the bonsai shop tomorrow afternoon. I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth when a soft knock sounded at the door.

"It's me." Daniel said softly.

"Come in..." He did and took out his toothbrush to brush his teeth. As we finished brushing our teeth, ran brushes through our hair, I watched our reflections in the mirror.

We both have the same wavy hair, the same large brown eyes, the same thick rather straight brows, and the same mouth. But Daniel has his dad's nose and hair color.

My hair is one shade lighter than my son's and has a hint of red while Daniel and Frank had the same dark brown hair. It's funny how Daniel and I look alike, yet don't look alike.

I'd just put my brush away when I noticed Daniel was staring at his reflection with a worried look in his dark eyes, then his brows scrunched together in a frown and his mouth drooped as he turned away and headed to his room.

"Daniel..." I called softly as he sat on the bed. "Is something wrong, honey?"

"No..." he shrugged. "Well...sort of...I was thinking...about stuff that happened..."

"It seems like you handled it well," I told him, coming in a kissing his forehead. Daniel's eyes wandered over to my face. "You went through a confusing time and came through it like a trooper."

"Did I...I'm not so sure breaking someone nose was coming through all right..." Daniel voice caught.

He'd told me in one letter how he'd accidentally broken some guy's nose and had been wracked by guilt. And I could tell he was still feeling guilty about it even now. Oh, my son looked so vulnerable, and a little sad.

"Heeey, heeey...." I whispered. "I know it's been hard. You did apologize for that and it was a simple mistake you made." I gave him a hug and stroked his back. He hugged back.

"Thanks, Mom...I guess..." he whispered back.

I then headed to the room I was staying in which is across from his and we started to change into our nightshirts.

"Mom...even though I still lay awake some nights and feel so sorry for some of the stuff I did, it was Mr. Miyagi who told me that we're strong. Remember I wrote you about the bonsai tree being wrecked?"

"Yes."

"It's back and Mr. Miyagi and I re-planted it before the tournament. As we were planting it, I closed my eyes and felt a little more peaceful than I had in a long time...not so troubled, even though I was still torn up by that awful guilt."

"You realize that the blame lay with that Mike Barnes and Terry Silver and Kreese for the bonsai, right?" I asked.

"I guess...intellectually I guess I do," Daniel pulled on the big loose jersey he used as sleepwear.

I pulled off my bra and rolled down the big old ragged dress that served as my nightgown. Daniel leaned out into the hall.

"But I guess an emotional part..." he paused and his mouth started to droop again and he fought to keep it from going down. My mouth does the same thing when I'm sad; both of our mouths droop when we're troubled and when we cry.

"...I still beat myself up with the guilt," Daniel finished sadly. I came over and we hugged again.

"It'll take some time, but it'll heal," I stroked his thick hair. "Goodnight, sweetheart."

"G'night..." he mumbled into my chest, then we headed to bed.

It felt weird sleeping in Mr. Miyagi's house. I lay awake with thoughts running through my mind.

I felt sorry too just thinking about what my son had gone through. Some emotional part of me wonders what I could have done differently.

Should I really have taken my son and moved out here? An intellectual common-sense part of me says yes, otherwise I would have been unemployed and maybe wound up losing our Newark apartment.

But an emotional part of me tells me that if we hadn't come out here, Daniel wouldn't have run into those guys and been the butt of so much cruelty.

But then Daniel wouldn't have met Mr. Miyagi either and gotten the chance to go to Japan. That had been his first trip ever out of the United States. It took a while to drift off to sleep.

Hope you all enjoyed this epilogue; there'll be more later!