When Kermit Griffin returned to the precinct after his day off, he went directly into Karen Simms office and shut the door. As usual, this attracted a great deal of attention from the rest of the office.

Peter and Jody were still straining to hear what they thought must be an intense conversation, when Kermit emerged, twenty minutes later. He walked over to Peter and handed him what looked like a party invitation. It read, "Private Party, 7:00 p.m. tonight, Attendance MANDATORY." An address that he didn't recognize was listed below the cryptic message.

"So now your in the entertainment business, Kermit?" Peter waited for an answer.
Kermit grinned and replied, "You'll find out. Just be there." He continued handing out the invitations to the other staff.

When he reached Mary Margaret, he was careful to stand between her and the others. She wrinkled her brow and read the invitation. When she reached the address, a huge grin spread across her face. Kermit put his finger to his lips to silence her. She knew that address. This secret she'd be thrilled to keep to herself, just to watch the looks on the other's faces when they arrived.

If Kermit the Hermit was giving a party, Peter Caine wasn't about to miss it. He arrived a few minutes after seven o'clock to find the driveway of the strange address full as well as the street. After parking a few doors down, he walked up to the front door and rang the bell.

If this was Kermit's new home, it was extremely uncharacteristic. A blue house. Shutters. Flowers in the yard. "You've got to be kidding," he said to himself.

Kermit's sister Marilyn opened the door and greeted the detective. "Peter, come on in." He walked in and Marilyn put a glass of champagne in his hand.

"Good to see you again, Marilyn," he said, giving her a hug, "though I have no idea why I'm here."

She just laughed and left to talk to someone else. All the detectives were there. There was one conspicuous absence, but Peter guessed that the Captain had volunteered to "mind the store." Strenlich and his wife, who were tentatively reconciled ,were talking to Mary Margaret and Caine over in the corner.

"Pop, what are you doing here?"

"I was invited," he replied, tilting his head to the side. Evidently, Peter had walked into a conspiracy.

From around the corner of the room, he heard someone say, "Peter's here. Go get him."
Savannah slowly rounded the corner and said, "Hi, Peter." She walked over to him and planted a kiss on his cheek. "Glad you could come."

"Savannah!" he shouted in surprise and wrapped his arm around her. "Where...uh..."
He surveyed her expectant condition and stood there, stunned into silence.

She started to giggle and turned to look over her shoulder at Kermit, who was enjoying Peter's discomfort.

"I just love this part," she said then looked back to the shocked detective. "Peter. Breathe. It's so rude to pass out on the hostess." She took his arm and lead him over to Kermit.

"Since you're much too polite to ask all those little ole questions spinnin' around that pretty head of yours, I'll fill you in. Yes. I'm very pregnant. Yes it's our baby," she said patting Kermit's arm, " and we've worked things out between us. This is our engagement party."

It was obvious, by the looks on their faces, that Kermit and Savannah had gleefully pulled the same shock treatment on all of their other guests. The thought of these two being married and both getting their kicks from spooking people didn't bode well for their friends. Peter finally stopped staring and started congratulating the new couple. They discussed plans for the wedding, which was scheduled for the following Saturday. Caine would conduct the ceremony. Mary Margaret, who was beaming with success that her matchmaking effort of months ago hadn't been wasted, would be the maid of honor. Kermit took Peter outside to ask him to be his best man.

"I can't think of an assignment I'd better happier to accept, my friend." Peter patted his friend on the back. "She's one of a kind. Glad all three of you found each other."

"Yeah, in spite of myself, huh?" Kermit replied. "Can't believe she wants to be with me, after...well you know. But she does."

"I'm happy for both of you. Still, I hope it's not catching." Peter laughed.

"Oh yeah? Savannah's already planning to aim that bouquet right at Jody." Kermit punched Peter in the arm and left him outside.

******

Peter had dragged Kermit out of the office to help him squeeze one of his occasional informants. In return for the ex-mercenary having to chase the guy for three blocks, Peter volunteered to buy lunch. As usual, Peter was talking and eating at the same time.

"So. How are you holding up, Pop?" Peter said, tearing a huge bite from his sandwich.

"I completely understand why your father slaps you from time to time." Kermit answered, picking at his lunch. "I'm figuring things out as I go."

That was an accurate representation of the past few weeks. He had gone to every doctor's appointment and class with Savannah. He'd soaked up every bit of information about childbirth and babies he could find on the Internet. It seemed he was beginning to annoy his wife with the file he was accumulating. Kermit had printed out yet another article on the correct way to stimulate an infant's intellectual development and been greeted with, "Oh God! Not another one. Do you ever actually work at the office?"

Peter put down his lunch. "Guess that means things are okay, then. I don't know if I could make so many changes in such a short time. From bachelor to husband to father in a few months." He paused. "How's she doing?"

"She's tired and she won't complain. She's scared and she won't talk about it." Kermit was worried about her. Even though she said she felt fine, he could see the strain all over her face. The closer the due date came, five weeks away now, the more tense she became. The fact that her parents had ignored their wedding hadn't helped matters.

Savannah had e-mailed her younger brother at college and asked him to invite Mr. and Mrs. March. After the way they had treated her, Kermit wasn't thrilled about meeting them but he wanted her to be happy. They never responded. Her brother couldn't come because of exams. She had treated the situation casually. Said that she wasn't expecting them anyway and that she had all the family she needed right here. Savannah had made a beautiful bride and their wedding had been everything she hoped it would be.

A few nights earlier, Kermit found her crying in the nursery. She told him that she couldn't believe that the people who had raised her could "unlove" their own child. "How could they do that?" she'd asked. Nothing in Heaven or Earth would keep her from her child. Kermit didn't have any answers for her. He couldn't understand their reaction either.

The look of hurt and self doubt on her face went right through him. She had been sensitive and jumpy since that night. There didn't seem to be anything he could do to unburden her. Kermit knew this wasn't healthy for her. After all she'd been put through in the past months, Savannah deserved to relax and enjoy waiting for the baby. Instead, she was nervous and, though she'd never say it, afraid of what was to come.

Suddenly, a strange feeling washed over him. It wasn't exactly physical but Kermit felt this "dread" well up inside him. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. The vision that ran through his head made him gasp. It was her! That girl again.

Kermit was wide a wake. In perfect health and in a public place and that girl was in his head. Her eyes were full of tears and she had fear written all over her face. There, inside his head, she yelled, "Go home, now!"

Peter was shaking his arm. He could feel the intensity of whatever had gripped Kermit and was trying to bring him out of it. "Kermit! What is it?"

Tearing the cell phone out of his pocket, Kermit dialed his home number. No answer. He jumped out of his chair, blind with panic, Peter Caine still holding onto his arm. "I've got to get home!"

Peter knew that whatever was happening, it was bad. He didn't need Shaolin training to sense it, either. He'd only seen Kermit Griffin knocked off control on one other occasion. Now, the ex-mercenary was stone cold terrified.

He ran behind Kermit to the Stealth and squealed out of the parking lot toward Kermit's home. Kermit kept dialing and redialing the number and getting no answer. After the fourth futile effort, the ex- mercenary dialed 911. "This is Detective Kermit Griffin of the 101st precinct. Get an ambulance to 102 Willow Dr. No, not an officer down. It's my wife. She's pregnant. I DON'T KNOW IF SHE'S IN LABOR, YOU IDIOT!!"

Snatching the phone away from the enraged man, Peter Caine calmly addressed the dispatcher, "This is Detective Peter Caine. The woman's in some kind of trouble but we're not sure what her condition is. Yes, we're in route now. Thanks." Returning the phone to Kermit, he said, "They're on the way, Kermit. Now, you mind telling me what you're seeing?"

Resuming his frantic dialing, he shook his head, "I can't...I mean...I don't know. All I know is that she's in trouble. I don't know how I know, I just do."

Mysticism had never held any fondness for his sometime partner. Whatever had latched onto Kermit Griffin's mind was concrete enough to fire him into action like a cannonball.

That was all the convincing Peter Caine required. "Hold on." The younger detective floored the gas and cut their travel time in half.

Peter hadn't completely stopped the car in the driveway when Kermit jumped out and ran to the door. He ripped it open and rushed inside.

Savannah was lying on the living room floor, unconscious. Kermit ran to her and Peter grabbed a blanket to drape over her prone form.

Her pulse was racing. Kermit reached to hold her hand and found it trembling. He eased her into his lap and she began to open her eyes. Savannah's breath was coming is shuttering gasps. "Kermit," she said, trying to focus.

"Don't try to talk." He stroked her hair and tried to keep her calm. Kermit couldn't have envisioned a more horrifying moment. How could they have come this far. Gone through this much to lose everything now? Somehow, he had known to come to her. That had to mean something. Something he had to hold onto.

Her voice was trembling. "I...started to feel....dizzy...and then everything just went black."

The EMTs came running through the backdoor and took over. After quickly evaluating the pregnant woman's vital signs, she was loaded into the back of the ambulance. Kermit rode to the hospital, holding his wife's hand. Trying to hold on to that faith he'd started to believe in when she came back into his life.

******

Kermit sat beside his wife, waiting for the doctor to return with her test results. He kept trying to force the memory of the last time he sat beside her in a hospital room out of his head. Though she was sleeping now, Savannah's color was still pale and her hands would tremble periodically. The monitor in the corner counted out the steady beat of her heart and the baby's as well. When she'd been admitted, her blood pressure was through the roof and she was having mild contractions. She had been so disoriented that she hadn't known where she was or why she was there in the first place. The preterm labor had stopped for the moment and her vital signs were returning to normal.

The cadence of the monitors was the only comfort allowed to Kermit at this point. All he could do was sit and watch and wait. He hated that more than anything. Nothing he could do for them right now would make a difference. He rested his head on Savannah's hand, being careful not to disturb the IV in her arm.

"Well, it's comforting to know that you actually listen to me."

Kermit knew who he would see before he raise his head. Kat was there, standing beside Savannah, smiling at him. She was different this time. Less substantial. There was a slight glow around her.

"Kid," he began, "thanks for the warning today. You probably saved her life."

"No. You did that by listening. Got to have an open heart for that, detective." She moved closer to the monitors. "Sure is noisy in here. But that's a good thing, right?" It sounded like a child looking for reassurance.

"Oh yeah," Kermit had stopped trying to rationalize what had been happening with this girl. Rational thought didn't seem to apply. "Are you some kind of angel, Kat?"

She giggled and put both hands on her hips. "No one has ever accused me of that before. I'm sort of a guide, detective. You've known what to do, you just needed a little back up. That's my specialty."

"Are things going to work out?" It couldn't hurt to ask, he thought.

"You know what curiosity did to the cat?" She started laughing again. "Oh, I made a funny. Cat, Kat, get it?"

"You've got a warped sense of humor!" Annoyance was creeping into his voice.

"So I've been told."

Kermit turned his attention back to Savannah. Had he made a mistake to believe? To have faith. Was this going to be one more slap in the face from fate? Losing both of them. He should have seen this coming. Should have been able to take some of her burdens. He closed his eyes.

"Climb down off the cross, detective. It's been done."

She knew what he was thinking! "You have some more pearls of teenage wisdom for me or are you just going to climb around in my head all day?"

"Well, you just need to listen to your own. What was it that you told Natalie? 'If you keep lying down with dogs you're going to get fleas.' Yeah, that was it."

Kermit was no longer shocked at anything Kat knew.

"You've spent you entire adult life fighting the bad guys, detective. Like the knights I've read about," she said, looking intently and seriously into his face. "You're fierce and bold and brave. You've always chosen the side of good, even though sometimes it took you a while to figure out what side was which. Problem is, you spent so long walking around in evil that it started to stick to you. Smother you. Hide the light, you know?" She paused and leaned over to stroke Savannah's hair and placed a gentle hand on her stomach.

"She found it in you. Helped you draw a map so that you could find it, too. You see, she believes in something Caine says. Darkness can never extinguish the light." She looked back to Kermit. "It's the other way around. Light eliminates darkness."

Caine. Even quoted in netherworld, he thought. Kermit was hypnotized by her voice. The words weren't the words of a child. Or, maybe they were. Words that youth could still believe.

"Even though you're sorely needed for the job, you can't just fill yourself with destroying evil. You've got to build something up for yourself. Turn on the light. Get it? That's your atonement. That's what you're doing."

A sudden realization hit him. "This whole thing has been a test. Right?"

Folding her hands in front of her, in mock formality, Kat announced, "Yes. This is a test. This is only a test. For the past few weeks, Kat has been conducting a test of..."

"For a vision, you certainly have a smart mouth."

Kat laughed with that sparkling sound, and crossed over to him. Standing behind him, she wrapped her transparent arms around him in a warm embrace and whispered in his ear. "You passed. I knew you would."

The touch of a firm hand on his shoulder shook him back to reality. It was Dr. Sabourin. "Detective Griffin, I have her test results back."

Kermit sat bolt upright. Savannah was beginning to wake up, too.

"Kermit," she said, in a groggy voice.

"It's ok, Scarlet." He got up and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

"Mrs. Griffin," began the doctor. "I think we have things back to normal now. You have a condition known as preeclampsia. Pregnancy induced hypertension. Your blood pressure rose to an abnormally high level and caused the dizziness and fainting. You also had a few preterm contractions but they seem to have stopped."

"Is the baby safe?" Savannah asked, grabbing Kermit's hand.

"Perfectly fine. Heart beating like a drum." The doctor gestured to the monitors. "Given the stressful history of this pregnancy, I'm surprised that you haven't been in here before now.

"What do we do now?" asked Kermit, as he let a drop of relief begin to sink into his voice. "Savannah, I've conferred with your doctor and he agrees with my recommendation. We're going to keep you here overnight. Then you are to go home to complete bed rest for a week. If your pressure remains stable and there are no more contractions after that time, you can resume limited activity, nothing strenuous, as long as you stay at home. After that week, we'll see." She reached down to pat her patient's hand. "Don't worry. This isn't uncommon is first time mothers. I think things are going to be fine."

The doctor left her patient to rest and motioned for Kermit to follow her outside.
"Detective," she began, "although we have things under control. Preeclampsia is a serious complication. Given an escalation of the hypertension, she would be at risk for premature delivery, seizures, or stroke. There is also the distinct possibility of fetal distress. I don't want to alarm you unnecessarily, but you should understand the consequences of another incident like today."

"Could she die?" Kermit asked.

The doctor placed a comforting hand on his arm and said, "Mortality rates for mothers and babies are increased with this complication but I think she'll be fine if she follows my instructions. You've got to be careful," cautioned Dr. Sambourin. "This episode , in my opinion, was ninety-nine percent caused by stress. From day one, she's been under physical and emotional pressure. It's all caught up with her. From here on out, she needs to relax. Resting at home should be just what she needs but as an added precaution, she shouldn't be left alone. You'll need to put together a support network of her friends to be with her when you're away."

Peter had been sitting in the waiting room and walked over to join their conversation. "No problem, doc." He put a hand on Kermit's shoulder. "Between my father and all the people at the precinct, we'll have it covered."

Dr. Sabourin smiled. "I think your father would be an excellent choice. If anyone can keep a pregnant woman calm, it's Caine." She turned back to Kermit, who looked drained from worry. "I hope you're not turning your permanent residence in my emergency room into a family tradition. If all of you people from the 101st would stay out of my ER, I might be able to get some peace around here." With that, she left to complete Savannah's paperwork.

"Peter," Kermit began, then stopped.

Peter knew what Kermit was going to say. "Glad to do it. Go be with her and I'll get on the phone and put together a schedule."

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