Epilogue

A weary Kermit ascended the stairs to Peter's loft and made his way to the room where the younger man lay recuperating. Lo Si greeted him at the door. "Ah, Detective Griffin. You are back."

Kermit smiled at the old man, but wasted no time with pleasantries. "How's the kid doing?" he asked, keeping his voice to a near whisper so as not to disturb the patient.

"He is still asleep, but doing very well," the Ancient replied, his voice level matching Kermit's.

"No, he's not still asleep," complained the young Shaolin from his bed. "So get your ass in here and tell me about Kalindi." Peter carefully rose to a sitting position, but stopped short of getting out of bed as the Ancient's sharp glare pinned him in place.

"It is good that you are awake," Lo Si announced. "I will make you both some tea."

Peter groaned loudly at the prospect of more tea as the old one exited the room. Kermit smiled at the younger man and took a seat in the chair Lo Si had pulled up next to the bed. "Our wandering princess is just fine. She's very anxious to see you, but we persuaded her to wait until morning. We had a rather long talk and made some decisions."

"Such as?"

"Kalindi is going back to Marquette High tomorrow, though she did mention something about a crash course in slang from you first, so be prepared. She's going to continue there until we find her a school with a good botany program. There's one about four hours from here that we're going to look at first. That way she can come home fairly often for visits."

"Speaking of home," Peter questioned, "she's not there alone, is she?"

"Of course not. She's spending the night with Karen."

Peter arched an eyebrow. "Then I take it that the two of you have worked things out?" he questioned. "What about the supposed marriage?"

Kermit heaved a relieved sigh. "I just got off the phone with the lawyers before I came over here. They assure me that we are not legally married according to the laws of this country."

"So what about you and Karen?" the Shaolin demanded.

Kermit considered toying with the man a little longer, but decided against it because of the head injury. "We had a good talk, too. She says we still have some issues to discuss, but at least we're talking like rational adults now."

Peter couldn't suppress a chuckle. "In other words, you finally understand that you shouldn't argue with the boss." The priest winked at his friend. "According to Mom, it took Paul a good while to figure that one out, too."

Kermit laughed and nodded in agreement. "Oh, yeah."

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The End!