Now, it's Stu and Didi's turn to have a baby. This time, however, Tommy Pickles, as he is called, has been born two months premature, and his life is hanging by a thread. While Charles is afraid of losing his wife Melinda, Stu faces an even greater fear: the prospect of losing his son Tommy!

It was June 11, 1990. While Melinda was staying in the hospital, writing in her diary, Stu and Didi were preparing for their baby. They were painting a new room in their house when Lou noticed Chas coming along with Chuckie, who was crying in his arms.

"Halt!" cried Lou. "Who goes there?"

"Lou, it's me, Chas."

"Come on in, then." And Lou opened the door, whereupon Chas entered.

When Chas entered the room that Stu and Didi were working on, he said, "Hey, guys."

"Oh, hi, Chas," said Stu.

"I've come to drop off Chuckie while I go to work," Chas sighed. "Poor little guy must be very upset knowing his mommy's been in the hospital for so long. Even our daily visits haven't done much to calm him down."

"We understand," said Didi as she placed a calm, reassuring hand on his shoulder. "We'll watch over Chuckie."

"Good," said Chas, and off he went to work.

Chuckie was crying endlessly, and while Didi was preparing the room, Stu was trying in vain to get him to stop. This made the purple-haired man panic, and he cried out, "Deed, he won't stop! What'll we do?"

Presently, when Stu kicked the ladder in frustration, he sent a hammer falling onto his foot. This made him scream like a little girl.

Upon seeing this Chuckie stopped crying, and he began to giggle.

When Stu recovered himself, he smiled, and Didi said, "Stu, you got Chuckie to stop crying! You'd make such a good daddy for our baby!"

"Yeah," chuckled Stu. "Just think, Didi! I could be a stay-at-home dad and a toymaker at the same time! I'll make toys for every boy and girl of every age!"

And as Stu lifted Chuckie up into the air, Chuckie giggled at Stu's childlike tendencies.

"See, this parenting thing isn't too bad…"

"Yeah," said Didi. "I'm sure we'll be able to handle it once we have our own."

Suddenly, however, Didi felt a strange feeling between her legs. "Oh, Stu," she cried. "He's early!"

"What?!" gasped Stu with a look of surprise on his face…

At the hospital, the same hospital where Melinda was resting, Stu rushed Didi on a wheelchair, by their sides were Lou, Boris, and Minka, the soon-to-be grandparents.

Upon seeing Didi breathing shakily, the nurse was surprised. "Mrs. Pickles?" she asked. "But you weren't due until August!"

"I know!" cried Didi. "Why did he have to come so soon?!"

"Calm down, Didi," said Stu. "I'm sure it's not that bad."

Presently, Didi was in such pain she squeezed Stu's hand. This made him sweat in agony.

Lou then commented, "You know, Boris, when Drew was born, Trixie squeezed my hand so tight I needed to put it in a cast for months! And I turned out all right."

"I'm sure you did," snarked Boris as he glanced at Lou.

Minka added, "Well, if you were a woman, you should have tried giving birth to a baby or two! The pain is so dreadful you probably couldn't bear it!" She then whispered to Lou, "You know, when our Didila was born, Boris was so frightened by my screams he passed out for a week!"

"Hey!" shouted Boris. "Not in front of our employee!"

Sure enough, as he wheeled Didi into the delivery room, Stu was hyperventilating, struggling to make sense of it all. How could Didi give birth prematurely? What would happen to their baby once Didi had given birth?

Stu paced the floor as Didi let out a scream on the bed.

Concerned, Stu asked the nurse, "Is our baby gonna be all right?"

"Didi's going to be just fine, but the baby… he's so small he…" sighed the nurse.

After she had given birth, Didi cradled her new baby boy, tiny as he was, in her arms. "Isn't he precious?"

"He's so tiny," said Minka with a sad smile. "Since you gave birth to him two months early, is he even going to make it?"

"What'cha gonna name him?" asked Lou.

Didi replied, "His name is Thomas Pickles. But you can call him 'Tommy.'"

The nurse said to Didi, "Mrs. Pickles, we shall have to place your new baby into an incubator and see if he will make it. If he does, then he's yours for the taking. If not…"

"What do you mean 'If not'?" cried Stu. "That's our son you're talking about! It's a matter of life and death for him! He was born two months too early, and now, you want him to die?!"

"We don't want him to die," said the nurse nervously. "We're just not certain if he'll make it."

And as the nurse left with the prematurely-born Tommy in his arms, Boris, genuinely concerned for his new grandson, turned to Stu and whispered, "Is it still too early to hire you as a full-time father?"

"I hope not, Boris," Stu sighed. "I hope not…"

That night, Chas and Chuckie were visiting Melinda, who, upon seeing Chuckie, cradled him in her arms.

"I heard from Stu that his and Didi's son was born to-day," said Melinda.

"Yeah," said Chas sadly. "But that's two months too early. At least, our little Chuckie was born right on schedule."

"You know, Charles, I also heard from Stu that Chuckie misses his mommy."

"He sure does, Mimi. And can you really blame him?"

"I certainly can't, Charles…"

Chas heaved a sigh as he said, "By the way, Stu and Didi are busy caring for their baby, so they told me to tell you that they say hi."

Melinda smiled. "Thanks again, Charles."

After Melinda had handed Chuckie back to Chas, the two waved each other good-bye as Chas left the hospital and went to his car to drive back home. Chas was glad that the doctors were treating her well, but seeing Melinda under all that medication just gave him that sick feeling in his stomach! But once he saw Chuckie asleep in his car seat on the way home, Chas smiled. From that time onward, he would visit Melinda more often…

The next day, Tommy found himself in the incubator. Being just born yesterday, of course, he didn't really know what was going on. Many people passed him by, as though they didn't know he was there. For Tommy, everything around him was scary! If he had a mommy, where was she when he needed her?

It was then when Didi came. Tommy didn't seem to know that she was his mother, but Didi smiled at Tommy, even though, deep down inside, she was afraid of losing him. She couldn't even hold her baby to her bosom; all she could do was hold his hand. But once she held his hand, Tommy was no longer scared. As long as Didi was there, she and Tommy would never let go.

Tommy didn't know that his father, Stu, was watching all this with great apprehension. His son appeared to have his life hanging by a thread. For the moment, no one was sure if Tommy would pull through.

Lou approached him and said, "So, Stu, how's Tommy doing?"

"Oh, pop," Stu groaned. "If Didi is scared for Tommy's life, then I'm twice as scared! You heard what the nurse said! Tommy's life could be hanging by a thread!"

This concerned Lou, who asked Boris, "Say, what happens if Tommy doesn't make it?"

Boris sighed ruefully, "Then, I'm afraid your son will be fired…"

Lou didn't like the sound of that…

Stu couldn't sleep a wink that night, and neither could Didi. Both of them were very worried. They both feared that Tommy could indeed die, because he was so tiny. More than once in a single week, Stu could hear Didi weeping into her pillow. This only made him even more concerned for Tommy…

But what about the other parents? What about them? Let's start with Drew and Charlotte Pickles, the parents of Angelica, now two years old. They first saw Tommy when he was two days old. When Charlotte saw Tommy, she informed Jonathan about this on her phone: "I'm visiting my nephew, Jonathan. Can you believe that he was born two months before he should have been? He's so small, who knows what will happen to him? Who knows how my brother-in-law is feeling about this? Now, about those contracts, Jonathan…"

But when Drew saw Tommy, so small and so helpless in that incubator, he turned to Stu and saw how sad he was. Drew didn't want to make fun of his younger brother for having so tiny a baby. In fact, he didn't make fun of Stu. Instead, he gave Stu his commiserations: "I'm so sorry, Stu."

"It's okay, Drew. Tommy's still alive…" said Stu with a smile, before his face fell. "…at least for now."

"Oh, Stu, if I had known your son could die, I…"

"You don't have to blame yourself. Didi and I are the ones who are suffering."

"I certainly hope Tommy will be okay."

Stu could only give a sad sigh.

By this point, Angelica had learned some new words. Trying to get her parents' attention, she said, "Mommy? Daddy? Mommy?! Daddy?!"

But it was all in vain. Drew and Charlotte were focused on their nephew, Tommy, while their daughter Angelica was left sitting on the sidelines, failing to comprehend what was going on. But her parents were going crazy over Tommy and couldn't think about anything else.

This sickened Angelica, for she had been used to getting center stage back at home. Now, her parents seemed to be acting as if she was never born. She looked at Tommy in his incubator and thought, "If that dumb baby ever gets out of that fish tank, I'm gonna teach him a lesson he'll never forget!"

And thus began Angelica's animosity towards her own cousin Tommy, and towards babies in general…

A few days later, it was Howard and Betty's turn, bringing the twins Phil and Lil along with them. Betty had recovered her strength in the time since she bore the twins. Both twins gazed in awe at baby Tommy, while their parents gazed in sympathy.

As Howard stared quietly at Tommy, Betty said to Didi, "Hey, Deed, I see that you and Stu have finally had a baby, but he's so small. Do you think he'll make it?"

"I don't know, Betty," sighed Didi. "Come what may, he may live… I hope…"

Betty could say nothing more. She just glanced at her friend with tears in her eyes. Up until that point, she had had no idea how just how scary being a parent could be.

Presently, Howard asked Betty, "Do you think we should leave Stu and Didi alone with Tommy? The boy needs his parents. They may be all he'll have."

Drying her eyes, Betty replied, "Yeah, we should. All this has gotten me acting all sappy!"

And Howard and Betty took their twins and left the incubator room, while Stu and Didi watched over Tommy with apprehension…

As for Chas, he didn't meet Tommy until the latter was eight days old. On that day, June 19, while he was pushing Chuckie in a stroller, taking him to visit Melinda, he said to his son, "Why don't we make a quick stop, Chuckie? I want you to meet a new friend."

And so, Chas and Chuckie stopped by Tommy's incubator room. There, as Chas picked up Chuckie from the stroller, they saw Tommy, lying there, gazing up at Chas and Chuckie.

"Chuckie," said Chas, "this is Tommy Pickles, son of Stu and Didi Pickles."

When Tommy's eyes met Chuckie's, the two baby boys smiled at each other, and a beautiful friendship was born.

"Hi, Tommy," Chuckie said.

Of course, the grown-ups could only hear baby talk from Chuckie, but Tommy knew that Chuckie was just saying hello. Tommy was small, but for once, Chuckie wasn't afraid.

Meanwhile, Chas noticed something about Tommy. "Tommy looks so small," he said to Didi.

Didi explained, "That's because he was born two months sooner than Stu and I had anticipated. He has to stay in the hospital. But Stu and I are afraid."

"W-why?"

"Because the nurse told us that he's so small he might not make it. Already, his life is hanging by a thread!"

Tears came to Chas' eyes. "Oh, no! Losing a child just might be even worse than losing a wife or husband! Whereas my wife has lived long enough to have come of age, your son is way too young to die!"

When Stu heard that, he felt like he had been hit by a train! He couldn't speak or even move!

Chas continued, "If anything were to happen to my Chuckie, I'd probably go insane with grief!"

"I can see why Melinda chose you," said Didi sympathetically. "You're so honest about your emotions. As for Stu, he doesn't cry very often, but whenever he shows any emotions other than anger, I always feel so close to him."

"But poor Chuckie," Chas commented as he saw Chuckie gently clasp Tommy's hand. "Doesn't he realize that Tommy could die?"

Neither Chas nor Stu knew it at the time, but Chuckie knew that he and Tommy, like their fathers, would become best friends one day…

That night, Stu sat in his and Didi's bedroom, looking through his old memorabilia: his childhood photos, his bullfighter costume from his freshman year, his disco suit from his senior prom, and, most importantly, his old red blanket, which he had gotten for his third birthday and used as a matador cape on multiple occasions until he was fifteen.

As Stu took the long walk to the room which he had intended for Tommy, clasping his old blanket, he could hear, in his mind, a basso singing the aria "Vecchia zimarra" from La Bohême:

"Vecchia zimarra, senti,
Io resto al pian, tu ascendere
Il sacro monte or devi.
Le mie grazie ricevi."

As he walked upstairs and down the hallway, Stu remembered all the times he had spent with his red blanket, from the age of three until he had first wept at age fifteen.

"Mai non curvasti il logoro
dorso ai ricchi ed ai potenti.
Passar nelle tue tasche
come in antri tranquilli
filosofi e poeti."

As soon as he entered Tommy's room, Stu looked around, seeing all the toys he and Didi had intended for their son. Then he looked at the blanket, which he had been saving for Tommy.

"Ora che i giorni lieti
fuggir, ti dico addio,
fedele amico mio.
Addio. Addio."

Finally, after he placed the blanket in the empty crib, Stu sat down and began to weep. Tears streamed down his face as he wondered if his son was going to pull through…