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The battle had taken its toll on Goodnight.
The nightmares had been bad before.
The voices that had plagued him almost never let him rest.
The owl.
It was always there, waiting for him, waiting to take everything and everyone that he loved away from him.
It was worse now.
Every night he awoke in a cold sweat, normally screaming, always shaking and trembling with fear.
Billy was there for him. He always was. Usually that was enough. But not now.
Billy had tried everything.
He'd comforted him, held him close, given him cigarettes, whispered to him how much he loved him. Nothing seemed to work.
Reasoning wasn't going to fix anything. The visions and the voices were so clear to Goodnight that trying to talk him out of it wouldn't get anyone anywhere.
Goodnight wasn't sleeping anymore. Neither was Billy. It was a never ending battle.
Billy sighed as he took a sip of his coffee, barely able to hold the cup to his lips. This lack of sleep had made him weak.
Goodnight came down the stairs of the Inn.
Emma handed him a cup of coffee and he came to sit with Billy out on the porch.
"Morming, Cher." He yawned, sitting down in the chair next to his love.
Billy peered at him over the rim of his mug.
"Good morning." He spoke, after taking a nice long sip.
Goody looked to the ground in shame. He knew this wasn't fair. Wasn't fair to either of them Infact.
"I'm sorry about..." He tried to apologize.
"Don't." Billy stopped him. "It's not your fault."
Goody gnawed at his lip as the others slowly came to join them.
A lot has happened since Rose Creek was freed.
Teddy had asked Emma for her hand in marriage, and she had accepted. Their wedding was set for the following month.
Sam had been elected sheriff. It had been a chore to convince him as well as the others to stay, but once they had it had been made official pretty quick. The townspeople felt a lot better with Sam handling all the law and order dealings.
Horne was teaching Red Harvest English. It shouldn't have been such a surprise to everyone when they started courting.
Even Faraday and Vasquez had become romantically involved.
It seemed life had gotten a sight better for most of them, but poor Goody had gotten the worse end of it all.
"You don't have to stay up with me when I..."
"Goody." Billy cut him off again.
They had to whisper now that the others had all decided to join them out on the porch before breakfast was ready.
"Pretty mornin'." Sam commented, looking up at all the different pigments of pink and orange lining the sky blue and white of the clouds above them.
"Si." Vasquez agreed, sipping his coffee as he glanced at Josh who was still spilling sugar into his cup.
"You want your teeth to rot?" He warned his lover.
Josh raised his brow as he took a long sip of the sugar coated coffee. "Never did like the stuff." He said. "Not without plenty of sugar. Makes it drinkable."
"Je...sus...Wept." Red Harvest read from Horne's bible.
"That's good, Red. That's real good." Jack smiled at him.
Goodnight sighed and finished off his coffee, looking to Billy then.
His husband nodded, setting his cup down on the railing of the porch and pulling their matchbook from his vest. He lit him up a cigarette.
Goody's hand shook as he took it when Billy passed it over.
"It's okay." Billy assured him.
Goody sighed again and took a long drag off of the opium laced cigarette, desperate for relief.
Billy took up his coffee cup again and headed for the door. "I'll be back." He told the others.
That next night wasn't much better.
Goody woke up screaming with a terrible nightmare.
Billy had calmed him, just as he always did. They made love for awhile, then he drew a nice warm bath for his ailing husband.
Goody didn't want to go back to sleep. He couldn't. Not after a nightmare like that. So Billy staid up for most of the night with him, until they both ended up so tired that they were dragged under into sleep. They couldn't fight it any longer.
Morning came only an hour or two later and Billy was exhausted.
"You can't keep doing this." Emma told him one morning as Billy helped her clean up after breakfast.
"I have to." He told her. "Goody needs me."
"Billy you have to think of your own health too. You know that." Emma scolded him.
Billy staid silent. Goody needed him. He couldn't just let him deal with his suffering alone.
"Cher?" Goody called to him one night after awaking in a panic.
"I'm coming, Goody. Hold on." Billy assured him as he readied the bath for his husband.
"Billy the owl..." Goody whimpered.
Billy dropped what he was doing and hurried into the room.
"Goody..." He tried to calm him.
"I saw it, Billy, I saw it...It was here.." Goody went on.
"Goody." Billy stopped him.
"Billy. I saw it." Goody insisted.
He tried everything he knew to help him.
He'd tried telling him that those men had deserved it. That all those black stones they'd killed would have just gone on torturing the innocent had they lived.
It didn't help.
Nothing helped.
What was Billy to do?
He couldn't go on staying up every night like he was. He needed to sleep. They both did.
Sam had suggested seeing a doctor, but what good would that do?
Any doctor they went to with this problem would likely just send Goody away to one of those awful asylums.
Billy couldn't stand the thought of it. His Goodnight trapped in a place so terrible. It brought tears to his eyes just to think of it.
"Billy, please, listen to us. You need to sleep." Emma begged him one night after dinner.
Goodnight had gone up to bed an hour ago and Billy was just waiting for the screams to come. It was easier for him to stay awake if he hadn't already been asleep.
"He needs me." He told Emma.
"So does your baby." Emma reminded him.
Billy didn't say anything after that. Because he knew she was right.
Not long after the battle, he'd found out he was carrying Goodnight's baby.
Around the same time, Goody's nightmares and visions started to become much worse, so he'd held off on telling him the news. He didn't want to worry him any further.
Emma sighed.
"I think he might get better, even if only a little, if you just told him." She told Billy.
"I can't....He won't..." Billy tried to find the words to fight back but couldn't.
"Okay, say you didn't tell him." Emma said, folding her arms over her chest. "What happens then? You drain yourself completely trying to keep up with him, and the baby pays for it. Possibly with its life."
Billy winced at the thought.
"Now, say you do go on and tell him. He'll at least try to make things easier on you because he knows you need your rest." She continued.
"No. He'll only worry more. I can't do that to him." Billy said, gripping his coffee cup tightly. He had to stop himself from crying.
"I just don't want you and the baby to...."
"Emma." He stopped her.
"Hear me out." Emma sighed, pulling up a chair.
Billy looked up, meeting her eyes with his tired bloodshot ones.
"Maybe, just possibly, we can handle this as a family. It doesn't have to be just you." She told him, taking his hand.
"He needs ME." Billy insisted.
"But you need to rest." Emma argued. "Please Billy. If not for me, do it for your baby. Do it for Goody too. Do you really think he'd forgive himself if you lost that baby?"
Billy looked down again.
"Please." Emma begged.
Billy agreed, but not without protest.
They took turns from then on out. Hoping and praying that Goody would get better soon.
Horne staid up with him the most whenever Billy couldn't.
His prayers seemed to calm Goodnight, but even then he didn't seem to be helped much by anything.
"Morning, Cher." Goodnight greeted Billy one morning after a bad nightmare.
"Goody." Billy sighed.
Goodnight stopped where he was reaching into the cabinets for the coffee.
"Yes?" He asked.
Billy looked up from his cup, his eyes red and puffy, attesting to how worried he was.
Goodnight frowned and crossed the room to him.
"Goody I can't..." Billy started.
"Is this because of..." Goody started.
"You?" Billy asked before nodding. "Goody sit down. We need to talk."
Goodnight felt tears brimming in his eyes already.
Was Billy leaving him? He wouldn't blame him if he was but how on earth would he ever go on?
"Alright.." He took a chair next to Billy.
"Goody..." Billy started. "We um...Things are going to be changing."
"Cher?" Goody asked. "What are you saying?"
Billy could see the fear in his husband's eyes.
"Goody, I'm pregnant." He told him.
Goodnight's blue eyes widened and soon he started to weep.
"Goody..." Billy whispered, taking both of his hands and squeezing them gently.
"Come here..." Goodnight sobbed, pulling him close.
After that it was almost as if the owl had never come to plague Goodnight at all.
"You didn't wake me up." Billy said the next morning when Goodnight came down for his coffee.
"I was sleeping." Goody told him with a small smile.
Billy gave a smile in return.
Everyone seemed very much relieved, and the Robicheauxs were so much happier.
It was a miracle if Billy had ever seen one. A blessing from the Lord, Jack had called it.
Billy was just grateful that Goody was feeling better.
It was seven months later, one cold night in January that Billy went into labor.
It was nearly forty hours of pain and agony, but Goodnight was there through it all.
After all Billy had been with him through countless nights of suffering. It was the least he could do to be with him through a few.
Their daughter was born on January 8th 1880 at five in the morning. Just as the sun started to come up.
Midnight Emma Robicheaux.
"Hello, little one." Goody greeted his little daughter as she was passed to him.
He had tears in his eyes once more, but for once in his life, they weren't tears of suffering.
They were tears of joy.