Faith woke once in the night, panicked for a moment and then remembered where she was and who held her. Somehow a piece of her knew that some things were better and healed and others never would be. She couldn't move, her limbs felt like lead but she heard. She heard him speaking to her.

"I'm so sorry, sweetheart," he whispered so softly she knew he was speaking more to himself, "I caused this and then you had to save me. They should write the books about you. You saved my life. I better remember to thank you for that once you're feeling better. And you have to feel better, Faith. You just have to."

His tears fell hot onto her head and broke her heart. Things were muddled and confused and she was tired, so very tired. She wanted to reach for him, comfort him but she just could not and she fell asleep again instead.

Jimmy spent the next day seeing to Faith. She either slept or cried and he really didn't know what to do with himself no matter which she was doing. He rubbed her feet. He helped her to the outhouse which he was sure when she got over this would embarrass her to no end but there wasn't a woman to do it so he did. He talked softly to her until he was just too frustrated.

He sat on the edge of the bed holding her hand.

"Faith, you have to get over this crying," he said far more gruffly than he meant to, "He ain't worth your tears. You're engaged and going to have a baby, my baby. I don't know how much longer I can sit and watch you cry for another man. Especially one who did such things to you."

He released her hand knowing he was no longer offering comfort. He knew he ought to apologize for his harshness but he wasn't even sure she was really taking notice of him and he wasn't sorry for what he had said or even how he said it. He sat quiet for a while until he heard a knock at the front door.

"Right," he grumbled, "Like we need visitors right now."

Jimmy opened the door to find Buck and Jenny standing there and he just stared at them as if demanding an explanation for their presence.

"We, uh," Buck managed before Jenny spoke up.

"I wanted to check on Faith," she said offering no explanation of why her husband had come with her. She knew that she needed none. He had clearly come to check up on his friend also. Jimmy begrudgingly let them in.

"Faith's in bed," he said, "If you think you can get her to do anything but sleep or cry, have at it."

Jenny uttered a concerned sounding sigh and hustled to the bedroom and her friend. Jimmy looked up at Buck who quickly looked away. He had been studying Jimmy, gauging his mood.

"Maybe you could use some air," Buck suggested wishing now that he had asked Teaspoon to take Jenny out to visit Faith.

Jimmy nodded and followed Buck to the porch but looked back warily before closing the door.

"She's alright now, Jimmy," Buck assured.

"I thought she would be but she ain't."

"That was quite an ordeal she went through," Buck reminded him, "She shot a man in the street. She had a gun pointed at her and at you. She lost everything once and she couldn't bear to again so she did what was necessary but even so it had to be hard for her. Look how many times you've had to kill and it still takes a toll on you no matter the circumstances."

"I don't lay in bed crying."

"Last time I checked you weren't a woman about to have a baby either," Buck said simply.

"She was so strong when she shot him," Jimmy mused remembering how her eyes were hardened and how steady her hand was even as she shot an already dead body.

"You know how that is," Buck said, "You can keep it together in the moment but once the danger passes then it all hits you. The fear, the hurt, the guilt…"

"Guilt? She ain't got nothing to be guilty for."

"Really? She took another human life," Buck reminded him, "And not just any life, the one of the man who once loved her, the one who gave her a son. You think she doesn't feel bad about leaving him? I know she had to and I know she did what she did to save the baby but she must have a host of feelings she can't even sort out."

"If she'd just talk to me I could help her."

"Maybe she can't talk to you yet," Buck offered, "Maybe Jenny can get through to her. Or Lou. They have a lot in common, those two."

Faith heard every word Jimmy said to her. She heard his tender pleas for her to just talk to him, to let him in and his harsher words about mourning another man when he was right there. It wasn't fair of her maybe but then so many things were not fair at all in this situation. She couldn't even sort the good from the bad after a while. His words hurt her because they were true and because she felt powerless to do anything about them. She did love him. She loved him more than she would ever be able to say but for the time being she couldn't do anything about it or about anything else. She vaguely remembered him bathing her and readying her for bed the night before. She didn't deserve such treatment, not from him and maybe from no one. He thanked her for saving his life and yet she wasn't sure she had and she knew she was the reason it needed saving in the first place.

She heard the knock at the door and was momentarily frightened. It could be Aaron. He had come back from the dead once and he could do it again. Or it could be Teaspoon had to arrest her. She had killed a man. Or Jimmy had. Maybe he was to hang and not her. Jimmy went to answer the door as she held her breath and listened. She heard Buck's voice and became scared again. He was a deputy after all but then she heard Jenny's voice. Buck wasn't here as a deputy but as a friend and Jenny was here to check on her. Friends. She had friends. She finally had friends once she no longer deserved such a thing. Oh they all thought she did but she knew better. She knew they didn't have the whole story. If they did she'd be lucky if they let her stay long enough to give birth and that would only be so they could take the child for surely she wasn't fit to handle such innocence when she was so guilty.

Jenny bustled into the room.

"Oh Faith, honey," she declared upon entering the room. She sat on the bed and pulled her new friend to her. "I know," she went on stroking Faith's hair and rocking her slightly, "I know, you just let it out. Men don't understand. They try but they just don't get it. I'm here. You just cry it out and then we can talk. Maybe I can get those men to be useful and make you some tea or something at least."

Faith felt her tears renew and allowed herself comfort she wasn't sure she was worthy of but she allowed it anyway. How long the two women sat like that with the one rocking the other was anyone's guess. Eventually Jimmy braved to look in on them.

"How's she doing?" he asked quietly from the doorway.

"This wave of crying's done," Jenny answered, "I think some tea would do her good right now. She said you had one you made special for her."

Jimmy nodded. At least he could do that.

"He's a good man," Jenny said softly to her friend, "I know you have all sorts of stuff in there tearing at you. If there's a person in the world who understands that it's him. I know you know he hides too much. Buck says he doesn't even know all of what happened to Jimmy before the Express and even during. He doesn't tell hardly anyone. I think he fears people will turn from him if he does. He ought to know that family doesn't turn from family. Maybe you should know that too."

"Not family," was the choked and ragged reply from Faith.

"What was that, Faith?"

"I'm not family."

"Oh yes you are," Jenny said smiling, "Even without that baby growing inside you, you are family because he loves you. You've been family since before we even knew you existed. And that man of yours…you've likely been family since shortly after he met you. You are his family as far as he is concerned and that makes you our family."

Jenny looked up when Jimmy cleared his throat and saw him there holding the requested tea.

"Well, look who's back with your tea," Jenny said patting Faith's hand, "I'm going to move along now."

Jenny paused as she passed Jimmy.

"She'll get through this. Just try to be patient with her."

She squeezed his arm as she left to collect her husband and go home.

Jimmy put the tea on the night table before sitting on the bed. He propped Faith up and kissed the side of her head.

"I let it cool a bit before I brought it to you," he said softly picking up the cup and guiding it toward her lips, "I didn't want to burn you."

He helped her to a sip of the beverage.

"I'm sorry about earlier. That was selfish. I know what I said was wrong and hurtful."

"My fault," Faith whispered, "My fault. Everything, my fault."

Jimmy quickly set the cup on the table and pulled Faith tight to him, or as tight as he could with the baby between them.

"Sweetheart," he said softly, "None of this was your fault. If it was anyone's it was mine."

"You don't know…"

"Maybe you tell me and then I will."

"I killed him," she choked out through her tears.

"You don't know that, sweetheart. It could as easily been my shot. Besides he was asking for it. He was a monster."

"You don't understand," she insisted.

"Help me understand."

"You'll hate me," she cried, "I already hate me and you will too. I deserve it but I don't know if I could bear it."

Jimmy shifted to look her in the eye.

"Faith, I could never hate you," he said almost sternly, "I know what it is to hate yourself but that don't mean other people will hate you. I spend a lot of time hating myself but the people around me won't hate me. They won't even try."

"Aaron was a good and kind man; he really was," she said desperately, "He wasn't a monster. Whatever he was, I made him."

"Faith," Jimmy said with anger mounting, "He beat you. He threatened to kill the baby. Maybe the man who left for the war was good and decent but the one who came back was a monster. No decent man leaves marks on a woman like you had."

"But he wasn't a monster. I swear it," she protested, "I-"

"Men like that always try to make the woman believe it's her fault-"

"Listen to me!" she shrieked, "Shut up and listen!"

Jimmy reached to calm her and shush her. He worried for the baby if she became hysterical. Faith swatted his hands away from her.

"Stop fussing and stop trying to fix and just listen. You said you wanted to understand and you don't let me get a word out and you, you, you try to smooth everything over and it can't be. It's rough and it's ugly and you can't make it smooth and pretty. You can't."

Tears were streaming down her face and her voice was tight but she stared back at him as intensely as any gunman he'd ever faced. Her chest was rising and falling rapidly and her eyes were on fire and he had forgotten how excited she could make him and then cursed himself for the timing of that thought.

She cut her eyes at him and he knew that she had picked up on his thoughts. He nodded to her to speak, not daring to say anything else himself.

"He came home different," she said softly, "He was angry. He had a right to be angry after all he'd been through and he was still angry with me. When he left I said horrible things to him and then spent months convincing myself that I hadn't meant them but I had. I told him he was abandoning his responsibilities to play soldier like a child. I told him I hated him for leaving. I told him he wasn't a man."

Jimmy thought to say something, tell her that those were natural sentiments to have but he closed his mouth immediately and just looked at her waiting for her to go on.

"I was so hurt and angry that he was leaving me, leaving us," she went on, "There I was knowing that he would be gone for well, I didn't even know how long and I was being left by myself to care for everything including Adam and me. It's not like I had anyone to come help me. You know Patience wouldn't ever dream of actually lifting a finger to help. She does plenty with her so-called words of encouragement. I apologized in the first letter I wrote him but I knew that an apology in a letter or any version of 'I'm sorry' at all wasn't going to fix anything and he wrote several times before I got word of his death and he never once told me he forgave me."

Jimmy stayed silent again.

"Could you hand me my tea?" she asked.

"It's probably cold."

"I don't care," she replied, "My throat is dry."

She took a sip.

"It's good tea. Thank you for making it for me."

"You're welcome," he said reflecting on how oddly civil and normal that exchange was. She had been hitting a lot of extremes with her moods lately.

Faith sighed and continued her story.

"I could tell he was still angry and hurt over the things I said before he left but he tried for a while. It nearly destroyed him to hear about Adam. I know it did and that made me mad. Really everything he did made me mad. His temper was quick and his face was scarred and he was so sad and I felt like he didn't have the right because he chose the stupid war over me anyway and if he hated his life so much then why didn't he stay dead. It wasn't people in town who told him about you. It was me. I told him that I had someone else with me while he was away and that I loved you more. I just didn't love him anymore, Jimmy. Wanting him to come over that rise and back home was a dream but I wanted the same man that left and I wanted that to mean my little boy was back too and I wanted it to mean I could go back in time and he would never have left and we would never have lost that simple love we had. I wanted his homecoming to erase every lonely day I had, every day where there was too much to be done and not enough of me to go around. That was never going to happen. I should have told you all of that before you left. It would have been kinder to him if he had just come home to an empty house. Maybe he could have moved on. Maybe he could have had some kind of a life."

Her voice was distant and filled with a longing for all she had lost. From the moment he left for the war she had no hope of recovering any of that even if he had come home unscathed and Adam had not died.

"I was mad at him and I thought I was mad about him leaving and making me do everything by myself but you taught me that I can and I am strong and I guess him leaving was part of that too."

She took a deep breath and then Jimmy had to lean close to hear her say, "I hated him for not staying dead. I hated him for being alive."

Faith looked at him frightened and found no shock upon his face, no judgment so she went on.

"I threw you in his face every chance I had. There were times I felt bad for his pain and I would apologize and I would try but his hands on me felt wrong because I knew I only ever wanted yours on me. Once I knew I was with child, I could easily figure it was yours and I threw that in his face too. Don't you see? He never asked for that. He's only human and I broke him. I wanted him to set me free so I didn't have to make the choice to leave. I knew what that would make me look like."

She half laughed at that.

"The first time in my life I ever cared one wit about appearances. It wasn't the biddies in town I cared about either. Mrs. White can take her self-sanctimony and stuff it. I feared what you'd think if I left him. But if he said for me to go then that would be different and you wouldn't think me fickle or unfaithful or without honor. But he didn't set me free, he held tighter. I was all he had left and as long as I was there, even if he hated me, it meant he hadn't lost everything. That's when it all started. I created the monster and I had to kill it. But I shouldn't have created it in the first place. I killed him. Whether my shot struck the fatal blow or not, I killed the man who loved me, the man I once loved. The man who fathered my Adam. The man who used to pick me flowers and bring them to me with a silly smile saying they were pretty and made him think of me because I was pretty too. I killed him because I love you more. I killed him because he didn't stay dead before. I killed him because he chose another loyalty over me first. It doesn't even matter why I killed him. It matters that I did."

Okay...I knew there was more to the story but some of that surprised even me. So thank you to Lisa and Kristina who have been rock stars lately and willing to read things for me and talk me off the ledge when I get insecure about things. You guys are the best...hot pics of Josh and Stephen coming your way you awesome ladies!-J