Homecoming

Sleep was good. Very, very, very good.

Dreams were even better.

Especially when it pertained to a land of guitars, beaches and very well endowed people serving very cold beers to him. He accepted a frosty brew from the offered tray. He could feel the iciness run down his throat. It had ice tinsels in it, the best way to have a beer on a warm beach.

Billie Joe Armstrong was asleep and dreaming quite peacefully. He had a small smile on his face and was hugging a pillow to himself as a March breeze came into the room from the partially open window. The alarm clock on the bedside table turned 3:18. He muttered something incoherent as he shifted his body a bit to sleep more so on his side than stomach.

His drink server was poking him in the side with a palm branch for some reason. They kept persisting with their annoying and becoming painful therapy, even though he tipped them, until Billie Joe had to voice his opposition to the unpleasant treatment.

"Stop it! I want another beer!"

"Billie! Wake up!" A pillow rammed down upon his head as a pitiful moan followed it by the perpetrator.

"What?" Billie Joe jerked himself moodily out of his dream world to find his pregnant wife staring at him, sweat glistening on her forehead in the dim moonlight while her features were tinged with fear and her breathing was very deep. "Oh, no."

"Oh, yes." Adrienne Armstrong nodded her head as she breathed heavily and rubbed her rounded stomach with her hand. "It's time."

"Shit! It can't be. It's not... Um, fuck." His brain racked with a logical demand. "Just go back to sleep and sleep it off. You'll be fine in the morning" He dove back down on his pillow, curling it under his arms as he prepared for the inevitable.

"Billie Joe." Adrienne growled as she narrowed her eyes at her husband of nine months. "Get your ass out of that bed and in that car and take me to the hospital now! By morning I will be twenty pounds less of baby and a hundred and fifty pounds less of husband!"

"Okay, okay!" Billie Joe leapt out of the bed, panic seeping into his brain. "Okay, um...."

"Ahhh!" Adrienne doubled over with pain from a contraction.

"Ahhh!" Billie Joe joined in as he grabbed his hair and pulled as he bounced up and down in anxiety. He didn't know what to do. Sure, they had talked about a plan, but for the life of him he couldn't remember what it was. "Um, um. . . "

"Oh, God!" Adrienne moaned as she started to cry.

"Oh, God!" Billie Joe yelled as he rushed over to Adrienne and took her hands. "It's gonna be okay baby. I'm gonna go call the doctor so, uh, he'll, uh, you know, be ready for us. Owwww! Fuck!" Billie Joe squeezed his eyes shut as there were a crushing pain in his fingers from where Adrienne gripped them so hard.

"Spectacular! I married a fucking genius!" Adrienne yelled at him as she let go and took several deep breathes. "Billie, hurry!"

Billie Joe tripped over his own discarded shoes as he ran down the hall into the kitchen yelling "I love you too!" over his shoulder. Without turning a light on, he ran his hand on the dark bar to find the piece of paper with the hospital number on it.

He held a familiar looking scrap up to the flittering moonlight. "That's not it." He threw the piece of paper over his shoulder.

"That's not it." And another followed the trail.

"Oooh, free pizza." He put that one back on the bar.

"Billie!" Adrienne screamed from the bedroom.

"I'm coming Adie!" Billie Joe yelled as he found the paper and quickly dialed the number. "Oh fucking ape shit please be it!" When asked what doctor he would need, Billie Joe's mind when blank. "Uh. It's, um, doctor. . . um. . . shit, blick, snik, dick, quick! Dr. Quick!"

As Billie Joe hung up the phone, a suitcase came flying down the hall and slammed into the wall, knocking down pictures as it did. "I'm coming Adie! We're going right now!" He snatched up the suitcase and stumbled back into the bedroom where Adie had fallen back on the bed and curled into the best fetal position she could in her condition. "Adie, baby." Billie Joe started carefully.

"What?" Adrienne's voice was soft and laced with tears like a small child's.

"We have to go now." He held his hand out to her in offering.

Adrienne nodded. "I know." She sniffed and took his hand. They only made it to the kitchen before she doubled over again with a contraction. "Shit!" She hit Billie Joe hard in the chest. "I hate you! You did this to me! Don't touch me!" She jerked her arm away from him. "I'm driving!"

"I don't think so." Billie Joe argued as he took the keys back from her loose grasp. "I'm driving and when I drop you off, I'll drive myself off a cliff."

"Promise?" Billie Joe shut the car door behind Adrienne.

"Promise baby. Now, let's go before the baby wants to drive." He started up the engine and started out of the driveway.