Spoilers: None.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but my inspiration.
AN: Thanks to Chris for looking it over.

When he walks in the first thing he notices is how quiet the house is. It's not uncommon really, to come home and find Violet curled up in a corner somewhere with her nose in a book, or sprawled out asleep on her bed with the miscellaneous items that usually adorn it scattered around her. But this quiet, this quiet is different and he knows. He knows even before he sees her sitting at the bottom of the steps with his bags lined up in front of her.

She's sitting there with her hands clasped in front of her and she won't look up at him and he knows.

"I did your laundry. I did your laundry, which is funny because I don't do laundry. The lady who comes to clean the house once a week has been doing mine ever since I got sidetracked in the middle of a load and forgot I'd already added soap, twice, and flooded the laundry room."

She says it and sighs. He bites on the inside of his cheek. She still hasn't looked at him.

Slowly he steps over the bags and sinks down onto the step beside her.

"Vi –."

"Cooper." She interrupts, shaking her head.

He wants to tell her that she doesn't have to. That she doesn't have to do this, he can stay, he can stay forever. He wants to tell her she's his best friend and he loves her, and that'll never change. He can live with that. He can live with it even though he knows that eventually she'll meet someone, and it'll kill him because then she'll ask him to go. But if he stays, if he can convince her to let him stay then maybe just maybe she'll realize she doesn't have to meet anyone. He's been right here all along. In his heart this could happen. In his head he knows it never will.

So she cuts him off, and he lets her and he waits.

"I thought, I thought I could hide. I thought if you moved in I could hide here with you, and I wouldn't have to deal with Pete or Sheldon or the world."

She stops and bites her lip, and somewhere in the house he hears a clock ticking. She unclasps her hands and turns her palms up, staring at them like they hold the world on one hand and him on the other.

"I know that's silly. I'm a therapist; half of my patients are seeing me because they're trying to hide from the world. But they can't and so they come see me. Isn't that silly? They come see me, and I'm trying to do the exact same thing."

"No, I don't think it's silly." He says it and stops even though he's aching to say so much more, but he knows so he doesn't. For once in his life, he doesn't.

"But it is. I – Today at the hospital after you left I took Cindy in to her parents, and Pete was, Pete was standing outside the room. He said some things. He said that all I was thinking about was myself, and… he was right. What's best, or what's easiest, for me would be to hide away in here with you and try to hide from the world. But, but down the road the world will find it's way in and I'll be no closer to having done what's best for – for my baby.

"The truth is, I don't know what's best for my baby. I don't know yet, but I do know that I can't figure it out with, with you. You let me hide and I love you for it, but I can't keep hiding. In a few months it won't just be me anymore and I have to figure out how I'm going to deal with that, and who, if anyone, I'm going to let help me."

"But Violet, you don't have to figure it out alone. You don't, I can stay while you think about it. I -."

"No, Coop." She says it, and he can hear the frustration in her voice. Then she sighs, because she's still Violet. More softly she starts again. "No, Cooper, you're, you're my security blanket, and you make it harder for me to think about the inevitabilities. When you're here I can pretend. But I have to stop pretending, Coop."

She clasps her hands and looks up at him. He can see the tears in her eyes, but he knows, he knows that for the first time since he met her, she's not going to let him see her cry. "My patients come to me to help them stop hiding from the world. Isn't that silly?"

He opens his mouth to speak again, but she closes her eyes, shaking her head.

She looks down at his bags and wipes her cheek with the back of her hand.

"I did your laundry."