Cooper doesn't see Charlotte for most of the day, and when he does, his "happy to see her" is short-lived. She's got that look on her face - the one that says she's about to tell him something he doesn't want to hear.

"Hi," she starts in, and the tone just confirms it.

"Charlotte," he groans, because he knows where this is going. "Come on, you promised you'd make it to dinner."

She bristles immediately, and he thinks maybe it was unwise to assume.

Sure enough, she tells him, "And I will," biting off each word sharply, and Cooper's kicking himself. "But somethin' came up at the hospital - I just got called back. I'm pretty sure this is going to tie up the rest of my afternoon, so…"

"So you can't pick up Mason," he deduces, and he thinks that's really not much better than missing dinner. It's still going to throw off his whole day.

"Exactly," she confirms. "I know it's going to make you late to meet your parents, but I have to deal with this now, before it gets worse. And by the time you get to Mason's school and back, you'll be late by, what? Half an hour? Forty-five minutes? They'll barely have had time to get their bags and make it to the curbside pick-up."

Cooper sighs heavily, and nods, reaching for his phone. "Fine. Go," he mutters, pulling up his Favorite contacts and pressing Mom.

"I will make it up to you," she promises, a little suggestively, and it's enough to make Cooper crack a smile.

"Oh, yeah?" he teases back, as he listens to the phone ring once, twice, three times. They're in the air; he has a few more rings before the voicemail picks up.

"Mmhmm," she murmurs, stepping in close and lowering her voice to tell him, "Anything you want."

And then she's off, and he's left wondering how he can make good on that promise.

.:.

An hour later, that mild excitement has been completely dashed. He and Mason are in the car, and traffic is horrendous. There's an accident somewhere ahead of them, and the bumper-to-bumper traffic is bleeding off the freeway, clogging up the side streets, and making everything a nightmare.

"I'm hungry," Mason announces from the back seat. "Can we stop for burgers?"

"Stop?" Cooper mutters. "We're not even moving, how can we stop?"

"Are we going to be late?"

"We were already late," he sighs, propping his elbow against the window and resting his head on his fist. "Now we're going to be really, really late." He glances at Mason in the rearview, and tells him, "Check my bag - I think there's a granola bar in the inside pocket."

Mason makes a face, but reaches for the bag on the seat next to him anyway. Cooper watches him dig through it - it's not like he has to pay attention to the cars not moving in front of him. "It's not chocolate, is it?" he asks, and Cooper shakes his head.

"Peanut butter, I think," he tells him, and when Mason finally fishes it out, he's proven right. Peanut butter it is. "There's water under the seat," he reminds and Mason tells him he still has some in his bottle. He rifles through his backpack to find it, and Cooper turns his attention back to the road.

It's not loosening up - not as far as he can see, anyway - and at this rate, he's going to be at least an hour and a half late to meet his parents — maybe more. He can't just let them sit there forever, and they can't cab it on their own because the house will be empty, and they don't have a hidden key anyway… He needs to come up with a solution.

Thankfully, one of their spare keys is with someone his parents will have no problem spending time with.

He reaches for his BlueTooth, and then, just to be on the safe side, calls Charlotte first. He knows the fate of the call as soon as she picks up — she sounds frazzled, like she's in the middle of something, and when he tells her they're stuck in traffic and asks if there's any way she can leave and pick up his parents, she tells him she's swamped, and stuck, and he's not surprised. He tells her it's fine — but it's not, exactly — and that he'll just ask Violet. He asks if she'll make it to dinner, and she says she'll try - which is a step down from her reassurances earlier, and he's starting to feel like nothing about this day is going to go according to plan.

She apologizes again, but she's distracted, and he can't tell if she really means it, or if she's grateful for a little more time before she has to face the firing squad that is his parents.

The call to Violet takes even less time than the one to Charlotte — she's more than happy to pick up his parents and deliver them to the new house, and she'll even call them to let them know about the change, so he can focus on weaving out of this traffic and heading in the direction of home.

He's off the phone less than five minutes before Mason speaks up from the back seat. "Dad…?"

"Yeah, buddy?"

"Did Charlotte not pick me up because I fought with her this morning?"

It's an unexpected question, and Cooper's thrown for a moment, but he knows if he bungles this, Mason will question his honesty, so he tries to find his words quickly. "No. No, of course not," he tells him. "She just got stuck at work. She's in charge, so when things go wrong, she has to fix them, and sometimes that means she has to work when she'd rather be doing other things - like picking you up."

"So she's not mad at me?"

"Nah. But…" He sighs again, shifts a little in his seat. "What happened this morning... I know you're having a hard time right now, with the new house, and living with me and Charlotte, and all that - and we understand that, we do - but you need to try to rein it in a little bit, okay? We're all still adjusting, remember?"

Mason's looking down at his lap, but he nods. He chews a bite of granola slowly, then rips Cooper's heart out by quietly admitting, "I just miss my mom."

"I know," Cooper sympathizes, wishing there was more he could do. Wishing there was some way he could take all the pain his kid is in and pile it all on himself. Mason doesn't deserve to go through this - not this young. "I get that."

"No, you don't," Mason mutters, and Cooper has to give him that. He can't get it - not really. Not with both of his parents alive and well, and waiting for them at the airport. That was a stupid thing to say.

"You're right. I don't," he concedes, but he's careful to add, "But Charlotte does." He knows Charlotte has talked to Mason about her dad - he overheard them, once, when they were still living in the loft, and Erica's death was still fresh. They'd spent a quiet hour talking about losing a parent, and how much it hurts, even when you're grown, and how she understood how sad he was, and how mad, and how unfair it all felt. Cooper had been careful not to disturb them. "She may not have been a kid, like you are, but she understands, right?"

Mason nods again, with a little less conviction than last time.

"And because she understands, she doesn't stay mad when you have a disagreement, but I know it still hurts her feelings a little bit when you say things like that you don't have to listen because she's not your mom, or that the way she does things is wrong and you don't like it, or... stuff like that. She loves you a lot, and she's doing her best. So we need to do our best too, okay?"

Another nod, and a quiet "fine," is all he gets.

He's not sure he's really made anything better, but Mason lifts his gaze from his lap and looks out the window, taking another bite of his granola bar.

Cooper's at a loss for anything else to say, so they ride the rest of the way home in silence.

.:.

It's hard to say whether it's the distraction of new people, the quiet time in the car, or the half dozen presents with his name on them sitting on the living room coffee table that are responsible for perking Mason up, but by the time he's been introduced to his grandparents and tasked with showing them around the house, he's more like his old self.

He even has nice things to say about Charlotte when he shows off his room, which makes Cooper smile. That had been their little project - she'd let Mason tell her what he wanted, and they'd come up with a Pokémon theme. His bed is painted like a Poké ball, and she'd had these really awesome custom decals made for the walls. He has a Poké ball bean bag chair, and a brand new desk. There's even some glow in the dark stuff going on. He's pretty sure if he was Mason's age, he'd want to spend all his time in there, too. Hell, he's a grown man and he still sort of does.

"It's super cool," Mason tells his grandparents, pointing at the decals. "See, that's Scraggy, and that's Seadra, and that's..."

His parents are listening gamely, but Cooper hangs back a few feet, leaning against the wall in the hallway and saying to Violet, "Thanks for picking them up."

"Oh, no problem," she assures. "You know I love your parents. It gave us a chance to catch up." After a second, she adds, "Looks like Mason's doing well."

"Yeah. We had a rough morning, though. Not awful, but... bumpy," he tells her. "This is actually the best he's been in a while."

"It takes time," she reminds him, and he knows that, so he nods.

"I know. And so does Charlotte. We're trying to be patient, but... I don't know. I never know how much to push him. Charlotte's harder on him, but he pushes back against her more, and she's, y'know, Charlotte." Violet quirks a brow in acknowledgement. "He leaned into her so much, until we moved. Now, I think he blames her for all the changes."

"He'll get over it," Violet assures. "He just needs-"

"Time, yeah, I know." He smiles at her, but it's half-hearted.

Violet switches the topic, just slightly, lowering her voice to ask, "Think Charlotte will make it to dinner?"

Cooper sighs heavily, and admits, "No. But she could surprise me."

"I'm sure she's not doing this on purpose."

He scrubs his hands over his face and agrees with her - sort of. "I know. At least, I think I know. She wants my parents to change their opinion of her just as much as I do, so I don't think she'd bail on purpose. It wouldn't exactly get the weekend off to a good start."

"I'm sure she'll make it," Violet placates, and he knows she's only saying it to make him feel better, but he'll take what he can get. He just hopes she's right.