The phone buzzed on the nightstand, and Julia rolled over in bed. She opened her eyes. The bed was empty. Julia sat up in bed and looked at the clock. 7.15am.

The phone stopped buzzing. She reached over and picked it up.

ONE MISSED CALL: TOM

She rubbed her eyes and got out of bed, taking the phone with her. She walked down into the kitchen and found a note on the table.

"Gone into work to grade papers. Taken Leo to school. Will be back tonight, we'll talk then."

The previous evening had taken a turn for the awkward, as Leo had arrived home from school and Julia and Frank had been unable to continue their conversation. Not that either of them knew where to take it. Frank felt he had made his ultimatum clear, and Julia was still unsure what her response was. Julia poured herself a mug of coffee and sat at the kitchen table. She opened her phone and dialed Tom's number.

"Julia?"

"Have you got any idea what time it is? Tom it's barely past 7am…"

"I'm sorry did I wake you? It's just…well…there are more reviews out…for Bombshell…and…"

"Tom you're a terrible liar."

"I really am. How'd it go? How's Frank, did you talk?"

"Tom, this is a longer conversation. Let me have coffee and get dressed and I'll meet you for breakfast."

Tom sat at the small coffee shop table reading through the Arts section of the New York Times. He sighed and shook his head. More shows trashed, a couple given good reviews. It was so hard to open a good show at the moment, the competition was so fierce.

"They still trashing us?"

Tom looked up and saw Julia standing by the table.

"No, they've moved on to other poor shows now."

Julia leant over and kissed him, and sat down at the table. "Can I have a peppermint tea, please?" she called over to the waiter. Tom raised his eyebrows.

"Tom, I'm pregnant and nauseous."

"Fair point." He folded his paper, and leant in towards Julia. "So. What happened. What did you say?"

Julia paused and smiled at the waiter as he brought over her tea. She busied herself playing with the teabag string. "I told him."

"You did?"

"Yes. I just wanted it done, I didn't want to have to sit on it any longer."

"Julia…well done sweetie, I'm proud of you." Tom reached over and squeezed Julia's hand,she looked up and smiled at him.

"It was a relief. To tell him."

"So…what did he say?"

Julia sighed and closed her eyes for a moment. She took a small sip of her tea, and looked up at Tom. "He said the baby was his."

"He said it was his?"

"Yes."

"But…it's not…is it?"

"It might not be. I don't know for sure."

"Julia…"

"Tom, don't give me that look. Yes, in my mind I'm pretty sure the baby is Michael's but that doesn't mean…"

"Julia, he wants to raise this child?"

"Well, he didn't say that. He said that the baby was his if we were going to stay as a family."

Tom sat back in his chair and took a deep breath. "So what does this mean?"

"It means that I can't tell Michael about this if I want to keep my family together." Julia bit her lip, and Tom reached over again to hold her hand.

"Oh sweetie…do you have any idea what you're going to do?"

"I don't know, I just…I can't stand the thought that Michael will have a child and not know about it."

"So you're going to tell him?"

"How can I not? I mean, I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I didn't."

"But how can you say it's Frank's child when you've told Michael it's his?"

"I don't know." Julia closed her eyes to try and stop herself from crying. She hated crying in a public place.

"Ok, look, let's not talk about this any more." Tom said. "Finish your tea, we'll take a walk round Central Park and then you can come back to mine and we'll take a look over those re-writes Derek still wants." Tom rolled his eyes. "Can you believe the man is still bossing us around from another state?"

"I absolutely can. And…thanks Tom." The two friends smiled at one another.

Julia opened the front door to her house, feeling like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders. Spending the day with Tom has been the tonic she needed. After all the stress of the past few months it had been so nice to spend a working day together the way they used to - writing songs, getting lunch, drinking buckets of tea and just catching up with each other. She realised that in the confusion of her own life, she hadn't asked him about his relationship with Sam or really caught up on his life at all.

Julia was so caught up in her own thoughts that she jumped as she walked into the kitchen and saw Frank sitting at the table.

"Oh! I wasn't expecting you home!" Lay her purse on the table and sat down.

"I only had class this morning, plus I wanted to come home and see you." His face looked softer than it had done the previous night, the anger seemed to have dissipated. "Julia…we do need to talk about this, but I want this situation to work out for us." He reached over and held her hand.

"I do too, honey. I need to work out how I can do that."

"Julia, you know how I think we should deal with this. I don't understand why you wouldn't agree with me. We can sort this out, we can make this work and we can be a family."

Julia didn't reply. Suddenly her phone rang in her purse.

"Oh god, sorry Frank I'll get rid of them…" she reached into her purse and found her phone.

CALLING: MICHAEL

"Who is it?" Frank asked.

"Tom." She replied, and switched off the phone.