Part 7
Cooper talks a blue streak, and all she can do is sit there and try to keep up. Why do all these people in her world love talking so much? When she feels her anxiety climbing, all she wants to do is crawl into a hole, but Cooper seems to want to jump straight out of whatever hole he gets into, and then pull Sheldon over to come and look at it.
"And the hardest thing," he's saying. "Is that I don't know what to do, and it's driving me mental. I mean, I always know what to do. I'm a doctor, right? So there's always a test or a procedure, or an...an action. And with this, it's like there's something there, but there isn't anything I can do with it..."
"That's a very common feeling," Sheldon says. "Would it comfort you, if you knew that Charlotte didn't always know what to do either?"
"Well, does she sometimes know?"
"Well, Charlotte?" Sheldon says. "Do you?"
It's a prompt, to tell Coop what's been really going on, but she just can't bring herself to do it. The best she can manage is a shrug and a small nod. "Sometimes."
"So, when you do know, can you tell me? Like, if there really is something..."
"But I did today, Coop. Told you I didn't want stuff touching me, and you moved it away."
"Okay," he says. "More like that, please. When there's something to do, can you let me help you?"
"But Coop," she says. "Part of this is me needing to do for myself sometimes too, you get me? You're not always there, for one thing..."
He winces. "I'm so sorry about that."
"That's not what I meant. I mean at work, or out, or, heck, I don't know. Just can't be with you twenty-four seven. And if I have a moment of stress, I have to deal with it. Have to know that I can do for myself."
"But when I'm there, I can do for you, a little. I just really need to feel like there's something I can do..."
She sighs, throws him a bone. "Geography."
"What?"
"I've never been a great sleeper, and counting sheep never did it for me. So my daddy used to sit with me before I fell asleep, and play Geography."
"What, like naming state capitols?"
"No. You start with someplace. A town or a city or country or something. And the last letter of the one you say becomes the first letter of the next one."
"So, Los Angeles."
"Okay, that gives me an S. Sarasota."
"Arizona."
"A for me. Austria."
"Does A always come up this much?"
"Yes. And no spending your lunch break going on Wikipedia looking all of them up, Coop, you play this honest based on your own real skill."
"Fair enough. So, that's my homework? Play Geography in bed tonight?"
"Sounds like it," Sheldon affirms.
"And her?"
"She still hasn't done the one I gave her last time."
"Sheldon!"
"Well, you haven't. All right, you did give him Geography, but even so. You have some other things to tell him, don't you?"
"This is a slippery slope you're going down, mister."
"I'm not the one going down it. Do what I tell you, Charlotte. It'll help, it really will."
"Fine. So, are we done? Can I go now?"
She stalks out before he answers, locks herself in her office. Doesn't come out for the rest of the morning.
Big Daddy is waiting for her, when she gets to the hospital later. She has to stifle a groan when she walks in there and sees him, sprawled grandly in her desk chair and puffing away on a cigar.
"You again!"
"Hey, baby girl."
"I thought we were done with this."
"Well, we can be. You heard what your boy Sheldon said, baby girl, this is all on you."
"And yet, you're still bothering me."
"I'm bothering you because you don't yet have the faith. He's your man in the storm, baby girl, and until you believe that..."
"So, that's all I have to do? Believe?"
"Ain't that always been the way?"
She blows out a breath, kicks the chair as she walks past him. "Well, fine, I believe- for now, anyway. Now, leave, so I can get done my work."
He bows grandly, winks out of there. And leaves her thinking. Does she believe? Is she ready to let go of this crutch she's conjured up and trust Cooper -really trust him- to be her man in the storm?
She tests him, going home. She can't help herself. "Atlanta," she says.
He whirls, his hand just about to turn the key in the ignition. "What?"
"Austria was the last one. That gives me an A. So, Atlanta."
He frowns. "I thought this was a bedtime thing."
"I'm giving you a practice round. Atlanta, Coop. That gives you another A."
"All right. Um, America?"
She shakes her head. "No continents."
"Okay...Arkansas?"
She feels her body go suddenly cold. "No. You can't use that one."
"Why not?"
"It's been used already. Pick another."
"Used already by whom? Char, we only just started..."
"Pick another," she insists. She's feeling that thrum again, that hiss of panic, that creep of out-of-control bubbling up again, and she doesn't know why...
He takes his hand off the key, turns and looks at her. Really looks. "Charlotte?"
"Pick another," she says. "Damn it, Coop!"
"Astoria. Now, will you tell me? Why that freaked you out so much?"
"Didn't freak me out, just that's been used already!"
"When?"
"Other night."
"By whom?"
And she's tired, so tired of the talking and the pretending, and of being hounded on this, so she says it. "Big Daddy, okay? Sat up with me the other night, my dead daddy did, and played Geography with me, and he used that one already, so you can't use it anymore!"
He nods, lets this revelation sink in for a moment. Then he says "All right. Astoria, then."
She squints, searching his face for signs of that look he has when he thinks she's crazy. "That all you're gonna say about it?"
"What else did you want me to say? I mean, obviously, it's some sort of coping mechanism, and if it worked for you in that moment, then I'm glad it gave you comfort."
"Just...Coop, I'm feeling like I need a lot of comfort right now. And I'm not real comfortable with needing that. And I'm not real sure just what it is that's gonna give it to me."
"So you're trying to call to mind whatever's comforted you in the past. It's only natural."
"Is it?"
"You're not the only one who's been learning from Sheldon. Look, you need to feel safe right now. I get that, I do. I wish...I wish he really could be there for you, if that would help you. And since he can't...well, I'm just hoping I'll be up for the job. I think, if you let me, I will be..."
"You and Sheldon, you both talk about this like this is somehow up to me."
"Isn't it?"
She sighs. "Guess it has to be. Fine, then. Astoria. I'll have an A, when we pick this up later."
"I love you, Charlotte."
She sighs again. "Yeah. So you keep saying."
