Chapter 11: Binding

Karl showing up at the beach startled Cooper and Juliet as much as it did everyone else. Sayid tackled him down; seeing him as an enemy, before Sawyer stopped him; revealing he knew the kid. They had shared the cages before Karl was replaced with Kate on the other island.

His appearance sprang the survivors into action. Charlie was going with Desmond to swim down to the Looking Glass hatch to turn off the interference with the radio tower to allow radio contact to extend beyond the island. Ben had always been fanatic about keeping the frequency very close to the island; but it was the possibility of getting that radio call out there; to the boat Naomi, an injured parachutist who'd dropped on the island the day before, and her team had come from.

The boat was Cooper's rescue; and she couldn't wait to get there.

Karl warned the survivors that his people were coming to storm the camp to kidnap the women whose tents had been marked with white rocks, as Ben had instructed Juliet. But Juliet had revealed her plan to Jack; and now everyone seemed to at least believe that Juliet and Cooper weren't going to try and kill them. Cooper's pregnancy was something that Karl did not mention, and that gave Cooper the hope that maybe Ben didn't know yet, and that's why she was still safe.

The morning that the survivors planned to trek to the radio tower, leaving Jin, Bernard and Sayid behind to ambush whoever came through their camp, Juliet woke Cooper up at sunrise. She wanted to get one last check at her baby before they were set for rescue. There was no telling what kind of medical care, if any, was on the boat that was floating nearby. And it might be a week or so before they were able to get back to dry land and an actual hospital; so Juliet wanted to be as informed as she could be about Cooper's baby.

Tired from a sleepless night, Cooper trudged after Juliet as they wandered through the jungle. Morning sickness was setting in, and while Cooper didn't actually throw up, she didn't dare try and eat anything either.

Once she was in the station, sitting up on the examining chair with her head laid back, she felt better. Her heart was racing; it always did when Juliet did these checkups. Cooper knew they were both terrified they would see an unmoving foetus on the screen. It was still early in Cooper's pregnancy, and since she wasn't showing it was unlikely that she could feel her baby moving; but that didn't mean that he or she wasn't – it was still too early to discover the sex of the baby, too.

Relief beamed on both women's faces as soon as Juliet pressed the wand of the ultrasound monitor to Cooper's abdomen. The baby's heartbeat fluttered through the speakers, healthy and strong.

"Is it growing?" Cooper asked, craning her neck around Juliet's head to get a better look.

"Yes," Juliet hit a few buttons on the monitors' keypad. "Perfect length... perfect heartbeat... everything's growing fine..." She let out a breath she had been keeping in her throat.

"That's amazing." Cooper said; transfixed to her child's little black and white form floating on the screen.

"Cooper; I have to tell you something."

Immediately alarmed, Cooper sat straight up, her amazement dissipating in an instant. "What? Is it the baby? What's wrong?"

"Nothing. I promise." She smiled her easy, calming smile and quickly patted Cooper's knee reassuringly. "It's something I didn't think was relevant... but now... maybe it is."

Still alarmed, Cooper narrowed her eyes. "What is it, Juliet?"

"The baby's father... the donor..." Juliet exhaled and smiled gently. "He's the same anonymous donor I used with Rachel."

Cooper held in a tight breath. Rachel. Juliet's sister, whose body had been ravaged by cancer and yet Juliet had managed to help her conceive a son, Julian. A son Juliet was still yet to meet; Ben refused to let her go home to her now healthy sister and almost three-year-old nephew.

Julian would be the half-brother to Cooper's baby.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Cooper's mind was racing; she had been involved in this from the start, why had Juliet kept it from her?

"I didn't want to get your hopes up." Juliet said. "I thought if I told you, you'd get excited and... and that this one would be even harder for you – for us – to lose. I couldn't do that to you."

Cooper didn't feel angry, should she? It wasn't as though she would ever meet the donor; Juliet didn't even know who he was, hence the term anonymous written on his sample. Instead of anger, she found herself feeling something else. Elation. "So...this really is our baby," She said with a wry grin. Sure, her baby only shared DNA with Julian, not Juliet or her sister; but Juliet's involvement in each pregnancy was as good as a family bond to Cooper.

"You're not mad." Juliet seemed surprised.

"No," Cooper grinned, feeling relieved as a wave of nausea passed right over her as if it had never been there. "Now you have more reason to get home to Rachel and Julian; and another family member to deliver."

"You really think its rescue then?" Juliet said as she packed up the ultrasound monitor. "The boat?"

"It's the closest shot we've had since they crashed here, Jules," Cooper reminded her with a fading smile, thinking of the survivors she'd come to depend on over the past weeks. "Gotta stay positive, right?"

Juliet smiled, calm as ever, and helped her friend up off the examining table. "You got it."

Together; they shut up the hatch and headed back to the beach camp where the others were all just starting to wake up for the big day ahead; the day they would head into the jungle to find rescue.

Cooper hadn't felt this positive since the day Juliet told her she was pregnant with this child. Something in her body clicked; she would have this baby; this time it would work. Her baby would be born. She just knew it; and her heart refused to take any other outcome.

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