Cooper is in the middle of his usual Sunday night call to his parents, but all he can think about is Charlotte. He's tried to call her, but she hasn't answered, and she managed to evade him all day on Friday. It's killing him, not knowing how she's doing, how she's coping. Killing him thinking she's still mad at him, when all he was trying to do was the right thing. He hadn't realized how much he really cared about her until now. Now, when she's in so much pain, and there's nothing he can do. He wants to be with her — to just sit with her and hold her hand, to go home with her and be there for her at the funeral.

His mother pulls him out of his thoughts, suddenly, with a "Cooper? Cooper, are you listening?"

"Uh, yeah," he says, trying to remember what she'd been saying. "You were talking about Aunt Zelda having that mole removed…"

"No, I was talking about your cousin Tracy getting hired at the university. We stopped talking about Aunt Zelda ten minutes ago."

Crap.

"Sorry, mom. I'm paying attention, I swear, I just got distracted for a minute…"

He wasn't paying attention at all, clearly, but she doesn't need to know that.

"You've been awfully distracted all night, sweetie. Why don't you tell me what's really bothering you?"

Cooper feels his gut twist with nerves. There's a laundry list of things bothering him right now, including one really big thing (or, more accurately, a really small thing) that he really should tell his parents. He's about to tell his mother that he's just upset about losing a patient this week, but what comes out is, "I got Charlotte pregnant." He hears himself say it, then hears himself say, "We're having a baby. I've been meaning to tell you, I just… didn't know how."

It's quiet for a second, and Cooper never knew silence could be so loud.

"Mom?"

"How long have you known?" she asks him, her voice carefully even.

"A couple of weeks," he tells her, scrubbing a hand over his face. "I've been trying to figure out how to tell you and dad, I just could never find the right way."

"I thought the two of you broke up, weeks ago-"

"We did."

"She went behind your back and opened that other practice, and you were furious. You've been furious with her, Cooper; I don't understand how this happened."

"Well, I got her pregnant before I was furious with her, Mom," he says, shutting his eyes and leaning his head back against the couch. "It's not like I made a decision to make a baby with her. The birth control failed-"

"Are you sure she was taking it?"

"Yes," he tells her, and he knows without a doubt that he's right about that one. "Trust me, Charlotte's not the type to skip out on her birth control. A pregnancy's the last thing she wanted."

As soon as it's out of his mouth, it occurs to him that maybe it was the wrong thing to say. Sure enough, his mother hops right on it.

"She doesn't want this baby?" his mother asks immediately. "Cooper, if she doesn't want to have a baby, you're in for a world of trouble. Raising a child with someone who's only a parent because the birth control failed is a recipe for-"

"Mom, stop," he interrupts, banging his head lightly against the back of the couch in frustration. Maybe he shouldn't have told them yet, after all. "Just stop, okay. She's pregnant, we've decided to raise the baby together. It's unexpected, but we're both on board. And I know it's not ideal, but it would be nice if you could at least try to be supportive, because… I'm going to be a dad soon, and I have no idea what I'm doing, and I'm really going to need you and dad to be there for me — for us. Okay? Just… can you please try? I know you don't like her, but can you try, for me?"

"It's not that we don't like her, dear, it's that we don't know her. And what you've told us about her… well, she just doesn't seem like the best match for you."

"Okay, um, then I'll tell you more," he says. "She's smart — really smart. She finished high school a year early, got early admittance into college, and was the youngest graduate in her class at Johns Hopkins. She's a brilliant doctor — she's logical, and pragmatic, and she's organized. And, yes, okay, she's stubborn, and ruthless, and sometimes cold, but she's made it a long way on that — on the combination of the good and the bad." This isn't helping, he thinks… "And she's funny. She has this really quick wit, and she makes jokes about things that really shouldn't be funny, but we're doctors, so, y'know… we have to. To make it through the day sometimes, we have to. And she has this really tough exterior, but she's not all hard. We were watching TV one night, and I swear she got all teary over a Campbell's soup commercial. She, uh, she got up and went to the bathroom, and I'm pretty sure she thinks she got away with it, but I saw her wiping her eyes, and…"

"Cooper…"

"Her dad's dying," he says, opening his eyes again and staring at the ceiling. "In fact, he's pretty much dead. He had cancer, went into respiratory failure, and they're keeping him on life support until she can get home, and it's breaking her heart, Mom. I was there when she found out, and the way she just shut down… That's what's distracting me. That's what's wrong. She found out her dad was dying, and I'd had a patient die on me that day that shouldn't have died, and we were both hurting, and one thing led to another, but I stopped it before we did something we'd regret, and now she's mad at me. She thinks I'm punishing her for the practice, and she's mad, and she won't talk to me, and I just… I want her to talk to me. I want to know she's okay."

"Well," his mother says, not quite warmly. Her voice softens, though, when she continues, "It sounds like you're still quite in love with her."

"We're not together," Cooper says.

"I didn't say you were. But clearly, there are strong feelings there, and if she's going to be a part of your life… well, then, I guess we'll have to make room for her in ours. I'll talk to your father when he gets home, and let him know what's going on. We'll try to be supportive. For you. But I would like to get to know her better at some point, before the baby is born. Maybe your father and I could come for a visit."

"I'll have to talk to Charlotte about it… She's got a lot going on right now, but maybe in a few weeks." Charlotte's gonna kill him, but he knows his mother won't back down and this, and she's being surprisingly accepting of the whole thing, so he'll just have to face the wrath of Charlotte King with a brave face. "And thank you for being supportive," he adds.

"So," his mother says, "When can we expect this new grandchild?"

"Well. She told me, uh…" Cooper does some quick math in this head. "Three Tuesdays ago. And she was six weeks pregnant then, which means she's nine now. So, you'll have a new baby to spoil rotten in about 31 weeks."

"Good, good," she says, sounding a little distracted. "Your father just got home, dear. Do you want to go ahead and tell him the news yourself, or should I?"

Cooper, sighs, shuts his eyes, and figures if he survived telling his mom, he can make it through telling his dad. "I'll tell him. Put him on."

She puts him on speaker, and Cooper makes the announcement again. His dad takes things surprisingly well, and they spend the next half hour talking, the three of them, about how things are going to change for him, and what this means, and about the possibility of coming out to meet Charlotte before the baby is born. All in all, it goes better than he'd expected, and while Cooper doesn't necessarily feel better about everything when he hangs up the phone, he at least feels lighter. He's told Violet, he's told his parents, and now this thing, this big life change that's coming, seems less daunting.

Now, all he has to worry about is getting Charlotte through this week. He checks his phone when he hangs up with his parents, but she hasn't called, or texted. He texts her again for good measure, asking her to please call him, but when he goes to bed an hour and a half later, she still hasn't responded.

Tomorrow, he tells himself. He'll find her tomorrow, and make things right. First thing.